A Korean Halloween

Let me start off my saying, no one celebrates Halloween here in Gangcheon. Some of the older students knew what it was but they don't get to celebrate :( This hurts my heart a little bit.
I thus decided to share this wonderful holiday with my new Korean children friends.


I decided the older grades would do draw jack 'o lanterns and have the smaller kids make paper masks. I used a Halloween powerpoint I found online and also showed some videos: "I got a rock" a Charlie Brown clip for the younger kids and my fourth grade class got a real treat, (since they are my fave) I played MJ's "Thriller" for them. I was worried they would be terrified but all went well. Some kids were a bit scared but by the end of it they were all around the computer watching in awe! (My classroom gets a lot of sunlight so they can't really see dark images on the big screen connected to the computer-sucks so much for them, can't wait to have a new English room constructed this month!) I also taught them "Trick or Treat" and as each class ended they would have to say it to get some candy! 

2nd grade

Saturday, Oct. 30 was the Yeoju English Festival. I was picked up early by my co-teacher Eun Mee and we headed to the fest. It was bitterly cold but the sun eventually came out and warmed us up. Typical Korean weather. I was running a game called 'spinner game' with a fellow foreign English teacher named Matt. It went well, but became really repetitive as the day went on. We were finished by 4pm and then I headed off to Seoul to find some Halloween fun!

My friend Jackie's booth : water pong

Natasha's messy mask making booth

my co-teacher Eun Mee and my downstairs

neighbour the nurse

This lil guy at a lemon. Best face ever.

I met up with my friend Melanie and had a pasta dinner. We checked into our hostel, met Melanie's Korean friend Kelly, then went to a punk show. It was awesome, and very random, to go to a punk show in another part of the world. The band that was playing when we arrived was actually pretty good! They were all Korean. The second was average, they were foreigners but had a wicked Korean girl bassist. From 10:30-11:30 there were free drinks being served with was pretty sweet...we paid 10 dollars to get in and got nice and toasty by 11pm then left. I had gotten a call from a friend named Kristin who was nearby and wanted to meet up. 

silent disco in the music park, Hongdae -

basically everyone had headphones on and

were jamming out 

Korean ska band

Foreigner band with Korean bassist

wicked Korean bassist

Remember how me and Melanie met? I met her and another girl at the Korean consulate in Toronto...well this was the other girl! We had yet to all get together so it was pretty amazing! We went to Ting Tings with her for a bit but it was hella packed so we left Kristin and her friends and set off to meet my Yeoju friends at another bar/club called Soundholic. 

reunion!

Kelly & I

WAY too packed!

We couldn't find this bar ANYWHERE! I remembered the directions saying it was a left after a Starbucks and that was it. We made a left after a couple Starbucks with no luck and asked people but they didn't know where it was. FINALLY after about 45 mins and me starting to get really pissed, we found an older woman who knew where it was. We found it so easily and were united with my friends :)


It was a big club and us 3 girls somehow getting in without paying cover!! Pretty awesome seeing as it was gonna be $20, I think. Everyone was having a great time, dancing and getting sloppy and then when I went to the washroom, out of one of the stalls comes CHELSEA! The lovely lady who sat beside me on the airplane to Korea. MESSED UP right?! Such a crazy coincidence...


After the bar, Kelly, Melanie and I headed to the hostel to sleep, and at 7am, 3 belligerent  English guys traipsed into the hostel and started being super loud. For $15 we got beds in the main room so we didn't have a separate room or anything so it was ok for them to be there but have some respect. I could hear these idiots through my earplugs. They were rude and loud and perverted and I wanted to bitch them out but I was so tired and wanted to sleep more. Man, they were irritating. When they finally shut up and went to bed at 10am, we were already up, irritated and wanting to leave. We proceeded to meet up with some Yeoju peeps at an all you can eat brunch buffet at a resto-bar called Big Rock which is a Canadian brewery (the owner was Canadian!). Tasty breaky for $13 a person with a free bloody mary, amaze! All in all, it was a pretty sweet Halloween :)

Alex & Mark still in costume 

and definitely still drunk at breaky