2012 baby!!

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine..." - R.E.M.

It's 2012... Happy New Year from South Korea!

Our New Years Eve was a blast! We started off the evening with some good friends eating at one of our favorite joints, The Holy Grill, in downtown Daegu.

The whole gang at The Holy Grill restaurant in downtown Daegu...best Cajun chicken sandwich on the planet!

For those of you living or planning to live in Daegu, you MUST eat at The Holy Grill. The owner Aaron is a cool guy and also the chef, and his dishes are finger-lickin' delicious! I recommend the steak burrito or the open-face Cajun chicken sandwich. YUM! They also have Red Rock beer on tap, which is my absolute favorite brew in Korea!

We hung out at the restaurant for several hours, mingling and playing one round of "Left, Right, Center". Sarah's friend and co-teacher Young Ji (on the far left of the above photo) was the winner of the game and collected a nice sum of 30,000 won, which is the equivalent of $30! Not bad for one round of a dice game.

Afterwards we went out for drinks at a lounge where we played a hand of the Phase 10 card game followed by several exhilirating rounds of Jenga, which is all the rave here in Daegu!

Me, right before knocking over the Jenga stack...terrible!

We finished off the evening perfectly, with our grand finale at the downtown park in Daegu ringing in 2012 with music, the ringing of the bell at midnight, and an incredible fireworks display to send us in to the new year in style!

All in all, we hope all of you had a safe and fun New Years this year, and we are SOOOO excited for all that awaits us in 2012...gonna be a BIG year! ;)

English Camps

In South Korea, students enjoy "summer vacation" in winter, usually between December 24th and sometime near the end of February. It's sort of the reverse of how school is done in the states.

And when I say "vacation", it is certainly not the vacation American kids are probably used to. Students here in Korea spend most of their vacation studying English, math, and science. They attend winter camps and many of them still attend their hogwons (night school for students) during the break. Needless to say, these poor kids never stop working.

Sarah and I with my students at the Seodaegu winter camp

For us as teachers, though, our time during the break is quite fun and light-hearted. When we aren't desk-warming (term used for sitting at our desks all day with no work to do waiting for the last bell to ring), we get to plan English camps.

English camps are basically a time in which the students still come to school to learn English, but the classes are more like activity times comprised of games and other fun exercises to allow students to have a ton of fun while learning.

Me disguised as a superhero for Sarah's "Superhero Camp"

Sarah and I had the incredible (and incredibly unique) opportunity to co-teach both of our school's English camps and plan the events together.

Sarah doing a puppet skit at "Superhero Camp"

During my camp, which was Monday December 26th-Wednesday December 28th, students from grades 4-6 came for 3 hours a day and got to do a whole variety of fun things. We made fake passports, played Twister and Simon Says, watched movie trailers and reviewed them with simple English sentences, and many other fun things. Students even got to pretend to be meteorologists, and Sarah and I had the chance to teach them all how to play Uno, an American favorite!

Students making their superhero capes at "Superhero Camp"

Sarah's camp took place from Wednesday January 4th-Friday January 6th. Her 3rd and 4th graders had the incredible opportunity to partake in a "Superhero Camp", which Sarah designed and orchestrated herself. Students got to learn about different superheros, make their own super hero masks and cape, play capture the flag, and color and create their own fictional superhero. Needless to say, the kids had a blast! I wish they had fun stuff like this when I was in school...he he he!

One student's superhero mask...NICE!

After Sarah's camp ended, we all went out for some pizza to celebrate the successes of the camps as well as the fact that they were over.

The teachers celebrating the end of camps with some PIZZA!!

Though it was exhausting at the time, it was fun and kept us busy during this nice long break.

Now, Sarah and I have nothing to do but desk-warm from now until the first week of March when classes begin again. Unfortunately, we still have to come in and sit at our desks for 8 hours...BRUTAL!

If you've ever wanted to write a novel or learn how to knit, desk-warming in South Korea is the way to get it done!