Happy Thanksgiving from South Korea!

Happy Thanksgiving in the States to those of you who have been up for a while preparing for the big day or possibly just got up too. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a good time with your loved ones, be they family or friends or both. We are celebrating here with delicious chicken from a local place that we visit about once a week. It's close to turkey, right?

Today was pretty much a normal day for us, however, since Koreans celebrate Chuseok (which was in September this year) which is the closest holiday they have to our Thanksgiving. We worked in the morning and had lunch (today was rice, tofu, soup, radish kimchi, and a few other small things) and then Zach stayed here for the older kids while I went on a field trip with the boss lady to a milk factory in Cheonan. I will definitely be posting about that little adventure sometime soon. Tomorrow is also our monthly birthday party, so it's been an eventful end of the week!

We also found out some interesting news about Saturday, December 1st when there will be some sort of open house at our school and Zach and I will be having a faux class for potential kids and their parents. Should be an interesting day.

That said, I leave you with a final picture of our delicious meal. Have a wonderful day and have a little turkey and fixings for us over here. ;)  And if you also happen to go out on Black Friday, be safe and have a good time. Don't take it too seriously! I've already made my (probably one and only) online purchase for Black Friday which will be waiting at home for me in 9 months!

So, so delicious. A bit of crunchy, a bit of sweet, and a touch of spicy. 

Typhoon Update! (x2)

We would like to interrupt this regularly (hah! I'm funny, aren't I?) scheduled blog to give you an update about the status of Typhoon Bolaven being in the region. We woke up early this morning to wind picking up outside and blowing through the kitchen fan and the windows sporadically. The sky was just an endless flow of clouds of different colors.

I was anticipating a normal day, but things were a bit different because of the weather forecast. Instead of the normal 30ish students there were about half that. There were 6 in my soon to be class (Silly Sally), but that was with an extra kiddo, Stella's little sister, who is way too young to be in this school. After being distraught for quite a while, despite being near her sister, she finally came around and had fun playing with Stella. That left Zach's class (Rainbow Fish) with two, one of the girls from our 4/5th grade class, and the remaining students of varying ages, but mostly the 2/3rd graders.

That said, we had morning classes, which were pretty laid back because so many students were gone and then everyone went downstairs and had lunch in the Humpty Dumpty room so that they could watch a movie later.

The small amount of students and the weather meant we all watched Wall-E.

Sarah and Zach.

Sarah is very affectionate and hopped to my lap too.

That's the cook in the apron, we had cooked potatoes for afternoon snack. They were slightly sweet on the outside.

I tried to chase John but he was too fast and I got a floor burn on my knee. :(

The BEST cartoon/animated comic.

The students that leave later cuddled under the covers (once they stopped wrestling) and watched a movie. We had donuts and peaches as a snack since it got so late.

So that was our day in a nutshell, we actually start teaching our classes tomorrow as we take over from the current foreign teachers who are leaving Korea on Friday (after their 3 and 2 year stays, respectively). Since we got done with everything and the students left the wind picked up and was howling and it got dark very early, despite their being blue sky behind the clouds. 

What's next for us though? Another typhoon later in the week that goes by Tembin! By later in the week I mean all of Thursday. That's especially interesting because I will be teaching at another private kindergarten on Tuesdays and Thursdays (in Dongbang, wherever that is) and I think I start on Thursday!! So not only do I get to wonder what this new school is going to look like, but I will be wondering about the inclement weather as well. 

Hi there tropical storm Tembin.

Packing preparations, take one

Will South Korea have cool holiday dinos like this fellow? 

Probably not! I'd better remember to pack my own!

Holiday dinosaurs aside, it's become very apparent to me that when we get ready to head overseas we'd better remember to pack some important items or have them sent to us. Now, the importance of some of these items will probably vary from person to person, but I am personally aware of some things I know that absolutely must be packed.

There are several reasons for keeping this in mind and preparing ahead of time, ranging from the obvious cultural preferences and norms in their society vs. our own personal cultural preferences and habits to something such as the size of clothes in that country or price of the item here vs. there. It's these kind of things that make you want to plan ahead and make sure you know what to expect and what your needs are. 

One big thing I have to keep in mind is that clothing for me, as a 5'9" tall woman, is that I will need to get most of my clothes from home and plan to take them with me. Finding clothes (and shoes!) that fit over there for me sounds as though it is a definite challenge. Similarly, through reading and researching I also discovered that deodorant is more expensive in South Korea and probably something we will want to take with us. Who would have thought?

That said, this is a sort of list for me, which will be expanding as the research progresses and we learn more from our friends who are currently living in South Korea. As of right now we've been informed by them that the towels there are small, so we should bring our own. Another thing they mentioned is that fitted sheets that we would normally use here in the US are hard to come by, so if we want them it's another thing that we should bring with us. 

Another big thing I am already gearing up for is pictures. I have seen lots of responders saying that the kids in the classroom love to see what things are like at "home", so I am planning on having multiple albums to bring along. Along with that, we've been making trips to Goodwill for both clothing and educational items such as books (I found a Wiggles CD which I thought could be fun for little ones, I know my daycare kiddos loved the Wiggles), teaching help, and various other things. 

That's all for now, this will be an ever developing list for me. One I will definitely put into list form in a later post.