School Festival Part 2

The second day of the school festival was filled with performances. In the morning was the talent show broken up into two categories: dance and song. In the afternoon the school orchestra performed, a few student debuted the films they made, 2 plays were performed (one in English and one in Korean), and of course the dance club performed K-Pop dance routines. These kids were amazing. I was particularly impressed by the dance routines. If I leave without having learned a K-Pop dance routine I will have failed. Here are a few photos.

If you can't tell that's cookie monster on their shirts.

This is one of my boys classes who formed a band. They are performing a rock version of, "All I Want for Christmas is You."

Yep. There were smoke machines and machines that shot fireballs into the air.

If you are guessing that the boy on the right does not have any pants on, you are correct. He was wearing a poncho that he designed himself. He wants to be a fashion designer when he grows up and he is the school darling, everyone adores him. The guy with the guitar, didn't actually play it, it was a prop. This is the singing portion of the day, and they are performing "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga.

Here is our school orchestra performing. 

School Festival Part 1

My students have been preparing all year for the school festival which was this past Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday was the carnival day in the gymnasium. I got my face painted, had a staring contest with a student (I won), had my fortune told, bought a pair of socks at the "flea market", and won a white-out pen. Here are a few photos from Wednesday, I'll post more from Thursday later. Get excited, Thursday was mostly K-Pop dance routine photos.

Our school gymnasium.

This is the bookmark decorating station. I decorated a bee bookmark for John. Behind the student is the "cocktail bar". The students running the booth made a concoction of blue Powerade and Coke. Not that tasty.

These are two of my students posing as Harry Potter and Hermione (they made the props).

Here is one of my students reading my palm. 

One of my students and me.

This was the throw darts at a balloon game and win a prize. However instead of darts we threw mechanical pencils. 

The chemistry lab was transformed! We had the opportunity to make fake snow and eat ice pops, frozen in front of us using dry ice.

This is a student explaining to me how to dunk my fingers in ethanol and then  light my hand on fire, and light the candles, then put my hand out in water. It was scary, but I did it.

Students melted sugar to create lollipops and then rolled the lollipops in sugar.

The Holidays

It was hard to be away from friends and family this last holiday weekend, but through the wonders of international mail and Skype we were able to connect to folks back home.

As any good holiday should be celebrated, we were able to eat good food and spend time with great people. Here are a smattering of photos from the last few days.

We visited a new local Korean bar. You'll notice the festive bar snacks: dried fish, sweetened dried green beans, and sweet corn chips.

Bowling. Not really that different.

We celebrated Hanukkah with latkes and matzo ball soup.

We made caramel popcorn.

Christmas eve we went to a friends house for a potluck.

And of course after the potluck we headed around the corner for some traditional Christmas eve karaoke.

This is John and I knocking Feliz Navidad out of the park.

These types of claw machines are everywhere. Up until Christmas the stuffed animals had eluded us, but, thanks to a Christmas miracle, we won a tiny stuffed frog!

Thanksgiving

Instead of heading to the local Sea Farerers club for a traditional Thanksgiving buffet, which we thought would offer an impersonal, poor imitation of Thanksgiving, we hosted a non-traditional, but very thankful meal at our house the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We re-arranged our house in order to fit our ten guests but everyone was sitting, and no one was on the floor! We made lots of tasty treats with an autumnal theme, though not necessarily "Thanksgiving".  Below is our menu from the night and a couple photos.

Drinks
Apple juice, pear juice, cinnamon juice and soju cocktail
wine! (thanks everyone)

Appetizers
red lentil roasted squash dip
roasted garlic and tomato dip
roasted red pepper hummus
crackers/bread/carrots

Main
roasted broccoli, pumpkin seed, green olive salad
carrot, apple, almond, tofu salad (thanks Craig!)
cream cheese mashed potatoes (thanks Christina!)
chickpea burgers with sweet potato and kale
creamed onions

Dessert
pumpkin cake
banana bread ice-cream (homemade by James, dairy free!)

Everyone gathered round.

Our friends Christina and Brittany. You can see the Christmas tree that I just put up, left behind by the previous tenants.

Champions!

John and I have been playing in the local frisbee league in here, competing against other local teams (excluding Seoul). Busan had enough people for 2 teams, and John and I have been playing on different teams. During the regular season my team had more wins, but John's team had a better point differential, and we knew that when our teams faced off it was going to be a really close game.

We faced each other in the quarter-finals and it was a back and forth game. I was disappointed to lose by one point, but John's team went on to win the championship! And for all our ultimate player friends who read this blog, I got a sick Callahan.  Here are some celebratory photos of the Republic of Korea Ultimate Champion's, Busan Heat!

Post Heat win, saying "good game" with the other team.

A mid-air jumping photo attempt.

#10 in the foreground, Seong Min, is constantly dancing during practice and on the line. So  he of course lead the celebratory dance party.

Champions!

Both Busan teams.

After attempting to find a cheap motel to stay in and failing, we decided to take the 2:45 AM train home. What better thing to do in the train station then play a little more frisbee?