Home for Confused Photos

Not all pictures are lost, some are just confused or otherwise don't really know where to go. So in this case we'll call it a home for confused photos, but it's all the usual here. Looking above though, this was on a timer for our food when we went to eat at Lotteria one of the first times we got here. The picture and the text says it all. This is the Lady Burger we're talking about here. "Sorry, Boys! Only for Ladies!" Clearly it's a "MUST-EAT" Hahaha. We got a giggle out of that one.

Speaking of food, what is this even? This is a bacon cheese donut from Dunkin Donuts that's down the road from us. They have some delicious things, but this is not one of them. I do like the fact that pretty much every place you go (that is fast food or something like DD) tells you the basic nutritional value and the kcal count.

Speaking of food, and things that are not food, another perk of living here is that they love to give you free things. This cereal has free small cereal packs attached and you see this pretty frequently. HomePlus likes to give you free things by way of their 1+1 sales too. You see the free attached things everywhere though, whether it's feminine products, frozen foods, or other miscellaneous products.

We first saw this amazing car when we started traveling down near the hub of the bus station. I love the pumpkin and I wish I could be cool and have a pumpkin like this one. It's worth noting that the road that the car is on in the direction it is facing is the local market.

Speaking of transportation, advertising comes in many shapes and forms and this is just one ad for an English school that was on the side of a bus. I like how the school can make kids into English speaking superheroes.

It's not uncommon to see ads inside the local buses advertising for various drawing and animation schools. This is similar. They're ads that are posted downtown (Shinae) near this little craft/youth hub that is next to a Dunkin Donuts. Sometimes there is singing or dancing and quite a few people gather in the general area. These are the ads for the school you want if you're looking to specialize in anime girls apparently.

Speaking of Shinae, the other day we were downtown just roaming around as usual and we ran into this event happening. There was singing, dancing, cameras, you name it. It kind of seemed like a Cheongju's Got Talent sort of thing. Yes, those are backup singers.

We were advised to also check out this underground mall downtown because it has this cool fish tank and is generally kind of interesting. There are so many tiny businesses, a lot of which sell clothing or shoes. Speaking of clothing, the Engrish (or Konglish for here specifically) can make for some very interesting apparel and signs. They're sometimes very logical mistakes considering the fact that there are some sounds that Koreans don't distinguish between. Others are just grammatical mistakes.

Changing gears this time, this is the rice field that we walk by when we come and go from the school. It's all been gathered up and placed very nicely, it's so pretty. By now it's been taken elsewhere and the field is just empty, but it still looks neatly trimmed.

And last, but certainly not least, this time around is this adorable chocolate whale cake that I saw today at Tous les Jours which is a local bakery. They have the prettiest cakes for sale and this one just looks so cute and pleased. Maybe I'll get a cute cake for myself as a treat, hopefully it'll be as cute as this one!

That's all for now though, I'll post another round of pictures in the near future. You never know what you'll find here and I like to appreciate the little things and I hope you do too. ^.^

Pepero Day is 11/11! (Also, 1,000 Pageviews!)

Happy Pepero Day! Here in Korea 11/11 is Pepero Day each year. If you're familiar with Pocky at all, Pepero is Lotte's version of the same snack. It comes in multiple variants, but is the most well known for being a long biscuit covered almost completely in chocolate. Pepero is a fun snack for all ages and they really go crazy with it over here. Going to the store (we went to both HomePlus and Lotte Mart and saw a variety of others too) you'd think it was Valentine's Day with all the Pepero and chocolate everywhere. All with decorative packaging and even things like large plushies and gift baskets. 

Pepero Day is definitely a consumer holiday and we were able to see it pretty clearly. On our visit to HomePlus earlier in the week we grabbed a few boxes for ourselves-- the strawberry kind for Zach and the chocolate filled kind (called Nude) for me. We also stocked up again later, one cannot have too much Pepero! That and they were only 790 won each.

It was interesting to look at all the marketing and also to watch the people who were doing all their Pepero gift shopping at the time too. I saw three girls with a shopping cart and they had a list of who they needed to buy for and then had their stacks of Pepero lined up on different sides of the cart so they knew whose was whose. Then we ended up in the checkout line behind a family with all this Pepero (below).

