Christmas and New Years

(Written on Christmas Day)

Annyong haseyo! (That’s hello in Korea),

First off, I hope you are all having an amazing day and an even better Holiday season Merry Christmas! I’m on week three of my adventures in Korea and it’s been a roller coaster of good and bad emotions and events. Everything is still going well but I’ve had some moments where I really miss home and hate the private school systems here. But then it passes and all is good again! I’ve been discovering just how different it really is. I’m at an English teaching Hagwon (private school) that offers programs in the morning for Kindergarten (kids from 3-7) and then in the afternoon its Elementary kids so anywhere from 8-14. So, basically parents pay for their kids to come to my school and for most it’s about hour 8 of their school day. Lots of them go to school from 8:30 until 9:00 or later...its wild!

Besides school I’ve started to meet some really great people and have been doing some fun stuff. Last Wednesday was a national holiday because it was their election day...so I went for a little hike. There is a mountain super close to my house that’s about 2 hours to go and come back...I got to see the view of the city and the World Cup soccer stadium...which is very interesting and wild! All you see is a sea of huge apartment buildings surrounded by mountains.....My camera is not letting me upload my pictures onto my computer (it’s super old) so I’m buying myself one as a Christmas gift as soon as I get paid...so I will send pictures very soon.I’ve been to a few Christmas parties...the first one was a Philippines Christmas party (my co-worker is from there)...it was awesome and really funny...it was in the afternoon and we ate a whole bunch of traditional food and then played games...but get this ..the games we played were Musical chairs, telephone and a spot dances (so everybody had to dance and then they stopped the music and whoever was moving was out of the game) So it was 2 in the afternoon and I was dancing with all these people sober with bright lights! HAHAH it was great! And yup, you guessed it I WON AT MUSICAL CHAIRS!!! Hahahah my soccer skills came in handy! Then on Saturday night this American couple hosted a Christmas party for a bunch of foreigners...it was so nice it felt like a party at home...they made tonnes of food from home...like hummus and stuffed mushrooms (almost like yours Kim!!! I was so pumped) I met some really nice people who I think I will stay friends with! So that is super exciting because it’s been a little bit hard to meet people who I really get along with...so last night was amazing!For Christmas eve I went to sing Christmas Carols it was nice...it was a candlelight service.

Today was Christmas for me and I went to what I thought was going to be an English Church but in fact the service was in Korean and we got headset translators...pretty funny! It was super interesting and the choir was amazing...they made all the foreigners stand up and presented us with a gift...a really nice agenda....then for dinner I went back to the American couple’s house and it was great they cooked all the North American traditional food and we had pumpkin pie for dessert!!! We watched National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation so for a bit I felt like I was at home. Besides that I’ve gone out to eat a few times with the teachers at work, people are so nice here they want to pay for everything and I always get little gifts from the students and teachers. For example as I left school the other day one of the teachers gave me a bag with oranges, yogurt and an egg...hahahaha...funny eh!

So, I get a few days off coming up for New Years. I think I will be heading to Seoul to visit some people and maybe go snowboarding! Miss you all very much and wish you all the best holidays and an amazing 2008 filled with much good health, love and laughter!

Love, Angie

P.S. I will be requesting some serious care packages real soon!

My first days in Korea

(This was written and posted on Facebook on December 12th but I thought I would post it on here as I know lots of people don't have Facebook)

Hi Everybody!

I hope your all doing fantastic!! I miss you all already! I'm doing really good, I arrived last Sunday night in Seoul, South Korea and then took a bus to Gwangju. It's about 4hrs south of Seoul. The school director picked me up at the bus station and took me to my apartment. It's super cute! It's actually pretty big considering what people had told me....The the next morning she picked me up and brought me to school...after a really short tour of the school I was put into one of the kindergarten rooms and was told to sing songs and make them talk english....let's just say that in about 5 minutes I was singing 'I'm a little tea pot' yup...picture me in front of 6 or 7 Korean kids singing the only song that came to my head...they thought it was entertaining....So now I've finished my first week and everything is really good (I'm hoping the novelty doesn't wear off).

Everybody has been super nice to me, I didn't have to go to the grocery store until about the 4th day because people kept giving me food (weird stuff like pickled cabbage called Kimchie and black beans) I also got a lesson on how to make rice a couple nights ago! It's so easy because everybody has rice cookers (even I do in my apartment). At the grocery store I had three little girls following me around trying to ask me questions in english...they actually guessed that I was from Canada. As well last week I went on a field trip to a theatre play. For those of you who know me well know how much I love the movie Little Orphan Annie, well it took me the entire play to figure out that the show was the Korean version of the movie!!! I died laughing in my head once I figured it out.

I had my first night out in Korea on Friday. The downtown is pretty funny! They have lights and writing everywhere...and you can pretty much get any kind of deep fried food on the street that you would want! (the sweet potato is amazing) I went out to this foreigners bar where most of the people spoke english...

So, so far so good! I think that I will be able to save lots of money here and see some cool stuff!I have an address and a phone number for those of you who want to call or write...it takes about a month for me to get something though....(wink, wink, nudge, nudge) Send me a message and I'll send it your way!
Love all of you! Keep smiling!!!Angie (big hugs!) PS. I got served ocotpus soup for lunch today!!!!!! (yup you guessed it I didn't eat it!)