Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday Grace! (If you even read this..)

We seem to be going to lamb 3 times a week so finally here is a picture of it!

Thats American Emily on the right from Wiskahnsin. She's not like Brittish Emily but we love her just the same (probably more because she doesn't swear allegiance to the Queen). 

Joon is leaving DYB :( He's put in a lot of time here and now feels its time for a change. But he's staying in Seoul, so we'll still see him around. We went to Bundang on Wednesday for one last hoorah with the crew down south. It was a lot of fun! After the bar we went to the Noraebang (singing room) I dunno if I explained them yet but its karaoke, but instead of being in front of like a bar or something you get your own private room with a large table in the middle and couches all around. You pick the songs and they come up on the tv! I took a video but it turned out to not be the best. I sang "Will You Be There" the Free Willy song by Michael Jackson and "Tiny Dancer".. both songs me and my friends at Bucknell used to all sing. 

One day this week (I can't remember which), Nancy, she's like Joon only a girl (just kidding, but she teaches the Seong's classes like Joon does) was eating Korean grapes in the native teachers room. Now, if you think grapes are grapes are grapes, you couldn't be more wrong. These things are like edible Chinese finger traps, they are impossible! Heres the rules:

1. Pick a nice plump grape.

2. Put the part of the grape that came off the vine to the middle of your front teeth.

3. Simultaneously squeeze the grape while sucking in. This is supposed to suck all the middle out and leave the skin in your hand (emphasis on supposed to).

4. And if that wasn't enough, you have to work the seeds out of the guts and spit them out. 

5. If you have any energy left, swallow.

Now, I don't know if Nancy was a bad teacher or I am just messy eater (probably the latter) but I walked into my next class with grape juice all over my hoodie. 

I am told that the building on the left and the building on the right are the most expensive buildings to live in in Seoul. Everytime we meet Koreans and tell them we work at Daechi they say "ohh very rich".. I wish.. (taken from the roof of our school)

Witches broom? No.. actual broom! For a very technologically advanced city they still use really old school things. This is literally a bamboo stick with twigs tied to it.

My last class on Thursdays is one of my favorites to teach. We always joke around and have a lot of fun. However, this Thursday things got personal. The chapter in the book was about the emotional and physical effects of breakups. I dunno what prompted this one girl in the back to say this, but she raised her hand and said "teacher, you're ugly". I was appalled! I know she was kidding (I think) cause we always make fun of each other, but she sounded serious. I was like alright then, who is handsome? She said "Mark teacher and Alan teacher. Mark has big eyes and Alan teacher has really light skin".. I guess thats all it takes in Korea. Then, to make things worse, some chubby kid in the front row raised his hand and, in an attempt to console me, said "no teacher, you're not ugly, you aren't handsome but you aren't ugly" I was like gee thanks, you're not quite the looker yourself. 

Fall is here!

On Friday I went to Suji (where Brittish Emily lives) and had lunch with her. I went back to Daechi to see everyone dressed up for Halloween. We were all clowns (or crowns, as some Korean teachers called us). 

Alan. Thats Ben in the background pretending to care about dressing up.

Tyler. Thats Mark in the background, even more pathetic than Ben. 

Joon, always doing it up big.

Nancy, looking cute as ever.

After Daechi I went to Pathenon, the Elementary school. This is American Emily dressed up as an angry bird (a very popular cell phone game). 

And this is one of her students dressed up in her outfit. 

I dressed up as a clown on Saturday and played games with my kids! They were all looking at me like "whats wrong with you teacher?"

On Saturday, Brittish Emily, American Emily, Tyler and I went on a hike. Emily and Tyler had the wise idea to bring two bottles of soju to drink at the top. I didn't partake cause I hate soju! I kept throwing mine over the edge. It was the same mountain I did the other time, but it was less foggy so the views were a little better. 

The building at the bottom right is the Seoul Arts Center.. remember that for later.

Seoul is huge!

We found a temple! It was great.. so ornately decorated.

Another spring water station. American Emily was brave enough to try it.

They had incense and candles burning outside. It smelled so good!

Buddha's galore.

This is the inside! People inside were burning incense, meditating, and praying! It was so cool. I took a meditation class at Bucknell so I was tempted to go in.

This is like a little gift shop, only if you want to buy something you take it and leave the money in that wooden box. How cool is that! I love the respect.

Big Buddha!

We met a Korean guy at the top and he told us to go to the Seoul Arts Center and drink wine.. it didn't take much to convince us. It was so great! I felt like I was back in Europe. There were tables everywhere, wine tents, and people were so dressed up (except us). 

A bottle of wine and some odeng (fish cakes). 

At night they played music and had fountain shows. It was so neat! The music was like show tunes. I dunno if this video will work but I'll try it anyway... if only there was some way to get Brittish Emily to quiet down for 30 seconds..

Another bottle of wine and some hours later..

After this, Brittish Emily, Tyler, and I went to get some BBQ. After that we went to meet everyone for Peters birthday. We went to a bar called Plzen! I was so excited! Plzen is a city in the Czech Republic, where Plsner Urquell is made, although they didn't sell it. 

They even had a mural of the Prague castle in the bar! It was great.

I got home from this outing at around 3 am.. At 8 am I was woken up by some male voice. I was like what the hell is going on? Did I leave my door open? I look out the window and some man is just hanging there on the phone with somebody! Mind you, I live on the 19th floor! And he was just chillin on a rope doing who knows what! My blinds were open too! I was like 3 feet away from him.. and he posted up outside my window for a good 10 minutes! I would have shut my blinds but I seriously could have touched this man. I was so confused.. I figured he was washing windows, but he had a paintbrush in his hand. He touched up a bit and then moseyed on down to the next place. When I woke up I looked out my window and it is so dirty now from him leaning on it and the rope banging against it! I was like gee thanks guy! While you're up there just give it a little scrub down. 

It was technically Halloween today at school, although we didn't dress up. I walked into my first class and everyone shouted Trick or Treat! I was like ohh no.. I don't have any candy. One of the kids in the front row said "I was so excited at school to come to academy today because you are American and Halloween is an American holiday and I thought we were going to have a party". The little nugget probably planned that whole speech out but it was still so adorable that I succumbed and bought them all ice cream after class. Then, since I bought that class ice cream, I felt obligated to tell the other class that I bought the first class ice cream so I had to buy them ice cream too. I need to learn how to say no!