Halloween, Move to Baekseok, Lantern Festival,

Kangaroo class

Panda class

The week of Halloween was very fun for all of our students and us. Monica and her students made dancing skeletons, tissue ghosts, paper jack-o-lanterns, and masks. On Friday, students at both schools dressed up in costumes (mostly princesses, power rangers, and witches) and were ready to eat as much candy as possible. Halloween isn’t a big holiday in Korea, it’s really only the foreigners who dress up and go out and the little kids if they are at a school that has foreign teachers. This is why so many students have the same costume because the big department stores only sell 3 different costumes.

On Friday, Kyle brought a big bag of toilet paper to school and had his students do mummy races, which all of the kids really enjoyed. We found it somewhat odd that all of the students brought their own candy that was then put into each homeroom teachers’ bag of candy and then redistributed to all of the kids, but we think teachers may have sent out a notice telling parents to send their kids to school with candy. Who knows?

Mike, Monica, Hannah

Danny as a mummy

Jade had the best costume; he was a gangster

Parrot/Dolphin class

Baekseok's Parrot, Dolphin, & Kangaroo class

Friday evening marked a very sad moment for Kyle, who was the only person at Daehwa school (all of the Korean teachers were at Baekseok setting up/cleaning their new classrooms). Kyle stayed to take down all of the Halloween decorations and said a last good-bye to the place he learned to teach in. A neglected building, whose heat had been permanently turned off because Kwon refused to pay the heating bills, whose halls and rooms were filled with fond memories, countless frustrating phone calls and conversations, moments of students grasping the English language, an organized and smoothly run school, and an overall good time had by all of those who have been inside its walls. It was a very sad day indeed for our story’s hero. Would he survive Baekseok and all of the unorganized hell that it rains upon those caught in its path? Would the chaos that surrounds Baekseok destroy our hero’s positive outlook of Korea as it has already destroyed our once happy and joyful heroine’s? Only time will tell dear readers, only time will tell….

At a traditional Korean style restaurant

That Saturday night we went to an International Food & Wine Festival with Kyle’s friend Blaine, who has lived in Korea for 7 years, his wife, Jamie, who is Korean, Canadian Monica, and some of Blaine’s & Jamie’s friends. The IF&WF was $30 for all you can eat and drink for 3 hours. Not a bad deal, except that we hit awful traffic getting into Seoul and what should have been a 45 minute trip took us 2 hours!! However, we showed up ready to wine and dine and had lox for the first time since being in Korea and it was delicious! There was also delicious sangria and Kyle enjoyed a ginger cocktail. After the IF&WF ended, we suited up in our hanboks, the traditional Korean garb, and were ready for a night on the town. We went as Koreans for Halloween.  Needless to say, we had the best costumes out of anyone we encountered that evening. We went to a part of Seoul called Sinchon and actually got us and everyone in our party into a club (that was charging $30/person) for free because the owner liked our costumes so much. Random Koreans kept coming up to us and asking us to take pictures with them. Come on, our hanboks are pretty sweet.


On Monday, Nov 1, Kyle joined me in hell. It didn’t take too long for him to experience the kind of shit I have been dealing with for 8.5 months. For example, Kyle teaches a story telling class and Joann (the manager of Baekseok) just threw a random kid into Kyle’s class without saying a word to Kyle or the student. Fortunately, I arrived at the scene seconds after this happened and knew the student because he should have been up in my class at this time. I introduced Kyle to James and was able to give Kyle a quick rundown on James. 2.5 hours later, Joann does this again to Kyle, except that she tells him, “Elementary class now. 3:30-5:00pm,” and puts Kyle in a room with a sobbing little boy. By this point in time Kyle is furious. The little boy, Daniel, happens to be one of my student’s younger brothers, but he doesn’t speak, he clearly had no idea what was going on because we found out that Joann had put him in Mike’s class initially, but that Daniel then just started crying because he was so overwhelmed (Mike’s kids speak a fair amount of English and Daniel is just a beginner). Then Daniel was given a book that was ½ finished and another book that was way too difficult for his level. :/


Last weekend, Nov 6, we went into Seoul to see a Lantern Festival. There were lanterns from Korea, China, and Japan, although not as many as we were expecting. The lanterns were all set up in this river that runs through Seoul. It is kind of like a canal because there are walls on both sides of the river, but it’s about 40 ft wide and goes on for miles.  While we were perusing the lanterns and making our way down the river, we saw a hot air balloon being set-up. We thought it would be exciting to sit and watch the hot air balloon inflate especially since it was being done in such a tiny space. We also noticed that Koreans are attracted to fire like moths to light. We were quickly surrounded by hundreds of Koreans wanting to watch the hot air balloon. This is fine, except that even the Koreans who were much father away and unable to see anything had to stop and look whenever they heard a blast of fire inflating the balloon. The festival was fun except that we got caught in a ridiculous crowd when trying to leave. It took us an hour to walk about a block because there were SOOO many people. And Koreans are pretty pushy. We had ajumas, old Korean woman, trying to push people forward even though there was no place to go. There was even a moment when I became temporarily claustrophobic because there were so many people pushing me from all sides that I was actually being crushed. Korean crowds are a thing to avoid we have decided.

Horde of people

Japanese Lantern

Interesting cultural note:  Many countries celebrate November 11 by honoring veterans or by remembering the signing of the Armistice.  In Korea, however, they celebrate Pepero day.  Peperos are Korea's equivalent to pocky.  (For those of you who may not know what pocky is, it is a biscuit stick dipped in chocolate).  Koreans celebrate Pepero day on Nov. 11 because two pepero sticks next to each other make an 11.  *shakes head*  Oh Korea....    


We are off to Gyeongju this weekend. The original capital of Korea before it was changed to Seoul. We are going to catch the subway straight from work and head into Seoul (about an hour long subway ride) and then catch a bus that will take us straight to Gyeongju (4 hours). It should be a fun weekend filled with authentic Korean landmarks, something that is rare in Korea since most original things were destroyed by the Japanese and North Korea.


We hope all of you are well!   Miss you!   Love, K & M