Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  You may be wondering, what exactly happens on Thanksgiving in Korea?  Well, unless you are American, or hang out with Americans, pretty much business as usual.  International schools have two days off to celebrate the holiday because we acknowledge both American and Korean holidays--thus the reason I had a week off in September for Chuseok!  Regardless, I am still quite thankful for this time of year and for this holiday in particular as December follows closely on the heels of Thanksgiving and with it brings a season and celebration of giving and celebrating the birth of Christ.  This is also a particularly meaningful time at my place of work, as we are a school centered in Christ.  

Anyhow, getting back to the celebration of Thanksgiving.  I am quite happy to have a four day weekend because my tired body just feels like it can't keep going.  In fact, I have been looking forward to this long weekend for quite some time.  In years' passed, my celebrations have ranged from chill time (years 1 and 3) to travel (year 2 in Hong Kong).  This year, however, I attended a proper American Thanksgiving celebration at my neighbor's apartment to kick off the long weekend.  I've been invited during those other years, but just wasn't feeling in the mood to celebrate…or I was too exhausted!  This year, I decided it was time to buck up and become part of another family!  So, off I went to join several groups of people to eat, drink, and be merry!  We ate turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin-y goodness until we were stuffed.  And then we ate some more!  Did you know that you can get a fully cooked turkey delivered to your door in Seoul?!  Neither did I:).  We had two!  The best part about this celebration was the true multi-cultural nature.  I think Americans were the most under-represented group!  We had a few token Americans, Aussies, New Zealanders, South Africans, and British.  It was absolutely fantastic and I laughed harder than I have in a long time when the storytelling started!  I have now heard "Little Red Riding Hood" told in Afrikaans.  Fascinating…and hilarious!  It is amazing what you can learn about the world when you get the opportunity to sit down with people who have quite literally taught in all corners.  What fun it is to start imagining the possibilities I might seek when I hit the job market again next year.

The dinner invitation said we'd be eating around 3pm, so I arrived a little early to see if I could help out.  We didn't eat until several hours later, but I so cherished the time in the kitchen with my colleagues/SFS family helping finish up side dishes or sitting down and really catching up since we truly never see each other (I know, hard to believe at a small school, but it's true!).  Come to think of it, I may have been the only person from the high school there!  I think the moral of this post is that although I sometimes feel a bit disconnected from my family and friends, I needn't look far to find a wonderful support system.  In fact, they are quite literally living right beside me.  As an introvert, get togethers like this really do push me outside of my comfort zone, but in the end I am truly blessed by getting to know my colleagues outside of work.

As for "Black Friday", I did the same thing here that I would have done in the States…stayed home!!  I hate fighting the crowds just to shop!  So, this morning I got up a little early to make sweet potato waffles and had a friend over for breakfast.  Yep, more of that catching up I was talking about!  With my Thanksgiving Break halfway over, I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I'd hoped, but relationships have been the focus and that is much more important than checking things off the To Do list.  And so as I reflect on this season of thankfulness, I certainly have much to be thankful for.  Wishing you all many blessings and much love from Korea!

Seoul Lantern Festival 2013

As winter rapidly approaches, the sunny days have turned grayer and we look harder for every little bit of warmth and light this city has to offer us.  In lieu of our usual Tuesday evening bible study, I suggested we go on a fellowship outing to enjoy the lights of the annual Seoul Lantern Festival held at the Cheonggye Stream near City Hall.  Sadly, most of my colleagues had to do report cards this week, so we were a small, but merry, band of revelers.  With just five of us, it was a lovely night out and a good chance to get off the hill.  This is my third year to enjoy the Lantern Festival, and I never regret a trip to the stream to take in the lights.  Before heading downtown, we stopped for a pre-festival bite to eat at Slow Garden where they serve everything from risotto to waffles.  On a cold night, a blueberry waffle with whipped cream sounded like the best way to fill my belly.  A short bus ride later, and I was ready to walk the stream and photograph the lanterns in all of their glory.  There were some repeats from years passed and this year's lanterns were quite "Korean" as the theme had something to do with the Baek period of history.  The bright colors and soothing glow of the lanterns seemed to call to the camera and I ended up with over 100 photos.  Here are the best of my photos from the Seoul Lantern Festival 2013, after a little editing, of course:

Are you feeling the Korean nature of the lanterns?

Close up!

I'm sailing away...

