And so this was Christmas...

Some highlights (and bright lights) from our 2009 Seoul, Korea Christmas.

Seoul-ites do their Christmas lights a little bit differently. They prefer to cloak and entire building in lights. Below is city hall.

We spent Christmas Eve with some friends looking at Christmas lights around the city.

Here we are in line waiting to get knife noodles at a restaurant in Myeong-dong, a big shopping district.

Our Christmas lunch. Korean made wine, Cheese from Brendan's mother, and Crackers.

Korean Salvation Army bell-ringers!

Presents, stockings (filled!), advent calendars and better cheddars from Nancy.

Home made Chocolate chip cookies from my Dad and Beth.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas blog-readers!

...now we're off to Busan!

It's so nice when you have people that care enough about you to buy you gifts, pack them up, go down to the post office, wait in line and pay exorbitant fees to ship to Korea. Brendan and I aren't going to have too shabby of a Christmas from the looks of the piles of presents in both of our apartments.

Thanks parents!

Lots of content!

TGIF PEOPLE!

The one and only picture of my tree lit up. Soon after this was taken, the light bulbs starting exploding and then the tree went entirely out. Apparently 220 volts of electricity were a few too many. They do look unusually bright, don't they?

Some pictures of my after-school class. Their task this semester was to remake High School Musical. There were mixed results. In any case, they had fun speaking the English language and that's my main goal. I can't believe I'm giving the peace sign, these Koreans are rubbing off on me.

This girl is my greatest actress. She played the villainess. She's probably the only one who took it even remotely seriously. Notice the two little heads peeking through the window behind us.

Here is a video of the Seoul Lantern Festival. The images were taken a while back, but I set it to a techno version of Deck the Halls because I'm feeling Christmasy.

I recently started painting again in an effort to spend less time watching tv on my laptop or vacantly staring off into space. My first effort was pretty terrible. Second less so.

My students are taking exams all next week, so I have half days. On Monday, all of the teachers in my office and I will be going to Everland. It's supposed to be Korea's best amusement park. We shall see. If it follows the trend of the rest of this country, it will be a really crowded hack version of an American theme park.

Check out where I'm going in February. Sweeeeeeeeet!

By the way, I'm finally not sick! (Knock on Wood)

It's snowing!

My tree!

My wonderful mother sent me a tree and some presents to put under it. The lights don't work because they cant be plugged into a korean outlet and I had no ornaments or star. I remedied this by putting my stuffed Kujo at the top of the tree and decorating it with family photos.

It is rock star.

Well, we had a really good Thanksgiving on Saturday. We went to a friend of a friends apartment who is Korean-American. There was a mix of Americans, Canadians, and Koreans there including his aunts who made a bunch of Korean food to go with the American Thanksgiving food.

It was pretty good. The funniest thing was that everyone only has toaster ovens, so there were multiple tiny dishes of casseroles instead of one large one. We brought tomatoes stuffed with mozzarella cheese and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, chocolate chip cookies, and a huge jug of sangria. It was really fun. It was nice to just sit around with multiple English speakers and talk. I think everyone was afraid that there wouldn't be enough food, so we had all brought entirely too much. We also played the game catchphrase to mix it up a little. We found out towards the end of the night that it was the host, Brian's Korean Aunt's 60th birthday, so we established one of the cakes as a birthday cake and had her blow out some candles. I was really afraid when first coming to Korea that the major holidays would be sad and depressing for me. I found that you can have a "family" atmosphere wherever you go. This might have been one of my favorite Thanksgivings yet!

The next day Brendan and I went Christmas shopping around some of the big market streets. The day started out very productively until we got lost and couldn't find the last market that we were looking for. Then it ended up with two tired and slightly grumpy people eating a shrimp avocado burger at Lotteria (like Korean Burger King.)

I'm still not healthy. I have a terrible cough that causes everyone on the subway to run away from me. At least sometimes I get a little room to myself. I went back to the doctor today and got some antibiotics so hopefully that will help.

After my father mentioned the lack of people in my pictures i went back to take a look at them. I don't know how I managed to get 3 pictures without any people in them. There is usually a crush of people and absolutely no personal space here. My photos are very decieving. I always kind of laugh to myself when I'm on the subway. Just think of a hundred little black haired heads smushed together with my blonde one sticking up in the middle.

I have 21 days of vacation that I can use throughout the year, and I had been planning to use 10 or 11 when we go to the Philippines in February. The stipulation with our vacation days is that we must use them during student breaks (end of December, month of January and month of February, Month on July.) I found out of Friday that we will only have time for one week of vacation in July (5 working days) so I have to use up the rest of my vacation days in during the winter break. That amounts to 16 working days of vacation. On top of that, some of the days that I requested off were already holidays so, surprise! I now have a bunch of vacation time coming up. From December 24 to January 3, January 27 to 31, and February 13 to 28. I have no idea what to do with my time but i'm considering a ski trip, a train trip to southern Korea, a second trip to another part of The Philippines, or possibly another country. It all depends on airfare costs.

