This is not a drill.

Last Friday was just a regular day. I was happy to be teaching my last class of the day – my 5:40 class. A class full of loud 4th grade boys. It was about 6:05, 15 minutes until the end of class, and strangely enough they were all quiet while we were reading our storybook. That was when a very, VERY faint sound of a fire alarm went off. My kids still all jumped out of their chairs, ran to the window, and started screaming “Teacher..fire!” I went over to the window expecting to see a small bonfire or something. Nope. Instead I saw the brightest orange glow I’ve ever seen, along with big pieces of fire embers flying in the wind. I couldn’t see the fire and I wasn’t sure where it was, but I knew it was big. I told my kids to grab their shoes and their backpacks and lineup. That was when I panicked a little bit, I had no idea where I was going to take them. So I stood there for a second and looked out the door to see if any of the other classes were leaving. I saw one teacher leave her classroom and run down the hallway, I waited to see what she was going to do. She came running back and told me the building next door was on fire, I turned back to my panicked kids and tried to calm them down, telling them that our school was not on fire, just the other building. I took my kids quickly down the hallway and down the stairs. We were on the fifth floor and there are windows all along the staircase facing the burning building. That is when I realized exactly how big the fire was. Never in my life had I seen flames that big. I got to the second floor, where our lobby is, and Whitney was at the bottom holding my stuff. I get my kids in the lobby, trying to keep them all together, in the chaos of all the other classes coming in. I saw the other teachers getting their coats and etc. So I quickly grabbed my coat – didn’t think to get my shoes though (We wear slippers in school).

As I was getting my coat on, the Korean teachers are running everywhere and the secretary is trying to scream into a megaphone that doesn’t work. Then finally my boss screams over all the noise, telling the kids to be quiet, and continues to tell them what do. Which didn’t help me, since everything she was saying was in Korean. She apparently told the kids to put their arm over their mouth and to start heading out. A few kids went downstairs and out the door, but came running back up due to all the falling embers from the fire. That’s when a firefighter came halfway up and told everyone to start getting out. We went down the stairs and began running down the sidewalk, there was no way to keep all the kids together. I was holding the hands of two of my girls and just following the other kids and teachers. The wind was blowing in the direction we were going, so all of the ashes and embers were falling down on us. One fell on my coat and luckily Whitney was running beside me and screamed “Caroline there’s fire on you!” and patted it off. There was one point where we thought we went far enough away and stopped, just to look up and see more coming, so we kept going. My kids were crying, at least the ones I still had with me and other kids were slipping on the snowy/icy sidewalk. Once we got far enough the buses came and they started putting kids on. I stayed with one of my girls for a long time because she was waiting for her mom to come pick her up. Once all the kids were on buses and/or picked up some of the teachers went back to look at the fire and take some pictures.

The building next door was empty and I guess they were beginning to tear it down. We think the fire may have started from electrical wires. Apparently over 100 firefighters came and about 50 fire trucks came to and from the fire. At some point when the fire trucks first arrived, they ran the hose across the street, without blocking off traffic first and a bus drove over the hose, busting it open. Luckily our school didn’t catch on fire and no one was hurt. It was definitely a scary experience, leaving many of the kids and the Korean teachers balling their eyes out.

We went back the next morning to check out the damage and help clean up. Our school didn’t have too much damage. Some of the windows broke and one of the rooms has holes in the ceiling from firefighters having to drain water out.

Can I get some fries with that?

Happy New Year!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful time bringing in 2010! I turned a year older over here. Along with every one else in Korea. Their age system is quite different. When Koreans are born they are 1 year old. Then instead of turning a year older on their birthday, they all turn a year older on January 1st, the new year. Every time one of my students has a birthday, it's just a reaction for me to ask "how old are you turning?" ..and thats when I get a blank stare, "uh I'm still 7 teacher." It's just a weird concept. So I am pretty old over here - 25. (23 American age)

I thought I would share a little of what I eat every day at school. Keep in mind these are a few of the things that I eat. There are many odd things I don't eat, such as sardines, kimchi soup, rice cakes with red sauce (which tastes like spicy marshmellows) It changes every day and theres no schedule of whats for lunch - it varies between about 15 options. Every meal comes with rice, kimchi, vegatable of somesort (usually seaweed stuff or bean sprouts), a main dish, and soup. I never eat the soup though because it's usually tofu soup, or a fishy soup.

