Winter Camp!

 Wow, it’s the middle of January already! We hope everyone’s start to the new year has been wonderful! Today I finished my last day of Winter Camp at my school! That means it’s finally time for our Winter Vacation! We get 24 days (including weekends) and we are splitting our vacation between January and February as we have 2 weeks of regular school in February. It’s confusing, as it’s very different than US schools. But we are so very excited for vacation #1!

 Winter camps are very common throughout Korean elementary, middle, and high schools! They all vary in length of time and expectations, but the goal is for students to be exposed to English while regular school is out of session.

Nicole helping our students make Inushuks out of play dough!

This was my first English camp and I was thankfully paired with 2 other English teachers for this camp! Liz (from Canada) and Nicole (from the US) and I worked together to come up with many activities and lesson plans for our 10-day camp. This is really rare to have so many teachers for one camp, but we were very grateful for it!

Dancing!

 We decided our theme was “Winter” since its very broad and we could come up with many activities centered around that theme. It was really nice to break up the responsibility between 3 of us and put all of our talents together! Liz is a great singer and wrote a song for our students to learn, Nicole is a great cook and shared some great recipes with the students, and I like to dance so I taught students a few different dances!

Liz taught the students the song she wrote and we learned the "Cups" pattern!

Besides those activities we had a million (well…almost a million!) other activities planned for the kids. We learned all about penguins and the Inuit culture, conducted science experiments, made lots of arts and crafts, and played games! It was really fun to have the flexibility and freedom to do basically whatever we wanted! We were very lucky to have a very large budget to purchase supplies for this camp.  Not all schools have this type of budget, but it definitely allowed us to be creative!

The students in the Tye Dye T-shirts we made! 

We had 26 students for this camp and at least 23 showed up every day! I’d say that’s great attendance! Though our camp activities weren’t from a textbook, we felt our students learned a lot of English through the activities we did. Because it was 3 native English Teachers teaching the entire camp, they were almost forced to use their English as much as possible to communicate! They did a great job! It was a nice feeling when my Korean co-teacher praised us for having engaging activities for the student’s everyday. We felt proud of our camp and of all of our students!

Here is a slideshow video I put together for my students on the last day!

Tyler’s winter camp was very different than mine! He had 4 days of English camp with a total of 8 students. Unfortunately, not all of his students showed up every day and on the last day, he only had 2 attend! However, he planned great English activities for them and they were even able to enjoy some fun activities like making hot chocolate, participating in a scavenger hunt that lead to a prize of popcorn, and playing fun American card games like “Spot it!” He did not get an extra teacher and his Korean co-teacher wasn’t even present for any of it! So, he definitely had to communicate with the students without any help with translating at all!

Though our camps were very different, we both worked hard this January to continue to help our students work on their English! It was a great experience for us to see what “English Camps” are and now we are more prepared to plan Summer English Camp next August!

Can you see their enthusiasm dancing? ;) Haha, just kidding! As much as they usually like dancing, they are horribly embarrassed to be on camera....

Tomorrow morning we leave to go to Incheon Airport to meet my parents! It’s exciting to think they will finally be in Korea! We will visit Seoul for a few days (including visiting the DMZ!), travel to China for 3 days, and come back to Korea to stay in our hometown of Hwasun! It will be an exciting 10 days and we cannot wait to begin! Until then….it’s time to clean and pack! ;)

Christmas in Korea!

Hello again!


We wanted to have this posted by December 31st as it's all about the month of December..but we're a little late. ;)

December proved to be a weird month in Korea (as teachers and foreigners at least!). As the holiday season began, homesickness got worse. We tried to stay positive and enjoy our new and interesting holiday season, and what do you know, we did it! In just a few weeks my parents will be here and we will be on vacation! God is so good and we are truly blessed!

 Val's students made these snowmen! 