I went to the doctor today after work. I have a hacking cough that I feared was bronchitis. Walked in with no appointment and filled out no paperwork. Was seen after a 10 minute wait. Talked to the doctor for 5 minutes, he took my vitals and asked me some questions. He gave me a prescription. The pharmacist was located conveniently downstairs from the doctor's office.

Total cost of visit to doctor and prescription meds:

Doctor: W2,500.00 or about $2.20

Meds: W3,200 or about $3.00

Total time:

20 minutes

Sometimes I love this country.

And now a picture of my apartment building.

The street on which i live...

...and the street parallel to the street on which I live.

Brendan's blog entry #4

I’ve been meaning to post for a couple weeks now…

But I’ve been busy. A couple weeks ago my school asked me if I’d be interested in teaching after school classes at a different school. I hesitated, but it pays really well. I had to decide within the hour of them telling me and then leave for an interview. Got the job, and of course they told me I needed to start in 10 minutes (though they swore before hand I wouldn’t have to). Terrible time, not told what to do, how it was taught previously, and I was teaching grammar while reading what I was supposed to be teaching.

I work 8 hours extra a week, and get back around 6:45 as opposed to 5:00. Because I leave early for this I now have little to no time to lesson plan with my co-teacher for my regular classes. Plus, I have to write a separate lesson plan for each of those 8 extra. Also, I have to have grades for all my students for writing and grammar, as well as comments for each kid in one of the classes, by Wednesday. I know nothing about them, not even their names, and their grades are now based off of how well they answered about 10 one word answers while I looked over their shoulders. Completely arbitrary.

Extremely wore out right now, but this should pay for most of our trip come February. More interesting posts from me should be coming shortly.

I am sick...

This is the chair next to my bed.

I was going to take a picture of myself, but then I started coughing. So I just figure that it was appropriate.

What's up party people?

Yeah, so it's been a while since i've posted. I can feel the guilt washing over me.

This week was the Korean SAT. It's only for the seniors. We call them 3rd graders because High School is 3 years here and they are (obviously) in their 3rd year. I found this a little confusing at first but anyway. It was on Thursday. So I didn't have to come to work! Yay! It's a national test and it's pretty darn serious. Like, if you do badly it will ruin your life, serious. This test is weighted as 90% of your college application here. It's about 8 or 9 hours long. Kids prepare for it by studying 5 and 6 hours a day outside of school for YEARS. There are no make-up days even if you have swine flu. It's crazy. Planes are not allowed to fly on this day. Traffic is stopped for students. Parents sit outside the gates of the school and wait for their kids. What did I do on this all-important day you may ask? I cleaned Brendan's apartment and watch 5 episodes of America's Next Top Model. All of the other teachers (the Koreans) had to work that day proctoring the tests. One of the teachers told me today that a girl threw up in the middle of the listening test all over herself. Awesome. It's the pressure. It's insane here. Interested in reading more about it? You can find a news story here.

Hmmmm what else? Brendan and I got trivia every Thursday night at a foreigner bar in Itaewon. (That's the happening place for English speakers.) We've never won. Recently, we've paired up with a group of military micro-biologists and nurses and have come in second twice. The trivia is no-joke and has 5 separate sections. Somehow I always come out of there feeling dumber though...

Brendan is over his illness. Still don't know what it was but I suspect it was the regular old flu. He never even missed a day of work. The working Korean-style right there.

I've been shopping around for Christmas presents lately. I'm trying to get stuff bought up for everyone and sent out in time for the big day. Only 7 more shopping weeks till Santa is born and Jesus comes down the chimney!

I want some cranberry sauce. I don't think they grow cranberries in this country. I also want egg nog.

I'm a little concerned about all of the people in southern Virginia. Are you ok? Are you flooded?

It's finally getting cold here. I think it was in the upper 40's and lower 50's today. It also rained. Kind of depressing. Especially when the bottoms of your shoes are breaking away and street water pours in to greet your socks. Then you have wet feet all day. Ick. Plus the streets here are gross. I can't even get into how gross.

Koreans are not classy dressers. I wish I had pictures to show you but I will tell you why.

1) Shiny suits. I'm sick of seeing dudes walking around in pin stripes and shiny suits. It doesn't make you look important. It makes you look like your from the 80's.

2) Women here wear cut off shorts with tights and high heels. It's so pretty woman in this country.

3) Fur- they all wear it. That's just gross.

4) High-heeled tennis shoes. Apparently Koreans aren't all quite as tall as I thought, they're just sneaky.

