Hapdashery (a la Desiree)

So many little things (and a couple big things, too) have happened since I last posted.  I guess they can all come together for one melting pot of Korean delight.

Apparently, the Korean government issued some sort of report about Korean students not getting enough physical activity in school.  So, a week or so ago, our school canceled the last two periods of the day to hold an all-school dodge ball tournament.  Let me just tell you, it was intense.  There were some minor injuries that were remedied with Popsicle sticks and the next day, everyone was exhausted.  Dodge ball is no joke.

For Thanksgiving Day, after work, five area teachers gathered together at a funny little duck restaurant.  We had a great meal consisting of two courses: first, shabu shabu and later, roasted duck served atop pumpkin.  It was one of the best Thanksgiving alternatives for which we could have asked.  We ended the evening at our favorite after hours hangout: Cafe Swalo, eating cake and being obnoxious.  Delightful.

Friday, during my two morning preps, I had a Thanksgiving skype session with the folks at Kelly and Ed's.  I felt like I was there, except for the part where everyone was drinking Bailey's and I was stuck drinking tea.  Whatever.  It was soooo great to talk to everyone there!  Now I'm even more excited for their visit (as if that was possible...)!!  Yayyyy!

Friday night, we all (12 of us) went to Bundang to celebrate Thanh's birthday.  We ate at a great dak galbi restaurant before Diane, Desiree and I dipped out early to start our preparations for the next day's Thanksgiving extravaganza(s!).  After the taxi ride from hell (in which all of us experienced some degree of motion sickness), I boiled a stupid amount of eggs, burnt some croutons and softened a Paula Deen amount of butter...you know, usual Friday night activities.  No big deal.

The next day, I woke up early and cooked all morning. before heading over to Dionne and Scott's Thanksgiving dinner.  I brought carrot squash soup, deviled eggs, and bread with herb butter.  Diane brought apple garlic stuffing and Desiree made potato salad.  About 25 people gathered at the Husteds for a traditional Thanksgiving feast.  Wowza, was it great!  So many fantastic people gathered with some crazy good food.  I always wonder if these gatherings will comfort me or make me miss home, (it was a curious mix of both) but I think everyone goes through that to some extent, especially during this time of the year.

We dipped out of the Husted's way early because we had another Thanksgiving to attend at Desiree's friend Faith's in Bundang.  Kim and Sunny joined us for Thanksgiving Round 2, which was equally as delightful, though in a completely different way.   Post-Thanksgiving activities involved taking the new train line to Gangnam (in just 16 minutes - Whoa.) to check out a K-Pop exhibit with Diane and her friend Lena and then, noraebong for two hours.  Many middle school dance standbys and creative interpretive dances later, we called it a night just in time to catch one of the last buses back to the Gwangj.  What a Thanksgiving it was!

The next day, Diane, Desiree and I went back to Dionne and Scott's to pick up our Tupperware from the day before and to help them get rid of their leftovers and dessert.  Aren't we pals?!  We sat around there for a couple of hours, recounting our respective Thanksgivings and meeting Scott's new friend Mr. Lee (who is some sort of big deal in the Rotary Club - what a great man - I was laughing like a crazy person, which is obviously WAY out of character for me :) )  After grocery shopping at E-Mart (on a Sunday - bad idea even though it has become a weekly potluck preparation thing - think Black Friday crowds, but every single Saturday and Sunday - Koreans don't mess around when it comes to weekend food shopping), we returned to Dionne and Scott's to help them decorate their Christmas tree (and eat more leftovers!).  What a refreshing, fantastic, put-me-in-the-holiday-spirit evening!  I haven't decorated a Christmas tree in several years so I was so glad to be included!  The Husteds really know how to treat a gal.

Yesterday brought another installment of Potluck Monday.  Last week's (hors d'oeuvres!) was a resounding success so I was really looking forward to this week!  Our theme was Mexican.  My mind was blown.  We had 14 people gathered in my apartment.  Every single surface was covered with food and beverages (we've also expanded from food to sharing beverage concoctions - Thanh brought sangria and Scott mixes all kinds of creative things (honey citron tea, ginger honey tea, hot peppers...) with soju to create new liqueurs.  We are all willing samplers - it's a tough job.) which, along with all of the awesome people gathered, made for quite a delightful evening.  We also celebrated Thanh's birthday with a little pink animal covered birthday cake and a few gifts.  Next week's theme: T Party, in which everyone brings something that starts with the letter T (and also to celebrate Toni's birthday).  I'm really loving the community we've created through these potlucks.  Everyone is so diverse and from such different walks of life that there's never a shortage of stories or laughter - just the way I like it :)

P.S. The best interaction with Mr. Shin just happened.  Somehow, my classroom door was locked yesterday (despite what you may be thinking, Mom, I had nothing to do with it :)) so I couldn't get into my classroom today because I only have a key to open the door to the whole floor and not my classroom specifically.  After Chan Yang gave me the set of keys that should have opened my classroom and none of them worked, I went back down to the office.  I told Mr. Shin my problem:
Noelle: Mr. Shin, none of these keys work!  They all fit in the lock, but none of them turn.
Mr. Shin: Seriously?
N: Yes!
MS: Just wait.  I school McGuyver.  I'll be back.
(not one minute later, Mr. Shin emerged from the teacher's office triumphantly holding two keys in his hand above his head.)
MS: I told you I McGuyver!!!  Follow me!

