On North Korea-- some thoughts

Considering all the recent conflict and news from North Korea, I figured now would probably be a good time to take a moment to talk about it. The above picture is relevant because who doesn't want to see my cute kitty laying on a map of Korea? The thing is, the conflict with North Korea is big in the news now and what the news tells you and what is actually going on are not quite the same thing. Similarly, South Korea has a very different perspective due to being in conflict (or at least not at peace) with North Korea for decades. 

You've probably seen the headlines as things have been escalating. Zach has some fancy terms for what's going on which I use as well, but I'll spare you those and give you some links instead. (I kind of like the term grandstanding, it's appropriate if not quite as "charming" as the other.) Most recently the headline (from the BBC, which I consider to be fairly reliable) is North Korea: Foreigners should evacuate South Korea. Before that you maybe saw North Korea suspends works at Kaesong industrial zone and before that North Korea enters "state of war" with South and on and on. There's a lot of talk, a lot a lot. From here, from there, from everywhere. 

If you're not familiar with Eat Your Kimchi I will send you first toward them. They recently did a TL;DR (or too long; didn't read if you haven't seen it before) about the subject with a video titled TL;DR: The Threat of North Korea which gives a little bit of their own personal insight. As they state, they aren't really that politically heavy, but they have lived here in South Korea, Seoul specifically, for 5 years and have come to have a better understanding of how life in South Korea works. So that's just something to think about too.

That's not to say that we don't have our own concerns. In our case it's kind of nice now that we don't live directly in Seoul and instead live in Cheongju. This gives us some distance from Seoul both in terms of North Korea and primarily our ability to see more because we're sort of in the middle of the country instead. We are careful to monitor the news and I keep an eye on the US Embassy's website and Facebook page. Additionally, before we even came over here I signed up with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) which sends email alerts and keeps you connected with the US Department of State in the event of an emergency. We also have some plans in mind if something does happen. So far everyone from home is concerned, and rightly so, but I agree with the EYK folks in saying that what does happen will largely affect the military involved, and the majority of us will not see any sort of disturbance aside from the ripples the media creates.

EDIT: I was just linked to this article (Stay Cool. Call North Korea's Bluff.) via a Facebook friend here in South Korea that hits things on the head. It's an opinion piece from the NY Times, but I think it accurately reflects the current situation. You may disagree, but I think the writer makes some good points.

All that said, we're keeping an eye out and you should too, but be a skeptic and don't believe everything you hear or read! We'll be hunkered down here teaching kindergartners and elementary age kids English like we do every week day while keeping an eye on our email and what the local news is saying. In the meantime we're still going to enjoy ourselves and celebrate my birthday later this week and hopefully see more cherry blossoms since it's that time of year. 

On a final note, we were in the news too! Okay, the newspaper which I believe is local (at least that's what I was told) and our director linked the article on the website to the school site. I printed a few out for us, but it's pretty cool. So there is some fun news for the day. :)

Strawberry Farm Field Trip

Welcome to April! We're certainly glad to have made this month's acquaintance with its warmer weather, longer days, and the soon to be blooming cherry blossoms. This month is also busy with three field trips and a birthday party. The first field trip was supposed to be tomorrow on Friday the 5th, but it got moved up to Tuesday due to some sort of other obligations.

If the title didn't tip you off already, we went to visit a strawberry farm out in the country. Instead of the idea that I had in my head originally, that being that we'd actually go to a strawberry farm and pick strawberries, we ended up going to the strawberry farm and doing a lot of playing outside on their playground type-thing. The kids brought snacks with them as always, despite the farm being only 20 minutes away by car. So between the big bowl of strawberries that we split among the kiddos and their snacks everyone was well fed and had a lot of fun.

Everyone had a good time though and in addition to doing some tree climbing and meeting some cute dogs we took in the very interesting scenery of the place. Let's just say the owners are rather creative!

We went to the strawberry farm on a chilly, damp morning. Here everyone assembles with their backpacks to go into that tent to the upper right. 

It was pretty obvious that this place is more of a hangout/bar type place that served some food, so they had toilet paper hanging by ropes from the top of the tent. The kids found it entertaining when we first got there and spent several minutes trying to jump up and reach them. 

My second encounter with corn tea. Again, I was not impressed and will cross it off my list of desirable substances. No, thank you!

