A Halloween Story

This is a story that one of my students wrote for me yesterday:

Once upon a time there was who named Adrienne witch and Ester princess. Adrienne want to be a princess so, she make Ester to a Easter. But, Ryan prince went to fight with Adrienne. Adrienne said, Change to a frog but, Ryan prince use a mirror but, Adrienne became a Tiger. In real Adrinne was Jeniifer. Jenifer was the first princess with Ryan.

A-freaking-mazing. Peter, the author, is now the only student in my advanced afternoon class, after the other 3 left because of petty mothers. Now since it's just him, we finish lessons pretty early and I try to let him do some fun stuff to keep him happy. Yesterday we had about 5 minutes so I asked him to write me a story about Halloween- this is what I got. All the names are teachers at our school. Peter is a third-year kindergartener, so that would make him a first grader at home.

I just wanted to share this bit of Halloween awesomeness with you.

Fall!

The days are cool, the wind is downright cold, and I've had to break out the jackets- fall has arrived! This is my favorite time of year, and it's especially beautiful here. The trees are all brightly colored and striking against the perfectly clear sky. I noticed yesterday evening that the park was looking quite nice, so I decided to go back this morning and take pictures. Here ya go:

I like how this lady's red jacket matches the trees :)

China!

Sorry it's taken me so long to write this, but I've just been super lazy since returning to Korea ;) I spent 4 days in China visiting Charlie at his home in Hangzhou. Hangzhou has historically been known as the prettiest city in China, and while that might not be apparent out where Charlie lives, the city center was quite nice. Not that where Charlie lives is a dump, it just looks like the outskirts of any city- lots of concrete, not a lot of excitement. Downtown there is a beautiful lake where we spent a good bit of time- we kept returning hoping to find it not so crowded, but that never worked. It was a week of national holiday in China since they were celebrating both the fall harvest festival and the 60th anniversary of the Communist party's takeover. This meant that downtown was chock full of people, many of them Chinese tourists with their faces buried in maps. It was a nice relaxing trip; we just spent a lot of time wandering around different parts of the city and seeing the sites. Hangzhou is definitely a nice city, and somewhere I want to go again for sure.

Here's the sunrise, and the view from Charlie's window.

Charlie, looking extremely tall. Notice the people turned around staring.

Me, in front of the West Lake.

And a pretty view of the sunset over the lake.

Chuseok presents

Well it's almost that time of year- time for Chuseok, of course. What's Chuseok, you ask? It's basically the Korean version of Thanksgiving, apparently. I don't really know much else about it. I know we're having a party for the kindergarteners on Tuesday and they're all going to be wearing traditional hanbok, so I will definitely have pictures to show, but that's about it.

I have gotten Chuseok presents though. One of my student's mom sent in a box of pears for each of his teachers, so I had a huge couple poound box of pears last week. I shared half of them with coteachers and students and took the rest home. Korean pears are about 4 times the size of pears at home, so I only had 4 pears at home but it was still a stretch to eat them all. They were very yummy though, and it was very nice of the mother to give them to me. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't really think about it until they were gone.

Also on Friday the head office sent presents for all of the teachers. A few weeks ago we had a sign up sheet where we got to pick one of two gift boxes that we wanted. One was full of spam and oil, the other was toiletries. Needless to say, I got about a year's supply of toothpaste and shampoo, as well as some soap. Just to share the scope of this with you, I took a picture:
So yeah, happy Chuseok everybody! I'll update again after the party to show you my kids in their traditional costumes.

Countdown to China: T-minus 4 days

Going to China!

I bought a plane ticket last night to go visit Charlie at Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, at the beginning of next month. It's been a constant struggle the past couple of days- going means taking a mandatory week of quarantine from school when I get back in case I caught swine flu on the plane, and therefore pissing off the coworkers who have to cover my classes for a week- not going most likely means coming to hate Korea even more than I already do because I'm stuck here.

In the end, I decided that sanity wins out over being liked at work...and I found a really cheap ticket to Shanghai. Its about 2 hours or so to Hangzhou where Charlie lives, but he has the time off too so he can come pick me up. I also doubt that a 2 hour bus or train trip in his company will be the worst thing I've ever experienced.

Now what I have to do is go to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul with a bunch of paperwork, apply for a tourist visa, and pay $120. Not the most exciting thing, since I will have to go before work early one morning in order to make it during open hours, but I guess it could be a lot worse. I am getting to see Charlie, after all :)

Pitas

The weather is getting cooler and today I was in the mood to experiment and cook something new and filling, so I decided to try my hand at making pita bread. I found a recipe to cook them on the stovetop, since I don't have an oven, bought some yeast, and got to it. I filled them with some carrots, onions and tomatoes that I cooked, and a little Parmesan cheese.

Here's the dough this afternoon, starting to rise:

One just cooked, and another on the way:

The filling:

And the final product, with some cucumbers on the side:

All in all, they didn't turn out too bad. The dough wasn't as light as I would have liked, and I don't have a serrated knife, so I kind of butchered the bread trying to cut them open, but they tasted good and the filling stayed in. The rest of the dough is in the fridge, so I'll probably cook a couple more tomorrow at dinner.

Any other ideas for stuff I can make, sans oven or microwave?

1.8 million

Won, that is. That's about $1,500 and is equal to my first paycheck! As of today I am no longer broke. :) I still have to pay my utilities bill and pay my school back for my cellphone and medical bills from the pink eye (utilities are about $55 and I owe the school $45 or so). My first 3 paychecks are also smaller since I have to pay a 600,000 won deposit on my apartment, so 200,000 each paycheck. But on the bright side, I've made it perfectly well so far on less that $100 a week, sometimes way less, so cost of living won't be an issue.

In other news, I might be fostering a dog. I saw an ad on craigslist for a girl in Seoul who needs someone to foster her dog long term, since she just got a new job and new apartment, and the building owner doesn't like dogs. I want a dog but can't really jump into owning one right now, given the fact that taking them to new countries is so expensive, so this might be a good plan. I get to take care of the dog day to day, but don't have to worry about what's going to happen to it when I leave the country. And I don't have to pay for anything, she will do all of that. Basically, I will just be this dog's babysitter for a really long time. He's a three year old Boston Terrier named Coby, and I'm meeting him on Wednesday after work, so we'll see what happens.

That's about it for tonight, just a quick update.