Christmas in Korea

Christmas in Korea was like no other Christmas I've ever had before!

The excitement and gift opening started on the morning of the 24th just after I finished writing my last blog entry. Emma called through on Skype because mom was over at her place, and knowing that it was the day before Christmas already in Korea, they wanted Milton and I to open our gifts. Milton wasn't awake yet, so in true Christmas morning fashion, I woke him up so we could open presents!!! The photos aren't great - we were too busy taking inventory of our loot to take pictures - but the living room floor was covered in surprises sent from home. You can hardly see our tree because it's lost in all the goodies!


We also managed to get in what we could for a Christmas morning family photo complete with bed head, glasses and mismatched pajamas. Elissa is missing, but Scott, Emma, mom and one of the cats are there and you can even see Milton in the small web cam box in the bottom left corner.

(By the way Em and Liss - those are my 25$ glasses I was telling you about - you'll have to send your prescriptions so I can get you some too - steal of a deal compared to Canada and the guy makes them while you wait!)

After Christmas-eve morning at our place, Milton and I headed to Gwangyang to spend Christmas even and Christmas day with some friends. We spent Christmas eve in a noraebang - how Korean of us! What better way is there to spend the evening than singing and dancing in your own private karaoke room with flashing lights and tambourines when you can't be with family???

Christmas day was as normal as we could make it - we opened gifts and ate and ate and ate all day while we watched Home Alone 3 and played games. Milton and I had lugged our oven on the bus with us and everyone contributed to our fantastic Christmas dinner. Milton and I made tourtiere and caesar salad, there was duck and smoked turkey, home-made Ukrainian perogies, and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. Milton was also happy to find Bailey's Irish cream for his Xmas morning coffee.

Everyone did their best to fill in for families with the traditional Xmas stocking stuffers and gifts. Milton is really happy with this year's toothbrush that has a suction cup bottom!


Our favourite gift was the matching underwear we received. The big trend in Korea is to match your partner and everywhere you go you see this. Either matching underwear, matching Mickey mouse sweatshirts, matching polo sweaters --- no joke, couples call each other and plan their outfits before dates because they ALWAYS match!


I don't think I've ever laughed so much at Christmas! Kerry and his friend Kendall who was visiting, are two retired Yuk Yuk's comedians and they had us laughing the whole time which was a good distraction from thinking about how much we all missed being with our families. I don't have a single photo of Kendall where he isn't pretending to be asleep - here he is "asleep" while opening Christmas gifts.
Kerry was happy with the Korean sticker we gave him - he put it on his guitar.

And Jen and Ed look cozy and cute under the Xmas blanket we gave them.

Milton and I returned to Mokpo on boxing day and have been taking it easy ever since. We are enjoying our time off and we decided we'd have a quiet new years eve tomorrow after all the Christmas excitement.

Hope you all had a great Christmas day too and that you have a fantastic time ringing in the new year tomorrow night!

The Holiday Season

Well it's early morning Christmas eve -day and I guess I'm practicing for Christmas Day - because I'm up at 7am and it's my first day of vacation! Christmas isn't a very big deal in Korea despite the significant christian population. I've heard very few stores playing Christmas music, there were no flyers with Christmas specials, and no Christmas lights up anywhere. And with no snow in Korea it hardly felt like Christmas was on it's way :(

We did make a great effort though not to let the season pass us by unnoticed! Milton and I had a Sunday afternoon Christmas open house early in December. We served vin chaud and everyone brought their favourite Xmas baked goods for a baking exchange.

We also went to a "Christmas sweater" party at Dean and Chelsea's, where they served home-made eggnog and they managed to make a cheese ball with some special ingredients sent from Canada.

We didn't have Christmas sweaters and had to make our own. Milton put a red Christmas bulb on a white t-shirt and said it was Rudolf in a snowstorm. I was all the other reindeer. I had my students trace their hands for the antlers and make me some reindeer that I pinned to my sweater.

The next event was a UNESCO dinner in Gwangju. A free buffet dinner and entertainment from each of the countries that had representation. We chose to sign Christmas in Killarny and Rudolf the red nose reindeer - not necessarily Canadian songs but the Koreans all swayed in their chairs and looked pleased with our performance.

We had another Christmas party last weekend and a secret Santa gift exchange. Milton had asked Santa for an air soft gun so he could play with his friend Matt who also has one. All the kids in Korea play with these little guns that shoot plastic bbs and every time I walk to the door of our apartment I'm worried that I'll lose an eye. Now I have to worry in my own apartment while Milton is doing target practice sitting on the couch and shooting at a mug on the kitchen table!

OK, OK... I'll admit, it was kind of fun to hear the "ping" sound of the mug being hit when I had a go at it. And it was also fun when sometimes I'd miss and hit Milton, but that was totally accidental ;) So maybe it wasn't such a bad Xmas gift.