Fresh strawberries for everyone, hurray.

Zach made a strawberry friend, that can apparently talk. 

I understand why we didn't go picking the strawberries at all since there weren't many ripe ones and the kids would've caused a huge mess. They looked pretty though with all the water droplets. 

The water droplets on the leaves made for some lovely pictures. It was so picturesque!

There were some empty bottles sitting outside of the tent.

There were a few statues around the area and this was one of them. I thought it was cute.

Here Sarah is pulling the rope from the walkway up toward the house on the property. 

I made a friend! This fluffy friend was happy to see us.

Clever, but interesting swings. These were probably the highlight for the kids as they had so much fun on them. They surprisingly did quite well taking turns too.

Zach decided to climb up into the tree and sit at one of the chairs once he got confirmation that it was okay. It was a little nerve wracking though.

I climbed up too and our director got a picture of us. We didn't put all of our weight on the furniture, yikes.

Finally, all the snacks that were brought were split up so everyone could share them. Heaven forbid that they not get their snacks. They were pretty tasty though. There was even some cotton candy that we handed out pieces of one by one.

It was a fun, if chilly field trip. This week we're apparently supposed to be going to a china factory on Friday. We'll see how that goes and hopefully I'll have more to post. I need to put the videos up too since I have several of various daily things here at the school. And some stuff just walking around town. We're hoping to start a foray into videos since it's getting nicer out and maybe give a different perspective than just photos.

Not All Sunshine, Rainbows, and Kimchi

My new class at the start of a new school year in March 2013.

I've wanted to create this post for a while, but I've been struggling with how to write it. In fact, I had a previously written post that sat around as a draft for a while, but I pushed it aside and eventually just deleted it. Why? Because I think it's kind of challenging to touch on the not so great parts of living and working here in South Korea, without giving the impression that it's a horrible idea and you're doomed if you think you should try it. Rather, I would like to impress upon anyone interested that while going to South Korea is sure to be an adventure, there are also many aspects (particularly employment aspects) that can really influence your experience. It might sound kind of silly to mention it since it's why you're here, but teaching is going to influence the rest of your everyday life too.

In addition, while it may be challenging to accurately portray and address the reality, I feel as though it's unfair to have a blog that is pretty much just highlighting the positive parts of the experiences we've had here without touching on the less-than-great ones. It's something I'm not a huge fan of emphasizing, but it would be a disservice for any other internet browsing sleuths wanting more information about teaching in South Korea. I know that I prefer to have the whole picture, or at least most of it so that I can mentally prepare and maybe even plan ahead for potential situations that might pop up.

So, without any further delay, I will just take some time to talk about some of the challenges, inconveniences, and pains-in-the-a** that I know can and may happen to anyone. We're more than willing to help answer questions if anyone would have them as well (related to our personal experiences), so feel free to drop a line.

--- The contract. It's good to find a good one, but don't rely on your director/employer following it like you expect. This is something I'm sure comes up rather frequently. It's important when you start this whole thing (especially in terms of hagwons) to carefully read over your contract before signing it, but don't expect it to be followed to a T by any means. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 or 6 contract violations to varying degrees by our boss, but it's probably more than that if we would sit down and get right to it. We're talking about violations ranging from payday changes, health insurance, pension, overtime pay, hours worked, and others. It's infuriating to know that this is standard, but I can personally think of several people that have really gotten the short end of the stick because their director has not followed the contract or was dishonest in some way. Violations can be followed up with the Labor Board, but I feel like this is something where you need to evaluate your options and do some research before moving forward.

--- Working hours. Expect these to change at a whim, be violated, and make no sense. This in part goes along with the contract violations. It's an employers market over here in South Korea and you can expect directors to try and squeeze every last cent out of you and by that I mean your time. Every month of our time here thus far has seen me getting jilted for overpay time, and it varies for Zach from month to month because our director has been sending him to other hagwons to work part time too because it's extra money to line her pockets. The standard is 120 teaching hours per month, but I can't think of a time when I've seen that except for briefly during the school break period in winter and I'm honestly surprised she didn't dock my pay. Long hours without breaks are not a surprising thing.

