What's going on...

Again, I wish we posted more often on this blog but we always seem to be too busy or too lazy to keep everyone updated as often as we'd like.

Not much has changed since the beginning of October. School is still pretty much the same, the children act as they always do, and we teach them as best we can. There is the whole Halloween thing about to happen, however, so that is sort of exciting. In Korea they don't really celebrate Halloween, but since our school is an English school, they want to participate. All the children are VERY excited, and they've been brining BAGS full of candy to school so that on Halloween day they will be able to go trick or treating here at the school. Of course this means that we're going to have to dress up as well. The Korean director wants to be in charge of getting us costumes but I'm not so sure I trust her -- so I've been thinking about a few possibilities. Downstairs at the school we have an "English Hospital" set up so I was thinking about swiping the doctors coat and maybe making some fake blood and stuff and then being a crazy doctor, that might be a good one.. That or a Zombie -- face paint, fake blood, dirty clothes == easy costume.

Korea is starting to get cooler now. The weather changed even more dramatically then it does back home. We went from T-Shirts and Shorts weather one day, to Pants and Sweaters the next -- literally a 10-15 degree drop in daily temperatures over night.

On the North Korea front -- for those of you interested -- not much extra news that you can't find already on CNN. The general feeling among the South Koreans is that nothing is REALLY going to happen. They have the attitude of "Hey we're all Koreans, they won't attack US" which means they've conveniently forgotten that whole Korean war.

We have officially passed the 1/4 mark of our minimum stay here in Korea. That seems so amazing. We're starting our Teachers college application stuff again, so that is just another thing to keep us busy -- but if we don't get accepted again I think we're both pretty sure that staying another year isn't really a bad thing. Ask us again in 6 months if we still feel that way however.

Our winter vacation plans have definitely firmed up. We are booked for a bungalow in Samui, Thailand for new years and that is definitely exciting for us. There are A LOT of interesting places along the beaches and imagine how impressed I was when we found a resort called "Ninja Place" ! Which featured (according to their website) the Ninja Pool, the Ninja Beach, and the Ninja Crepe restaurant (Because everyone knows, Ninjas ONLY consume nutrients in Crepe form) so of course we tried to book that hotel but -- as one would expect, they were fully booked. I believe that they knew we weren't REALLY Ninja's and thus denied our request outright, those sneaky Ninjas!

that's the news from Korea... I hope people still actually READ this blog...

Lucas and Jo.

An Update for October

Greetings everyone!

Hope everything is going well for everyone back home. Korea is still pretty much the same. It's Chusok right now, a big deal holiday here and so we have an extra long weekend. In fact, we had Tuesday, Thursday and Friday off this week. For those of you wondering, Chusok is a holiday where, from what I can tell, families gather together and honor their elders, ancestors and all that jazz. It isn't so much a festive holiday as a solemn one. As a result, not much is happening, stores are mostly closed, and everyone keeps to themselves. This is okay with me, I'm fine just relaxing and doing a bit of tidying up at home. Jo went on a trip to Seoul with another couple teachers we met here in Korea but I decided to stay back because there is nothing I hate more than wondering around shopping and would have probably ruined the trip for her.

At school we were treated to something special though. The children performed this traditional bowing ceremony for the English teachers and it was really neat. They dressed up in these traditional outfits (which seem REALLY out there if you ask me, all pink and purple and green and yellow) and they do this really formal bow to us, honoring us or something. It made me smile though and I felt like I was being honored so I suppose it did the trick. They were terribly cute doing it which also probably adds to the effect.

On top of this, Chusok is also a time where you give gifts -- in Korea I have determined that it is ALWAYS appropriate to give gifts, so whenever a holiday comes around you might get some more elaborate ones. In this case Jo really brought home some winners; I, however, did poorly. She got this giant, 2.Kg crock of pure Honey. It came in a fancy wooden paneled box, and had a neat little lock on it. And then inside the box was the Honey Crock. On the bottom of the box we found the price tag (in Korean but we could read enough of it) it was about 200$ CDN. Holy crap, good deal. She also got a new wallet, which actually looks nice, and a soaps gift box. All I got was a SPAM AND OIL gift set. I kid you not, 3 can's of spam, 2 bottles of olive oil, and some sesame oil. In Korea this is a really GOOD gift, I'm not just saying that because it is all I got. I like Spam. It's good in a grilled cheese sandwich. Honest.

Anyhow, that's life in Korea at the moment. Oh, we met a couple teachers from a school near us who are pretty cool, so that was another good thing that happened. No major bad things to report, time flies by. Neither of us can believe that it is already October.

Talk to you all soon!
Have a good Thanksgiving those of you who are Canadian!

Lucas.