Milton and I also made great efforts to create the Christmas atmosphere in our apartment. We had set up a Christmas tree at the end of November and the only music we've listened to for the last month has been Christmas music. I even bought a new french Christmas cd online.

We received our two big Christmas care packages from my family early in December and have had fight off the temptation to open them for what seems like forever! But we were strong and have left them untouched under the tree and can't wait to open them!

Also in attempt to keep with our Christmas traditions as much as possible, this past weekend Milton and i spent the entire day Sunday making our tourtiere for Christmas dinner. We did our best with what we could find in Korea and they look like they should be pretty good. we even made a few extra for the freezer that we will enjoy later in the year!

And so Christmas eve-day is here and it is our first day of vacation. We will be heading to Gwangyang tonight to spend Christmas eve and day with two other couples we've become good friends with here in Korea. We will be having tourtiere and perogies and cinnamon buns for Christmas morning. I've even passed on the Walpole girls' tradition of the Xmas drink contest, where every couple must come up with a Christmas drink to serve to the others and we vote on the best one. we will be relaxing quite a bit after that and enjoying our vacation.

Milton is now off from now until march 3rd, and I'm off until January 5th when I'll have to go back to school and teach a winter camp --- like summer school in Canada. And then my big vacation will be from Jan 20-march 3. We've booked our trip to Australia For the month of February to visit Aunt Allyce and Uncle Allan, and to meet up with Scott and Emma. Milton and I will also be booking flights to New Caledonia to get to the "Paris of the Pacific" - we've already found a restaurant online that is a 20$ all you can eat baguette, cheese and wine buffet!!! we are seriously suffering in Korea with no cheese.

We've heard that in Canada there have been several snow storms ensuring that you all have a white Christmas. We are really missing home this holiday season. We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season! Love to you all, ellen xoxox

photo of Mokpo under snow a few weeks ago ----no white Christmas for us :(

Mokpo under snow

We were told that snow is somewhat rare in Mokpo - accumulation of snow anyways - and Mokpo saw it's first snow covering of the season this weekend. There were flurries all day Friday but only about 5 cm covered the ground when we woke up Saturday morning. Milton and I decided to go out and see how the city was handling the snow and what we saw was pretty amusing!

The Koreans were so distracted by the snow that they all seemed to walk right past the 10 000 won that was laying in the middle of a crosswalk. I had no trouble missing the bright green bill in the white snow! Lucky start to the day for me!

Koreans certainly are creative when it comes to cleaning off their cars:

I guess snow is so rare that snow brushes are hard to come by! The dustpan was our favourite, but we also saw brooms and rolled up newspapers being used.

How many Koreans does it take to shovel the entrance of a grocery store???

Answer: 12.

In Canada 5 cm of snow is only a dusting and most people don't even bother shovelling their driveways! If these guys had waited another half hour the sun would have melted the snow like it did on the street in front of them.

The kids really seemed to enjoy the snow. There are mountains in Mokpo but no hills for tobogganing so the kids settled for small concrete ramps that led to their apartment buildings. their sleds were quite cute too - they also had to be creative, and used whatever was on hand. Here the girls used cardboard boxes.

This kid was super lucky and seemed to have a small home-made wooden sleigh. He's so cool! ;)

I won't lie...

Milton and I had fun in the snow too! It's finally starting to look a bit like Christmas. The flowers that were still blooming last week were pretty, but they just didn't cut it for Christmas.

That's the last flower we'll see until spring I think. It's official - it's winter in Korea!

A Quiet Fall Weekend

Nothing much to report for this week. It was a quiet week at school, and Milton and I are having a quiet weekend at home too.

The Fall weather continues to be gorgeous here, so we took advantage of the sunshine and spent the day outdoors yesterday.

We started our morning with a quick trip to one of the outdoor gyms that is set up at a park near our apartment. We see these circuits set up all over the place- in every park, and on every mountain - but we hadn't fully tried one out. Well... turns out we weren't missing much! Either we are just to big for the equipment and so nothing worked right, or the stuff was designed by someone who has never worked out a day in his life because the equipment was just ridiculous! Most of it hurt us or would have caused injury if we continued to use it, and the rest of it just didn't really work any muscles! We had fun trying though...

Ooh, feel the burn... NOT!

Somehow, by spinning this wheel I am working the muscles in my back???!

Ok this one may have worked my arms a bit.

As you pull your arms down you lift your body at same time.

The ab workout was pretty hard on your back.

More pain than gain!

I think I've seen this one in an infomercial at home - that guy Tony something with the long hair sells it.

There is no way this one works your obliques -but then again, maybe we are just too tall for it to properly work.

This one would have been good for cardio if the arms and legs moved smoothly together at the same time. A bit rusty I think.

