Children's Day

Today is Children's Day in Korea.  Its a day for parents to dote upon their kids.  And Koreans, LOVE their kids.  My boss always wants to be with her two girls.  Which is wonderful that family is really big in Korea.  So I guess Children's Day is a good thing to have, but really, isn't everyday kids day?

So last week I made thank you card with the kiddos for art and play.  We put an origami red carnation on the front.  I learned a good thing about Korean culture for i almost had the kids give thanks you cards to the parents with a white flower on it.  To Koreans this means that their parents died.  So, "thanks mom and dad for dying?"  Oops!  How was i to know?

So when you give flowers to parents:
red: alive and well and thank you!
pink: the loss of one parent
white: the loss of both parents

One would find white or pink flowers at funerals.  So interesting fact about Korean culture.

                                                          

One on top= death

one below= love you!

Also, this week we had regular classes on Monday and Tuesday.  On Wednesday we played games all day.  I only "taught" one class.  It was pretty nice. but at the same time it made me being there pretty pointless.  Oh well, it was fun to play the games with them and have the extra time to prepare new art and play projects.

I have a long weekend because i dont have work on thursday and friday.  Its been nice.  Today i went to the doctor again.  My sinuses are awful and i have an infection.  And the area around my eustachian tube is so swollen that my ears cant alleviate the pressure.  So i feel like i have a fish bowl on my head, and all i can really hear is myself.  Its not that great of a feeling.  But today when i went to the Doctor she checked my nose and she put this thing in my nose and it sucked out all my mucus (aka snot!).  It sounds  pretty gross, but it was a great feeling.  I could get addicted to that.  It felt great.  Its like my nose just got a great cleaning. Haha!

After that i did a couple errands and then met a friend in Mugedong (about a 15-20 min bus ride) and we had lunch at a pretty hip place with pizza and an outside patio area.  It was the perfect weather for eating outside.  After that we browsed around the shops looking for a light sweater.  While doing so we found some great t-shirt slogans.  Today was an truly great day for Koreans botching English or making it better than ever!

Here are some:

"Born Slakes"

how to create world peace

This is on a big bag. And its dangerous, buyer beware.

After a bit of browsing we saw this cute little shop.  They make their own chocolates so of course we had to try them.  So we picked out a handful and had an espresso to pair with our findings.  And yes, with our espresso came a mini pail of sugar.  Cuz what would our espresso be without a small pail of sugar?  Koreans have all things cute if you haven't noticed.

You order downstairs and then go upstairs to a loft like space with minimal seating.  There is a large table that seats 6 with chairs and then a step up there are two other tables that could fit four people each where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor with pillows.  It really is made to be a couples nook.  Most people are never alone is Korea, they always have a buddy of some kind.  

This weekend i am off to Seoul again.  This time i will be there for more than a day.  I will spend all day fri, sat and come back sun late afternoon.  So im sure there will be more fun stories to share :)