An amazing and wonderful thing that happened this December was that my nephew was born! My older sister, Savannah, and brother in law Cole, welcomed baby Bennett Morgan Hise into the world on December 2nd at 3:11pm! After a long and challenging labor, she finally delivered him via C-section. It was no wonder, as he was 9 lbs 8 oz!! Tyler and I are thrilled to be Auntie V and Uncle Tyler to now 3 precious nephews and a niece! We can't wait to meet Bennett! :)

Just born! <3 

That face! <3 

We miss them so much! Congrats Hise Family! <3

The snow fell early this year, starting on December 1st exactly! From there it’s been snowing off and on every week! Some days it snows a lot and sticks and some days it snows throughout the day, but melts! It’s very fun to watch! Overall, the snow is beautiful the way it covers the giant hills around us and sparkles in the sun, but it’s also lost its novelty after happening so many times! In Korea, snow days from school are very rare. Even when it snowed many inches here, school still occurred! People and busses just drive slower, but all is normal! That is very very different from Oregon considering that if we even hear there might be snow, we cancel school. Also in the US, if there is any snow on the ground while at school, we do not let our students play in it, as it can be dangerous. In Korea, it’s opposite! Kids are encouraged to go out and play and even run around having snowball fights! Sometimes the staff members join in!

Another weird thing about December has been testing and final exams for students. The testing and exams happen early in December. As an English teacher in a middle and high school, I do a speaking interview to evaluate each of my students. This can take anywhere from 1-3 class periods, depending on the number of students in the class. Then after the exams are completed, which happens mid-December, students are essentially finished, but they still have a couple weeks until winter break. Then they will come back for a week in February before the end of the semester. In my middle school classes I’ve been doing textbook review activities and special lessons, but for my high school classes I was told that they’ve already started their celebration and that I could go take a rest. Instead of retreating back to my desk, I played card games with some of my students in each of the high school classes. It’s been a great opportunity to bond with some of my students who were more intimidated to interact with me otherwise. Unfortunately, there is a lot less to prepare for, so all the prep time I would normally have, turns into desk warming time.

My classes (Val) have been strange as well. After final exams, classes continued, but there were many more schedule changes. I’m not sure English class was top priority anymore. One of the fun traditions at my schools is called “Market Day.” Twice a year my co-teacher and I will buy lots of little toys, stationery things, candy, and snacks and we will “sell” them to our students. The students earn stickers throughout the term and in turn, they get fake money for their stickers. I ran the store section and register and my co-teacher made many grilled sandwiches on our sandwich makers that we have. Students could buy these sandwiches with their money as well. The sandwiches were things that American students would probably never think of! One type of sandwich was bread, pizza sauce, corn, and cheese. Another sandwich was strawberry jelly and American cheese! The students loved it though and enjoyed eating them after they made their many purchases. That day they also watched, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (the cartoon version) in each class. I’ve now watched that movie about 10 times. Market day was a success and we all had a lot of fun making it a nice reward for the kids!

Random fact! - The movie Home Alone, which is really popular around Christmas time in Korea, is simply referred to as, “Kevin.”

As we’ve talked about before, Val and I have been teaching an extra class every other Saturday at my travel school. On Friday were all set for our last class the next day, but then halfway through the day my co-teacher told me that the school called to inform me that the Saturday class will be moved to next week. We had a busy weekend planned, so having the moved was actually very helpful even though we were looking forward to finishing the extra classes. Then the next Friday rolls around and we are excited for the last class again. We had lots of fun activities planned and some treats for our students. It snowed a little bit, but business as usual in Korea. On Saturday morning it was snowing again and we went caught the bus to head out to my travel school early morning. On the bus ride we saw the sun rise and the beautiful rice fields blanketed with snow. When we arrived there only appeared to be one set of footprints in the snow leading to the school. The school was open, but there were no students inside. The other staff member at the school, who didn’t speak much English, told us to wait. He continually told us to wait until had waited 3 hours with no students. We finally caught the bus back to Hwasun at our normal time that day...and we may have eaten a bunch of the treats we brought for the students in the meantime. Then next time I saw them they all felt so bad because they said there was too much snow at their houses to get to school. Overall, we were sad we couldn’t end the class on a positive note and do our activities, but we’re also happy to be finished and have our Saturday’s back again!