Rice and curry, with bean sprouts.

Quail eggs, dried seaweed, and kimchi

Tuna and potatoes.

Spicy, but delicious bulgogi (pork)

Egg omelet square things.

Donkansa (fried pork cutlet) and a very yummy egg/apple salad.

Christmas in the mountains.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! This was my first Christmas away from home. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Of course I missed being at home and spending time with my family, but thanks to wonderful technology, I was able to video chat with both Jen and Court in England and the rest of the fam in Tallahassee. It definitely wasn’t the same through a web cam, but it was good to see everyone’s faces and chat for a while. It’s really a bitter sweet feeling, because while I would love to be with my family during the holidays, right now I am perfectly happily being over here. I say it all the time, but I am truly having the greatest time here in Korea. It’s a mixture of great travel spots, great friends, and just once in a lifetime opportunities, and I’m trying to soak up every moment of it. (Oh and it doesn't hurt that I love going to work every day.)

Soeraksan National Park in Sokcho, Korea was our destination over Christmas break. Whitney, her friend Austin, Erica, Jason, Steve, and I all got on a bus toward Sokcho at 8:30 on Thursday morning. 5 and a half hours later we made it and we were all starving, so we decided to find the nearest restaurant and eat whatever they would serve us. We found a Chinese place and had some delicious chicken and fried rice. Once we were all full and happy we set out to find our hostel, which was a little bit of a challenge, but we eventually found it. It’s a long story but we ended up getting one room with one bed for all 6 of us. Luckily they heat the floors here, so most people opted to sleep on the floor anyway. I ended up getting to sleep on the bed due to my butt injury. Let’s just say I don’t walk well on slick ice.

On Friday we explored the National Park a little bit. We saw a giant Buddha, which looked almost the same as the Great Buddha in Japan. It was really neat, especially with the mountains in the background. Then we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, and according to the pamphlet it’s “one of the most unique adventure attractions on Earth.” I don’t know about that, but it was really pretty. We could even see the waterfalls – frozen waterfalls that is. The view was beautiful and the weather was nice too. It even started snowing a little bit, and I got really excited – because it was a “White Christmas!” It only snowed for about 3 minutes though. :(

After that we took a hiking trail up to one of the waterfalls. It was a lot of fun. The waterfall was really pretty and it was neat to see it half frozen and half not. The sound of the waterfall is so relaxing and it’s just one of those places where I could just spend the whole day. Well, except in the winter. On our way back down we decided to go off the trail and take a quicker way to our hostel. It was fun hiking through the woods and across a rocky river.

That night for dinner, we all wanted a nice Christmas meal, so we went up the hill from our tiny hostel to a nice hotel with a western style restaurant. It was by far one of the best dinners I had eaten in a while. Even though we were pretty bummed that they were out of French onion soup, they did have a nice side salad with Italian dressing and also butter rolls. I had the chicken cordon blue, and it was delicious. After dinner we walked back to our hostel and got all cozy in our slumber party room. It was a good day, and a nice Christmas. I stayed up and talked to my family on video chat for a while and then went to bed.

The next day we walked around the park a little more and saw a temple and just enjoyed the scenery. We planned on going to a hot springs later that day, but then we found out that there was only one bus that was going back to Gwangju that day and it was leaving at 3:30. So, Erica, Jason, and I were tired and ready to go home so we bought our bus tickets and headed back that day, while Whitney, Austin, and Steve stayed back and went to the hot springs and stayed overnight an extra day. The bus ride was really long, but it was nice to get home after a long weekend, and sleep in on Sunday.

Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I’m headed back up the country on another bus to Seoul for New Years! Love you all! Happy Holidays! :) Enjoy this little video I made of my kids singing:

It's hard to eat Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks

So last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and it was a little depressing to be working and not spending it with family, eating turkey, and watching football. I spent the whole day trying to explain to 5 and 6 year olds what Thanksgiving and turkey was. So anyways, all the foreign teachers, which are all Americans, decided to have our own Thanksgiving dinner that Sunday. We also thought it would be fun to invite all the Korean teachers too, so they could get a little glimpse of what we eat on Thanksgiving. After much debate we decided to have it at our place. That day Erica (another Kinder teacher) came over and we all cooked our assigned dish. Unfortunately none of the apartments have ovens, so that kind of put a cramp in our cooking. We made the mashed potatoes and corn, and Erica also made yummy carrots and deviled eggs :) So since they don’t have turkey here, we opted for the next closest thing – chicken. And well, since we don’t have ovens to cook a chicken, we decided to order it. Now, usually at school when we want to get food we have the Korean teachers order it for us, which works perfectly. But since we ordered it ourselves, it didn’t go as smoothly. We called and Erica ordered what we wanted and how many, it took a little while for her to understand and then she kept talking and saying stuff in Korean, and then I got on the phone and told her where we lived (which was an accomplishment in itself). We hung up and weren't really sure what happened, but knew we ordered something. A little while later the delivery man was at our door and he had one tiny little box of chicken in his hand. Well, we got the chicken we wanted but we needed a little more than one tiny box to feed 20 people – we thought we ordered 4 boxes. So then we ordered again from another place and somehow ordered 3 more boxes correctly. :) The feast turned out pretty good. Everything tasted great. We had a lot of the Korean teachers show up too. After eating we played this fun Korean game, which is sort of like jacks.

Our Thanksgiving spread

Playing the Korean jacks game

On Saturday a few of the other teachers and I went to this store called Home Plus, which I don’t know why we hadn’t discovered sooner. It’s a big grocery/home goods store that has more American food than anywhere else. Not a whole lot, but they have things like block cheese, American beers, salad dressing, and the thing I was most excited about - GOLDFISH!!! :)

On Sunday we went to the “Wii Bong”, which is this cool place where you pick out a game, order a coke or hot chocolate, and then they take you to your own personal room and just play Wii. It was a lot of fun. We played Mario party, and it was hard to decipher a lot of the directions since everything was in Korean.

On a side note, an example of some corporal punishment in the Korean schools. Last week one of my afternoon elementary students told me that her friend got in a fight and so the teacher grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the ground and kicked her….She might have been trying to say that the other girl did that – but I’m pretty sure she said the teacher did. I asked her like 3 times. And it surprises me a little, but Korean teachers don't mess around with punishment - they can do whatever they want to the students. They like to pick them up by their ears too.

Top 5 things I miss (besides friends and family):

5. Real pizza. (you know without mayonnaise and corn)

4. Macaroni and cheese.

3. Driving (though sometimes it’s kinda nice not having a car)

2. A soft comfy bed

1. A Dryer! (I've never appreciated dryers as much as I do now. I hate hanging my clothes, and they are always so stiff.)

Dinner at a new restaurant - Delicious galbi!

China video

4 months in..

4 months…so far so good. I can’t believe I’ve been here for 4 months. This year is going to fly by. I’m still really enjoying it here. I love the kids. And I just love teaching them – and hearing what they have to say and trying to interpret what they are trying to say. The young kinder kids are pretty funny, because when they don’t know how to say something in English (which is most of the time) they act it out – and say a few words they know. So it’s kind of like playing charades with them, which just cracks me up. They can understand a lot of what I say, it’s just hard for them to think of how to say stuff. The kinder kids are really good at repeating whatever I say too, so it’s fun to teach them new things :)

It’s gotten really cold over here, a lot different from Florida weather. I’m not a big fan of it, but I have found a new obsession: scarves. I’ve never really been able to wear scarves in Florida because it doesn’t get that cold. But I wear one every day here. They’re pretty cheap too, so it’s okay. I’m really excited about going skiing too. I haven’t been in a long time. I’m gonna try and go all the time while I’m here, and maybe even learn how to snowboard. :)

Two weekends ago my sister Jennifer was in Seoul for work. So I went up there and visited her. It was really good to see her. I stayed with her at her hotel, which was super nice. It felt great to sleep in a soft bed with real pillows and a nice down comforter. :) We had a good time. Friday we went shopping in Itawon (a big shopping area right outside the military base). Jennifer got a suit made, and also some custom made boots. And then she talked to me into getting a pair of custom made boots too. Since the only winter shoes I have are my tennis shoes. That evening we went up to the Seoul tower – and saw the whole city. On Saturday we went to a palace and saw the changing of the guard, which was really neat. We also got to dress up in Hanboks (the Korean traditional dress). After the palace we walked around Seoul a little and then went to another shopping area. That night we went to the Korea House and had dinner and a show. The show was really good. It was just like a little theater with lots of different traditional Korean dances and performances. There was one really cool act with 5 girls playing these drums with a synchronized dance along with it. Sunday we did yet again more shopping at the Namdemoon market, which is an outdoor market where you can buy things for really cheap. This is where they sell lots of name brand purses and anything else you could ever think of. After shopping I said bye and got on a bus back to Gwangju.

