Our Moms in Korea!

This past week, we were lucky to have our moms here in Korea with us!  Their travel plans were finalized about 6 weeks ago, and Tim and I had been excitedly planning for their arrival since then.  We had a limited amount of time to show them around Korea (6 full days), so we wanted to make sure to show them some of our favorite places, as well as some tourist locations that were new to us.  The weekend they arrived was the Lunar New Year holiday, so we had a four day weekend. We had such a great time traveling around Seoul and Yongin, and just being with our moms!  We love where we live, so it was fun to be able to share it with our moms, and see them enjoy it too!  We stayed from Friday night to Monday afternoon at our "vacation home" in Seoul, and then from Monday night to Thursday night at our apartment in Yongin.  Friday morning, they were back on a plane again!  It was a whirlwind of a trip, but it was amazing!

Saturday was our first full day with our moms.  First stop: War Memorial of Korea.  War, unfortunately, is such a big part of Korea's history, so we wanted them to see this museum.  Plus, Sue's father fought in the Korean War, so we knew the museum would be meaningful to her.  Here are the moms touring the museum!

Next, we went up to Namsan Tower, the highest point in Seoul, to take in the beautiful views of the mountains and the city.

Later that night, we took the moms to Korean BBQ!  They loved it!

The next day was Sunday, and the Lunar New Year holiday.  First, we took our moms to our church, where they were warmly welcomed.  Then, after lunch, we found our way to the Deoksugung Palace, and were surprised to find this traditional Korean performance!

After the performance, we explored the Palace grounds, and found huge groups of adults and children playing all sorts of traditional Korean games in the courtyard!  Korean children are the CUTEST!

Tim tried his hand at one of the games: throwing an arrow into a hole.  He made it on his first try... of course!

Walking around the palace.

Throughout our travels, we took buses, taxis, and subways.  This was my mom's first time on a subway!

Sunday night, we traveled into Myeong-dong, the shopping district of Seoul.  We saw "Nanta," the Korean show that is similar to "Stomp," but with cooking!

Monday, we went to the Jongmyo Shrine, where many rituals used to be performed, and where the spirit tablets of the kings and queens are located.

Little did we know, the Jongmyo Shrine was actually connected to Changgyeonggung Palace, so we got to explore that too!  Changgyeonggung Palace was originally built in 1418 by King Sejong.  It was awesome to see the beautiful architecture and gardens!

After the palace, we went shopping at the market in Insadong.  Then, we had bibimbap (a rice and vegetable bowl) for lunch!

The next day was dedicated to walking part of the Suwon Fortress wall.  Tim and I walked this wall in September, and it has been our favorite thing in Korea so far.  Our moms enjoyed seeing and hiking up this historical wall.

We walked along the wall up to the top of a small mountain.  The view was breathtaking!

At the top of the mountain, there was a huge bell that you could ring three times.  Each toll of the bell means something different.  The first toll means, "To show gratitude and respect to your parents."  Fitting.  The second toll means, "To wish for your family's health and harmony."  The third toll means, "To wish for the realization of your dreams."  Love it!

At night, we went out for famous Korean dessert waffles!  Yum!

On Wednesday and Thursday, Tim and I had to work, so we spent the mornings playing games and showing the moms around our cute town.  In the evenings, our moms came into the school to meet our classes!  The kids had fun introducing themselves and asking them questions!

We love our moms, and had such a great week with them!! 

Hwacheon Ice Festival

Last weekend, our cabin fever was cured when we went with our friends to the Hwacheon Ice Festival!  The city of Hwacheon is about 2 1/2 hours northeast of Seoul, so we took a bus there early Saturday morning, spent the whole day enjoying the ice activities, and then took the bus home that night.  Hwacheon is a little town nestled in a valley, with mountains all around it.  The festival actually took place on the frozen river of the city.  (It was controlled and safe).  It was a really nice day, so we were able to enjoy ourselves without freezing the whole time.  We were glad for a chance to play outside and enjoy a different area of Korea.  Here are some pictures of our ice festival adventures!

There were amazing snow sculptures everywhere!

We walked through a beautiful tunnel that was lit up, and made completely of ice.

Here's me on the frozen river, ready for fun!

We rode on these ice sleds, and raced each other!

The girls on our sled!

There were several sectioned-off ice areas for hockey, human bowling, or any other game you wanted to make up!  This is me in my metal bowl, ready to be pushed into the bowling pins!

At a less populated area of the festival, we found these men driving ice tractors, pulling people in little sleds behind them.  They went pretty fast, and turned quickly so that the people sitting in the furthest sled got whipped around.  We went for a fun ride!

Lunch consisted of warm, spicy, tofu stew, rice, and fried fish. 

Here is the fried fish.  I was not a fan of seeing the faces of the fish before I ate them.

We watched this "Bare-Hand Fishing" competition.  It made me so cold to watch!  These people were catching fish with their hands, and putting them down their shirts... all in freezing cold water!  The guy in the middle has the fish he caught in his mouth.  Gross.

The main event of the ice festival was ice fishing!  We all wanted to be able to say that we've been ice fishing... even if it was sort of an artificial experience, with so many people there, and the river stocked with fish and all!  But we didn't care!  Here's Tim, the skilled fisherman. :)

Me enjoying ice fishing!

Tim caught a fish!!  Ok, so he caught this the moment after they restocked the river about a foot away from him!  But still... he caught a fish!  He looks so proud.  He threw it back into the water, but they did have grills outside where you could cook what you caught if you wanted to.  

The girls and a big fish.

Everyone!  We all had so much fun!

Back to School

It was hard to go back to school after all of our time off, especially since we were heading right into our overtime month.  Our students have "vacation" from their public schools in January, which means that they come to our school for extra English classes.  So every day, we had the same kids from 10-1 for what we call intensive classes.  This was on top of all of our normal classes that we teach in the afternoons.  So on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we taught from 10-8, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we taught from 10-10.  We had a 3 hour break every day for lunch and planning time, but all in all, it was pretty exhausting.  We felt like we didn't really have time to breathe the whole month because it was so busy.  But it was also a lot of fun.

The theme for the intensive classes was "Experiencing American School," so back in November, our administration asked us to do all the lesson planning for all the classes.  They gave us the books, and then set us loose to plan 20 lessons.  It was a pretty daunting task, but it was also great because it gave us a lot of freedom.  Every day was either a Social Studies day or a Science day, with fun, hands-on activities to go along with the lesson.  It was nice to have a break from teaching the normal reading, writing, and grammar.  It was nice for the kids too!  And for once in their lives, the students didn't have homework or tests, just learning, activities, and games during the class time.  I taught the Grade 3 level kids, and Tim taught level 6.  We both really enjoyed our classes.  Although, I had some crazy boys that I had to constantly keep in line!  But it was rewarding to see the kids having so much fun!  Here are some of our favorite activities that we did with the kids...


Tim's Class:

Biomes

Making Rain

Newton's Law Experiment

Mixture Experiment- Chemical and Physical properties

Tim with his kids

My Class:

Density Experiment

Volcanoes!

Haudenosaunee Native American masks

Will it float?

Constellation Telescopes

Food Chain Mobiles

State Reports

Egg Parachutes!  (This is my favorite egg parachute because it's so tiny!)

The class with their egg parachutes, ready to be tested!

I love the boy (Andrew) praying for the safety of his egg!

Me with my kids that I love!