We really enjoyed eating these snacks! ;)

A weird, but very cool part of December was a school field trip to Gwangju. The school invited Val and I to go on the field trip to the movies and lunch, on a Sunday! We met the students and a couple other middle school teachers at the movie theater to watch the new Hobbit movie. After the movie we all went to a buffet lunch at a restaurant near the theater. It was a really fun field trip and it was very generous of the school to invite Val to join us. From what we’ve heard, it’s not very common for schools to invite someone’s spouse to attend school events. We had a lot of fun and enjoy getting to spend time with our co-teachers.

On Christmas Eve we baked and delivered Christmas cookies and a card to two of our favorite restaurants in Hwasun. We wanted to let them know how friendly they are and how much we like their food! They were so surprised and thankful. The next time we had dinner at our favorite Italian food place, the chef/owner/our friend Tong Hee, made us a special pizza to take home as a christmas gift. (He’s so nice!) He knows a basic amount of English, so when he was done cooking, we chatted for a little bit too.

Unlike teachers in the USA, we still had to work on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve day felt long, but we were looking forward to a wonderful dinner with our friends Brad and Maranda. During the long wait, I was told that as a Christmas treat, all the middle school teachers were going out to an eel restaurant for lunch. As someone who does not like seafood and thinks eels are scary looking, I was far from excited. I knew I’d have to at least give it a fair shot though to be respectful and try new things. At the restaurant I ate fried eel spine, and grilled eel meat. The spine was really crunchy like a burnt french fry and didn’t have much flavor. The eel meat, which we dipped in sauce, wrapped in lettuce leaves, and added toppings, wasn’t too bad. It tasted like a mix between fish and chicken. My Christmas Eve experience (Val) was interesting as well. I had 3rd grade which had their Market Day, 2 periods of 5th grade, and 2 periods of 6th grade. In 5th and 6th grade we actually taught normal lessons for 1 of their periods and then they watched a movie for the last period. The strange thing about the movie was it was not a Christmas movie, like I would have expected, but it was a Halloween movie! We watched Hocus Pocus (with Korean subtitles) in both classes. It was the strangest thing to be watching that type of movie on Christmas Eve, but I went with it! That day we had also had a 40 min assembly to reward students on their accomplishments throughout the term. I also had to attend a 1 hour staff meeting (completely in Korean, of course) as they wrapped us the year as well. I had brought cookies to the meeting to share and the staff seemed to appreciate that! They couldn’t eat a whole cookie though as our cookies are much sweeter than theirs (I made sugar cookies, lol!). It was fun though! So overall, our Christmas Eve was spent nothing like it normally would be in the US, but we have interesting memories forever!

After we got home that day, we prepared some cookies and fruits and vegetables to bring to dinner. At Brad and Maranda’s, we had an amazing dinner! We ate BBQ pulled pork, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, corn bread, and fruits and veggies. Then for dessert, we ate Christmas cookies, Baskin Robbins ice cream, Trader Joe’s chocolate mints, and drank hot chocolate. Needless to say, we enjoyed every bit of it! It was great to spend time with friends and share such a great meal. We felt truly blessed!

Delicious food that Maranda prepared! :)

Christmas eve with Brad and Maranda!

Lucky for us, we both got Christmas Day off! We slept in that morning and enjoyed a nice breakfast while finishing a Christmas movie (Elf, of course!). We then opened our gifts from family and friends and took lots of photos to remember everything by! We got to skype with both of our families that day and enjoyed those conversations! A tradition in my (Val’s) family, is to eat homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning! So we were able to have a taste of home while also participating in another tradition, opening Christmas stockings! The rest of the day Tyler and I watched movies, created our Christmas video, and Tyler played with his new toy (a N64 adapter that allows him to play games on his computer with a real controller!). We ate pizza and buffalo wings for dinner and watched our new season of Big Bang Theory that we got as a gift! It was a really nice Christmas day! Even though some traditions didn’t happen this year (Church on Christmas eve, having family around, or putting up a real Christmas tree) we were able to focus more on the meaning of Christmas and enjoy the day together! Here is our Christmas video from our YouTube! :)

