Too cute. I can't deal.

Not even placed in my mailbox... this was hand delivered. Excuse the fuzzy photography, I'm too excited to not post. 

Tombs downtown

Last weekend we also went to the tombs downtown, and Anapji Pond. Sadly I forgot my camera that day and my phone died by Anapji Pond. Oh well! Last weekend was also children's day. Children's day is a holiday here! I remember every mother's or father's day I would complain about the lack of a children's day. Little did I know, I just needed to move to Korea! Anyway, Adri and I passed a little booth by the train station where there were little activities for children. Because we were foreigners however, we were called over to skip lines. Some lovely lady monks (monkettes?) gave us tea made from a giant flower, then some young ladies painted our hands with facepaint! It was suepr cute and fun, and they all packed up and left right after we were done, so good timing!

Adri got a dragon, I got
Pororo the little penguin.

I didn't know black bamboo even existed.
It's kind of creepy isn't it!

This photo doesn't do this buggy justice.
It was completely lit up with festive lights,
and had music playing loudly, and even
occasionally had an artificial neigh-ing
noise (in case the real life horse wasn't
horse-y enough).

We ate at a traditional Korean restaurant - TONS
of side dishes!

We also stopped in a super cute cafe
with astronaut lights. The place
was incredibly adorable. 

We got "service" nuts (aka free) from the very
cute barista. They came on a Christmas plate.

Bulguksa in the Spring

I had a friend visiting from another town last weekend, and Adri visited as well, so we had a very toury weekend of Gyeongju. Here are pictures from our trip to Bulguksa. It was all decorated for Buddha's Birthday, plus it's all lush with spring greenery, so it was even more beautiful than last time. I found out that "sa" means temple, so technically it should be called Bulguk Temple in English. That sounds weird though, so I will continue to call it Bulguksa. UNESCO heritage site woot woot.

This time our tour guide
didn't tell us about the
hidden piggy! Luckily
I managed to find him
anyways!

Tasty Treats

Here are some standard Korean snack.
So many meat/seafood chips.
It's odd.. but salt is salt!

Making things official: I am staying in Korea!

So I have been thinking for a while about staying another year. Things have been going so well, I'm saving money, and my life is the most stress free it has ever been (and probably ever will be). The thought of coming home to be an unemployed bum leaching off of my parents is highly unappealing.. as is the scenario of becoming a barista and serving now successful people from my high school. So I've decided I will re-sign and stay another year. Adri is flirting with the idea of staying longer too. I hope she stays for a year, she hops I stay for less.. we will have to wait and see! Anyways, I figured I'd put this on my blog for the few readers who I haven't remembered to tell personally.

A lot happened today! Well not really, but it felt like it. Today was randomly a day off, but for foreign teachers only. Most of my friends had it off. However, it was also open class at my school. This means that parents would be coming in, and evaluation our classes. My Wednesdays are with the grade 4's, and the grade 4 English teacher had specifically asked me a while ago if I could do the class with him. So I figured what the hell it's a Wednesday, no big deal to go in to school. We did our open class, things went well, and he was soooo grateful for my help. So grateful in fact, that he sent me home after the open class which was only second period! Yipee! 

Next, I tidied and cooked for a while at home, only to return to school because there was a teacher dinner. We drove out to Bomun where I had a leisurely coffee with the grade 6 teachers. It was really lovely. Most conversation was in Korean of course, but a few chatted with me as well. My coteacher told them I was staying in Korea for another year and I couldn't have been more touched by their reaction. Everyone, including the teacher of 6-4, clapped and seemed genuinely happy. They made me feel so wanted! When they heard I had come in on a holiday (albeit for 2 classes) they were all super impressed, and thanked me for my "service" teaching. Service is the term here used for "on the house" when you get free things!

Here are some of the interesting conversations I had...

Adorable child ran by with curly hair. The child was definitely pre-kindergarten. Everyone agreed her curls must be a perm. When they saw my flabbergasted face, they asked about my perm and dyed hair. When I said my hair was all natural, both in curls and colour, one teacher said my hair was "a work of art." He is an artistic man and plays in an amateur orchestra, and can even understand some Italian from opera listening, so this was a huge complement! I envy Korean's thick lustrous hair so much, it's easy to forget that mine must really look magical to them despite it's thinness. Interestingly, when I showed a baby picture to prove the authenticity of my hair, on teacher was super surprised by my "low nose." I guess they wouldn't know that us big nosed people aren't born that way! We would be very very ugly babies if we were. 

