Celebrating My Birthday in Korea

This past week I celebrated my 26th birthday. I was a little weary about it since, well, I am on my own over here in this beautiful but strange country. I might have been dreading it a little bit too. However, my work family managed to make it super special for me.

I want to also include that many of my loved ones back in Canada were also wonderful with sending me some gifts or cards, and I got a lot of attention over Facebook that made me truly feel loved.

My day started with a wonderful smell coming from the kitchen. Kelly's gift to me was making me a birthday lunch. She knows how much I love Korean food and I swear she made/bought a little bit of everything! There was so much food. But that wasn't so bad considering we were able to get three days worth of meals out of it. In Korea on your birthday you make sure to eat "birthday soup" also known as seaweed soup. They eat that soup because traditionally people give seaweed to a new mom because it is really good for the body and helps repair after child birth. From that people started eating seaweed soup on their birthdays.

After we were stuffed from lunch and about ready for a nap, it was time for work! My students were very cute and a lot of them made sure to wish me a happy birthday and a few even made me a card or gave me a little gift! The director's daughter gave me a gift of things she picked out in Seoul. The gift included a new headband, bracelet, pin, and I love Korea earrings! She was so proud of it too. I taught her class that day and she made sure to show all her classmates what she had given me.

After work Jenny and Crow took us all out for dinner to celebrate. We went to the local raw fish shop where we had... Surprise surprise raw fish! I also had some steamed octopus and it was quite good. Six months ago I wouldn't have even entertained the idea of trying octopus let alone enjoying it. The meal was great and they even got me a cake! It was really good and was made from sweet potato I was told.

After the day was over I was quite pleased with my birthday and will remember it for quite some time.

Class Trip Three

This month I went on yet another class field trip and this time we did something new. We still had lunch at the local Lotteria. Afterwards, we headed to Ulsan Grand Park for the afternoon. I hadn't been there yet so I was pretty excited to check it out. It worked out that it was a beautiful day and possibly the warmest of the year.

The park has North, East, South, and West gates and is quite huge. We ended up going to three different playgrounds. The kids had a great time. One of the play areas had the longest slide I've ever seen. Our last stop before heading back home was to see the "pong pong" park. It is basically a park where the kids can jump on a soft "hill" and slide down it too. They had a really good time. Again, being the worst tourist ever, I didn't have my camera on me and therefore no pictures were taken. I am working on getting better at that!

We ended the day by getting some well deserved ice cream. I feel like these field trips help me get closer to the students and am really valuing the time spent with them.

Walking around the park, I noted how beautiful it is and how much there really is to see at the park. That weekend was the tulip festival so we were able to see the beautiful flowers. You can also rent bikes and take a ride around the park.

Next time I hope to do something new again and I promise to have pictures as well!