Another fun thing that happened in December was my (Val’s) birthday! I was expecting to be working this year on my birthday (my English camp had been scheduled for it!) but plans changed and I ended up having to use the 29th, 30th, and 31st as part of my paid vacation days, otherwise, I would lose them completely. So for those 3 days I cleaned and organized the house, watched movies, and basically hung out! On my birthday, Tyler took me out to downtown Gwangju to our favorite restaurant, The First Alleyway, for pizza, french fries, and brownie dessert! The pizza is amazing there as it’s the most western pizza you can get (good crust, sauce, and more selection of toppings!). It was very delicious! Then we walked around downtown for a bit! We found out my favorite store called Art Box was renovated and went from 1 floor to having 4 different floors of various things. Art Box is essentially a stationary store, but sells everything from stuffed animals, to kitchen supplies, to toys, and home art. It’s an eclectic mix of everything! We enjoyed browsing around while looking at all the fun things! Tyler’s gift to me was buying me a cute lunch box (or “Cooler pack” as they call it). I really wanted one to take my lunch to school during winter break (and throughout the year when needed) but also to travel with! It’s cute and I got the last one! At the end of our evening, we found these silly looking inflatable monsters outside a store. We thought it would make for a good picture, so we put my phone in the selfie stick and got one! Unfortunately, as Ty was trying to take it out, my phone was launched out of the holder and onto the ground. The way the phone holder works is by springs (clinging to your phone and adjusting by size) so it flew! It hit the ground and bursted some pixels in the screen in the upper left corner. Tyler felt so bad, but we both laughed it off, as it was a honest mistake and didn’t affect the phone too much. Well, little did we know that when the pixels bursted, it caused the rest of the phone screen to get worse and worse. What started out as a small black spot turned into two giant black spots. The screen started turning other colors like blue or red, and 24 hours later, the whole screen turned black. lol. Not very functional anymore! Too bad, since we paid a good amount for this used phone and it was only used for 4 months. Oh well, life happens! Tim (my brother in law) is so kindly sending his old iphone that he is not using to me so I can use it here! He is a lifesaver and so very helpful! :)
 

Such delicious pizza! 

Most fun store to browse around in! 

My birthday gift from Tyler! So cute! It's been very useful lately! 

The last photo my phone took! ;)

The next day was New Years Eve! That morning Tyler went to work at a normal time and I went in to work late (because I was still on paid vacation) to do some prep work for English camp! Tyler and I were both invited to his end of the term staff lunch party in Gwangju. So one of the teachers at the school, named Mrs. Han, so kindly picked me up at my school and drove us to the hotel in Gwangju! She has been a very kind friend to us here and always invites us and offers to drive us to the various events his school has! She was also extremely kind and bought me a birthday present of body wash and lotion! Very unexpected, but so very sweet! When we arrived at the hotel we didn’t know how fancy it would be. The lunch was set up in a ballroom at a hotel. There were large round tables with black linen and white cloth napkins folded in a pretty way! There was a huge buffet set out with tons of food. A small stage was at the front with a DJ and colorful lights. There was even a giant 3 tiered cake! And of course, as with any Korean event, a personalized banner hung across the top of the stage indicating what event this was. We were very honored to be apart of this as this was a very nice gesture from the school to invite us both! The food was great! We love buffet style here as we can choose different foods and try new things without fully committing to a full meal of it! We had lots of different kinds of meats, salad, fruit, and even dessert. We found out we really like Korean Meatballs and enjoyed going back for more! Throughout the meal there were many speeches by various teachers and we raised our glasses many times. Even Tyler and I were asked to speak (which only 3 out of the 30 some teachers could understand). Most of the male teachers enjoyed their alcohol (Soju and beer!) but we were happy without it. Then as the meal was finishing up the DJ handed off the microphone to someone and Karaoke began! We were slightly surprised, but not really, as we knew Koreans love their Karaoke. It was amusing to watch for a bit, until they asked us to sing! Then it was not so amusing anymore! ;) Reluctantly, we went up to the stage. Not knowing what song we could sing, Tyler had some quick thinking! He explained that yesterday was my birthday, therefore he was going to sing Happy Birthday. That got me out of singing and we thought we had fulfilled what they wanted, however, they were not satisfied yet! So after telling us that they wanted a real song,  we struggled to think of a English song that this older Korean DJ would have in his collection! We finally settled on Michael Jackson (as they wanted a oldie) and sang the song “Billie Jean”! It was highly embarrassing, but hilarious at the same time. Even some of the teachers got up and danced in front of us while we sang! After we were finished, they were happy and we went back to our seats. Overall, it was a very fun cultural experience that we’re glad to have!

