"You're not Santa, really."

Christmas came early this year at Grace School.  On Thursday, we had the school "Santa Party."  We spent a few hours making paper Christmas trees with our classes.   Clayton's class did a lovely job, and even made paper presents for their tree. Meanwhile, we got a little distracted in my class, and used our materials to make masks, Rudolph noses, and antlers. 

After making trees, the kids were visited by Santa.   Santa, who was played by a friend of ours, was not the most believable of St. Nicks, with his strap-on beard and 5,000 won Santacon suit. His case wasn't helped much by the fact that he was required to read a really terrible version of the story of baby Jesus.  The kids weren't buying it.  Sam, who had already been acting a bit like the Grinch, ran out of the room when his name was called. And Sue shouted, "You're not Santa, really!" upon meeting him. Nonetheless, they enjoyed receiving gifts and playing with them after lunch. 

We ended the day by playing the classic claymation Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (a suggestion made my Clayton and myself of course).  While it wasn't exactly the Christmas party we are used to, we had fun. We always enjoy those rare days when we get to spend time simply playing with the kids.  I'm not sure who eats it up more, us or them!

Photo-bomb courtesy of Dave.

Class photo, sans Sam.

Funny face time!

Hard at work making the tree.

Not so hard at work. :-)

Sue... one of the smartest kids we've met.  In another lifetime, I think we would be bff's. 

Sam overcame his Grinchy-ness, but wasn't so sure about Santa.

Sophia and Roy.  You can't help but love him!

Clayton's class, hard at work. 

Clayton spent about an hour trying to get Roy's toy to transform from a robot to a semi-truck. Ages 5+? More like Ages 20+ with a degree in engineering!

Audra's Class Tree

Clayton's Class tree.

Merry Christmas-uh!

Santa's Got Seoul!

This weekend, we participated in an epically ridiculous event. Santacon Seoul 2010.  People dressed as Santa, parading around the streets of Seoul? Where else would we be? Santacon started in San Francisco and has since spread around the world. Santacon Seoul started as a small group of foreigners, but has since grown. The event drew hundreds of foreigners eager to make spectacles of themselves. There were Santas of all shapes, sizes and genre. Jolly Santas, Gangsta Santas, Einstein Santas and Glam Rock Santas. There were even Santas with hopefully placed mistletoe dangling from their hats.  We joined the throng of  St. Nicks in singing songs and sending Christmas wishes to the confused passersby.

If one Santa makes you think of Christmas, then hundreds of them will really bring you into the holiday spirit!

Mr. and Mrs. Claus

We thought it was fitting that the mass of Santas warmed up in an establishment called HO Bar III.

Our friend Teddy, wearing his Santa beard with pride.

What better thing to do while dressed as Santa than to dance in the crosswalk during the 'walk' signal?

 When the 'stop' signal came on, the dancers rushed to the sidewalk, only to recommence when it turned green again.

Merry Christmas!!!!

One of the Santacon leaders yelling, "Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa's gotta go!" as the hords of Santas paraded on to the next location.

The many different hats of Santa!

 Santa getting his groove on.

There was a Santa balloon pass relay. This was our amazing, winning team! Woot Woot!

High Five!

We met Robin outside the best taco truck ever! Holy corn tortillas and cilantro Batman!!

Santa dance party in the ROK!

We had a grand time at Santacon. We look forward to being part of Portland's Santacon next year!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!



And Now it's Novemeber!

It is exactly 2 months since our last post, which makes us pretty much epic failures at blogging from Korea. In all fairness to us though, quite a bit has happened in the last two months. Quite frankly, we are exhausted!

Both sets of parentals (Stave and Lavender) flew in to visit on different trips. We studied for and took the GRE to get into graduate school. And we also celebrated our 1st anniversary by going to Malaysia during Chuseok (more on that trip in a later post).

Claytons parents came to visit at the end of August and mine came in October. We took both sets of parents to see some of the sights in Seoul : Insadong, Namdaemun Market, places we have written about already.  But we also went on different excursions outside of Seoul with them.

When Claytons parents visited, we went to Gyeongju. Gyeongju is sometimes referred to as the 'museum without walls.' It was the capital of an ancient kingdom in Korea and there are many grassy tombs throughout the city. The tombs were massive and the city was built around them. A love hotel or apartment building would sit right next to this incredibly old piece of history. There are also many temples and palaces. We visited for only a few days, so we could not see the entirety of the city. But we did get to see quite a bit. We also visited the beach nearby. And, as we have discovered several times, the bus ride through the countryside was just as beautiful as the destination.  Here are some photos from their trip:

An old astronomy tower.

Tombs. Dead kings inside.

Most amazing buns... ever.

Gotta love it when you go to the beach and make friends with a  bunch of Sri Lankan monks!

Ssambap. Not the best meal we have ever had, but it shows a Korean style dinner table.

Ajumma visors. You're just jealous you don't have one.



We also went to see Seoul Tower for the first time with Jeff and Yvonne. Perhaps my favorite part of Seoul Tower was the locks that lined the fence around the tower. They were covered in locks on which people had written their names, dedications, and inside jokes. It was a lovely day, so we had a great view of Seoul from atop the tower. 

It was really wonderful of Claytons parents to come visit. We definitely didn't expect that all four of our parents would be able to visit us in our year here in Korea. We  miss everyone and it was really good to get hugs from our family.

More on my parents visit to follow.

Ready... Set... COLOR!

A few weeks ago we took the kids of Grace School to an exhibit at the Seongnam Arts Center called the "Color Playground."

First, they took the kids on a tour of different kinds of art, including paintings of which they could be a part.

They are always so well behaved on field trips. At time we wonder if they are the same children we teach every day

They went through several exhibits, including one where they turned off the lights and turned on a bubble machine!

There was a shadow puppet exhibit.

 

The main attraction of the Color Playground was fingerpainting these cars! They poured some paint on the tables and let the kids have at it. No smocks or anything.

Fingerpainting...this way! 

Green hands!

Yellow hands!

 Multi-colored hands!

 Un-impressed hands.

 Monster hands!

 

Roy hands.

 Getting more paint for the cars.

 After painting the cars, they gave all the children rags and had them clean up!

 Clean-ish hands!

 Jump!

 After the painting adventure, we found a room filled with packing peanuts and dark blue lights. We took the kids inside and went nuts! Their favorite part was covering the teachers with them.

 Aaaahhhh!

Clearly they were not having any fun. 

 All in all, it was definitely one of our best field trips ever.