my favorite korean commercials.

i watch a good amount of tv during the week when i'm just hanging in my apartment. korean commercials are awesome and hilarious. enjoy.

minute maid pulpy orange juice or "minute maid with pulpy" as they call it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy0rCwJEH-Y

cutest thing. ever. the kids are saying "let's eat" in korean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CaJ58JamhE

banana ice cream with pop rocks from baskin robbins or "popping popping ba-nana"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LLKySyTok

maxim iced coffee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpRuhrEJN9U

Yet another Goodbye letter.

To Sera:

Hello Teacher . My name is Park Jong Hyeon.

Why go to USA? ㅠ.ㅠ so sad... BUT!!

Sara is in my heart . . . . . . (heartbeat)

Sara!! good for you ^-^ Sara...

You are so beautiful and cute ^-^

Sara, in Usa, I hope that you remember Korea.

And if you also remember me, I'll be very happy.

Come to Korea again for me. Ha-Ha

You can call me by this number, 010-769-4999.

Please call me if you remember me,

You are the best teacher I've ever known.

I hope to see your healthy face.

I want to see you again soon.

Bye-Bye.

Fare Well

For Love,

Jong Hyeon

Korea name (박종현)

A Goodbye from Doo Ri Lee

Hi Sara!

I'm Third Grade in Tanbeol Middle School, Lee Doori.

I heard you were going to leave Korea this week. I'm so sad!

So I bought this pouch in Insadong. (Do you know where it is?)

Also, my friend told me that your favorite color was green. Is it right?

Sara, you know what? Your face looks like Blair in Gossip Girl.

You are so attractive!! I wonder why you do not have a boyfriend. (Or, you have?)

I think I will miss you very much. Please visit Korea after going to America.

I also want to visit America very much. Is there really a person like Serena or Blair in Manhattan? (These days, I'm really absorbed in Gossip Girl.)

Sara your class was so exciting and I cannot miss the time with you.

Bye.

xoxo

Lee Doori

P.S. Please understand my bad English.

I think the cutest thing is that she used "xoxo" which is something I taught them. I'm a real teacher! haha

Green Tea! 녹차!

I can say for sure that this was one of my favorite places I’ve been to in South Korea. Rebecca and I had wanted to go to see the green tea plantations all year long, and we’ve just been waiting for it to be summer so we could go. Finally, we decided it was time to head down south. We took a bus to the third biggest city in SK, Gwangju, on Friday night after work. The next morning we took another bus for an hour through the countryside and rice paddies to a really small town called Boseong. Upon arrival we checked into our lovely roman themed tourist hotel and headed to the green tea plantation.

We walked around the tea plantation for hours, it was so cool! There were rows and rows of green tea plants terraced into mountains, which rolled along the Korean landscape. We had some old man do a photoshoot for us and just enjoyed the scenery all morning. After walking around for a long while we had lunch and enjoyed some green tea frozen yogurt and ice cream. We explored the city a little more after lunch, and just enjoyed being out of the bustling city for once. We walked around the town and explored some rice paddies. The town of Boseong was tiny and when we were walking home at night from the bar, it felt like real summer! I’m not used to summer in the city, so hearing the frogs and crickets was awesome. It was a really relaxing and nice weekend in the country.

The World Cup and Erin Visits Korea!

My friend Erin from college is teaching English in China and decided to come visit Korea for 4 days! It was really cool to have a friend come see what it’s like here, although she does live in Asia too. I had fun showing her around Seoul for the first few nights she was here and then going out as well.

The world cup kicked off for South Korea on June 12^th. Their opening game was against Greece, and luckily for us it started at 8:30pm on a Saturday night. Unluckily for us it was pouring rain, but we made the most of it. We went down to Seoul City Hall pretty early and got awesome seats right up in the front section. Koreans are EXTREMELY patriotic and the world cup is a huge deal to them. The game was awesome, with fireworks, kpop singers, etc. After Korea won we danced around in conga lines with Koreans for around an hour. There were THOUSANDS of people downtown all decked in red. Video of Seoul City Hall during the Greece game. We were photographed hundreds of times so the next week at school we were looking everywhere for our pictures… apparently we were also featured in the Korea Times: Chicago. Here are some of the ones we found in Korean magazines/newspapers: link 1, link 2, link 3.

We were also on KBS primetime news in Seoul, which you can watch here. I am on camera at the 1:40 mark.

After the Korean game we headed to “little America” for the American/English game. It was super fun to be in Korea, yet surrounded by English and Americans.The next game was on Thursday versus Argentina and my city set up a huge TV screen in the local park. It was really cool to see even everyone in my rural-ish city come together and get excited for the game. I sat next to some of my students and they bought me ice cream. The perks of being a teacher are good.Korea’s next game was unfortunately at 3:30AM and I had to work the next day. I knew things were going well, however, when I was awoken from my sleep by an old lady screaming and yelling at 4AM. South Korea qualified for the Round of 16.

A lot of people have been asking me about North Korea being in the world cup and how SK feels about it. Most South Koreans cheered for North Korea and actually wanted them to do well. They think of the people and players as their sort of cousins and no matter the government and how they feel about them they still have family and huge cultural ties to the people there. Most of my coworkers just pretty much felt sad for them after they got stomped on by Portugal, as did I. A lot of people think its funny to joke about the players needing to win in order to not end up in a labor camp or punished in some way, but it is actually is a reality to some of them and it’s incredibly sad.

Overall watching the world cup in the foreign country you’re living in is an awesome thing. I wouldn’t trade that experience for very much. Unfortunately at this point Korea is knocked out of the running, but it was fun while it lasted.

Everland

Everland is the Disneyworld of Korea. The people who designed it clearly went to Disneyworld and based it off of it, complete with an American West area. The entire class of 3^rd graders at my school (700 kids) had a field trip to Everland so I got to go along! For those of you who don’t know me very well, I HATE THEME PARKS. It all stems form my parents traumatizing me when I was a child and forcing me to go on roller coasters even though I was terrified and never had fun. Yes, I give them a lot of crap for it. Even seeing/hearing roller coasters freaks me out and the thought of going on one puts me in a panic. I did have fun perusing the rose gardens and just watching the kids go on the “T-express”, it was a good departure from a day sitting at my desk. Here are some pics…

Korean Sports Day.

Growing up I never got to have a “field day” at school like I always heard about or saw on TV. In Korea, these sorts of field days exist to the max, and it’s a huge production. For weeks leading up to sports day the kids were ordering t-shirts, making signs, and getting ready.

Sports day was on Tuesday, June 1 and it was a really fun day. The day was full of races, jump roping, hula hooping, etc. Each class had an area surrounding the field, which they decorated with signs and banners. Each class was vying for the “cheering award” for whoever was the loudest/best at cheering… so all day it was Korean middle schoolers screaming and dancing to kpop. Luke and I don’t have homeroom classes so we got to sit in the shade and eat ice cream, fried chicken, and even drink beer – on the clock! In Korea, drinking is socially acceptable, even when you’re a teacher at work apparently. After lunch there was a special relay race: students, teachers, and parents. I was on the teacher’s team, along with the Principal. We had to pop a balloon with our butts, jump in a potato sack, and at the very end get a piece of candy out of a bowl of flour using our mouths… after you’ve run around the track and are breathing heavily inhaling a bunch of flour isn’t very fun. It was funny though especially since all 3000 of the kids at my school were watching and cheering my name. Sports day was pretty hilarious and it showed me that even though Koreans are insanely focused on studying and school work they also can have a day off to just have fun.