Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A Wedding and the Trick Art Museum

Back in January, during the school's winter break, my coteacher got married. I was invited to the wedding (last minute of course). Weddings in Korea are a lot less about the private celebration and seem more commercialized. Her wedding was at the Novotel in downtown Korea. The wedding started right on time and within 15 minutes, she was out of the wedding hall and a new wedding was about to start... kind of like a rotating door of weddings. We then proceeded upstairs where we ate lunch at a buffet with guest from many different weddings. Meanwhile, my coteacher was off to a traditional Korean wedding ceremony that just involved the direct families of the couple. The whole thing seemed a lot less intimate than many of the Western weddings we are accustomed to, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
My coteacher!
Buffet/ "Reception"
After the wedding, Shaun and I went off to see the traveling Trick Art Show. Imagine: a museum created specifically to take pictures in. There were directions on how to take pictures in order to accurately deceive the eye. It was incredibly crowded and hard to take pictures with so many people around, but it was still a ton of fun! Check out some of our pictures....

Winter Vacation Part 2: The Philippines

Remember when I used to be good at posting semi-regularly on this blog? Yeah, neither do I... ㅠㅠ (Korean emoticon. Yes, I went there. More on those later!)

For the second half of my vacation days I went to the Philippines. Lucky for me, we got 3 days off for Lunar New Year at the start of February. So, I chose to go on vacation during that time so that I could have an extended (more relaxing) holiday. That meant a 12 day vacation for me... 10 of which I spent in the Philippines and 2 of which I spent in Seoul.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Happy April Fool's Day!

Today started off like any normal day... Most Koreans don't think twice about today, but I know better. It is April 1st. I had already discussed my plans to mess with my kids' heads with my coteacher (the one who had lived in Canada, and had experienced the day in a Western country first hand). There are 4 other teachers in my office. My coteacher (John), the old man, and I are usually the first ones in. Next, comes the Math teacher. As she walked into the office, John told her that she needed to go to the principal ASAP because he needed to talk to her. With a confused look on her face, she headed toward the door. My coteacher then yelled, "Happy April Fool's Day!" and she let out a huge sigh of relief.
Then, I entered my first class.....