I think these may have been my favorite lanterns of the night!  I wish I could have stolen one, or three, off the wall to bring home!!

Pretty cool in black and white too!

My new pet...half dog, half dragon?

The bridge was looking a little cold so they knitted it a sweater...for real!

Christmas is coming!

A sea of flying fish!

An orchestra of Korean musicians--this lantern grouping also played music!

Some of the most fun lanterns of the night began here!

So cute!  Smiling rocks!

Asian chic!

The jester!

Fan dance.

So fun and colorful!

Any guesses as to what this might be?

Shoes, a girl's best friend!

It seemed fitting to end my post with an illuminated pair of Korean slippers. And with that, my feet carried me to a taxi which returned me to the warmth of my wonderful apartment where I will anxiously await next year's lantern festival!

Throw-Back-To Discovery Week Fall 2012

Last year was unique in the way that we had Discovery Week twice--once in the Spring and once in the Fall to start a new tradition of November DW in order to accommodate our incredibly busy springtime testing schedule and include all of our students in this memorable experience.  I posted sometime last year about my spring trip to Venice, Italy (unforgettable fun), but I never did get around to writing about my fall trip to Hawaii.  Yes, that's right friends, I spent my Discovery Week discovering the island of Oahu on a trip called "Islands of Fire".  The funny thing is there isn't an active volcano on Oahu, but that's okay.  This trip really came about because David and I wanted to offer something science-y for our students that also incorporated community service in a location that wasn't cold!  So, we dreamt up Hawaii and I went off and found Appleseed Expeditions, an educational tour company that specializes in environmental and service oriented student trips--PERFECT!  Our only limiting factor was the cost, bummer!  We managed to recruit sixteen eager kids for a six day, jam-packed Sunday to Saturday trip and before long it was go-time!

The first challenge for me came the day before the trip when I woke up feeling absolutely horrendous.  I was in full on sick mode--101 degree fever, chills, body ache, headache, fatigue, congestion--you name it, I had it, and every time I tried to get out of bed to pack I just about passed out.  It wasn't good.  All I could do was try to sleep it off, medicate, hydrate, and pray to God that I would be well enough to go on the trip.  With only two chaperones there wasn't much we could do--I had to go.  Behind the scenes, a backup plan was frantically being made, but thankfully I was able to pull myself together and at 6am the next day I was up with a packed suitcase...barely.  We flew from Seoul to Tokyo, sat for six or seven hours, then went on to Oahu where we hit the ground running and never really stopped for five days.  Here are some of the incredible highlights:

On the first day we drove all over the island discussing the different ecosystems.  We saw the lava desert and the lush rainforest all within one small island.  The kids also had a chance to take a surfing lesson--they were in heaven.  I watched the sun set over Waikiki Beach and was thankful that I was well enough to be standing there enjoying my Yogurtland treat and savoring my first trip to Hawaii.  Sadly, we had our first casualty on this first night...a lost wallet and a week's worth of cash:(.  Tough lessons.

See the lava on the left!  It was bone dry on this side of the island.

Me in a cave...feeling like death warmed over:)

Sunset at Waikiki beach

The second day saw us trekking into the rainforest on a preserve that we'd just had a glimpse of the day before.  We met a former SFS alumni and began to learn how Hawaiians once lived off the land as we were introduced to native plant and animal species and helped to remove some that weren't.  We hiked around the preserve, enjoyed the serenity, and then the second casualty of the trip occurred as one of my students twisted her ankle during our hike.  I stopped to help her and the rest of the group hiked off without us!  Oops!  Yes, that meant we were lost in the rainforest preserve with no map and no clue where we were.  We tried shouting for our group and walking to the nearest familiar path but no one seemed to notice they'd left us behind.  Grrr!  My cellphone wasn't getting service but a bar here or there which meant we were out of luck.  Finally I got good enough reception to call our tour leader and finally he answered and realized what had happened.  After about an hour of being lost, we were rescued!  Good thing, because I really didn't want to spend the night lost in the rainforest!  This just reinforced the reasons why I'm not a nature girl:).  Later that night we went to a local homeless shelter that is housed in a warehouse facility and caters to homeless families so the students could play with the kids and help serve dinner.  It was an eye-opening experience for many of my privileged students but they did a great job and many considered their time spent with the homeless kids to be a highlight of the trip.

