Post Dokdo long weekend, Lanterns and Rise.

I'm combining my last week with this week's blog post, because I'm lazy and it's easier for me haha.

English here is always entertaining

It's almost conistently legit fall weather, so I've
started drinking hot drinks again. I also finally
started drinking hot chocolate again, after
like a 10 year, flu-induced hiatus

I have to choose between these three to see Jekyll & Hyde!
I'm leaning towards the guy on the right, Park Eun Tae.

Foundation Day off meant TIME FOR SHOPPING!!

II'm so tempted to buy this bag, bad English
and all. May Ican you?

This is funny because if you're a kpop fan, you know that
TVXQ broke up like 5 years ago when 3 members left.
TVXQ performs as a duo now.

Accurate shirt is accurate. Wealthy people at
the top, poor people at the bottom

Creepy mannequins for H&M

Guys dressed as soju bottles wandering
around Hongdae. Typical.

Cesca and I shouldn't be allowed to shop
after payday. This is the result. Edae was
very good to us!

Last Saturday, we checked out the International Fireworks Festival down by the Han River. We sat farther away to avoid the crowds, but we still had a decent view of the fireworks.

It was a beautiful night, but the wind near the river made us
really chilly

Namsan in the distance

By the 3rd or 4th set, most people had left, so our
view was mostly unobstructed

Sunday was again relaxing. I hung with Cesca, shopped for groceries, cleaned my apartment (this is important info for later), caught up on TV and my last blog, and was casually surfing the internet and getting ready for bed/the week ahead.

SO THEN THIS FUCKING HAPPENS.

OH AWESOME AND SUNDAY NIGHT AROUND 10 OCLOCK I SEE THIS BITCH AND I'M LIKE AW HELL NAH SO I RUN DOWN AND GET SOME RAID AND ATTACK THAT BIOTCH AND BAM. 

Apparently this is something one must deal with in cities... I've literally never seen a cockroach before in my life, and certainly haven't seen one for a year here. I asked Young Ah what to do, and she (as well Sarah) assured me that it occasionally happens this time of year, and they are usually just wandering in from the cold (or another apartment *shudder*). If I see them consistently, then I should start to worry. But, seeing as I JUST cleaned my ENTIRE apartment Sunday afternoon and didn't see this guy till the late evening, I'm hoping for the best right now. 

Onto the week of relative easiness.

I've seen hell. It's turning around in your chair
to discover a line of students waiting to
play for their recorder test. They
all insist on practicing. Whyyyy??

My students had to draw a fake Social Media page and make a sort of diary entry about what they did recently. I didn't assign this, they did it while I was in Dokdo, but Young Ah asked me to look at them and write some comments. Here are my favorites:

Chicken is our god. I wrote "I looooove
chicken! 먹고 싶어~~ :)" (it means I want to eat it)

I'm sure he meant hair, but I like to troll my
students when I can.

I loved this picture. My students really like
chicken haha

I get to help choose the new English books for 5th and 6th grade
next year. It's hard to tell how the actual book and activities
will be, though. Wish me luck!

We also had Thursday off to celebrate Hangul Day, meaning we celebrated the creation of the Korean alphabet. I'm much better at reading it now, so that's pretty awesome! We utilized this day off sleep in and meet up with friends. It's a bit awkward to have a day off in the middle of the week, but it was nice to be able to just relax and catch up with friends. Plus, only having one day of work and then the weekend was awesome too.

Sarah was trying to find a suitable hat. This
one almost won. FLY YOUR DREAM 

my school has footprints as a guide for which
side to walk on. Do the kids follow it? Nooooope.

Days I hate school lunch: tofu day. Especially when paired with
rice and ricecake soup. Delicious, but NOT FILLING. I'm hungry
after 2 hours. Aaaaand all the rice makes me crash big time
after lunch. WAMP.

On Friday I met Lauren, Sarah and Cesca and got Noodlebox.
I was so ridiculously excited. If you ever come across Noodlebox,
EAT THERE. You won't regret it.

Sorry this is so late as well, as I had a busy weekend that segued into another busy week. Even though my students are still prepping for sports day, I've had lots of lesson prep to do (the days off have screwed up my schedule so all of my classes are on different parts of the lesson. Ugh). 

This weekend, as you may have seen on Cesca's blog, we went to the Jinju Lantern Festival.

You may recall that I went last year. It was fun to go with actual people this year, because I got to enjoy the festival with other people and I got to actually get pictures taken WITH things, rather than just taking pictures of them.

