A Note About Valentine's Day in Korea

I guess I should mention something about how Valentine's Day or 'red day' is celebrated in Korea. In Korea Valentine's Day is for the girls to give chocolate/presents to the guys. A little different from the mutual giving of gifts/chocolate/flowers/cards that are given in Canada. I don't even think that there is an exchange of cards here, not that I saw at least. I, however, being a teacher recieved 9 chocolate bars from various elementary students. It was very nice of them to give me all this chocolate, but I just don't eat all that much chocolate. Therefore, friends in Canada, you might be recieving a little chocolate in a package that I send out to you.
What about the girls recieving any special gifts/chocolates?
Well they have their own day in March, known at the 'white day', I believe. On this day the girls are given candy/gifts.
A little note though about these two days, they are for couples only. People who are single usually don't get any sort of gift on either of these days. You say it's not fair, well I was told about one more day, I can't remember which month, but it's a day they call 'black day'. It's for those people who don't have anyone to celebrate the above 2 days with. I can't remember what they are given, but they are not left out of the loop of giving.

Valentine's Day Activity Day at School

This month's activity day focused around Valentine's Day. It was very difficult to think of something fun to involve English for Valentine's Day, but we were able to come up with something fun. It was decided that we would decorate little cakes. Not only would the students decorate the cakes it was a little competition to see who could make the best decorated cake.
This is the youngest, lowest level, class decorating their cakes. The three boys are, starting on the left, Sam, Kevin, and Paul. They were really into decorating.
I was lucky to have a whole day of fun with the students because on Tuesdays 4 of my 5 classes are elementary aged children (the ones who would have activity day).
This is one of the middle level classes decorating their cakes. The three girls, starting on the left, are Louise, Holly, and Jessica.
The cakes were what Koreans call 'choco pies' (better known to Westerners as 'wagan wheels'). Then the students covered the choco pie with whipped cream. They were then given an assortment of candies and things they could use to decorate their little cake. The students had a great time and really got into the decorating.
This is one of the middle level classes, showing off their final design. The students, starting on the left corner, are Robin, Paul, and Morning. I was surprised with this class that they were so into making their cakes, because it's a class of all boys, who can be a little mischevious at times.
Overall, it was a good day and the students had a little treat to take home to their parents or to eat for themselves. They enjoyed it a lot.
This is one of the girls' cakes that was decorated very nicely.

Snow for the Second Time

On Monday I woke up and looked out the window to find it snowing huge snowflakes. I was so surprised because it never snows in Jinju. By the time I was decent enough to go outside to take a picture, there was about an inch of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. The snowing lasted for just the morning and by the time I went out for work the snow had started to melt a little. As of this weekend there are still tiny piles of snow around. It was nice to see snow for a little while.
Here is a picture of the driveway beside my apartment showing how much snow we had and giving proof that it really did snow.

Weekend with Amanda

Last weekend was a very nice treat for me because Amanda, whom I graduated with from college, came to visit me from Pyoungteak up near Seoul. It was the first time she made a trip by bus by herself. Upon arriving she said it wasn't all that difficult to get to Jinju, which was nice for her and gave me peace of mind.
The first thing that we did together was get some lunch. Where do you go when you have a busy day with lots to do? Well you go to E-Mart to get McDonald's. So we had lunch at McD's. This was when I found out that they had taken my McFeast set away, it was devistating because that is the best tasting burger on the menu and you can't get it in Canada. Anyways, after lunch we went to my house to drop off Amanda's stuff. Then we went to the bus station to catch a bus to Busan. 2 hours later we were in Busan and getting on a subway to go to the aquarium. Just before getting our subway tickets I noticed that they had added another line to the subway system. What a surprise!
So we got to the Busan Aquarium and had a great time taking pictures and looking at all the fish.
Here is Amanda at the shark tank. Was it ever hard to get a good picture with all the people walking by and to actually get a shark in the pictures, but we managed to get one.
Here's one that Amanda took with me and the shark. She did great in capturing the shark right behind me.
At one spot in the aquarium you can pick up star fish and shell fish of sorts. Amanda was too scared to pick up the star fish so I picked it up. It was soft, but the texture felt like a rock. it kind of bent around my fingers as I was holding it.
Here's the picture of me holding the star fish.
After the aquarium we went to the beach, not that we could go swimming or anything.
Here's Amanda at the ocean. What a nice afternoon for a picture.
After that we went to TGI Friday's for dinner. We ate some really great western food. It was so nice to eat something that you don't normally get. We even had desert, a brownie sundae. It was so delicious.
After that we went to Starbucks. We had a nice drink and just talked. It was good to catch up, not that we didn't catch up all day.
Here is Amanda and me taking it easy at Starbucks.
From Starbucks we made our way back to the subway and the bus station and then back to my house. It was pretty late when we got back, so we just rested and went to bed.
On Sunday we had to get up early for the English service at the church. The English service went ok, it was still a little awkward, but it went ok. Amanda did the prayer, which was a nice little treat for the teens. After the service we were going to go shopping for pants, but the store we wanted to shop at had closed and I didn't know about it. I was a little disappointed because that was the store that I could actually find pants that fit. From there we walked to Popeye's and ate lunch there. It was nice to have Popeye's again, since they took it from downtown and changed it into a shoe store, I was not happy.
From there we went to my house, got Amanda's stuff and went to the Jinju Castle. It was nice to walk around and see things again. The weather was much nicer than the day before, a little chilly, but good enough not to get too cold. The river actually had a thin layer of ice on it because it had been so cold in the past week.
Here's Amanda by a momorial sculpture. The sculpture depicts the big war when the Japanese attacked Korea.
This is me at part of the castle. It's where people used to go to rest on hot days.
From the castle I took Amanda to the bus station and she headed back home to Pyoungteak. All in all the weekend was very nice and we had some good fun, even though it was a very rushed weekend.

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, I woke up with a phone call from my mom. She passed the phone around to everyone in the house to wish me happy birthday. Then it was time to get ready. I had plans to meet some of my Korean friends from church for lunch. So the day wasn't going to be so bad after all.
I met my friends at Pizza Hut. Since it was lunch time not as many people could come to help celebrate my birthday, but the 4 who came made my day great. What was funny about it was the fact that it was me and 4 Korean guys. We ordered and after all the food was brought (we had got a set from the menu), the waitresses brought out a cake and birthday hat. The the music changed on the stereo to some birthday music and everyone in the restaurant turned around to look, how embarassing! I was quite the spectacle for all to see.
This is all of us at Pizza Hut, just before the birthday song.
I was also given a small present from each of my friends, which was a very nice surprise. I was given a nice hair clip, a cell phone key chain, a worship CD, and a book by C.S. Lewis.
After eating, we had some time to do something before I had to get to work. So it was suggested that we go to the skating rink. I was a little nervous of this because it's been a while since I've been on skates and I don't skate well on boys' skates.
Anyways, we got to the skating rink and borrowed our skates. It was a small rink, but good enough for a little fun. The guys had a couple of races around the rink. It was fun to watch them.
This is the guys getting ready for another race. They are so funny.
I had a good time skating around. It was nice that there weren't many people there, because the people that were there stared at me. I had some children want me to skate backward for them. It was cute. I also tried to teach the guys how to skate backward. It was funny to watch them. They did well though.
Here are some of us, just having fun.
At school the teachers got me a cake and we ate it Korean style. Cut the cake and then everyone get a fork and dig in, no plates needed. It's good for not having to do many dishes.
So all in all, my day was pretty good. I had got my birthday package from my mom the day before and I was able to spend some of the day with friends.