Korea House after the show


Hanbok wearing at the Palace

Last weekend was good, didn’t do too much. I went and saw the movie 2012 with some of the other teachers. I liked it. I thought it was really good, the plot was kind of cheesy, but the special effects were really cool. This weekend we are having a Thanksgiving dinner. We don't have ovens in our apartments, so we'll have to see how that all works out. And no turkey here, I guess chicken will have to do.

A few quotes from my kids:

Me: “Do you like tangerines?”
Student: “Teacher what is tangerine?”
Other student: “Oranges little friend!”

Student: “Can we play that one game again with the points?...it’s name is..uh..Japanese”
Me: “You mean Jeopardy?”

Boy’s journal about the movie Harry Potter: “Harry Potter’s mom is die. I cried.”

There was something written about Jello in their book.
Student: “Jello is what?”
Me: “Uhh..you know it’s a sweet dessert thing that’s squishy and gooey”
Student: “Gooey is what?”
Me: “You know it’s wiggly”
Student: “Wiggly is what?”
Me: “Nevermind, too hard to explain”

Say Kimchi!

Friday was Halloween. And even though Koreans don’t celebrate the holiday – they celebrate in the English Hogwans. We were supposed to go to a park with the Kinders and have a whole show with the kids singing and dancing and their parents were going to come, but it got canceled due to the swine flu. Yea…Korea is very paranoid of it and lately even the kids have been wearing surgical masks to school. So instead we just did the whole show upstairs in the activity room and their parents didn’t come. It was fun anyways. The kids all dressed up. The boys were superheros, wizards, vampires, etc..and the girls were either angels, fairies, or princesses. All the teachers dressed up too of course. The Kinder teachers all decided to be crayons! And Jason just wanted to be a box, but we made him be the crayon box. They were pretty much the best costumes ever! :)

So we started the day with face painting, which was interesting, since I’m not the best artist. Then we took all the kinder kids upstairs and they did their class dance. After that we had to do 2 dances with the kids. One was “You are my Sunshine”, and then the other was a Korean superman song…which was a hard dance, but so much fun - we practiced it, so we wouldn’t look like total idiots. After that we had lunch and then it was time for trick or treating! We had a huge box of candy and they just had all the kids line up – one class at a time and say trick or treat and they had little Halloween baskets for us to put the candy in. Once all the candy was passed out the kids went back upstairs to watch a movie…and all the foreign teachers came up and we took a million pictures. By the end of the day I was exhausted..plus I was getting sick, so I felt horrible. It was a fun day though.

This weekend I didn’t too much, because I’ve been sick, just layed around and such. I listened to the Yankee game this morning then I went to the Kimchi fevstival with Whitney, Erica, and Jason. I wasn’t expecting it to be that great, because well I’m not a huge fan of kimchi. It was a lot of fun though! I had a great time. The taxi ride over there was pretty fun in itself. It was a white and pink taxi, and we got in it and I felt like I was in cash cab. It was so colorful. It had pink felt on the sides and on the roof it had red cushioning. On the dash he had a lot of decorations - a few of those solar powered flowers that move and a spiderman suctioned on the windshield. We were taking pictures and he just laughed, and then gave us some coffee flavored gum.

Anyways, at the kimchi festival they had a free bicycle rental place – so we decided to rent bikes and rode around for a while. Erica didn’t know how to ride a bike, so we taught her how, and she picked it up pretty fast. After bike riding we found a tent that said “Foreigners making Kimchi” and we couldn’t pass up making our own kimchi, even though we weren’t going to eat it. So we went in and they first showed us all the ingredients and what goes into it...I couldn’t tell you what all of it was. After that they demonstrated how to do it. Then they took us to a table, gave us aprons, gloves and the materials and let us at it. Well a guy kind of helped us a little bit. All we really did was just spread all the spicy stuff on the cabbage. It was a lot of fun.

Once we made our kimchi, we went around to the different booths. They had lots of different types of kimchi..I only tasted a few of them, and was force fed some black salty thing. There were a few other exhibits we went to, including a kimchi art place and the history of kimchi. And apparently Gwangju (my city) is known for making the best kimchi in Korea. :)