Me with my morning class: Children's Day!




All the kids wrote down wishes and we tied them to balloons and let them go. My favorite wishes were, "I wish to be peter pan and be on a ship"-Faith and, "I wish to be a princess at Everland"-Peach, and "I want to be mommy mommy mommy mommy, I love mommy"-Alice.




Mickael, "Katie Teacher, lliiioonnn grrrrrr" haha





Mickael! The first month I was unsure about him because he seemed really unfocused and much younger than the other students and I had trouble keeping him on task. But he has learned SO much in 3 months and has instantly become one of my favorites! He loves to dance and hold my hand, he just got purple highlights in the front of his hair (not in these pics) he is my little rockstar!!!!!





A sea of children warming up for our field trip..dancing to to Korean Pop!





Childrens Day: This is Logan, he's my favorite boy in my 'special classes'. He see's be and yells, "KAH KAH KAHHHHH Katiiiee Teacher!" and I go, "SMILE Logan"..and this is what I got...haha





Me with Peachy Pie and Mickael-Oh-Lial, I lovvvve them and will be trying to fit them in my suitcases on my was back to the US haha ;) <3





Me leading my class to the field for Childrens Day, Mickael was trying to have a convo with me, he's my little rockstar!



NANTA! It started in 1997 and is so popular that it has drawn the largest number of audiences to a performance in Korean 'stage' history. Nanta has even performed in Broadway in NY!! It performs in 231 cities and 37 countries!



The ending performane of NANTA. This performance is high energy using kitchen utensils as musical instruments.



Tyler got pulled up on stage during NANTA to 'marry' a Korean! Toooo funny!






Travel and change of place imparts new energy to the mind.



May 5th is considered ‘Children’s Day’ here in Korea, (I remember asking my mom why is there a ‘mothers and fathers day’ and no ‘children’s day’ when I was little, and my mom said, ‘everyday is children’s day’ haha...HOWEVER, here they actually have a day!) May 5 is officially recognized as Children's Day. Parents often give presents to their children, as well as take them on excursions, such as ‘Everland’ Korean’s version of a theme park. At our school we had an outdoor field trip day. We played outside with our kids, had ice cream and made crafts. The kids loved being outside and I loved the break from teaching inside the classroom! I felt like a camp consouler! I’m getting so close to my morning students. They look up to me and always want to have my full attention. They are by far my favorite part of the day. I made up nick names for them and now they call eachother by those names, SO CUTE! I have, Jinny-bo-binny, Faithy-bo-bathy, Jennifer-bo-bennifer, Alice-bo-balice, Vicky-bo-bicky, Mickael-oh-lial and Peachy Pie!! All the teachers and students call Peach, ‘Peachy Pie’ now haha, she even refers to herself as that. I guess Faith went home and told his mom all their names, they love it! They call me either, “Katie Baby Teacher”, “Katie Pie Teacher” oorrr (this one never gets old ha ha): “Katie Princess Teacher”…always such a confidence boost with my little 6 year olds! <3

A few weeks ago I decided to have a calm weekend in Dongtan by myself. Bri went to World DJ Fest which sounded like a blast and Tia ran errands. I decided to check out some shops in Dongtan and I noticed a new shop while riding my bike (YES we finally got bikes!!!!) The owner was so excited when I stopped in. Everything was incredibly cheap, like 2,000 won ( less than $2) for a tank top! After paying for my items she gave me a free knock off Von Dutch hat (which I’ll never wear haha) but it was a kind gesture! I find that some places like when foreigners come into their gym, restaurant, shop, kind of as a status symbol…


Last week Tyler came to Korea, Tia was so excited to see him and I was too…A little taste of home! We went to Shabu Shabu for some Korean food one of his first nights. It was interesting listening to him talk about how different everything is here. Which it is, but sometimes I think we forget how cool it is that we’re actually here!! We showed him the soju-cap drinking game, which all the Koreans play. You basically just twist the rim of the cap into a twirl and everyone flicks it until it comes off and the person next to the person who flicked the twist off has to take a shot of soju (a watered down verson of vodka; Korean’s love their soju!)


NANTA!: We we went to a performance called ‘Nanta’. The show is a slapstick comedy! It has very little verbal lines, and uses a bit of acrobatics and magic tricks, but was mostly an artistic druming session using kitchen utensils! The whole show is very energetic and the performers are in amazing shape! You can tell that their practice is intense. The show is about an hour, and is entertaining from start to finish! Tyler got pulled on stage to ‘marry’ a Korean. It was hilarious! We got the feeling that when they were pulling up volunteers that one of us foriegners would get chosen, we were right! He went on stage and had to put on a silly Korean wedding costume and go along with skit, we were dying of laughter. Nanta’s final piece in the show was the actors banging on huge water container drums as flashs of techno lights surrounded us. It was a thundering, energetic, up beat performance. They were dripping in sweat from the intensity! It was awesome!!!!

I can't believe I've been here for 3 months! Thank you to everyone who has sent me cards/gifts, I really appreciate the thoughts from home! <3 always, Katie Teacher ;)