-- Teaching materials and expectations. I like to think of teaching here in South Korea as a dual responsibility, from my perspective anyway. On one hand you're here to look pretty and foreign, to be that piece of prestige for your school that indicates that they're reaching out to make the school one of the best and take care of the children during their time at the school. On the other hand you're here to teach English. I sometimes think that the latter is secondary to the former. What does this have to do with teaching materials and expectations? Well, there is the expectation that you're supposed to look good and be kind and make the kids and thus their parents happy. This is one thing that can be made difficult by your teaching materials or lack of said teaching materials. Our school is bigger on workbooks to get through the day, while some schools have more emphasis on more technologically advanced things. Each child in our school averages 4 workbooks or so at any given time. So it's a matter of figuring out what workbook goes into which time slot during which day of the week. Easy enough, but that's the most support we've really been given as far as teaching. "Here, use this book according to this schedule. Bye!" is the typical way it goes. Our director (whose poor English is no big surprise at this point) will also pick story books that are inappropriate for the class age/level and I just shake my head and pick something more appropriate. Things are different in public schools and other hagwons, of course, but I know that lack of support is definitely not uncommon here either.

-- Winter can be somewhat unpleasant. As far as living here goes, we eased into fall pretty well, but winter was absolutely terrible for us.  Due to our location and being a bit farther out from the city, we found ourselves trapped inside a lot due to the bitter cold record temperatures with little to do. I know a lot of people tend to drink in the winter since there isn't a lot else to do here, but if you have some sort of crafting hobby, enjoy video/computer games, reading, and other things, by all means make sure you have them for winter.  School schedules also get crazy during wintertime so be prepared!  Many schools have a Christmas program which may put big demands on you for a month or two, same with graduation programs at the end of February. Christmas had us working on songs and practicing reading books while February had us struggling to help our kids understand and perform plays and songs for the graduation ceremony. The short days and long nights made things very depressing on top of the stress and demands of making these performances acceptable and getting through the icky cold and flu season (which kids bring to school with them, don't be surprised if you have ill kids in your class or kids getting sick, not fun!) while also being away from home. There is a light at the end of the tunnel with this one though and things seem to improve after the hectic winter season with the holidays and graduation, plus you get some extra time off for the New Year and the Lunar New Year which slightly sweetens the deal (now if only it would be warmer out so you can enjoy it).

-- Communication challenges. This one is probably a given, but expect the unexpected when it comes to channels of communication. Be prepared that some things that you thought you understood when they were explained may not be exactly that, or they may possibly be the complete opposite. This, of course, depends on your ability to tease out the answer you're looking for and the English skills of the person/director that you're talking to. I recently had a conversation with our director regarding a change of class placement for one of our elementary kids, Carley, and it did not go as I had planned at all. My understanding of the conversation was that Carley, who was in my class, was going to be changing to Zach's class instead, but then I confirmed with her not once, but three times, that she would be staying in my class with her former kindy classmates. Okay, that works. The next thing I know the Korean teacher here at the school tells me that no, Carley will in fact be going to Zach's class. I mention to her the communication issue and she just kind of chuckles because she understands how poor our director's English is. Another example is today I was told by the director to bring down the supplies for two of my kindy kids, Daniel and Jun (brothers), when all she meant was that she had supplies for them that she wanted me to take upstairs. Confusing, no? The moral of the story is if you have questions, go and ask them. They might not be a fan of you asking  (it's kind of looked down upon here to question your elders/authority figures), but trust me when I say that you knowing what's going on will probably make you feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

-- Being in the spotlight. Taking a break from the primarily work based critique, this commentary is more general and also has a touch of the positive too. South Korea is fairly homogeneous and while the bigger cities see more foreigners in and out, you're still pretty interesting. It's not uncommon to walk down the street and have people staring, moreso the older population. The children generally have more mixed reactions, but they are the most likely to grin and say "hello" and you can watch their glee at using their English and having a foreigner respond back positively. It's very cute. I think our current record for children greeting us in one day has probably been 3, a number I suspect will go up once the weather becomes nicer. The old ajummas and ajosshis are a bit different in that aspect. I'm fairly tall for a woman, so I think that attracts a few gazes, but one of the more interesting experiences I've had with this has been the old woman that literally stopped walking to stare as we walked past her, even watching and turning as we kept walking away. Some of the men have stared at me too, it's kind of unnerving. In that sense I will say that I kind of look forward to going home so that I can just be one of the group again without people staring fairly frequently. I will say that it's given me some perspective regarding being someone sort of on the outside looking in, something I don't want to go into here, but I hope it's something I can take with me always to give me greater compassion and understanding of those around me.

