Cuteness at school

Some of my favourite girls in the afternoon classes today decorated the white board for me - no apparent reason, usually teachers only get this kind of treatment if it's their birthday or your last day... so I consider myself pretty lucky!

The girls hard at it

Chris - also usually in the class - was feeling sick after getting
the vaccination for Swine Flu so was meant to be lying down
but I think he felt a little left out of the action!


A close-up of the "Kind Sophie Tearcher Tree"

I love these kids, they seem to have a lot of fun learning and don't find it too difficult, and we play a lot of "learning" games (read: games I make up on the spot) when they get finished early.

The gorgeous girls, Kelly (shy as hell but so sweet),
Claudia (very smart and has a slight lisp, love her!),
Amy (also supremely shy but cute) and Julie (Loud and
very funny, one of my favourites in the whole school)

I've been teaching Amy, Julie and Kelly since I arrived but Claudia was new when we shifted schools. She's great though, so sweet. She told me one day her favourite movie was Richie Rich (old maybe mid 90s Macauley Culkin film) and I said the actor Richie was in my favourite movie when I was her age, My Girl. The next time I had this class she told me she watched it! So Cute!

This is what she said in her lispy broken English: "Teacher. My Girl movie, I watch. Thomas is Richie! Thomas, bees, and die."... about sums it up!

In for a close up

11/11

In Korea, November 11 is Pepero Day. Pepero is like Pocky (the Japanese version) which is sold in NZ, it's sticks of pretzel/ wafer/ biscuit covered in chocolate, and is a very popular snack here.
Pepero day is huge, and while I haven't seen Valentines Day here yet, seems to be just another reason for Koreans to get loved up. But really it's completely comercialised and created entirely by Lotte, a massive company here who manufacture fricken everything, food, housey stuff etc, have fast food chains, an amusement park in Seoul and great big department stores.
This sight was to be seen all around the country in the days leading up to 11/11:

A display of Pepero outside a convenience store

Great day for teachers, as the kids all bring you pepero, and my desk has been stacked with the stuff since last Wednesday. Also randomly they promote Ferrero Rocher, I was stoked to get some of those as well! Not so stoked to get a lollipop (I think the girl forgot and felt bad, and I think it was actually meant for her but she insisted I take it)... or a stick of gum...

Anguk and the Owls

A couple of weekends back my Kiwi friend Skye and I went on a trip into what is now definitely my favourite area of Seoul - Anguk. It's super near a lot of the other bits I've loved too, and is a really cool place to explore - lots of random little museums, heaps of amazing little botique stores selling clothes, hats, jewellery and ceramics, and cool cafes.
Our goal was to get around three of the museums, Tibet, Chicken Art (simply to finally answer the question that's been plaguing me for some time: is it art featuring chicken or do the chickens actually MAKE the art?!) and the Owl museum (because owls are practically my favourite animal)... however slowness/lostness/museums being closed meant we only saw the owls... but did a lot of wandering around too and all in all was a rather lovely afternoon! Here are some pix.

Love these flowers, so sunny looking, outside a bank

Anguk is a bit of a mesh with old and new

The Owl Museum is really just a room packed literally to the rafters with things featuring owls... a kooky old lady started her obsession with owls in grade 2 and since then has been collecting... and collecting... it's pretty overwhelming, the bizarre things she deemed worthy to go behind glass, including a towel of Harry Potter and his owl, a pen with a tiiiiiiny little owl on it - which was a freebe from some university and (it's Korea, so it's obligatory) some neon flashing owls...

Inside the Owl Museum



Owl cookie.... about the size of a 1year-old baby

Mini Owls

After this I was told not to take photos so that's all I got but it was pretty funny experience. The fee to get in included a free drink so we sat after at tables alongside wee families whose children were given stamps and pens to draw owls... so we did too! Mine is now adorning my fridge.

Bizarro drawing on the wall outside the museum - Love it!

signage

An eave on a very old house and a persimmon tree

Halloween # Dul

So I officially LOVE Halloween. Because after all the history and feelings toward it, it's really just a chance to do three of the funnest things:
1) dress up
2) gather with heaps of friends
3) drink!

Mum always sheltered us from Halloween, I remember not being allowed to watch any Halloween specials on The Simpsons (which I completely understand and appreciate now, they're so graphic and I still hate watching them!), and there was no trick or treating (not that Omarama or Te Anau were very big on that)... definitely respect that decision.
But once I'm a grown up girl surrounded by North Americans, I see the benefits of the "holiday".
I kicked off my Halloween experience at Now Bar carving pumpkins. Was a lot of fun, very messy, but I was pretty pleased with mine:

Aidan, Ann, Sara, me and Michelle with our

skillfully carved pumpkins.

Yup, mine's the speckled one in the middle.

One proud jack-o-lantern-making Kiwi right here.

Then on Friday night I spent a lot of time and effort getting ready.I decided last minute to go as Edward Scissorhands, so mega washed out makeup, crazy teased hair, a friend's borrowed jacket and some pointy tinfoil cardboard creations for my hands. I love Edward Scissorhands, and it reminded me of when I was maybe 8, still in Omarama, and mum and dad had rented it the night before from the dairy. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and they asked me to walk to the dairy and return it, however I hadn't even left my street when I was freaking out that his scissorhands would reach out from the videotape and cut me! I popped into my friend's house to get a bag to take it the rest of the way. Bless.

We all gathered in the park for "Trick or Drink", a tikitour through Yeongtong to particular people's apartment where we all had a shot. Some were nice but most were quite disgusting and passable... but it was a lot of fun just wandering around the streets in a major parade - the police apparently suggested to us to keep it down!

Sara the ladybug dishing out yummy

fruity shots at her apartment.


Aidan created this evil skeleton Legoman
costume - and then let off fireworks in it

Jeremy as Venus Williams (with a Serena in tow)

And old Edward Scissorhands, possibly

cutting up his face?

Scaring Koreans

Full frontal of the costume - I was pretty pleased with it!

Michelle and I had some time to kill waiting for

friends in the park so climbed the fountain.

Michelle the Cass bottle (Korean beer)

Prentending to be a drunken Korean...

Eventually we arrive at Now Bar where the party continued:

Benusa the Sheriff

Edward Scissorhands attempts to show some moves to

Veronica the Tae-kwon-do Kid (sidebar: people are convinced

we're separated at birth and confuse us a lot - pointy noses etc)

Marty the Ninja

Kate the Penguin and Ed with my pumpkin

Penguin and Aidan-Legoman

Benusa Sheriff again

Michelle and I

Cass and Ryan as Mrs C

Sheriff has a long cold one after a hard day on the beat