I also know more Korean history now, so I could actually understand/explain some of the lanterns!

bright blue silkworms!!

We didn't know there'd be a silk fair on the way to the festival!

And now, LANTERNS

We met some popular youtubers. It was awesome!
So exciting, even though I'm sure I seemed super weird haha.

 I brought along my selfie stick for the occasion. It was SUPER USEFUL.

yep. I'm totally one of those people now.

we were unreasonably excited about the coconut haha

This tunnel was so peaceful and beautiful to
walk through. People write wishes on the lanterns

There are literally hundreds of lanterns, so I couldn't share them all. I'm sure I could go to the festival 15 times and still not see all of them. 

in the 'make whatever you want' section

crossing the river on the floaty bridge thing!

THERE ARE CHILDREN AT THIS
FESTIVAL OMGGGG

it's so ridiculously pretty at night

Guide to the lanterns of the world

the battle at Jinju fortress against the Japanese, in lantern form

Niagara Falls lantern from the US/Canada

5 drums dance lantern

The dragon is my FAVORITE!!

I even got to use my Korean to tell some annoying guy to leave us alone. Even though it was awkward, he didn't ruin the festival for us. He just kind of awkwardly popped up now and then. 

Because we ended up seeing most of the festival when it was dusk and evening, we decided to take the late bus (we got the last six seats on the second to last bus to Seoul!) and return home. We got to my apartment at around 2:40. We were totally tired, but it was a great day. Cesca's friends even thanked me for helping them out with all the Korean and stuff, and even though I didn't really do much that couldn't be accomplished with body language or simple phrases, I'm happy that I could help out. Thankfully, I knew where most things were in Jinju (like the bus station), so I am glad I could do something useful. Being with people that don't speak Korean forces me to use mine, so that's helpful for developing my speaking skills. 

Cesca and I slept in late on Sunday because we didn't go to bed until like 3 am the night before. We caught up on some TV and lounged around until mid afternoon, when I headed out to meet up with Janell for the yet another activity. You see, Janell loves Taeyang from Big Bang, and he recently released a solo album that I probably talked about a few months ago. Well, YG decided to have a Taeyang concert. Initially, Janell couldn't get tickets, but a few weeks ago, she messaged me and said that a few had opened up, and asked if I wanted to go. Having just received my bonus and thinking about how much I ADORED his album, Rise, I of course agreed, because concerts are more fun with friends. Soooo off to Rise we went. 

The English is ALMOST there. Almost.
Le sigh.

YG Family crew was filming something.
Maybe I'll be on the DVD!?

This is how they organize standing sections

Check out the footwear. Shorties like me and all the asians
need a boost!

My wristband for the standing section!

Not the best view, but we could see Taeyang pretty well. Yes,
he's shirtless. Mmmmhmmmm.

Janell and I had such a great time fangirling!!! aaaaah!!!

This little boy was dressed up like Taeyang and it was
ADORABLE.

Because YG's stage setup is infinitely inferior to SM and other companies, we were not as satisfied as we wanted to be with the concert venue. The platform was too low, too short, and underutilized, but I still had a decent view of Taeyang without using the concert screens, which was nice. And besides, Janell and I had a great time jamming out to our favorite songs. Because we were in the farther standing section, there wasn't really much pushing or jostling, which was a blessing. 

The Super Show is still the best concert I went to, but I had an awesome time seeing Taeyang. We both FREAKED out when Gdragon, another BB member, showed up. And you bet we loooooved it when Taeyang took his shirt off, which he did satisfyingly often ;).

It's strange to see my friends and classmates getting married and having kids back home while I'm over here going to kpop concerts (I just bought tickets to see MBLAQ in November), but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

So, there you have it. Life in Korean. Full of festivals, food and friends who go to kpop concerts with you. This is the life, man.

In a venture away from my normal Kpop, here's a new song that's all the rage here in Korea, because it's AWESOME. I don't normally listen to 2PM, but I have a few friends who love them, and this song has been grabbing attention for being totally excellent. 

It's definitely a "getting ready for a night out song," but I think it's super catchy. There are even English captions!

And I'm going back to an oldie that I have for some reason been obsessed with lately, and that is the adorable IU's You and I.

Also super catchy and fun, I loooove this song and I loooove IU.

With Sports Day and another big weekend planned, look for another (probably late...) update next week!!! Love to you all! Stay warm, it's finally sweater weather!!!