There are several other things, but these seem to be the main "negatives"-- if you will as far as working and living here. Even then some of these can be taken with a grain of salt, but that depends on the way things are. I will admit to being dissatisfied with the management of the school we're at, the complete chaos at times, and wonder just how she even keeps things "together". I can't really talk about things like co-teachers since our only Korean teacher, who was formerly here all day, is only here part time and she's less of a co-teacher and just teaches her own English classes. For her part though, she's been fantastic and very helpful. Her English is definitely better than the boss lady and we sometimes find her essentially translating for us what she wants/expects.

These things are also admittedly the worst right around the time that they are brought up because we're just so overwhelmed by the expectations and lack of rationale behind the decisions. We've been frustrated, angry, upset, depressed, and other emotions as we tried to figure out the best way to deal with things that have just been sprung on us randomly. The best way we found is to deal with it one day at a time and have a goal, whether it's buying something fun or nice, going out for a nice meal or a drink, looking forward to the next week or month and better weather, or talking to people from home.

All that aside, being here is an experience and I'm glad that it's one we decided to undertake, but our expectation of things not going as we planned has been pushed above and beyond at times. So if you're considering teaching English abroad, at least in South Korea, it's best to expect that things will more than likely not be exactly as you planned. Some things may be nicer than planned, but expect the crazy and not so amusing along the way too.

Post Valentine's Day and Graduation Preparations

After the initial post earlier this month regarding the wasps, I realized that the blog went rather quiet. I am here to remedy that. We've been up to the usual work and play, still rather uneventful though due to the cold weather. I suppose that's kind of sad in the sense that February is a somewhat exciting month for us. February is, of course, Valentine's Day and our one year wedding anniversary is coming up on February 24th. We also received a package from my family the day before Valentine's Day which was a pleasant surprise. Thank you!

Valentine's Day is interesting here in the sense that it is celebrated in the same way the Japanese do. For Valentine's Day the girls/women buy chocolate to give to the special guy(s) in their life, but it is not reciprocated until White Day on March 14. It's even more commercial than the states in that sense, but it's an interesting concept. Valentine's Day wasn't terribly interesting and wasn't really even celebrated at our hagwon. Zach and I just celebrated by buying each other our favorite kind of Pepero (strawberry for him and Nude for me).

I hadn't really anticipated or planned for the holiday for my class, so I used some of the paper from the art kids floating around and made my own. They might not be the most exciting, but they turned out cute and were easy to make. I already spend enough money on these kiddos as is, so handmade valentines were easy peasy and kind of fun. :)

I decided to attempt to draw some of the words on the word search, ignore my awkward cuddling. My family probably recognizes the heart stickers up in the top left corner of my board!

James' mother send chocolates and candy for all the kids in the class, and some for me too! You can see the kids in the background eating lunch. 

We've also been just working through the month and eagerly awaiting news about the new teacher that will be joining us and the upcoming March schedule. Things are going to be all scrambled around and some of the class times are being tweaked, so it should be interesting. Even our Korean teacher isn't really sure exactly how things are going to work just yet.

February also means that it's time to prepare for graduations of all sorts, and that includes some of our kindy kids. What does that mean for us? That means it's play season! Yes, we get to do our own reenactments of plays with our kids. My class is doing Stone Soup, Zach's class is doing some sort of play involving finding a dinosaur, the elementary kids are doing Hansel and Gretel, and the small class of kindy kids is doing a musical number. All I can say is that this is quite the venture and it's frustrating. I would be in major trouble were it not for the fact that our Korean teacher is there to help out and explain things better. They also listen to her much more better.

Attempting to practice the play. The tables on their sides are supposed to be "houses" in the "village". 

Sitting (not so patiently) for their part in the play.

And what a venture this is. I'll have to get some pictures of my cute little props. I've been a prop making machine lately. I have "made" vegetables, "wood", and repurposed a container to be our "pot". There are a few things I want to pick up from Daiso, if possible. I also need to find some paper/craft foam or something similar in order to make a sort-of dinosaur costume for Zach's class' play. I'm not sure about costuming for my kids really.

