Adventures in Eating, Retro Edition

So, this is from quite awhile ago, but we forgot to post it. Here, we are eating durian in Borneo. It's big, spiky fruit that has the consistency of a rotten vegetable. The videos are pretty self-explanatory.

Adventures in eating

Here Brendan and his cousin Joey try some beondegi, silk worm larvae.


Here we all try some live octopus.

An interesting article regarding education in Korea.

This article is a pretty straightforward assessment of what Korean kids are facing in regards to school and competition in education.

Bali Pics

Bali

Do you know South Korea?

Just in case you ever might have wondered why we live in South Korea, or why we have stayed.

This video shows some of the really great things about living here, including the food, the seasons, the culture, and most of all- the kids. :)

link fixed

Current temperature in Seoul, Korea: 35 degrees F.
Current temperature in Bali, Indonesia: 86 degrees F.

I'm ready for a 50 degree jump baby!

Daydreaming of Spring

I'm getting pretty tired of wearing leggings under my pants, walking through snow, pounding my feet on the floor to shake out the numbness, and typing with gloves on. Today I am dreaming of Spring. Korea is beautiful in the springtime. Last year in April, we had to make a decision about staying in Korea for another contract and the beautiful weather was a heavy influence.

Next Friday we are leaving for Bali and will be back March 1st. After that, spring is just around the corner right?

A perfect example of Korean Middle School girls...

Korean Boy Bands

This is a video by a boy band called TVXQ. It's not a joke, it's a real video. Very popular with my middle school students. The blonde one, who looks like the main character from the Legends of Zelda is called "Hero." He's considered the hottest one. Had to post this, I bet you wont be able to tear your eyes away.

you're welcome.

Back from America

We recently returned from our whirlwind trip to America. We saw many friends and family (although not everyone that I hoped to!) It was fun and exhausting, but now we are back and a week and a half into teaching our winter break classes.

During the winter, Korean schools close for the month of January and part of February. Instead of giving us hard working teachers all of the time off however, we get the task of designing a 3 week "Winter Camp" for our students. Right now, I'm teaching 3 one hour long classes a day. I've themed them, Harry Potter. So everything I teach for 3 weeks is based around the Harry Potter movies. In retrospect, this may not have been a good idea. I'm already tired of Harry Potter and we're barely halfway through. Oh well, we're running with it.

Brendan and I have our last vacation for a while coming up at the end of February. We've decided to spend a week in Bali, Indonesia with a short stopover in Hong Kong on the way back. We initially hadn't planned to visit Hong Kong, but we ended up having a long layover there, so we extended it to a day, and are going to try and get some good Chinese food and see the downtown area. When we're in Bali, we plan to go spend most of our time in the Gili Islands, a set of 3 islands off of the coast where they have good snorkeling and diving. We may also take a day trip to Komodo to see the Komodo dragons (a giant lizard only found in this part of the world.) Lastly we will be spending a day in Ubud, an inland city set in the midst of terraced rice paddies in the mountains. it's supposed to be beautiful. We're booking our tickets tonight!

Anything will be better than the harsh winter that we've been having in Korea. I've never been so cold. My school has decided to try and save movey on heating, so my office is frigid. I have to wear foot warmers in my shoes or my feet feel like iceblocks. This is no way to live! There is snow everywhere and the current high is 27 and the low is 10. I would say that today is warm compared to our recent weather. Once i get home to our nice, warm apartment, it'svery difficult to get me to leave and brave the elements. Last night Brendan warmed us both up by making some spicy chili. It was delicious. I'll leave you with a few pics of Bali. :)