Such beautiful landscapes in the rainforest.

The kids at a waterfall

Doing a little service work!

Happy kids:)

Is that a potato?

The third morning was an early one as we were headed off to the North shore!  Our first activity was one the kids had been waiting for--swimming in the shark cage.  I have to admit, I was feeling a certain amount of trepidation about this for two reasons.  First, I don't swim well, and second, SHARKS!  Enough said!  The ocean was really rough that morning and the actual shark cage experience was tame compared to the seasickness most of us felt sitting on the boat waiting our turn!  I was pretty proud of myself for keeping my breakfast down--I'd say 80% of the kids were not so lucky.  Once in the shark cage, which essentially just floats in the open water, the guys un-teather the cage from the boat so it's just floating out there and then they attract the sharks for you with fun shark toys (no food though).  You use a snorkel and mask to go underwater and say hello to the shark friends swimming by to see what's up.  I had a hard time letting go of the cage since the waves were swelling about five feet and I was a bit worried about getting whacked in the head.  Plus, again, not a strong swimmer, so drowning did cross my mind.  So, I stayed pretty well anchored to the cage.  Once the guy bribed me with a free t-shirt, I felt compelled to go under water and see what was happening and it was pretty cool, although when you're sick and congested it feels like your head might explode if you stay under for long.  I can now check "swim with sharks" off my bucket list.  We continued to explore the North Shore, stopping in the surf town of Haleiwa, saw a large green sea turtle sunning itself on one of the beaches, went tide pooling in Shark's Cove, and watched the pro surfers at the pipeline.  On the way back to Waikiki, we also visited the Dole pineapple plantation where we all had delicious pineapple ice cream-YUM.  Good times!

Double rainbow!

Shark cage fun!  The kids are pros!

There I am, looking terrified.

My triumphant fist pump!  Yes, I did earn the free t-shirt for going under AND I saw some sharks up close!

Surfers paradise!

Up close and personal with a giant sea turtle!  So cool!

Tide pooling!!  Yay science!

Pro surfers taking advantage of the winter waves!

Our fourth day was incredibly busy!  We started out at Hanauma Bay for some serious snorkeling.  It's a protected shallow bay with lots of accessible reef and the kids were just itching to get in the water.  I was hopeful that my time in the pool practicing would pay off but the ocean was a bit rough and I found myself in trouble in no time.  We'll call this our third casualty of the trip--lots of us ended up with nasty cuts from the coral because of the shallow water!  OUCH!  I lasted about ten minutes before I called it a day and enjoyed the sun from the beach.  Maybe next time.  From there, we went to Diamond Head Crater for a hike to the top.  Still sick, I wasn't sure I had the stamina to make it to the top but after a lot of huffing and puffing I found myself enjoying the beautiful view over Waikiki!  It was definitely worth the sweat!  We spent the evening at a great luau at the aquarium where the movie 50 First Dates was filmed.  It was a wonderful show and tasty food!  A bunch of the kids even got pulled up on stage to dance with the performers.  

Awesome shot of Hanauma Bay from above!

Ouch!  This is what happens when you get too close to the coral.  I had similar battle wounds.

The view from the top of  Diamond Head Crater.  The hike was worth the view.

Proof that I made it!

More evidence of those diverse ecosystems.

Group luau shot!

We spent our last morning visiting Pearl Harbor, which was different than I expected.  There is so little left there--I can't even begin to imagine how horrific it must have been to be there when the bombing occurred.  Having visited Hiroshima, it's interesting to have both perspectives.  When we returned to the hotel, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard were waiting to meet me for lunch!  It just so happened that they were in Hawaii, on Oahu during the same week and they drove over to Waikiki to spend the afternoon with me:).  We sat at the Cheesecake Factory, ate, and caught up for a couple of hours before wandering through the international marketplace while the students spent their last couple of hours doing the same (shopping and surfing).  We had our last dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory before calling it a night.  The final casualty of the trip was Miss James getting a 2am call that the students were out and about in the hallways and we had to be up and ready around 5am.  Use your imagination and picture how happy I was looking when I was doing room checks in the middle of the night--oh the fun of overseas DW trips!  Thankfully, everyone made it back in one piece and I think we all had a great trip even thought it was a whirlwind of activity!

Pearl Harbor--what's left.

The wall of remembrance.

Me with my aunt and uncle who were visiting Oahu too!