Not only do the larger grocery and general shopping hubs have displays, but so do smaller stores such as 7/11, and this little place we passed yesterday. Even places that don't sell food had some sort of product deal where you (I believe) get free Pepero along with your purchase. 

I kind of wish I had seen the Doreamon thing, whatever it was Pepero related because my older elementary girls would have flipped out and loved me forever if I had given it to them. Oh well. Speaking of which, two of them gave us large Pepero on Friday.

We also ran into a multicultural version of Pepero (like everywhere else, they even had Pepero-type things at Tous les Jours which is a bakery) at Dunkin Donuts too. Yes, those are Pepero churros. I was kind of tempted, but I think I have more than enough Pepero type things for the time being.

Last, but not least, I want to thank those of you who are reading our blog and I hope you're all doing well. With this we've reached 1,000 page views and I hope you are all enjoying following along with us. Please feel free to leave comments or questions, we like hearing from everyone. So with that, I give you a photo tribute (in Pepero), for our little achievement. 

Still to come? Halloween post and photos, more "lost photos", and maybe a rant or two. :) Thank you!

Korean Thermostats-- or how does that thing work?

I would like to take a moment to introduce our thermostat as I don't believe you had the opportunity to meet before. Now, it seems pretty simple, and it really is not as complicated as it looks. That said, it's in Korean so it is a little bit of a challenge. 

When we first arrived here in late August 2012 we had no real need for it because it was still sort of hot out and we were still using the air conditioners off and on at that time. Our director instructed us how to turn the hot water on for when we shower by hitting the red button to turn the boiler on and then hitting the green button just above it for the hot water. Then when we finished we were told to turn it off by hitting the red button again. 

Since it's been getting cold we've bought ourselves hats and gloves, and I even got myself a snazzy purple scarf, but when you're inside that just doesn't cut it. So that means operating the thermostat (especially when the director is away on the weekends). She didn't really give me instructions aside from turning on the boiler (since they do floor heating here and warm water is pumped up through the building), so I was a little dumbfounded in trying to figure out how things work. 

I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a blog with a post titled My battles with the Thermostat which, while it wasn't the exact same image as our thermostat, it was similar enough once I figured out what I was looking for. If you need further assistance with similar thermostats, that's the place to go. I am so glad to have found it!

That said, the dials on the left side are easy to figure out. You have the current temperature reading on top, 16 degrees C is pretty cold for inside! The dial below that indicates the desired temperature, the one below that is the timer (so in this case the boiler will turn off after 3 hours), and finally, below that is the minimum and max temperatures for the water.

The buttons to the right are the confusing part. So with the assistance of the previously mentioned post I was able to figure out that top button is the "normal" setting, the one below it is the "sleep" setting, and the button above the red on/off/reset button is to turn on the hot water.

Field Trip to Seoul and Museums

A few weeks ago, on October 19th we went to the Children's Museum in Seoul on a field trip with our school and we also went to the Seoul National Science Museum. It was an interesting and fun trip. The bus ride is the usual hour and a half and we got to ride on this very snazzy bus. Think Gangnam Style party bus, then imagine it filled with kids.

The bus ride was filled with snack sharing and watching a show called Shin-chan, which is popular here. There's a US release of the series which I've seen, but my understanding is that the series here is a little different.

We made a quick stop at a rest area so that everyone could have a bathroom break, and everything went pretty smoothly.

We sat all the way in the back, easier to keep an eye on the kiddos and kept us out of the way.

This is on the bridge as we drove into Seoul.

The museum has a playground attached. We got yelled at for taking the kids there since they're apparently supposed to play on it after they get done inside, or something.

The children's museum is also attached to some other museums/theatres and this is the general area for all of them. The view was very pretty and you can see Seoul Tower in the background.

Now we know what children's museum is in Korean!

We had to wait for our time slot to open up, so in the meantime everyone played around on the stairs.

The museum was really neat and had very interesting things for kids to do and observe. 

Here they could look at architecture and construction and try something similar with their own pieces.

Here they are learning how to prepare grains to make food.

The lights on the ceiling were so neat. They faded in and out and were different constellations.

What's a children's museum without an informational dress up area?

