Halloween

Korean style, yeah! The school had their Halloween party for the students this last week, Thursday and Friday. They tried their very hardest to do it like we do in America, and I'd say they did a pretty good job of it. On Thursday, it was the same ol', same ol' for us. Nothing was different except for the fact that some of the students came to class wearing costumes and/or had a friend with them. Because our school is run like a business, they rely on some advertising to bring in new "clients", the students. So, for Halloween they had tons of balloons that advertised JLS and had the school's phone number on them, and the students were allowed to bring a friend (or two) or even their siblings. The school made little ticket like passes for the students to give to the friends they wanted to invite, therefore advertising more to new prospective clientele. Anyway, business duties aside, they turned the school into a Halloween fest- lights dimmed down, classrooms with many decorations, Halloween music, coffin props for pictures, and topped off with a nicely done Halloween slide show/video on the t.v. On Friday we did not do any teaching at all. In the moment it was great, but that means next week we have to do double lesson on Friday to catch those students up, as they missed a day of class. Oh well. But, instead of teaching, we had to be dressed in costume from 2:30 until 9 p.m., and all we did was either stand and pose for photos with ALL of the students or help out the homeroom teachers during the games. The photos part was extremely boring. It took about an hour or more for each block of students. We didn't have time to eat anything until 7:20. The school bought everyone coffee and Kimbop. Kimbop is a very cheap and very quick meal. What we had was like a sushi roll, but no sushi. It had carrots, radish, egg, and some kind of cooked fish all rolled in rice and coated in seaweed. Very delicious! Overall, it was a great and fun day. We didn't get any pictures on my camera of us in our costumes, but the school has plenty. We will ask for a photo so I can post one on here for you all to see us :) Jeremy had lots of fun being a ninja, though unfortunately he ripped the pants :( Hope you all have a great Halloween!

**Here is a link to the school's blog which has many pictures of the students that also include us. http://blog.naver.com/jlsansan

[출처] 2010 Halloween Day|작성자 JLS

Aliens

Just wanted to share that we got our Alien cards today! We are officially legal Aliens. :D We are setting up our bank account tomorrow, but we still don't know about insurance. Possibly we will get that squared away by next week. We are just puttin' along now. Only 4 more weeks until we get rid of our 6th grade classes! Next week, the school is having a Halloween Event over two days. We aren't sure what this is going to be like. All we know is that we have to dress in costumes. We will certainly post about Halloween to show you all our costumes :)

Yongsan and more

Today we decided to head to the infamous Yongsan Station where there is a huge mall that is mainly electronics. Yes, Jeremy was really hoping to get an iPod Touch while there. The mall is 10 floors, but the top two are an entertainment arena of some kind. Every floor we went to had all the same stuff: digital cameras, iPods, iPhones, Nintendo DS, phone accessories, etc. But they did have bedding, furniture, t.v.s, kitchen stuff, etc. When we had enough looking around, we decided to head to a booth to start buying an iPod Touch. Finally a person started interacting with us, so we asked a couple of questions, and the guy had us sit down while he went to retrieve the phone. Well, we had to wait some for the phone to come, but Jeremy didn't want to. We had plenty of places to go to that probably had the phone right there. Here's where it got a little weird. Jeremy said "No thank you, we will go to some other place." When he did that and started to walk away, the guy grabbed Jeremy's arm! He wouldn't let go, even when Jeremy said "Let me go." like 3 times!! It was very scary for me! So, we decided to head to another store entirely. First we got some food, then headed to a DVD seller. We got 4 DVDs for 10,000 won ($8 or $9).

One short road of the HUGE market!

Next we decided to head to a HUGE market that is like the Saturday Market in Portland. It was very fun to see it all! We definitely didn't see all of the market. Gives us another reason to go there again :) Finally, we headed to Itaewon (where all the foreigners go) to find the bookstore that sells English books. I found two, and Jeremy found one. We did some window shopping, and then got to see a parade! Not sure what the parade was for, but they had a group of very important people walking in the front, and following were people from all over the world. They also had some Korean dancing/performances, and a U.S. Army band playing. It was pretty cool! We had no idea that that was going on. All in all, it was a great day. Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat dinner at this awesome Fish and Chips place near home :( Maybe another day...

The dragon!

Dancing in traditional dresses.

Kindness

So, here we have more examples of Korean kindness. Jeremy and I go to this food place called Steff Hotdog. The hotdogs are great! We've been there probably about 5 or 6 times already, so the lady behind the counter really recognizes us. :) Well, last week when we went there for lunch, we had to pay more than usual. We couldn't quite figure out why our total was more than 4,000 won more than usual. We just shrugged our shoulders and said oh well. A few days later we were out walking, trying to find something to eat before work. When we headed back to the school, we walked past Steff Hotdog and the lady shouted to us. We stopped and slowly looked back into the place, and she was motioning us to come in. So we did. To our surprise, she was giving us some money back!! She said it was her fault, made a mistake, and charged us too much, so she was giving us back the extra money. Now tell me this doesn't happen back home?! We were shocked! Of course, we went back today to get lunch. :D The next gesture of kindness... We go to this one restaurant called Honey Chicken. It's a great place for chicken. With the weather having been good, we usually ate outside at the table. Last week when we went, it was kind of cold outside, but we still sat at the tables. The owner recognized us (who doesn't though, right?) and motioned us to go inside where it was warmer. We declined, even though Jeremy was wearing a short sleeved shirt. The owner walked back inside, then a moment later brought out his jacket for Jeremy!! What a nice gesture!! Again, we were shocked at their kindness. The owner doesn't know anything about us, yet he offered his jacket to Jeremy! Can you say that happens back home? Not very often!

Pink birds that aren't flamingos :)

A yellow colored skunk

Look how close he got!

Giant Anteater

Odd looking male pheasant

Their spots looked different.

Have MANY Condors

Not suppose to feed the monkeys people!!

We also went to Seoul Grand Park on Saturday. It was the first outing we had in a week because of my knee!! It only cost 3,000 won each (about $5 for the both of us to get in). The weather was cloudy and was threatening to rain. Of course we brought an umbrella. :) The zoo is GIGANTIC! You have to definitely walk a fair share to get to the different areas of the animals. This zoo isn't quite setup with the animals grouped together like the Oregon Zoo. We saw three different areas of primates and two different areas of crocodiles/alligators. Some animals were still grouped together according to environments. We saw many of the same animals that are in the Oregon Zoo, but we also saw many that we wouldn't normally think would be in a zoo or would see in a zoo. Some crazy ones were: a raccoon, a yellow skunk, coyotes, Elk, buffalo, Texas Longhorns, beaver, white nutria, armadillos, a Toucan, a giant anteater, and some others. I tried taking pictures of the animals that we wouldn't see at home, and of ones that just looked different than at home. Surprisingly, they had no Panda Bears. :( After 3 hours in the zoo, we ended at the botanical gardens. But by this time, it had been raining on us for at least the last hour or more, so we only saw the indoor botanical garden. Nothing too special about it. Starving, we paid 2,000 won (less than $2) for a corn dog, which was a regular corn dog, but battered again. It was old, but still tasted okay. We headed for home, but were trying to think of what to eat. We decided to stop at Hangyang University station to find this amazing fish and chips place. We did find it, and we enjoyed a delicious meal. The owners chatted with us about life and many other things, it was great. We got free Pepsi with our meal, but when we found out they were getting married soon, we paid a little extra and told them to put it towards that. They fought hard to give it back, but we just kept walking out the door. :) Finally they accepted it and we said our goodbyes. We will DEFINITELY be going back to them!