A view of the entire circuit.

My favourite: The twist machine!

Milton's favourite:

The Motorcycle/

Pelvic Thruster

After our tough workout we rested in the sun on a mini golf/driving course in the same park.

I know we stand out like sore thumbs in Korea all the time, but this time it was this man who really didn't seem to belong:

I think he was a Korean spy keeping an eye on us crazy waygooks, but Milton thinks he was just standing in the shade waiting for the bus since Koreans always hide from the sun.

Milton could be right since we've seen this before while waiting for the bus. I'm getting all the sun I can while waiting and these girls are ducking behind tiny bushes to get away from it!

We ended the morning playing badminton in the sun at our usual spot.

We had a lazy afternoon sitting in the sun at a cafe on a little pedestrian road near our place. It was not quite like the cafes in Europe but a good place to spend the afternoon people watching. It was a great fall day in Mokpo!

Imsung Elementary School Festival

Toward the end of the school year, every school in Korea puts on a school "festival". I don't know why they call it a festival - there is no common theme or one particular thing celebrated. It is more like a talent show or assembly where each class prepares a short play, song, or dance. This festival is quite a big to do though and every class rents costumes and the school prints big signs for it and has a background scene printed too.

These were the costumes for the MCs of the festival --- almost like bride and groom attire for kids!

The cutest performances of course were done by the youngest kids wearing incredible costumes and doing dance moves that they probably shouldn't have seen anywhere at there age!

Check out the leopard print hearts on the butts of these boys! I don't know what Koreans are thinking sometimes! - it is perfectly acceptable that five first grade students wear this and perform a routine to some boy band love song. Oh, and just so you get a complete idea of the look they had, the front was bare-chested.

The strangest thing about the festival was that although it showcased the students' talent for playing instruments, doing taekwondo and dancing, there was no singing at all and even the play was recorded on CD rather than spoken live. The playing of instruments was real though, and the drums were most impressive!

I of course wasn't asked to get involved at all and had no idea until the day before the festival that it actually existed. I was happy to see that the grade four class chose some English songs for their performance, but disappointed that they didn't sing. The songs are from the textbook and CD that are used in class and the students know all the words. it doesn't make sense that they would dance and not sing, but nothing ever does make sense in Korea! They are the actual songs that are part of the curriculum for grade 4 English ---it is so embarrassing that this is what I have to teach!

This video is especially for Drew and Denver --- new songs for you to learn and to sing around the house!

(Finally got it to work!!!)

There isn't much more I can say about the festival... just have a look at all the crazy costumes and check out the videos!

This was a grade 3 performance that was done by all the girls in the class, but i guess they were 1 girl short and this poor boy had to fill in with a wig!

I have a great story about this kindergarten kid front left... I thought HE was a SHE for the first month of school and it wasn't until we were doing the letter B and words that begin with B that I found out otherwise. I kept pointing to two students in the class saying "boy" and "girl". "Boy starts with the letter B". I pointed to him several times making the comparison between her and the boy next to him. He got all upset a kept saying something in Korean that I didn't understand and finally the teacher explained that "she" was a he!

Here the poor kid has to wear lipstick and pantyhose and as if that weren't bad enough, they told him to pull them up as high as they would go to hold his big belly in!

Above, notice the "slippers" that all the k-3 students wear. Blue for boys and pink for girls. If only I had noticed the slippers before I started pointing out all the boys in the class!!!

Halloween in Korea

Halloween isn't celebrated in Korea, but I did my best to make it happen anyways!
For the entire month of October I did Halloween themed lessons with my kindergarten, grade one and grade two students. I don't think they fully understood how much fun Halloween can be, but they enjoyed the candy I gave them!

I had the most fun with my kindergartens because they are the most adorable and it is so much easier to do stuff with them since there are only seven students in the class. We made flying witch lollipops, and learned a Halloween song that includes actions for Halloween characters, and we did a mummy wrap contest.

Milton and I also celebrated Halloween night by dressing up. Since they don't have many props and costume stuff in Korea we had to get creative. Milton went as Clark Kent and I was the Paper Bag Princess - cheap and easy costumes with things we could find easily in Korea!

Our friends Lisa and Barry (also Guelph natives) joined us for dinner before we all headed to a local bar where all the foreigners hang out and where there was a Halloween party going on. Lisa was dressed as Hell Girl and Barry told us he was a dentist. I think he changed his story when people started asking if he was McDreamy from Grey's anatomy!

The party was a bit of a fundraiser for an orphanage in Mokpo that Lisa and Barry volunteer at. There was a good crowd of foreigners in costume there, but did we ever get some looks from Koreans when we were in the streets making our way to the party! They don't have forks in Korea and they don't know what Halloween is so imagine what they thought when they saw a giant fork walking down the street!