Fall in Chuncheon

It's been so long since I've updated! I hope you enjoy the next couple posts, there will be a lot of pictures. :)

Beautiful fall colors in Chuncheon!

My school had a Fall Festival a few weeks ago. The kids were so cute in their performances. It was fun to see all the parents in attendance --they are so proud of their children. (I wonder if they know how badly behaved some of them are....) I was able to meet a few of the parents in passing after the performance, so that was kind of cool. (My celebrity status has remained the same over the past few months.)

The cute 6th grade MCs.

6th grade band

2nd grade dancers

3rd graders: 

Aww. Cute 1st graders. I loved their costumes.

The other 1st grade class. Haha, Jung Won gets really into swinging her little hips:

So, Korean kids are really good recorder players:

Recognize this song?

The 5th grade put on a play. It was all in Korean, obviously, but I could tell it was a comedy by the periodic laughter. I laughed along--as if I understood Korean, HA. But the kids were cute.

I really loved seeing the parents' pride in their children. So sweet.

And again, I have to wonder if those parents know that this is what a typical start to a 1st grade class looks like for me: 

Remember, appearances are deceiving: crazy hellions often come in the form of adorable little Korean children.

Speaking of adorable things: 

Aren't my November bulletin board decorations so cute??! I was very excited about them.

Leaves I gathered in Chuncheon... 

One of my lesson plans for Thanksgiving was to paint/draw hand-print turkeys and write what you are thankful for. Here are some shots of my 2nd graders at work: 

And my completed bulletin board:

Haha...I helped one of my 1st graders write out "hamburger"...I don't think he would have chosen it if he knew it was that long of a word...

I like the black blob pictured above. I think it was once a hand-print turkey.

Hahaha! I loved this 4th grader's chicken drawing. Turkey, chicken...eh, it's all poultry, right? (Koreans don't really eat turkey, by the way. My kids went all PETA on me the first time I introduced Thanksgiving vocabulary.)

And this student clearly didn't get the bird memo at all...

A couple weekends ago, I went to Seoul (are you shocked??). I met my Korean friend from Daegu and we went and saw the lantern festival. It was...okay. Not super exciting, but it was fun to hang out with a Korean who, you know, speaks fluent Korean. It sure made ordering dinner easy (we had Chicago-style pizza--ie, it was normal).

Ju Yul is the guy who translated for me at church when Mom and I were in Daegu. He served his mission in New Jersey, so his English is awesome. He and I have become good friends in the last few weeks.

Lanterns on the water. You could make them and set them off, but we didn't (the line was too long).

Uhh...apparently I'm in the wrong country?

My hostel that I stayed at in Dongdaemun for a couple nights: 

Was this, like, meant to be, or what? That's the door to my room right there.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the room. It was a girl's dorm room, fairly comfy for the price (15,000 won a night). I met 2 nice Canadian backpackers who shared the room with me.

I found this awesome Christmas store in Dongdaemun! It was so great. I bought some little tree lights and a tree topper.

Other Random Stuffs

I spent a couple of boring weekends embroidering. And listening to Dino.

The Sri Lankan sister missionary in my Chuncheon ward wrote my name for me in Sinhala one Sunday (the bottom characters): 

Cool, huh??! What a beautiful writing system. And hard.

Some pics I discreetly snapped in relief society: 

The teacher was so cute. But she spoke way too fast for the sister missionary to translate for me. (Hence, my picture-taking to relieve my boredom...er, did I say that?)

E-mart had Christmas decorations! I was so happy to see this. It felt like home. (This was before I found that little shop in Dongdaemun).

I decided the fake trees here were too expensive. So I attempted to make my own out of cardboard: 

Well...it was entirely too flimsy. And fell over and broke a few days later. But good news: I went to Home Plus last week and they had an even bigger selection of Christmas decor. And I found a small tree for only 10,000 won (among other exciting goodies, like Mountain Dew)!

Cute, huh?!

Oh, I also picked up some wall hooks to hang some Christmas lights in my apartment. If you were wondering, I found them in the "Safty supplies" section:

Ahh, well. I'm just living the dream here in good 'ole Korea. As much as it's possible. I have found that ESL teaching is not for me, but I'm making the most of the experience. And even if it's not always fun, I'm good at pasting on a smile and going to work: 

I think that's just life, regardless of the country you live in.

Another part of life is sleep. And it's almost 3:30 AM (I had a long nap earlier), so... Aubree out.

*Stay tuned for my Jeju island cultural trip photos in the next post (hopefully tomorrow)!*