Wonderful buffet of many different foods! 

Fancy tables!

There was even a cake cutting ceremony! This is Tyler's principal and his wife! 

Mrs. Han so kindly drove us home! My co-teacher Jin, and other staff member friend You Mi, from our school were planning on coming over for a visit. Originally, we were going to go shopping for the rest of English Camp supplies but when they came over, they said they couldn’t stay long. They both were super kind and surprised me with a bouquet of purple flowers, a Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Cake, and little cookies from my favorite coffee shop DropTop. It was such a surprise and adorably cute! They were so kind! We visited for a bit and both Tyler and I got to hold You Mi’s 5 month old baby! After they left we had the rest of the day to ourselves! That evening we celebrated the New Year by going out to eat with Brad and Maranda to a new restaurant and having a game night at their house, where we enjoyed the ice cream cake and cookies! It was a fun night!

Happy New Year to everyone! We hope 2015 bring lots of love, joy, and good health to all! We are so excited as our winter vacation is only 1 week away now! We are so happy to have my parents visit us in Korea next week and we will even take a trip to China! More blog posts to come! :)

Seoul with the Mansour Family!

On Friday, Val and I were allowed to leave school a little early, which gave us some extra time to finish packing before we left for Gwangju and catch our bus to Seoul. When it was time to leave, we realized it wouldn’t be practical for all of us to take the city bus to Gwangju with Tim and my mom’s 4 suitcases and our backpacks. In order to save on money and space, we got them into a cab and Val and I caught the next bus to Gwangju. After regrouping at the bus terminal, we killed time by exploring the YP Bookstore and shopping for some little gifts. We all took a nap on our bus ride to Seoul and before we knew it, we had arrived at the Seoul Express Bus Terminal. Then, on our way to Itaewon we almost got in trouble with Subway Security. When trying to leave the Itaewon Subway (it was now past midnight!) the automatic machine wouldn’t let us leave because each person is suppose to have their own subway card and we all shared the same one. So the guy got angry, but with his limited English and our lack of Korean, he decided it wasn’t worth his trouble and let us go with a warning. Sometimes being a confused foreigner works in our favor. But for the record, we did pay for each of us to get on the subway, so it’s not like we were cheating the system. Finally at about 1:30 am we got to the hostel and checked into our rooms to get some sleep for the early day ahead.

After a much needed breakfast at Dunkin Doughnuts, we met our tour bus along the street in Itaewon. Our first stop was at  Jogyesa, a temple in the middle of Seoul. At the entrance there was a stunning tree with flowers attached to the branches to form clusters of flower balls. It had a large temple (and another small temple) with giant gold painted statues inside. We didn’t chose to go inside,but it was pretty to look at from the outside!

Seoul Tour Bus

We called this the broccoli tree!

Another part of the tour was to drive by the Blue House. It’s the same thing as the White House in America, but you are not allowed to stop outside like at the White House. So we literally drove by slowly to get a quick peek. The Blue House got it’s name from it’s blue colored roof.

After the Blue House we went to the Korean Folk Museum. We had a short time to explore the museum, but that’s all we really needed. The museum was a lot more interesting and lively than the one Val and I visited in Gwangju. It had lots of displays and artifacts, and they were even had descriptions in English. It was extremely crowded though, and there were many tour groups there, all with a leader who held a tall flag to lead their group around. lt was funny to see.

Next, we went to the Gyeongbok Palace. We were told that we only saw 30% of the Palace because the other parts were previously burned down in past wars with Japan. They are currently rebuilding the other 70% of the Palace, which I believe will be completed within the next year. A cool fact that we learned was that the Palace buildings were built on rocks with small tunnels underneath them. Back in the day they would burn a fire under the building that would heat up the rock tunnels,and then in turn, heat up the wooden floors and rooms of the palace buildings. Then we saw the banquet hall, which extended out into the water and was very beautiful. It’s reflection was so vivid when looking at the water. Another interesting thing we saw at the palace was a reenactment of the changing of the guards at the front gate. The guards wore the traditional clothing and carried traditional weapons. It was a really cool cultural experience to see.