In addition to the plays, I've been getting my room ready for the new school year in March as well. We have a field trip this Friday (February 22nd) to Everland which is South Korea's largest theme park and then the following Thursday (February 28th) is the graduation "concert" and Friday is Independence Movement Day (March 1st). Our new teacher should be here by then since the new year/schedule will be starting on Monday, March 4th. So I have been doing some sprucing up here and there and I'm still fishing for some things to make the room a little more interesting and inviting for little ones.

Colors are always fun, and color mixing is even more fun!

I redid my tree, I took off all the snowflakes. I also remade the tree trunk which was all torn and not pretty.

I also have a couple of extra pictures to share here, one is lunch since I have neglected to share lately. Things haven't been nearly as exciting lately though and it's usually the typical fare. The last picture is our celebration treat from Baskin Robbins in the local Homeplus.

Rice, seaweed, kimchi, something that I think is from the tops of turnips, and soup!

Our delicious cake, we already split the blue and red slice with the macaron type thing on top. It was delicious and had pop rocks in it, which was kind of a surprise. 

Oh hello, we've been hibernating!

You never know what you're going to get from the Dream Science kits. I got a magnet with hair!

Hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? Zach and I are still alive over here in South Korea, but it's been a rather quiet month. The cold temperatures have kept us cooped up inside a lot more than we were in the fall, so we haven't really had a lot to report. Fortunately for us, we're slowly finishing up with the coldest (on average) month of the year and hopefully February will provide us with above freezing temperatures so we can actually enjoy being outside again. We're looking forward to a high temperature here of 54F later in the week, I cannot wait! Now having said that, the following week is supposed to have highs of 0C, brrrr. At least I can be optimistic about the fact that the days are getting longer?

We're starting to go into the major transition time here in South Korea where teachers begin to come and go also. February is a BIG time for teachers as hagwons and public schools go into a hiring frenzy for the school year starting up in March. The local Facebook group for Cheongju is full of people that are selling things because they're moving home or moving to Seoul, or some other area, as well as people looking for new contracts and work through people who already live here in Cheongju. With that in mind, it's also a good time of year to pick up things people are selling second hand at pretty good prices. It's exciting to think that new people will soon be coming to teach and start their own adventures, but sad too as you realize that South Korea is really a country of transition (for foreigners in particular) and the people that enter your life will likely leave a year later, maybe a handful of years in some cases, but a majority of people realize that it's "time".

In other news, I have been tutoring a 19 year old female soon-to-be college student (legally, of course since my boss set it up) for a week and will probably continue to do so for another week, possibly more. It's been very interesting and not only have I learned that my drawing skills are bad, but she's told me a lot of interesting things about life as a high school student/college student here. We've talked about high school rules, food (she likes to bake), her sister who goes to college in Baltimore, MD, family, and a variety of other topics. It was initially kind of stressful since it was tossed on me, but she talks and I help her with words and phrases, but she's quite good. I guess that's to be expected since she's been learning English for 12 years (wow!).

In other more boring news, we got a new shower head from Lotte Mart to replace the cheap one we got at Daiso to replace the original one that was falling apart. The bathroom light, which had been burnt out for about two weeks, was finally replaced on Friday with a light that I had found downstairs with a stash of others. We did some cleaning and laundry and had McDonald's for lunch yesterday. Life overseas isn't always exciting, but that's reassuring in some ways. I get a bit anxious at times and the regular routine and everyday things make me feel grounded and like I'm still a part of the real world, despite being so far from home.

Because it's been so quiet here lately, Zach and I did some searching and found a website where we can take online courses through specific colleges called Coursera. We decided it would be in our best interest to keep educating ourselves for personal reasons, professional reasons when we get back home, and to help us through the end of the bitter South Korean winter. Starting January 28th I will be taking a course through the University of Edinburgh called E-Learning and Digital Cultures and Zach is taking a course through the University of Toronto titled The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness. We're hoping it will be an interesting learning experience. If all goes well I'm hoping to take another course starting in March through Wesleyan University called Passion Driven Statistics. I may not be great at math, but statistics are interesting and I want to keep what skills I do have, especially considering I want to go to grad school.

Julia and Sarah with their science projects for the week. Magnets and attraction, as much as I was able to explain it to them anyway. I'm learning how to structure the science lessons to make my life easier.