I'm in charge here, clearly.

This was really interesting and a fun concept for a children's museum. There were three screens like this which were set up with XBox 360 Kinect-like technology where you utilize motion to make the character on screen move. I think they were supposed to be harvesting rice.

An interesting display of farming tools and equipment.

That's another one of those motion games where the blur of a child is.

The display of old weaponry was fascinating. They had a variety ranging from swords to arrows.

Bronze weapons are highlighted in this case.

The kids had a lot of fun playing with these large puzzles.

This castle was really neat. The kids could enter and exit and climb behind the wall and look over it.

After we finished at the Children's Museum we had lunch on the bus, which was interesting. Everyone had a packed lunch or something bought by their parents. There was a little bit of everything, including the more traditional kimbap. They were all very generous with their food and shared with their friends and us. 

As for our lunches, our director had bought sandwiches for us from KFC which were actually pretty amazing. They were chicken sandwiches but they were grilled and smoked and had a delicious flavor. Definitely something to have again.

After we finished lunch we left the children's museum and headed to the Seoul National Science Museum, which is actually right next to one of the old palaces in Seoul. We're hoping to make it to one of the palaces once it starts warming up here again. 

The science museum itself was kind of a zoo around the time that we visited since there were lots of older high school students mingling around. Some of them also had a strange interest in some of our kids which I would venture to say was pretty creepy. Once everyone was wrangled though, I have to say that we all had a good time.

McDonald's here is tasty, and popular! Those are delivery bikes parked outside.

For those of you who are Twilight fans, here's a bus advertising Breaking Dawn. I'm sad I missed getting a picture of the World of Warcraft bus though.

This is the palace that's next to the science musuem.

Welcome to the Seoul National Science Museum! I believe the entry fee is 1,000 won.

Standing inside the main lobby of the science museum.

The kids got to play with and observe the different things. The museum was hands on and a lot of fun.

Trying out some of the exhibits.

Those high school guys to the left? Yeah, they were kind of creepy.

Everyone had to ride the car, they spent most of their time waiting in line to drive.

The space portion was really neat. There was space food, including space kimchi!

This thing was a lot of fun. That's Zach on the left and me on the right.

Sometimes things just make you laugh a little.

We stayed for the final event which was this little robot dance show. It was pretty cute.

Dance little robot, dance.

On the way back to the bus we passed Changgyeonggung Palace.

Everyone in front of the palace sign.

Following the end of our trip and pictures outside of Changgyeonggung we hopped back on the bus and headed home. The kids watched Shin-chan and some of them fell asleep on the hour and a half long trip. We made a quick stop at a rest area on the way back as well so everyone could use the restroom (I got stared at in the bathroom, but that's nothing new) and have a quick snack. 

We made it back to the school with enough time to drop things off and then head to the school where Zach teaches adults. So we went to the school and I sat in on two of the classes and got to meet some of his students and then we went out for dinner. :)

Expecting the Unexpected

Happy post-Halloween! Aren't we so very decorative for Halloween?

More pictures and info to follow, but I wanted to briefly talk about expecting the unexpected here in Korea. By that I mean your director may tell you to jump, but you may not quite understand that and they're telling you how high without giving you any time to process. Then suddenly the carpet is pulled out from under you and you have to hope for a graceful landing!

That was my reaction when I was suddenly told today (less than an hour before it was happening) that I am now going to be teaching a small class of 4 kids and doing story time with them each day. The rollover/change is because of a new student that started today (November 1st) and because they apparently want them to start taking classes with a foreign teacher. Hi there, that'd be me.

So now I continue to have my three 40 minute breaks a week (they're so generous!), but at least I get the full time and now instead of having a class of 9 to 15 students (depending on the day of the week) I either don't have them at all or just have 4 kids instead. I suppose I also have a longer break between my class with the older girls too twice a week. So that means that I have a little over an an hour of free time twice a week. You win some, you lose some I suppose. I think I might be coming out more on the winning side this time, surprisingly.

Anyway, there are several posts incoming in the near future, I just need to finish them. I hope you had a Happy Halloween and most of all, I hope that those of you in the US on the East Coast are hanging in there after Sandy. Sending good thoughts your way!