Delightful.  Simply delightful.

Pseudo Road Trip With Some of my Faves :)

Alright - it wasn't quite a road trip, but it was a trip and we traveled on several roads so that's what I'm calling it.  Since Thursday was the day when every high school senior took their college entrance exam, we all had the day off.  And, since none of the teachers wanted to come to school the day after supervising those exams all day, we had Friday off from school too.  And so, with a delightful four day weekend with no plans on our hands, we decided to take advantage of this nice break and what was left of the gorgeous fall weather we've been having by taking a short trip.  We settled on the east coast of Korea to visit one of Korea's major mountains, Seoraksan as well as the nearby coast of the East Sea.  What a delightful trip we had :)

We woke up hella early on Thursday morning after a delightful non-school-night-Wednesday-evening-in with our pals Kim and Navy.  And, by hella early, I mean earlier than we would have woken up had we had school that day.  Ouch.  We got to the bus terminal and waited about an hour and a half for our bus to leave.  My seat was next to an incredibly friendly middle-aged Korean man who was delighted to be able to dust off his English skills.  After a quick chat, I dozed for the better portion of the two and a half hour bus ride.  As I woke from my most desirable nap, my bus companion slipped me his card and offered to take Diane, Desiree and I to dinner that night.  After having talked to me for less than 10 minutes.  Very strangey.  Ever more strange - I told him my name so that when (read: if) I called him to arrange dinner plans, he would know who I was.  He couldn't have cared less.  So weird...

Upon arrival at our cozy hostel (The House Hostel in Sokcho is highly recommended, people!), we explored the city.  We were eagerly greeted by several locals waving hello, telling us we were beautiful and even welcoming us to Korea in passing.  Being an obvious foreigner is funny sometimes.  Eventually we found ourselves in a shipyard, which, let me tell you, we explored to its full extent.  Fishermen are colorful characters. Next, we made our way to a sea wall where we took several photos - some beautiful, some emotional, some heartfelt, many silly.  We ended our near-the-sea adventure with a delightful chat (over fresh crab) with our restaurant's proprietor.  Homeboy was a real big baseball fan.  Wowza.

Friday was hiking day.  And, by hiking, I mean we took a cable car as high as we could and hiked maybe half an hour total.  Buuuut, we saw some beautiful scenery, ate some delicious hiking snacks and did some high quality people watching.  Then, we took the bus to the fish market and walked around.  Something about markets here just makes me intrinsically happy.  I love the energy present there.  I don't know.

We spent a good amount of childish time frolicking at Sokcho Beach, walking on the boardwalk, and thoroughly enjoying being together in a strange new city.  The rest of the day was spent wandering (literally - we had no idea where we were or where we were going...), eating Chinese food and ice cream and relaxing.  We woke up from early evening naps to indulge in some soft tofu soup, a specialty of the area.  It was delightful, as was the restaurant's proprietor who later called us a cab and invited us to wait for said cab inside her restaurant.  I love people's kindness and hospitality here.  Fantastic.

The next morning, we slept in, took it easy, ate brunch at our favorite chain bakery and caught our bus back to reality.  What a fantastic, relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable getaway.  Now it's back to the grindstone for awhile... and, by grindstone, I mean teaching roughly 10 classes this week in which we prepare for a final exam and put the finishing touches on the first grade business play project.  Sometimes this job is painfully delightful.

Also, I can't believe I haven't mentioned this before, but for three glorious weeks in January, my best bud Ruth will grace Korea with her presence!!!!  YAYYY!  (If you can't tell, I'm real jazzed about her recent plane ticket purchase!)  There are grand times to be had.  Grand times, indeed.

Potluuuucks

I'd been thinking about doing something like this for a couple of months, but was always too lazy to put it together.  I finally got my backside in gear (at the suggestion of several pals :) ) and began hosting a weekly potluck for all of my foreign pals in the Gwangj.

Last week didn't have a theme since it was the first one.  I did, however, learn that I have some seriously culinarily talented pals.  Desiree made some of the most fantastic mashed potatoes I've ever tasted, Scott made an amazing dumpling soup (Korean name: mandu guk), Diane made some fantastic kimchi fried rice (kimchi bo-kum-bap) and Kim made brains.  Yep - brains.  In a jar.  The brains (cubes of cake, a berry jam of some sort and buttermilk frosting squeezed to resemble a human brain) were in honor of Halloween (which was about as Halloweeny as I got this year...)  It was so, so fun to get everyone together and share some great homemade food.  I. LOVE. POTLUCKS.

This week, the theme was colors.  Everyone had to prepare something of a certain color.  We had deviled eggs, homemade pork cutlet, tuna noodle casserole, carrot soup, (blue!) vanilla bean rice pudding, banana pudding, a beautiful green salad, a chocolate wafer brittle cake and peach juice.  Oh my wow, people.  Words cannot describe how beautiful this food was and how much fun we had making and consuming it.  Not only did we thoroughly enjoy sharing our food with one another, but the time we all spent together was so fun.  It's such a great feeling to have built such a supportive, interesting, adventurous community of people with which to spend my time.  Awesome.

And, Scott and Dionne brought their adorable dog Lucy to last night's 'luck.  It was so fun to be around such an adorable dog.  I miss Snickers the Wonderdog!  Amid the fantastic conversation was a little knitting party too.  Such creative friends I have :)

Next week's theme: Breakfast for Dinner.  My mouth is already watering.