Chuseok!

Hi! So the last week I was lucky enough to get a break from school. Tuesday ,Wednesday, and Thursday were the Korean Thanksgiving. On the Friday before the holiday week we had a big celebration in honor of the thanksgiving. All of the teachers (Korean and Foreign) had to wear Hanbok. Hanbok are the traditional Korean Dresses and Outfits worn by women and Men for holidays such as Chuseok (Thanksgiving) and the lunar new year. I thought the hanbok looked comfortable and airy. Boy was a I wrong! The material (some form of silkish fabric) did not breath at all. It was like we were in hot tents. We had to wear them all day while we did different activities. The kids did too!!!!!

Here is me with 2 of my coteachers, Katie and Jenny. Here is Jenny with our class. Here is me with our class.

The kids did arts and crafts in their fancy hanboks and then we made Songpyeon in their fancy clothes. Songpyeon are rice flour balls that have beans in the middle and are a traditional food of this holiday. So we made these for a while and then the school thought it would be a great idea for all of the kindergarteners to go to the park down the street to play traditional Chuseok games in their best clothes.

Hahaha ridiculous. They played tug a war and a game kind of like hackysack in the sand around the park while wearing extremely expensive silk outfits! We were also in our Hanbok in the hot hot hot sun and on the dirty playground. Ridiculous.

Sally immediately stripped off the sleeves/ties of her hanbok as did all of the kids in our class. It was soooo hot and I cranked up the air and turned down the temperature as far as I could so the kids would stay dressed.
Jenny and Yellow Class
My Munchkins
Us being silly. You can admire how beautiful I look in my baggy fancy hanbok.

Anyways during the actual festival I had time off from school. The First day (Tuesday) I stayed home allllll dya because it was torrential rainfall from 5am until 10pm. It made tons of apartments flood along with restaurants.

The next day our street was on the news because it was some of the worst flooding in all of Seoul. Two of the foreigner teachers had basement apartments that flooded (not ruined but pretty bad). Never been happier to be on the 3^rd floor. 3 days later and they were still draining the basement of the big apartment building nearby.

The Second day of Chuseok I went and visited some of the touristy areas. Seoul was pretty dead but the touristy areas had some traffic.

These aren't actually my kids, but instead some of the kids that I saw the day I wandered around the touristy areas. hahah

Thursday, the weather was amazing and I went to this park not too far from my house (by subway). I LOVED IT. It was the best day of break. I walked through the park admiring the awesome fountains and public art. Later two friends met up with me and we biked all along the han river. This park went all along the han river for kilometers and kilometers. It was amazing. We returned the bikes an watched the little kids play in the fountains (they were made for this) and we watched this two year old boy for a while who was soooo cute. Afterwards when they walked by his mom told him to give us kisses and he came and kissed my cheek. It was so precious.

Here is the park on the river looking over the city!!!

Super cool water stairs.
Devon and Thom posing by the Fisherman statue!
Me posing on my bike! Yes, that is right, I biked for 2 hours!

Well anyways the break was nice and tomorrow I have the last free day until school starts up again! One last picture. I feel like I never left Milwaukee! Miller time!

Happy Chuseok !

My Class

Hello and Happy Sunday! I thought I would update my blog today with a bunch of pictures of my class! Then maybe another post with other stuff.

So my schedule is as follows

10am Kindergarten

12:20 lunch break

1:20 More Kindergarten

2:40 First Grade

4:00 Second grade

5:30 Third or Above

7 HOME

So here are my kindergartners! I have 6!

This is Daniel! He is very cute and cuddly and sometimes very very naughty.

Here is Jack. The one winking! He is super smart and spikes his hair daily. He likes to be a little smart alec because he knows he can get away with it!
This is Grace. She is so sweet and quiet, but a very good student
This is Shawn. You can tell he is my student : )
Leo doesn't like pictures unless he can act like a monkey. He is a real cutie, but he can be really naughty as well!

Shawn doing another face for me.

My last student is Sally. She is sitting next to Peter (he is in a different class). Sally is my darling little monkey who loves to hold my hand and kiss my cheek!
This is Yerial. She is in a different class that I watched for the fist week. She is such a doll!
June is in the same class. He is such a handsome little boy. He is going to be such a heartbreaker!
So this is my class (getting ready for lunch) Starting with the back left: Jack, Shawn, Leo, Daniel, Grace, and Sally.

Teaching them is quite hard right now because they have only been in school for 2 weeks. They don't know how things work yet and my job involves lots of cuddling and yelling. They are all 4 or 5 and this school is a lot of work. They are learning from a book that teaches them how to read and speak English. Most of them can write decent Korean already. Crazy I know!

They require a lot of energy, but I think in another 2 weeks or so they will understand how school works and hopefully take less energy from me! After teaching them I still have 3 more looooong classes!