We discuss me playing rugby in high school. They were all shocked and amused. We jokingly discussed me switching from English teacher to P.E. teacher and teaching rugby to all the students. How fun!

Another interesting convo.. One teacher asked me my future plans. I said I didn't know, and that I had actually studied biology in school. He then asked me if I believed in evolution, since I studied science. We chatted a bit about evolution and genesis, and apparently in Korea you either are a Christian and creationist, or a non-christian and believe in evolution. I asked if you could be a Christian and believe in evolution and he said no, but that in schools they taught evolution annyways (phew!). Made me kind of sad that they had to make that choice here. Hopefully Christianity here will chill out eventually and evolution and homosexuality and all that jazz might be a little more accepted. 

Finally we ate about 500lbs of Jeju Island black pig barbecue. My section of the table included two young men so we kept getting meat from the other sections who couldn't eat anymore. I felt like I was on a marathon representing the gluttonous West. Eventually, even I was defeated by the never ending amazing meal. 

Lastly, here are some pictures. I went to Cheomseongdae with a friend yesterday. It's the oldest observatory in East Asia.. cool? Haha despite the tower itself not being that impressive, the surrounding area is full of flowers and prettiness. As the sunset, the tower was lit up and became mmuch more beautiful. We also passed some lit up lanterns at a temple all decked out for Buddha's birthday. It's funny.. all the light up lanterns made it feel more like Christmas than it did in December. Funny how such a different religion/holiday would include such a fundamental human joy: pretty colours!

Of course there are tombs there as well!

Bushes of these in purple, red or white are
blooming all over the place. Lovely.

Korea is really not friendly for singles.

I am a Silla Queen.

Cheomseongdae itself!

Finished my letter replies!!

So exciting. These letters were amazingly cute, but I definitely felt a little swamped. Luckily, they were very understanding of waiting two weeks for their replies. Here are a few more notably awesome ones. Note that for everyone one I post there are about 10 equally adorable ones.

"Dear Anne teacher
Hi Anne teacher! I'm your student. On friday, you are not coming and I'm sad :( have a nice trip. teacher is very very very small! Eat delicious food teacher and next time come~ please! & bye bye!"

I chose this one mainly because she calls me very very very small and it amused me a lot. 

This one is long and hard to read, but she says

"I am healthy ^^. You are left handed. I'm right handed. Left handed is smart so you are smart."

she also says

"I go to the English academy but Anne teacher's lesson is funny more~" 

Ooooh yeah!! Purely posted to brag.

"Dear Anne teacher,

My name is Na nuym. Hello Anne teacher She is from Korea I have a new cap I have bedroom I have sofa. me socar very very bap. Anne teacher bey."

It's signed Anne teacher too. If you haven't guessed, those are all topic sentences from various chapters!. Someone was definitely forced into writing this. The last sentence is not actually a topic sentence and is a complete mystery to me. Socar might mean soccer.. bap is rice in Korean.. Still no idea. Love it.

"Dear Anne teacher

teacher Hello Dicnit

BYe"

Your guess is as good as mine!

Aaah I almost cried reading this one. A few weeks ago, this little girl suddenly was crying. I only noticed because the other kids were saying "Teacher! She sad!" I had no idea what to do so I rubbed her shoulder a bit and looked at my co-teacher imploringly. She then came and dealt with the situation as the real teacher. Apparently someone had teased her about her height? Anyways I had felt absolutely useless in that situation.. but here she wrote the following:

"Lasty class I'm cry. You care for me. Then I'm so thank Anne teacher is very kind and funny." I translated the little Korean bit and it said something like "help to soothe" or "heal".

 I literally can do no wrong with these kids! (ok actually my Monday morning class has been getting my worst classes recently and I think they're getting a little frustrated with me. Sorry guys!) She's this adorable little girl who said hello so much I taught her Howdy just to have some variety. Now she says howdy non stop. It's pretty amazingly cute.

I posted this final letter because holy cow it was gorgeous. I'm not sure if you can see, but it's a total art project. Also all her i's are dotted with hearts. Also her English name is Annie, which is me, and her Korean name is Minki which is adorable.

In conclusion of these bajillion letters, my favourite remains the ode to pizza and cheese. Teacher hello Dicnit is a pretty close runner up. I can't believe how cute kids are when they have a limited ability to express themselves!

Also here is a beautiful red Thai curry I made that I was incredibly proud of and now much be shared with you all.

Check out that garnish. I am a top chef.

All my friends are so sick of hearing about these letters. Last post for a while, I promise!