5) I think Brendan has gone over this one: Clothes with incomprehensible English writing on them. Wow, you're shirt says, "Sweety girl toaster rebellion" and your bag is telling me, "Gives faces above paranoid..."

6) Men straighten their hair here. They also get perms.

7) Glasses with no lenses. Frames for fashion.

The DMZ!

We went to the DMZ this weekend! It was... OK.

I made a video about it for your enjoyment.

I forgot to add into the video that at the train station, a girl got on the train thinking that it was part of the tour and the doors closed on her. She was stuck inside the train while it took the hour long journey to Munsan. Lol.

Brendan's Apartment and Kelly's School Field Trip

So, this is a pretty picture heavy post but here we are...

BRENDAN'S APARTMENT:

Here is the view of Brendan's Apartment from the front door. It almost looks like amidget lives there!

Looking back at the front door at the shoe closet and trash sorting area..

Directly to your left when you enter is the "kitchen." Brendan is the only person I know with and oven. (It's the red thing.)

Looking back the the rest of the apartment from the kitchen. It's more like a glorified dorm room.

View of the closet and bathroom door. By the way, all of the purple bedding and wallpaper ame with the place.

The desk.

The bathroom.

His sweet shower with the rain shower head. You'll note that there is no seperate shower here, just a drain in the floor.

A look back at the book shelf.

KELLY'S FIELD TRIP

And now, my school field trip. The students took a break after exam week was over and took a field trip to the park. Their assignment? Paint a watercolor landscape. These are some of the winners during the judging process.

A temple at the park.

That bell is really old and used to hang in a monastery.

Korean museum that was next to the park. If you look in the distance you can see Seoul tower, which is their version of Seattle's space needle.

Two teachers "exercising" by swinging back and forth on these things.

One of these things is not like the others...

Some leaves are changing!

Students eating lunch. Skinny jeans are in here.

Students drawing in a pagoda.

This is what 500 asian high school girls look like.

Brendan's blog entry #3

A Korean, an Irishman, and a German walk into a kitchen, though none of them can cook. What do they make, you ask? My lunch today. A smorgasbord of heavenly delights, such as: rice (Korean), potatoes in a clear broth with seaweed (Irish, K), some sort of cross between Irish bacon & corned beef (I), and kimchi (spicy cabbage) that tasted of sauerkraut (German, K). Thank God I am sick, or I would have had no excuse not to eat it.

In my classes the students were allowed to pick an English name because there is no way I would remember their real name. Because of this I actually yell on a daily basis things like (names in bold):

l “Fire! Dog! Class is up front.

l “Superman and Human, please close your books!”

l “Wake up Dorito”

l “PC Room and Randy Johnson, please sit down”

l “Pain and Power Ranger, stop talking!”

l “Better Cruiser, give Sun Chip his eraser”

l “Musician, can you ask Yoshi ‘How are you doing?’”

l “Kareem (I named him), what’s #2?”

l “Yes, Cherry and Sickly, you can go to the bathroom.”

l “Terminator, turn around!”

l “Tank, stop!”

l “Mario, can you ask White Mario ‘How was your weekend?’”

DMZ

We're going to the DMZ on Saturday! (Demilitarized Zone) Hopefully we won't get sniped.

Finally took at trip to Costco on Saturday. Bought $300 worth of stuff. We were there for over 3 hours. It's cool because I finally have cheetos (enough to last for the rest of the year.) We also got some Australian steaks, mustard, sushi, Ritz, Dr Pepper, Gatorade, Budweiser, paper towels...the list goes on. We got up to the cash register and found out that they only accept Samsung cards. Who knew? I had never heard of Samsung cards in my life. It makes sense though, considering Samsung and LG make and own everything in this country. So, I got to hold up the line while Brendan made a mad dash for the ATM which, of course, was at the other end of the store. Good times. Then there was the dilemma of getting all of our purchases home without a car. I did not think about this. I finally flagged down a cab driver who was nice enough to block traffic while we loaded up his cab. He even drove us straight to our front door and helped unload the car. Classy.

Brendan is sick. Working with Elementary school children, "the gift that keeps on giving." Don't worry it's PROBABLY not the swine flu. He's taking alot of Vitamin C and the medicine that the pharmacist gave him. We have no idea what said medicine is, by the way.

I have pictures to load of our past weekend fun but, my camera cord is at my apartment and I haven't been there in over a week. Maybe tomorrow?

Kelly's haircut

So, after a long delay, I finally got up the nerve to walk into a hair salon and get my haircut! There were communication problems, Yes. But, there were also pictures. I knew I wanted bangs and to keeps it long. I ended up with a very Korean style haircut that I don't hate. What do you think? Brendan hates it, I think. The people I work with love it, but they're Korean. Anyway, I haven't had bangs since I was about 10 so I thought it was time for a change.

Before:

After: