It's nearly the middle of November already!

This is a time of year when students in Canada learn all about Remembrance Day.  If you are following my classroom blog in some of the videos made by Ms. Y’s class you can even see that schools bulletin boards are being decorated with poppies, poems and crosses. In respect of the Canadian troops & vetrans, Lest We Forget. 

Here in Korea things are much different at this time of year. November 11^th is called Pepero day. This is a day when you give Pepero sticks to your friends & family. Pepero sticks are like Pokey sticks (you can often find them at Superstore in Canada), or like a cookie in a stick format often covered in chocolate or some sort of delicious chocolate almond or chocolate peanut mixture.  Because I am in Korea and have the joys of celebrating this cultural experience, Happy Pepero day everyone :D. 

This past week I have had the joys of experiencing the Seoul Lantern Festival & Seoul Kite flying festival.  Note (ok maybe a bit of a rant?) about the Kite flying festival… this is the first festival I have ever been to which had less than 500 participants / visitors to the festival. I think there was maybe 250 people at the festival, many of who were children. The friends I came with and myself were four of 7 waygooks (foreigners) that we saw.   Because we distinctly stood out, we had the joys of being photographed by the paparazzi.  I wish I knew where these photographs are going to go? I am learning that I am not cut out to be someone famous. I couldn’t deal with constantly being photographed and I don’t enjoy having people constantly snap photos of me & friends while we are out to explore a festival. It would be one thing if they took a photo from afar with their HUGE cameras but coming up to us, or within a meter of us is a little unnecessary (or so I think). I suppose if they are going to do a commercial comparing the breakage of hair strands of waygooks to Koreans they would have a reason to be that close to my head with such a huge camera… but I highly doubt this is the case.  Anyways enough writing already… Enjoy the photos!

"Waygook Kite Flying team"

On Tuesday November 8, 11 I went to my Korean Culture class again. This week we learned all about calligraphy & the royal traditions around newborns and children. This workshop is a wonderful way to learn about the Joseon dynasty. Unfortunately for me I am not a night student, I never did love night classes and after a busy day of work it’s hard to stay focused. So basically I didn’t learn as much as I should have this week because I was so tired and couldn’t focus.  L Some fun facts from this class are: During this time period the placenta and umbilical chord was kept in a special jar after a baby was born. Also if you were royalty, as a male you would usually be married off around the age of 10.   Also once again I failed at taking photos of the museum. This weekend we have another class at a palace so I will be sure to take photos and post them. J