The palace in the middle of the bustling city! 

Our whole tour group!

The last stop on our guided tour was the Ginseng Factory in Seoul. It’s basically the tourist trap at the end of the tour. We did get to learn about the famous Korean Ginseng and how it’s grown and processed, but it doesn’t come cheap. They sell it in many different forms, including tea, sticky gummy slices, and even just capsules for those that don’t like the taste, which I was one of them.

Ginseng

After we finished our morning tour, we headed down the streets of Insadong, a popular place for shopping. It has many small shops with all kinds of things to buy, but it is a lot more modern than the traditional markets. While looking around, we also saw a small parade come down the street. Why, you might wonder? We have no idea, but it was pretty cool!

Random parade! 

After a delicious lunch at Pasha’s (a Turkish restaurant) in Itaewon, we took a taxi to the gondola to go up to Seoul Tower! Val and I found our lock on the fence from our last visit, and then we bought a new one for all four of us and locked it onto the tree of locks near the tower. This time, Val and I decided to stay down below while Tim and mom headed into the observatory in the Seoul Tower. We did a little shopping in the gift shop and hung out while they got to see the stunning views of the city and surrounding mountains. Once they were finished, we met up in time to see the amazing sunset and took some great pictures. Then we walked to the bus area and caught a bus to Namdaemun Market.

In the gondola! 

Searching for the lock! 

Found him!  

So beautiful! 

Adding their lock to the tree! 

Beautiful sunset! 

We spent some time walking around the market going in and out of shops. There were several stores selling lots of christmas decorations. We found some great gifts and some fun things for ourselves. The traditional style markets bring a unique quality and experience to shopping. After we completed our shopping, we had to find a taxi back to Itaewon for dinner, but there wasn’t an available taxi in site. Also, we somehow wandered onto a bus road where taxi’s are not allowed to pick people up. While looking for a taxi, we came across this fountain with a cage of Christmas lights covering it. Once we got closer, we saw that the Shopping mall building next to it had moving images of Christmas things projected on it from a projector across the street. It was really cool to see. We also got a clear shot of the Seoul Tower lit up in the distance. After some fun pictures, we headed down a different street where we finally found a taxi that could take us back to Itaewon.

Back in Itaewon, we went out for dinner at On The Border Mexican restaurant. Mexican food is really rare where we live, so when we visit Seoul we make sure to capitalize on the opportunity! We’ve never heard of this restaurant before, but apparently it is a chain in parts of the USA. The food was great and definitely appreciated after a long period without those tastes! After dinner we took a walk along the main street of Itaewon before heading back to the hostel for some rest.

On Sunday, Tim and mom had still had plenty of time to explore as their flight wasn’t until Monday afternoon, but Val and I had to get back to Hwasun in preparation for work the next day. In the morning we all went out to breakfast at the Flying Pan Blue restaurant. We had some trouble finding it (in the pouring rain!) because it is below street level, but was a very nice little place with great breakfast food. Tim and mom both ordered the triple chocolate waffles with ice cream. The waffles were chocolate with chocolate syrup, giant chunks of chocolate, and ice cream on top. I don’t know how, but they managed to eat it all! 

Val's breakfast! 

Tyler's breakfast!

Tim and Donna's breakfast!

We took some time to walk around Itaewon more and looked at some little shops. Then it came time for Val and I to pack up and we all headed down to the Subway. Tim and my mom were headed the opposite direction to explore a little more. As we arrived at the platform, the subway pulled up for them. We said quick goodbyes and then they were gone as quick as they came.

Saying goodbye! :(

It was a real treat having them here and sharing our experiences. We are so thankful for the support they’ve given us and hope they have some great memories of Korea. Now we are making preparations for Val’s parents who will be coming in mid January! We are in the process of writing about our holiday season here in Korea! Time is flying by and we can’t believe 2014 is wrapping up!