Big update!

Here are just some random pictures from the last few days. This is a LONG post so stick with me, there are tons of pics and a vlog in here. STAY WITH ME PEOPLE. I think it's worth it!

Moving on.

not sure if I posted these before, but lots
of Kpop stars are on socks here. I bought
TOP ones cause I think he's awesome
and I LOVE Big Bang

My students excitedly presented me with
this half of a sandwich Tuesday. I think
it means they like me.

So here is an example of one of my classes. My students were learning "Do you know about _______? It's a famous _______ in ________!" so my coteacher and I decided to do a fun activity (since the book was super boring). My school has a ton of hats just hanging out, so we picked out about a dozen and matched them with famous places (which required some imagination... things that are really famous to us may not be famous to Korean children). So they would have to make a conversation based on the hat. It was a lot of fun! Here are some pics of one of the classes

Iron man = stark tower

The Amazon Rainforest

The Pyramids

Their topic was the Carribean

Victoria Falls- cause the afro represents
Africa? See, imagination is very
necessary for lesson planning

This one was the leaning tower of Pisa

My students also had to write a suggestion of a famous
person or place for Christina Teacher. This student
wrote about Admiral Yi Sun Shin (aka Sun sin lee).
His ship was designed to look like a turtle

And of course we also went shopping

ICE CREAM

YUM

Ok so now a LOT has happened in the last few days, since I had another long weekend. I started a Korean class with Sarah, and it's TOUGH but I think it will help a lot. Though, the person who was teaching us (she's the center manager, not our normal teacher) kept saying "Easy right?? SO EASY!!"  Language teaching tip. Don't tell people your native language is easy to learn. It's not. I WILL KEEP STUDYING!!!

Anyway, so that was Wednesday night. I started getting a tingle in my throat and by  the time I got home I felt AWFUL. So I dedicated Thursday, Foundation Day, to sleeping and catching up on TV, and also experimenting with a pizza place near me to see if it lived up to the hype of being semi-normal pizza (Koreans like WAY TOO MANY toppings on their pizza).

So even though it was a slow day, it was a successful one. 

Pizza School pizza- $5 and NO CRAZY
TOPPINGS. DELICIOUS

So after resting all day Thursday, on Friday I headed out to the bank (I had another day off!! So spoiled!!!) and hopefully I can now transfer money home (I hate banking here. Honestly, they treat me like I'm an idiot for not knowing how their extremely complex system works. Oh well). I felt well enough to venture down to Jinju for the lantern festival, also known as the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival, in case you wanna google it.


If you remember my pictures from the Ottawa Winterleude festival, there was a small portion of that dedicated to recreating this festival, so it was really cool to go see the real thing (check out that post here)

First of all, the bus was SO COMFY. It had
these big recliner seats. SO NICE

At the festival

Tunnel of lanterns

awesome dragon

The fortress is open later than normal, specifically
for the festival

Changing of the guard

This is the story of the woodcutter who steals women's
clothes while they're bathing

Batman Lantern

There are tons of lanterns floating on the river

The fan dance

A shrine dedicated to Nongae, a Korean
entertainer who seduced a Japanese general
and committed a murder suicide by grabbing him and
throwing herself into the river so he'd drown. The rock
is called "The Rock of Righteousness" 

not sure what they're praying to. Eggs?

I love this one

Playing the gayageum

Then there was a section of handmade lanterns

This guy is my favorite

I made a vlog to try and capture the magic. 

So that was awesome. On Saturday, I met up with a bunch of friends and we headed out to the Seoul International Fireworks Festival, where 4 countries put on fireworks displays. This year, Canada, Japan, France and Korea participated. Korea was awesome and Japan's was the best. They totally beat out the Western countries

The 63 building. It used to be the tallest
in Seoul

Japan had these cool shooting star ones that just
hung there for a good minute or so! COOL

So that was awesome, despite the MOB. Seriously, like a million people show up to this. It was great though. 

Sorry about the long post, It's been a busy weekend!!!! LOVE YOU ALL