We went downtown to Shinae recently and found this hoodie. You can find anything under the sun around here really, and this was a funny find for me, being from Indiana and all. Go Pacers?!

Origami paper has recently been a big thing and they will try to make anything and everything. The boys especially enjoy it.

Because I have a different idea, and other supplies, I made a snake! This is Seymour, isn't he precious?

We also recently had the birthday party for the January birthdays. It was a bit early as the boss lady and two kids went to Australia for a week and a half, but still fun. January was James, Kate, Galileo, Carley, and Chris. There were strawberries and blueberries, something we haven't had in months. It's the little things.

Taxes? Taxes! Figuring out US expat tax business

This CD player has a lot of gall.

While the angry Korean CD player echoes my enthusiasm about the process (taxes are taxes, a fact of life) of filing taxes, I like to be prepared. What does that mean? Basically that I like to be one step ahead, especially on things like taxes, and have them done well before they're due to save myself the stress and effort as things approach. Because this will be our first year filing taxes jointly (oh hey, our one year anniversary is coming up February 24th!), I want to be especially on top of it since we have incomes from several states, loan considerations, and various other things.

Admittedly, things are made easier by the fact that Turbotax is my friend and all, but with so many ducks to get in a row, you have to get started earlier. Since I'm a little overly concerned, I have done an ample amount of research and after 30+ minutes of searching I think I finally found a satisfactory answer for the question I had. The tax legalese is generally pretty straight forward and dry, but that doesn't always mean that I get the answer that I'm looking for.

Next year will mean more of the taxes tango, but at least I have helpful links at my service now. From what I've gleaned from the internet there are many things to keep in mind when you're filing taxes for having lived and earned income in a foreign country. Most importantly? File a darn return, else it may come back to haunt you. I know people that have not and I hope that it doesn't come back to bite them. Several things I learned:

- The US has a tax treaty with South Korea to help you out so you're not being taxed in both locations
- Keep an eye out for the terms Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) and housing exclusion
- There is an income threshold depending on how you're filing for the year (single, jointly, etc)
- The bona fide resident test and physical resident test are important for establishing the finer details
- Some allowances are included depending on housing, utilities, repairs and other expenses
- If you live over here for a year then due to the physical resident test and timing you can update it after your contract is completed (and in time for the next tax year) to let the IRS know that you did live overseas for the allotted time period (330+ consecutive days)
- You should be paying Korean taxes and it should be noted on your pay stubs
- US citizens living abroad are entitled to a two month extension when filing, up until June 15th (although your taxes need to be filed on time in April to avoid any interest charges)
- Korean CD players are clearly superior to my puny foreign electronic skills

That is, in short, what I have learned from browsing the internet and reading up on various websites ranging from the IRS website, tax assistance sites in various shapes and forms, a very helpful blog, and various other things. Maybe not the most exciting thing, but it's hard to go wrong with information just waiting to be found.

For reference for my future use and anyone else, here are the websites and documents that I found most useful.
- Expat IRS Form Checklist
- Taxation of U.S. Expatriates
- Income Taxes Overview (Korea4Expats)
- How to File Your Expatriate Tax Return As an American Living Abroad
- Taxes - Here and at Home (Blog post - US centric)
- National Tax Service (Korea)

In other news, we went ice skating at the Cheongju Ice Rink/Link on Wednesday (1/16), pictures to come soon, hopefully.

Crazy Antics (or, Wow, We're Busy!)

It seems appropriate to start out with a wintery picture, because it's certainly winter here in South Korea. While the temperature has risen above freezing on occasion, it's mostly not above freezing and we've been quite cold! I intend to make an update about being cold and surviving the winter in Korea, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of time for that in January or February.

Mostly, I wanted to make mention of the fact that we haven't been all that active with posting here, because it's just been one thing after another. I do have some pictures and information though. One big reason we've been busy has been due to work and sorting out some things with our director. Another has been preparation for the big Christmas Party on Christmas Eve, which is mostly a show/performance for the parents. There for about a week I was also working 10 1/2 hour days because I was helping out at another local school too. We also can't forget the part where we've been trying to prep for our own gift giving for the winter holidays.

On my walk home from the other school I was at for a week after my normal classes I saw this display.

If you follow the path here that runs between apartments you reach Homeplus!

This is the entrance of the school I was at from 5:30 to 8:30pm each night. I even rode my first taxi home.

