So many things to tell and I can't think of a thing!

I have been wayyy too busy to write on here... which I guess is probably a good thing!

Since the last time I blogged I have done so many things, so this blog post may be a little spuratic!

A few weeks ago Tia and I took a Sunday afternoon to go visit Changdeokgung Palace, meaning the palace of Shining Happiness. It was breath taking. I didn't learn very much as we had just missed the last english tour but the setting was just absolutely peaceful, minus Tia being there! Kidding. We listened to some traditional Korean music in the rain, it was all very nice. To top it off we played models for a day! Two men came up to Tia and I and asked us if he could take our pictures. So he made us pose and listen to an MP3 player. really quite hilarious. I wouldn't dare put the photos up on here:) and to really top it off we finished by eating McDonalds. haha














































































In terms of school, Eileen teacher (my korean co teacher) and I had parent teacher interviews! It was super nice to get to know the parents and just kind of understand a little why the kids are the way they are! see who they look like, etc! I am extremely lucky to have really good parents. With the hustle and bustle of school you sometimes forget and stop to appreciate how amazing the kids are so it was nice to have time to write their report cards and tell their parents which areas they are excelling in!

Now CHUSEOK! In preparation for Chuseok, which is essentially the Korean thanksgiving, Reggio (my school) went on a field trip to a traditional korean manners school! I think i mentioned that in my blog before! The children looked adorable! They wore the Korean traditional garment called the "Hanbok". They looked like little Korean dolls and little mini warriors!  They got to practice bowing, they played traditional Korean instruments and did some arts and crafts! Leo, who is allergic to everything, I kid you not, was allergic to his hanbok so we had a little emergency as he was so swollen and covered in rashes! Not to fret, by the end of the day he was back to normal though!:)





















































































For Chuseok us teachers got a week off school to do whatever! Which was amazing! Before we went on our merry way Reggio gave us a choice of tuna or soap as a thanksgiving gift! Interesting choices...it was a tough one, haha but I chose soap! I'm really glad i did because the fish lovers got spam tuna:) and I got this pimpin life time supply of soaps, body washes, shampoos, etc! Not to sound greedy but between parent teacher interviews and Chuseok I have so many gifts from the parents, including Chanel lipgloss. Koreans are honestly just so generous and giving! wellll that and I think the parents of my children are not too bad off!

Soooo, for Chuseok vacation a few friends/co workers and I headed to Busan, Korea by the KTX (korean fast train). We heard it is one of the most beautiful places in Korea and a must see well living in the country! It is on the south coast, right along the ocean! mmm perfect! Tia and I lazed on the beach and swam in the ocean it was amazing! everything I needed it! We drank soju (korean rice wine) and beer on the beach at night and looked at the full moon (always a full moon around Chuseok time). It was really quite romantic! Of course I went shopping in Busan, which was wicked! I didn't think it could get cheaper then Seoul but apparently it can! We went to a nasty fish market. I don't need to say more about that. and we went to Busan tower to get a bird side view of the 4 million plus city!!! All in all a pretty sweet trip!








































































Now back in Seoul, it has been a busy week just catching up on laundry, cleaning, school stuff! Amazing to see the kids, I truly feel like a young mom ( someone give me a reality check please?), I missed them SOOOOOOO much!!!!! The other day during story circle Evan started nodding off, so cutttteeeee and then the other kids started laughing. His head was bobbing and he was trying so hard to keep his little eyes open and then I start hysterically crying laughing and we were all laughing together! It was just the funniest moment!

This week for show and tell the children presented "When I grow up I want to be a..." Lucy wanted to be a ballerina because they are pretty and they like pink. I tried to coax her into dancing in front of all of us but apparently she's smarter than my tricks! Tommy and Naomi wanted to be cooks because they want to make delicious food. Tommy's favourite food is spaghetti and when asked why he said, "because its brown." hahaha. Shayna and Jasmine both wanted to be artists, which just shows me they really love the art project we have been doing for the past two months! Indy wanted to be lego artist, not surprising in the least! Leo wanted to be a soldier because he wants to shoot guns and fight people! Ben wanted to be a doctor. I asked him why and he had no idea why, I asked him what doctors do and he had no idea. so finally I asked him if his mom told him to tell his class he wanted to be a doctor and he said yes. hahaha. and in Skyler fashion, saving the best for last.... David wanted to be a dinosaur. yup, a dinosaur. because they are big and scary and eat people. Actually, not just any dinosaur, an anklyosauraus (I'm not apologizing for not spelling that correctly). I told him "David, I don't know many people who have become Dinosaurs, I think its very hard to do." His reply, "But Skyler teacher I'm Korean."




































As I had mentioned in previous blogs my class had been learning about Vincent Van Gogh and Keith Haring. We have done many paintings and drawings. Elephant Class are truly pointillist and pop artist pros! To finish up this project I have been spending the last week turning our class room into an art gallery. The kids have been practicing presentation and by tuesday of next week we will be finished Art project officially! Sad to see it come to an end up I think we are all ready to learn something new!

Things I'm looking forward to: This weekend is my girlfriend, Lynn's birthday so we will be celebrating both friday and saturday! Going out and about! Probably hongdae! and I'm honestly looking forward to next week where I am expecting some much needed down time! perhaps, some more blog updates!

Oh yah, I miss my mom and my dad. and my brother. hahaha but really!

PS: Im learning Korean and Hangul (the korean alphabet) and this is my new passion! I am soooooooooo excited about it! the reason I thought about that because really in Korean is pronounced chin-cha! there i taught you a word!:)

Starting to get more consistent haha

So I wanted to make sure I wrote on here about my children's field trip! Last week we took Elephant Class to the SOMA Museum of Art in Seoul to a Keith Haring Art Exhibit! Keith Haring was an influential pop artist in the 1980s who found his fame through drawing on the New York City subway station walls. Here's what www.haring.com says about him...

"He began to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels throughout the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring produced hundreds of these public drawings in rapid rhythmic lines, sometimes creating as many as forty “subway drawings” in one day. This seamless flow of images became familiar to New York commuters, who often would stop to engage the artist when they encountered him at work. The subway became, as Haring said, a “laboratory” for working out his ideas and experimenting with his simple lines

Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his time to public works, which often carried social messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. The now famous Crack is Wack mural of 1986 has become a landmark along New York’s FDR Drive. Other projects include; a mural created for the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986, on which Haring worked with 900 children; a mural on the exterior of Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris, France in 1987; and a mural painted on the western side of the Berlin Wall three years before its fall. Haring also held drawing workshops for children in schools and museums in New York, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo and Bordeaux, and produced imagery for many literacy programs and other public service campaigns.

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In 1989, he established the Keith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS.

During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring’s work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. In 1986 alone, he was the subject of more than 40 newspaper and magazine articles. He was highly sought after to participate in collaborative projects ,and worked with artists and performers as diverse as Madonna, Grace Jones, Bill T. Jones, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century.

Keith Haring died of AIDS related complications at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990."

I know you are thinking...why are 5 year olds learning about this guy, a little much right? Our school is kind of an Art based school and well the kids are kind of baby Einsteins! Believe me they soak up this information like little sponges, they know more about Keith Haring and Vincent Van Gogh then the majority of the people reading this blog! no offence! They loved seeing the art gallery, and needless to say I loved seeing them see the art gallery!

What else is blog worthy...

My friend Jamie's dad is a christian pastor in Korea, actually I think kind of a famous pastor? His church has around 6,000 members and apparently in September there will be some kind of ceremony for him to become head of the dominon? Excuse me, for my lack of religious vocabulary! Anyways I went to their church and met him and his wife. They were very gracious and I would definitely like to go back just to see what a Korean church is like!

My week has been crazy hectic, I have parent teacher interviews starting tomorrow which is a bit nerve racking as I don't know what to expect. I have always been the child who didn't have to go to them. This is a true sign of my adulthood! haha. Tomorrow we are taking the children to a Korean Manners school, and believe me they could use some manners... haha, they will wear the traditional Korean garment, the hanbok. I am extremely excited to see how cute they will be! Talked to my brother Dallon today on the phone it was nice to hear from him and hear about his Vegas trip with his friends! Thats about all going on, its only hump day and I already can't wait for the weekend:) 

Man, I have to get better at this blogging thing...

I have been so busy, I never have a chance to just sit down and write on here!


So, like I had mentioned in my past post... two weekends ago Tia and I had plans to go with some friends out to the country side as well as go visit the demilitarized zone. I'll talk a little bit about that now. 


So that Friday night friends of ours rented what is called a Pension house. It was a little cabin out in the mountains, all wood inside but looked very traditional, or at least to us it did. There were seven of us and only one bed and a few mats to lie on. It was incredibly fun, probably one of the best times I have had in korea thus far. There was a stream right outside the pension house where we could hang out by, the scenery was breathe taking.  


Not so important note: For all of you avid whiskey drinkers. One of our friends, Choi brought out something called Johnnie Walker Blue Label, apparently this is a big deal. We tried it and it was disgusting and incredibly strong. However, it is a $450 bottle of whiskey so I felt the need to add this to my blog to brag? hahaha

























































































































On the Sunday of that weekend we went to the Demilitarized Zone in between North and South Korea. Essentially it is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between the two countries. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th Parrallel on an angle. It is 250 kilometres long, approximately 4 km wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world.  Of course we weren't allowed to go in, so we just looked across from the outside with some binoculars looking into North Korea. Actually on that note there are a few towns within the DMZ that were located there before the zone was created. Those people don't have to pay taxes but have to stay within their villages 260 days of the year. Needless to say, if anything were to go wrong they would be right in harms way.


With such few amounts of people being allowed in the DMZ it has actually become a nature reserve. There are endangered plants and animals that live in the area. Some animals they named were, the red crowned crane, an asiatic black bear,  an Amur leopard and a Korean tiger. We also went through some tunnels that the North Koreans had dug to try to invade South Korea. There have been four tunnels discovered since the 1960s but there are probably way more then that! The tour itself was beautiful and we got to see so much, however it was the history I liked learning about the most. 


Growing up in Canada we never learn about Korean history but its extremely tragic how the two nations are divided. The countries had been one for thousands of years and only divided now for 75 odd years. People have relatives they may never be united with and to hear about how the North Korean people are suffering is just really sad.  There are all these memorials and statues made waiting for the day when two countries will be unified again. Bells waiting to be rung and bridges waiting to be opened the day unification happens. Something hopeful that I heard from a coworker is that the South Korean government is thinking about implementing a Unification tax, so one day when North Korea collapses they will be prepared to support its people. 


The last thing I learned which was my favourite is about the founder of Hyundai automobiles,  Chung Ju-yung. Apparently, when he was a boy he ran way from his impoverished family stealing a family cow with him. He later went on to start his business and obviously became very successful. He must have felt bad about the cow that he has stolen previous years earlier and returned 1001 cows to North Korea which has now been closed off by the DMZ, 1 for the cow he had stolen, 1000 for the interest. 


On a lighter note I tried North Korean beer which was amazing, and North Korean Soju (rice wine, specialty to both koreas?) which was deadly. 

































































































































































































































































































































Anyways thats enough for this time 


around! I will put up pictures of this shortly! 

First Month

My first month has been a total whirl wind. I can't even believe I have been here for a month! I feel truly blessed to be here. My job is so fun! I love waking up in the mornings to know I am going to see my little Elephant class (Indy, Naomi, Tommy, Leo, Shayna, Lucy, Evan, Jasmine, Ben and David: you will hear so much about them so I might as well introduce them). Every second day we get to wait for them at the entrance of the school and they run from the buses to jump on us and give us hugs, can you really tell me mornings get better then that?

I teach them phonics, and a themed book (last month was about safety, travel and transportation), I play with them, water gun fights, we colour, etc. What is most distinct about my school versus other private schools (hagwons) is that in Reggio Emilia form, their is a huge artistic focus and a focus on the children's specific interests. At the beginning of this month we asked them what they wanted to learn about and they chose art. Eileen teacher (my korean co-teacher) and I have been teaching them about Vincent Van Gogh, they know more about him then most adults do! They tried out pointillism and we even made a mural of "Starry Night". We have now moved on to teaching them about Keith Haring, pop artist extraordinaire.

We had a birthday party last weekend for the three kids in my class born in August. The parents, who are extremely wealthy bought a ton of food, not to mention a cake, presents (for everyone not just the birthday kids, and not excluding myself or Eileen Teacher). Shayna and Jasmine each wore pink princess dresses. While Indy, the birthday boy continued to be the little hellion he is every day.:) haha

My apartment is perfect. I think I set my expectations really low, reading all the blogs about horrible apartments teachers had received, when I arrived at mine I couldn't have been happier. It is one big open room, I have made it my own, decorating of course is one of my favourite things to do. I got these green wall stickers, creating a tree on my wall with a saying right above my bed "There is a pleasing sense of happiness under the leaves of this tree"

Everyone wants to know about the food, so here goes... Kimichi, i dont like it. hahaha. I gave up my vegetarianism when I came to Korea, I really wanted to make sure I could try everything and experience the culture, and what can I say, Im weak. Korean food hasn't been anything special, my favourite dish is bi bim bop, its like bean sprouts, a little hot sauce, egg, and some other vegetables mixed together. Those of you that know me know I mostly like junk food, and other crap, and I miss our poutine... haha

The weather here has been crazy, so so so hot, plus 30 or higher everyday is not manageable. My air conditioning at my work has been broken a couple times and that has been insane. Currently its rainy season, so its been raining off and on, really hard rains to. If you have been looking at my facebook you will have seen my status saying I fell down 15 stairs. haha no joke. It was raining really hard and these stairs were covered in water and I sliped and couldn't regain my balance. I have bruises all over my body, huge bruises, needless to say I have never been so mortified. Which is why Im putting it on my blog? haha.

Shopping is amazing here, I love korean fashion. Like anthropology back home but 80% less in price. I was hoping to leave my shopping addiction in Canada, and at banana republic, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Actually on that note, everything is cheaper here. We never cook because its so cheap to get food, even drinks and alcohol are extremely cheap. To go site seeing, taxis! Everything!

And for my younger friends, night life here is incredible. haha so trendy and cool. I went to a bar completely made out of doors. The tables, the chairs, the walls all made out of doors. There is this one place called vinyl where you can drink mixed drinks from bags. hard to explain!

My coworkers have been really helpful showing me around and now that I'm more settled I have made some friends of my own. Actually some korean girls who are showing me around, taking me to the most beautiful places in seoul. I feel really lucky to have met them. Uhhh and of course on the friendship note, Tia has arrived, two weeks ago? safe and sound!!! she even still talks as much? no way hey! Im extremely lucky to have her here.

Whats next?
 This friday I am going out of province with Tia and our korean friend Jamie and her friends. For sunday we are going to the DMZ. The demilitarized zone in north korea. Looking forward to both:)

There will be less talking and more photos on this blog shortly...

Alright Tata for now! and hope you all our in the best states! and if not don't be afraid to contact me!

My first Korean Blog

I have been here over a month and its high time I start this blog up! I'll thank you in advance for taking the time to follow my life in Seoul. It's my journey and I'm excited to share it with all of you, whom I love dearly. Begin.