Rockin' Korea~^^

Dance Party IV:

I think I may have mentioned a time or two how Kris, Gab, and I like to throw what we call "Super Fun Rockin' Dance Parties". We rotate houses for each party. This last party, was our final party and held at Kristen's place. I am not going to go into detail why we decided to call it a Super Fun Rockin' Boys Suck Farewell Dance Party, but to sum it up, Kris and I were feeling a little resentful towards boys that day. You also might notice I accidentally put the "boys suck" before the "rockin" on the actual sign. That was my mistake. Whoops. Each boy that came in though wasn't too impressed that was on the sign. Meh. They're the ones that suck, not girls^^

The three coolest girls in all of Korea along with Heejae's foot... the coolest foot in all of Korea (by association only. His foot is in a picture with us, thus making it the coolest foot in Korea)

Making Gimbap and Bibimbap in Hwasun:

Laura and Amanda invited Kris and I to Laura's house one day after school (because wonderful summer classes means we are home just after noon!) to make gimbap. I was the only one who had made it previously, though Laura's neighbor makes it for her all the time so we figured that between us, we could figure out how to make some awesome gimbap!

The ingredients. Wonderful Lotte sells gimbap packages so you can buy all the stuff in one area instead of searching to find the stuff.

My first gimbap was so perfect. I even showed this picture to my students and they didn't believe me that I made that. They thought I bought it, took it out, put it in a bowl and took a picture of it! They still don't believe me no matter how many pictures I showed them of us making it. I may not be Korean, but I do know how to cook~

This was my second one. It didn't turn out quite as neat at the other one, but it tasted so much better! I think because I put extra chamchi (tuna) in it! Yum!

We were so full, but we still made bibimbap, which none of us had made before other than on school days where it was make your own bibimbap in the cafeteria. But we didn't cook our own stuff in those cases so I am not going to go into detail about what we almost forgot to cook.

Best bibimbap I've ever tasted. We are amazing cooks. Most because we loaded it with gochujang to make it spicy!

Summer Classes:

For my summer classes I spent a week helping my co-teacher with her classes which basically consisted of me doing next to nothing. I didn't complain. The next two weeks I taught a week of grade three and a week of grade two. Friday was my last day and my students tried to have a surprise party that wasn't really a surprise because they talked about it in front of me. In Korean, but I understand enough to know what they are saying. Plus, they asked me questions in English about snacks I liked, if I ate breakfast etc. Nonetheless, on the way to school in the pouring rain on Friday, I get a text message saying "Teacher, where are you?" from one of my favourite students, Lee Jung Hyun. I told him I was still on the bus. He said "We are waiting for you teacher". I laughed because even though my bus was late, it was still 15 minutes until class time started. I told him I would be there soon. Then as I'm walking to the school, I see the window to the classroom open, despite the rain, and the students were watching me (and trying not to make it obvious). Then I get a text saying, "Come slowly teacher". So I was purposely late for class and when I did show up, they still were in the adjoining room with the door locked. Two students were in the class so we played scrabble while the others did who knows what.

This is the adjoining room they wouldn't let me in. They are taunting me.

Jung Hyun and Chan Woo (Billy). These kids are hilarious. They make teaching worth it.

Some of my favourite girls! Haylee, the girl beside me, spells her name "Hayee". I don't have the heart to tell her she is spelling it wrong^^

Most of the grade two summer class kids. Not all were there the last day. And minus the girl who didn't want to be in the picture and so took the picture.

The surprise? We made gimbap together (third time for me! I love it!) and had bulgoggi from one of the students parents. Bulgoggi is my favourite Korean food. Then the VP came in and was like, oh, gimbap, I was going to buy you pizza! The students wanted pizza too so we got pizza delivery. I am surprised they could eat all that!

Then, the part I was actually surprised about, they made me a poster that said goodbye Tara and had personal notes from them on it. They also wrote goodbye Tara on balloons and posed for this picture.

Dutch Lunch:

I promised Heejae and Sam on several occasions that I would make them Dutch food. I have fed Heejae several times already, but nothing specific to what I eat in Canada because he gives me ten minute warnings that he's coming over and he's hungry. Typical guy. Anyway, last week, I realized I was leaving soon and just randomly decided to text Heejae and ask him and Eunhye to come on Saturday for a meal. They said yes, so I texted the rest of my close friends and enlisted Kris to help cook since she is amazing and our Dutch Lunch was in the works.

The ice cream cake I made. Since it was a Dutch meal, we had to have dessert, and teach them a Dutch word.
Our meal. Fruit Jello (in this case, peaches), tuna macaroni salad, Nasi, Dutch soup (don't ask me the Dutch name for it. It's too long to remember), watermelon, and banana pudding stuff (not really Dutch, but it's a dessert type thing so it counts). Oh wait, and not in the picture are onion soup mix baked potatoes. Mom, I am sorry to say, Kris makes them better than you do. She doesn't burn them^^

Haewon (Michelle, our pianist in worship band) and Joel.

Heejae and Eunhye. They loved the Jello for some reason.

Some of the people there. Sadly, some had to cancel and Sam got sick and couldn't be there which was too bad since he was the second main reason I wanted to do this lunch.

Chingus!
Kyle, our awesome worship band singer. I dressed him up in my things. We were fascinated by Haewon's phone which you take a picture of yourself and change what you look like. So I took out my things and dressed him up how we made him look in the picture. Not matching, I know, but it's all I had~

Papbingsu, KIA, and TARA:

Honestly speaking, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but Korean's love it. Our worship team went for some after practice Saturday.

Joel and I went to the KIA Tigers game Sunday after church. We won 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, two out, walk off homer! can't get any better than that.

And here is Tara Cafe. I didn't believe Kyle (Chang Hyun) when he said there was a Tara Cafe near his house. He took a picture and sent it to me. Now I wish I had time to go!

Samhanji:

On our very last biking workout last week (we biked to Hwasun!), Sam invited me to go with his family to this movie set where they filmed six different dramas set in traditional ancient Korea. It was called Samhanji and was in Naju, about an hour or so from Gwangju. I have also wanted to meet Sam's family for a long time and we had talked about it before, it just never happened. I guess the threat of leaving Korea soon gets us all to make things happen quickly. Kris joined us as well, and we were off to spend our first official day finished teaching, with Sam and his family!

This was actually off limits, but Sam's son just climbed up there without us paying attention so we went too and got some pictures. No one was around except the signs that said there was surveillance. There were even ponies there! They were clearly not fed much though because they were eating the grass so fast from our hands.

Sam's son helped me win this game. I couldn't get them over for the life of me. I kept hitting the post, but his son put them all around for me! So I won^^

Why would you give a child that?! Good thing it was too heavy for him to do anything with it!

We all dressed up in this armor stuff and took action shots. Those pictures are all on Sam's camera though (the fancy one in the last picture!) so once I get my hands on those pictures, I'll post them. Maybe.

View from near the top turret. It was so beautiful!

Sam's son and me. He was seriously the cutest thing ever and definitely didn't clue in that we didn't really understand what he was saying. He is so well behaved. I hope my children end up like him. Though they will probably take after me so I guess that's out.

Today is Tuesday. I haven't started packing. Hyun Jin is coming in a bit to bake with me. My friend Hoon invited me to his and Haewon's jazz concert tonight. It'll be my fourth one in the past month or two and it's all been friends playing there. At the lunch party someone made the comment that I seem to like musicians since many of the people were musicians. It comes in handy though because I get to go to their concerts! Which means I most likely won't start packing today. Actually, I know I won't.