Among other things we got to see election campaigning and promotion (and also had off work!) This man lost by a very slim margin. Also, the woman third from the left was very enthused about dancing for this.

Stumbled upon an amazing bakery with some of the most delicious cupcakes I have ever tasted. 

Did I mention that it's a cake decorating cafe too? You buy a cake and the things you want to decorate with and have at it. I want to make one sometime! You can also make cookies with a variety of cookie cutters.

We also have our own little Christmas/holiday set up at home. We aren't really doing gifts, but we did decide to do stockings for each other at least.

Oh yes, I mentioned a Christmas party. We've spent 3 full days of preparation for this, not including half days and the other miscellaneous periods of time over the course of 2 weeks. We've been sitting in the cold downstairs while they practice reading, singing and dancing, and playing piano. Is it over yet?

This past weekend (12/22 to be precise) we went and participated in a local photo scavenger hunt for Christmas with a bunch of other foreigners in Cheongju. (The above sign was outside of the CGV theater where we met up at the start.) We had the pleasure of running around in the cold, being yelled at by an old ajumma outside her fortune telling shop, participating in a flash mob outside of a shoe store in Shinae, trying to get random Koreans to help us by joining our pictures, running around Homeplus, etc. Our team of 8 (with our additional helper) won the game and got "gold". Unfortunately I was feeling very sick (and now have another cold) and getting home was the bad part. I'm glad we went though, it was fun.

Woooo, gooo team! I'm hoping to post a few of the pictures on the blog once they're uploaded to Facebook. We took some wacky pictures. Highlights being Homeplus workers looking at us very oddly, being yelled at by an old man for being too close to his cart while singing Christmas carols to a random Korean couple, dancing Gangnam Style with a few electronics employees, fitting all 8 of us into an elevator, Zach and I kissing under "mistletoe" (which they said was cheating since we're married), taking a picture together in front of a historic pole downtown, building a "snowman", and other crazy antics. Good times.

Prizes to help warm us up after all the running around in the cold!

Oh, I almost forgot! We were given a microwave and a toaster oven by the boss lady. It's so exciting!

For now though I'm just stuck with another cold (I seem to have bad luck with that in Korea, but I think it's partly stress related) and Zach's got a mild cold too. Since it's Sunday already we're gearing up for another day long practice tomorrow on Christmas Eve. We're supposed to be having dinner before the "party" and then it will start and last for several hours. I'll hopefully get a few pictures. Zach will be MC-ing the whole thing while I run around and make "stage" adjustments and help out the kids with remembering things and words they may have trouble with. 

I have also sampled corn tea, which is, in fact, a thing. It tastes like corn and I will not ingest it again, definitely. I have also been offered cold medicine (for kids) and awkwardly stood around being watched while I took it, despite not knowing what I was just taking. On the bright side, we got Domino's today and it was amazing! Just looking forward to Christmas off work now and a few Skype calls. :)

Field Trip to Cheonan: A Milk Factory

A few weeks ago, on November 22nd, I went with the boss lady and the kindy kids on on a field trip to Cheonan to visit a milk factory. It was an interesting experience, though surprising since Zach didn't go along too. Instead he was stuck here since he had to be here for the elementary age kids for their classes.

We started out watching an informational video about milk processing and how the factory works which the kids probably didn't understand, but I understood it even less since I don't know Korean. The lady was nice and gave us a tour of the place and we took the elevator up and down through the whole process to see the different parts of the factory.

We arrived at a good time to see the milk starting to pass in the cartons along the conveyor belts.

The tour lady had a little mic and speaker during the tour.

I think she was talking about all the products that they make.

Because they were so short and couldn't see into the lab she had them jump, it was cute.

I drink these milk coffee things! Despite not being a huge coffee fan I like them since they're more milk and sweet instead of bitter.

Hey, I drink these too. This is yogurt and it is delicious.

Milk, milk, and more milk. Not for the lactose intolerant.

This section of the wall was covered in unlabeled cartons and a mirror. Cool.

This was the welcome sign that had been placed out front for us.

Tour complete, time to sample the product. 

She brought us all strawberry milk, it was so good. Not that the kids needed the sugar.

After the milk and the tour they did some running around while the boss took pictures. Me? I took a classy picture of all our empty milk cartons.