Holiday Cheer

Well, it's been quite a while since I updated my blog.

And I regret to inform you that I haven't been up to anything invigoratingly exciting... Instead, I've been keeping to myself alot and not doing a whole lot. I think I have been in a bit of a fog recently. The school has been working hard at getting ready for the Christmas play, which occurs in 3 days time. I can't believe how well the students are doing at it - each class of students (never more than 8 students or so) is preparing a 15-minute play/skit with one or two songs. In a second language. I wasn't doing that myself until I was in high school... and some of these kids are 3 years old...

Regardless, our director is aiming to have a *perfect* production, and this pressure is filtering down from the management to affect the teachers and consequently, the students. I'd like to say that I'm damn proud of my students for being so good. They've done a great job of preparing and memorizing their lines and songs.

Everything is getting crammed together at school - phone testing is early because of our winter break, which gets mashed up with the level testing that was considered "pressing" for some reason (???), along with preparations for the play. We've all been under a bit more pressure recently. I've tried to get out and get some Christmas shopping done on top of that. I went two weekends ago to Insa-dong's shopping and picked up a tour of Tapgol Park in the process... rather impromptu. I *ahem* still haven't finished my shopping, but seeing as I've already missed the deadline to send things home in time for Christmas by several weeks, I'm in no real hurry...

Loralee will be arriving soon. I hope she has a good time. I will be heading in to Seoul's Incheon Airport to pick her up on Friday morning - her flight arrives at 6:30 A.M., and I need to travel for 2 hours to get there, meaning I need to leave my house at about 4:00 A.M. to get there in time. Then, it'll be a dash back home to make it to school by 10:00 A.M. That should be a fun day. :-)

Well, I should get going. It's nearly 2:30 A.M. here now and I need to get home to rest my brain cells for tomorrow. Play practice requires the freshest and most thespian brain cells available at my disposal! Mwahaa~!

Have a Wonderful Festive Season, and a Happy New Year!

Two weeks ago (or was it three?), the students had a hands-on lesson in making kimchi. Some of the ingredients: Korean cabbage, red pepper, salt, pepper, fish sauce, pickled radish, spinach, garlic, ginger, etc. It's tasty stuff! 

Cabbage-a-licious! 

Two weekends ago, I headed to Tapgol park. This is one of hundreds of similar carvings in the subways station where I got off. Tapgol park is the place famous for the reading of the Korean Declaration of Independence. It was a really nice place. 

A statue of the Declaration of Korean Independence being read.  

The Octagonal Building of Tapgol Park. According to the plaque that descibed it, it was built in 1897, and was originally used for musical performances for the royal family. However, it is famous for being the site where the Declaration of Korean Independence was first read aloud to the masses of 4-5000 people before the March First Independent movement of 1919. The Declaration was read for a group of students and the crowd waved flags, shouting "Long live Korean Independence", before marching to Daehanmun. This began demonstrations that would spread across the whole country. 

Here is a stone monument - the base was a giant turtle. The picture is a little dark, and for that I apologize. Adjust the contrast and brightness of your monitors accordingly... :-( 

This is a really cool 15-ton stone monument that was of two dragons rising up from the back of a giant turtle. 

The Ten-Storied Stone Pagoda of Wongaksa. It is national treasure #2, and is encased in protective glass. 

In Tapgol Park - a line of murals to commemorate the Korean people overcoming the Japanese occupation of Korea.  

This is a sculpture at Tapgol park. I liked this mural especially, because it reminded me of the famous Delacroix painting "Liberty leading the people". Go check out the link to see what I'm talking about.

http://www.abcgallery.com/D/delacroix/delacroix10.html

A picture of the wall at "Cafe the Leafy". It reflected my feelings about Christmas quite deftly... in a sublime sort of way. 

Here is a delicious cup of Cappucino at my favoite coffee shop - "Cafe the Leafy". I took a picture because of the goofy face staring at me from my coffee. Can you see it? Two beady eyes, a big bulbous nose and a smile that contours the nose. It's as if the coffee was chuckling "huh, huh... drink me! A-hyuk!" 

This past weekend Terri and I went into Itaewon for a Christmas supper - Indian buffet. It was delicious. Anyway, I don't know why this picture appealed to me - perhaps it was the hoards of nude mannequins in the window, apparently abandonned and left to rot at the mercy of time, or perhaps it was the store's name - Bee. R. Either way, it was wacky in an oddball sort of way.  

Charlie on his Birthday. Silly hats and birthdays seem to be making a trend on my blog, huh? 

Here we all are at Pizza Hut for Charlie's birthday brunch. This was 2 Saturdays ago, when we had to come in to work early on a Saturday for a new-parent-introduction-day/recruitment thingy. Hence the snazzy threads. 

Charlie goes insane and tried to eat the wax pizza. Jo helps Charlie go insane. 

This picture was taken December 3rd. It shows how there are still roses in bloom. Strange, huh? I like how the fire hydrant and the rose are battling to see who can be redder - I think the fire hydrant wins... but can you blame the rose? It's DECEMBER! 

This is a typical snack for the kids at snack time - dried anchovies, dried black beans, and dok-bokki. Dok-bokki is a Korean dish consisting of large, thick rice noodles (and I mean THICK as far as being called a noodle goes). It is coated with a spicy-sweet sauce and also has some green onions and odang. Odang is fish noodle strips. The dok-bokki is ok, and the beans are nice and sweet, but I can't stomach the anchovies. 

Here is Gyeongbokgung palace. It is about an hour and a half on the subway from where I live. Louise came in from Gunsan to see the palace and invited me along. It was cold, wet, and rainy, but interesting nonetheless. Afterwards, we went to Itaewon for burritos. Mmmm. Burritos... 

Here is the outer entrance to the palace. Notice the wall of rain that makes the pictures blurry? Yeah, it was freezing cold and raining... 

Here is the outer gate. Yeah, yeah. I know - it's blurry. My photo taking skills are going down the tubes. 

This is the outer gate to the palace. The entire palace is surrounded with a great wall. It was really big. You may notice the picture is a bit crooked - that's due to me holding the camera with one hand and the umbrella with the other. It wasn't exactly ideal photo-taking conditions.  

Here is the main entrance to the palace. This is where the guards were. The colours are amazing on the room beams. Unfortunately, you really need to be here to see it for yourself! 

Here is the main pavillion seen from afar. The rain makes it look a little blurry and grey... 

The architecture was pretty interesting to me. It was very decorative.  

Some of the architectural frill. It was cool. Here is a picture of two cranes swirling in a yin-yang-like pattern. Get a closer view by clicking on the picture.