Sorry we haven’t updated in awhile, life has been a little crazy and until this past week we really haven’t done anything too exciting.
2 weeks ago, I decided to explore Seoul’s Forever 21 and H&M. Unfortunately their clothes here are not as great a buy as they are at home, which made me sad, but I have found super cheap shirts and skirts at other random stores, such as stores in the bigger subway stations.
Last week was Kyle’s birthday and we were fortunate enough to not have school the day after because of Children’s Day. Yay! We had a good time going out with Tim & Ivan and just stayed in our area for the night; lots of craziness ensued.
This Wednesday, Kyle’s and my school got to go on a field trip to Paju, where there is an English Village. Paju is one of the closet cities to North Korea, we could actually see North Korea from the bus on the drive to the English Village. < http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=paju+on+a+map+of+south+korea&ie=UTF8&hq=paju&hnear=South+Korea&ll=38.000491,126.639404&spn=2.151223,4.943848&z=8&iwloc=A > North Korea was not only identifiable because of all of the barbed wire fences we drove by, and the military shacks stationed every mile or so, but the South Korean side was green and luscious, and North Korea looked brown, bare, and desolate. We’ve heard that the English Village’s initial goal was to have English speaking foreigners move here and actually create a village. It also has dormitories so that it could function as a type of summer camp for kids to learn English. In reality, it’s a cheesy place to go where a 5x larger than life model of Stonehenge looms over the front entrance, which turns out to be airport security.
It was pretty dead when we went and nothing was open, but I imagine it’s supposed to be a lame educational park. There was a large amphitheater area where both schools sat, and the kids got to run around for 3 hours. Lunch was interesting since they hadn’t told us to bring anything to eat with us; the teachers pretty much mooched off of the kids’ lunches. At first we felt bad, but then we saw that their lunches were huge, so we all shared. Here are some great pictures from the field trip:
One of Kyle's students, Aiden, blowing a dandelion
Tim being chased by a band of students
One of Kyle's students, Kevin, playing in the fountain
One of my favorite students, Lucy
One of Kyle's students, Leo
The most adorable little boy in the world, Danny, from Kyle's school. Can I keep him?
Our kids then had a puppet show on Thursday, apparently this month is the month of field trips. (Why waste all of your field trips in 1 month,?! I don’t know because I would much rather have them spread out over the year, but wait…remember where we are….Korea. Yeah. Common sense doesn’t really exist here, especially when it comes to our director and knowing how to run a school). Anyway, our director didn’t want to pay for us to go to the puppet show, so we got a 2.5 hour lunch which was pretty sweet. No complaint on our end.
Today (Saturday) is Teacher’s Day, so some of the kids brought in gifts for the teachers on Friday. I got some special Korean soap, 2 free movie passes, and some Dior face lotion. Kyle got some body wash, sunscreen, flowers, and a starbucks gift card. Tim and I picked up soju for all of the Korean teacher’s at our school. They all laughed and thought it was pretty funny since soju as a gift for Koreans is apparently some sort of a joke. Friday was a good day though.
This weekend is the Lotus and Lantern Festival in Seoul. Should be exciting! We get a 3 day weekend next week because Friday is Buddha’s birthday, so we are off to Busan. More adventures to come!
Hope this finds you all well. We miss you! Love from Korea, M & K