Happy Hallowe'en

It's fright night!!! oooh.... scary.

This year I'm having the most different hallowe'en experience that I can remember. Instead of dressing up and going out (or trick-or-treating as I did many moons ago) I'm staying in. I'm the designated candy passer-outer this year.

I volunteered for the job actually. I did this a few years ago with a friend in the city and it was fun to see all the kiddies dressed up and begging for a sugar high. So, to make sure that the little 'uns come to the house, I organized myself and decorated outside. It's not the graveyard-haunted house-scary amazing kind of look that I would want, but I think it's a good job, given my short notice... and limited funds.

the front of the house

As you can see there are big orange bags - I filled them all with leaves yesterday... what a workout!!! - and there are faces drawn on all of them. I did most of them but Bilal did a couple and so did Alexia. Here's a close-up:

My homage to Kiss! (not really...just came out that way!)

The other day I made a bunch of ghosts with Bilal - they're hanging on the front porch. I also got some of that fake spider web stuff and put it up, rather haphazardly I must admit...

the ghosts and spider webs...

I also carved the jack-o-lantern... it was fun, but not as fun as I remember it being when I was a kid. The best part, I think, is toasting and eating the seeds after.

"before"

his guts... poor guy...

"after"

The seeds turned out okay, but there weren't very many for suck a large pumpkin... This could very well be my last Hallowe'en in Canada... maybe... so I think it's good that I'm staying home this year... who knows when I'll ever have the little munchkins come 'round to my house again? I'll take pictures of them (with parental permission) and post them if I can...

Happy Hallowe'en Everyone!!

happy halloween!!!

so yesterday, saturday, i went to Changwon with kim. Changwon is about a 20-minute drive or 40 on the bus. we met up and took the bus (only about $3) at four o'clock.

she had plans to meet a friend that she met on her 'visa run' to fukuoka, japan - Jin-Bum (yes, pronounced exactly how you think it is...mmmm... gin.... bum... haha...sorry couldn't resist!) we almost missed the "station", which looked like your average bus stop, but got off at the last moment.

then we hopped into his swank Kia SUV and headed for some bossum - pork...always pork... i don't know where all this pork comes from... but yeah, dinner.

we started with this spicy soup, it had cabbage and seaweed in it. i think there may have been mushrooms too, but i didn't taste them, so it was all right. it was good. this is the bossum... it sits on a flame to keep it warm. you take a peice of it and wrap it in the leaves, similar to the bacon that me and kat had... lots of korean food is eaten in this way. it was pretty tasty, though a little fatty for my taste.

since the koreans are all about the side dishes, this came with it. from top around to the right - some kind of smoked pork (tasted a bit like smoked meat or pastrami), potato salad, green salad, kimchi, and pumpkin. in the middle is a little dish of mustard . some korean rice wine to go with...

and to finish off, cold noodle soup with egg and veggies - quite good.

after dinner we had a few hours to kill before heading over to O'Briens for the halloween party so we wandered around one of the downtown areas of changwon. there's a big park where they have a light show every night using the giant fountains in the middle of the lake... we have the same thing in gimhae, but i have yet to go... anyway, we had to kill time before the light show, so we went shopping! we went to the E-Mart (!?!) and picked up some costume accessories, then went for coffee at DD. (those of you who know me well, know that i never got there, but i wanted something hot and familiar...)

to my surprise, dunkin' donuts is very different here. first off, you pick your own donuts:

yes, the donuts are all displayed along one wall, and each person takes a tray and some tongs and picks out their donuts... i must admit it makes the employees' jobs' easier, but still really weird. i got a coffee...mmmm... american coffee... haven't had a filter coffee in over two months, it was great. this is the 'roll up the rim' display! they ripped of tims... i forgot to roll it up... :(then we finally went to the light show - too bad i didn't have a tripod. there was classical music blasting and the lights and the water... it was nice, but in a really cheesy kind of way...

finally we headed to o'briens. you may remember it from a previous post (nachos...). there are two o'briens, one in busan and one in changwon. i like the one in busan better, but the one in changwon has better decor. it was a real halloween party, with costumes, jack-o-lanterns and beer... the music was great, and it was a really good time. here are some of the better costumes i saw:

girl in shower - i've heard of this but never seen it before!

GHOSTBUSTERS!!!!

rob as a ninja

pink floyd!

me, the angel... with jin-bum.

and what would a south korean halloween party be without kim jong il??? love it... and so did the koreans! good for a laugh at the least...

i just realized i don't have a picture of the 'freudian slip' - kim...there were so many pictures being taken, that i'm sure there's a couple floating around... i'll have to get one. notice i've picked up the korean peace thing with my fingers? ya, i do it on purpose now. anyway, for more check out my picasa album, there were some really great costumes, i could have been at any bar in canada. it was a great time, despite the massive hang over from friday, i only had one beer the whole night...

stay tuned for my latest attempt at cooking korea...

team teaching demo class

sorry, my attempt at cooking korean will have to wait! i had a great day (the best so far) at school today... and i thought it would be the worst! today Jay and i had our team teaching demo. basically this means that we had an "open" class where a bunch of teachers from other schools (as well as our own) come and watch our class. we've been working on it for a few weeks. i may have mentioned it before... i'm not sure. it was all about Halloween, which is one of my favourite holidays. anyway, it was a hit, the kids were on their best behaviour, and all the teachers told us they had a great time... here's a rundown.

Jay and i went over our halloween vocabulary: Halloween, trick or treat, ghost, jack-o-lantern, werewolf, vampire, mummy, witch, skeleton, haunted. the kids repeated it after me and jay held up pictures. later in the class they had to fill in a halloween word scramble of the days' vocabulary... the first three to finish got chocolate!

the poster board was a bit small... as were the pictures, but at least it's something to look at... as were the devil horns i was wearing. the homeroom teacher of this class surprised me and jay by decorating the class and getting the students to wear "costumes" so i took a set of horns to wear!

then we went over the history of Halloween (a handout i found online) with the students reading along with me.

after reading it over, i asked them a few questions like "when is halloween?" and "where does Halloween come from?" whoever answered got candy and the usual sticker. (i give out stickers for participation - after five they get a prize.)

then we showed them the jack-o-lantern and how to make one. we made one the other day as an example.


we even made baked pumpkin seeds to share with the class and our guests. the kids really liked them! they're one of my favourite parts of jack-o-lantern making.

Then we played the "trick or treat game". we had a box (see the orange thing on the desk) with "tricks" in it. students came up to the front, and said "trick or treat", then they picked a trick from the box (read the vocabulary list, read from the history of halloween, do the chicken dance...etc) and after performing the trick they received a treat - a mini snikers bar, a peice of 'ghana' chocolate (korean), a peice of candy, and a sticker... the stakes were big enough to get enough of them up and actually do the trick. in our practice classes this was really hard - buut we didn't have candy then!

this is another student doing the trick - he had to sing a song to the class. they all joined in with him and clapped along - it was great!

here are the "big wigs" assessing our every move... we got pretty good grades as far as i could tell... the sheet was all in korean... so i won't find out until jay tallies them up.
all in all, it was a great class. all of the teachers at my school who came to watch told me they loved it, and it seemed like the students had a great time too. jay and i worked really well together and it all worked out. i don't know what i was so worried about ... cause i was really worried about it for some silly reason... it's a massive weight off my shoulders... yay!

coming up... liz cooking korean and gayaland! (the amusement park up the street - tomorrow is picnic day!) so keep reading!