Today is the first day of Chuseok break. Chuseok is like a harvest celebration... similar to Thanksgiving. For vacation, I am going to visit my good friend Sohee; she lives in Seoul. We met in Portugal a year ago when we were both there as volunteers. Small world.

Yesterday (Friday), to celebrate Chuseok, SLP had an all-day-long festival. It was such a great time. Before the kids got there, we all dressed in hanboks (traditional Korean dress for big days) and were taught proper etiquete (for example, holding your hanbok to the right means you're a geisha.. so I had to be careful to not give my students the wrong impression). The hanboks are beautiful... very vibrant colors and patterns. They are very intricate and sometimes have accessories. (Pics on facebook). The kids loved that we were wearing hanboks ( I think they found it funny)! I loved seeing them file in with their wildly colorful wardrobe too. I couldn't stop snapping pictures of them.

I prepared a craft for them... they made a fan. Then, we went to the gym and Frank teacher (principal) taught them how to bow. Afterwards, we made songpyeun, which are rice cakes with sesame seeds and other nuts inside. They are very sticky and sweet. To end the day, we played tradtitional games and danced in the gym. The one I fancied the most was the stick game (called yuk) where you throw sticks into a trashcan-like bin.

Seriously the kids were so adorible. They are precious everyday, but little kids fidgitting in their hanboks was even cuter. There isn't enough I can write or photograph to really introduce you to my students. I wish you could just hear Danny (Gemini class) when he says, "Teacher, very not good" when talking about his workbook question he got wrong. Danny is very concerned with his schoolwork, but he's also Aidan's (troublemaker) best friend so it's an interesting combo. Or in Aries class, Jeff talks in third person and likes to call himself Jeffuh ( they add extra emphasis to the words .. usually an extra "uh" sound at the end). Sometimes he calls himself Jeffuh Monster. He likes monsters and killing. If you could just be there when I serve them lunch and they say "Teacher, many" (when they want a lot of something). It still cracks me up. "Not many, you want more". It's these little things that can only be seen from experience, but I so badly want to share.