My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

School technically ended for the term on Friday and concluded with the school festival. I say "technically" because though the students are on break from now until classes officially restart in early February they are strongly pressured to attend extra classes all throughout the month of January.

The school festival was a school-wide event that permitted the boys to show off their art work, class projects and in the evening performance skills. I was asked to judge the Middle School pop song contest along with the Middle School vice principal and a guest judge. Each class of boys picked a song in English, created choreography and dressed in costumes and performed it in front of their peers. The winning classes got to perform at the evening festival which was open to parents and students from neighboring schools.

During the festival I was surprised how talented many of my students were - they could sing, dance, play instruments and two can even beat box. The video below is excerpts from the festival - one of the microphones malfunctioned during the evening so some of the singing sounds a bit off. All of the students who performed are in my classes - the final two performances - the beat boxing and the boys singing with the guitar are in my night classes as well.

I've been teaching a night class for a few months now and with the end of the semester I decided to host a Christmas party for the boys. The boys spend most of their waking hours either in school, in extra classes at school or a private academy or studying so I wanted to host a party during which they could have a lot of fun. Since the boys enjoyed our cooking lesson I found a few easy recipes which they could make -  the only problem is that cooking at school is a bit problematic since I have to bring all the ingredients, cooking utensils and other items to and from school. Therefore, I decided to host the party at my apartment and asked four other foreign English teachers to assist me.

On the 26th my students and I left school in the evening and took the bus to Jeomchon where we walked to my apartment. All but two students were able to come so a total of 12 boys were there in addition to 4 teachers and myself.

After arriving at the apartment we had a brief meeting before the students divided into smaller groups to cook. Half of the students headed into the kitchen to cook while the other half got to relax and watch Tv (in English, of course).

Three boys made pico de gallo salsa. They worked off a basic recipe which I gave them and prepared the dish with  a little guidance from Aunup.

While half the students were in the kitchen cooking the other half hung out in my main room watching TV and chatting with a couple of the other English teachers, in the picture above they were chatting about the Lord of the Rings with Priya and Aunup while Grant and Rebecca were helping in the kitchen. I think the boys really enjoyed the opportunity to speak in English with other foreigners.

The boys in the picture on the left made guacamole while the boys on the right made no bake chocolate cookies. Another group of 3 boys made mini English muffin pizzas. After the food was completed the boys got to enjoy the finished salsa, guacamole, pizza, mini cookies in addition to tortilla chips, cookies, chocolate bark and pop. While they ate they watched the movie Scream which they had requested after watching a brief clip of it during a Halloween lesson. Below is a picture of me with my students at the end of the party.

I celebrated my second Christmas here in Korea with a small celebration with few other foreigners in a local pub. Christmas is a bank holiday here but only celebrated really by Christians (30-50% of Korea's population) and couples (akin to Valentine's Day). Most Christians celebrate the holiday by attending a Christmas day church service but the American tradition of large family gatherings, food and festivities are lacking. These festivities are more associated with holidays such as Chuseok in the fall and the lunar New Year in January or February.

Last Sunday after returning from the temple I enjoyed a quiet afternoon in my warm and cozy apartment. Sundays are typically my day for cleaning, cooking and laundry and this one was no different. I puttered around the apartment trying to get it in a more presentable state which involved a few visits onto my balcony - a 3 season "room" which runs the length of my apartment with floor to ceiling sliding glass windows. On it is my washing machine and some storage space and it was during on of those trips out to the balcony that I unconsciously started to slide the door behind me to keep the heat in the apartment - and in inadvertently locked myself out. For some reason both the sliding doors in my kitchen and windows in my bedroom, both of which lead to the balcony, lock automatically when closed.

It was at this point I realized I was wearing a pair of sweatpants, a sweat shirt and simple slippers outside in 30 degree weather with no way back into my apartment. I quickly realized my options were to jump off the balcony to the ground below which I feared would result in a broken leg, break a window to get back into my apartment (which I actually attempted but the double pane glass is quite thick and I probably didn't use all of my strength since I worried about cutting myself) or calling for help and hoping someone would come. And so I spent the next couple of hours calling for help. Unfortunately due to the odd placement of my apartment - in the back of the building facing the side of a gym - for the few people who heard me calling it was probably difficult for them to determine where I was. The one person I know heard me yelled at me to "shut-up" (in English nonetheless!). Sadly this didn't surprise me, Korean culture sort of dictates a certain obliviousness towards strangers. Even in situations when its known help is needed the cops are rarely if ever called for situations - including those that involve physical altercations such as domestic violence.

And so I stood on my balcony for over 2 hours yelling for help until, by chance, a woman walked by a path near my apartment. She heard me calling, looked at me and then continued on but a few minutes later a man came out from where she had entered and looked and I called and waved to him. He disappeared and she returned and though she didn't speak a single word of English she basically understood I couldn't get back into my apartment. She made a series of phone calls and nearly an hour later the police finally arrived. However, the policemen also spoke no English and were unable to enter my apartment (which needs a key code). At one point while I was waiting - extremely cold and mentally exhausted - one policeman snapped a few photos which I suspect was to show the guys back at the station - an indication of how foreigners are still perceived as some sort of exotic zoo animal. After some time the paramedics arrived and they were young enough to know some English and we were able to communicate and after giving them the door code they entered the apartment to let me in. All the while the woman or the man waited down below, calling people on the phone trying to help me.

Today, a week later I tried to find this woman to present her with a box of dried persimmons, a local specialty. My Korean friend accompanied me and we found her phone number on the business' locked door so Minyoung called her to verify she was indeed the woman that helped me. So I'll take the gift to her later tonight to thank her for helping me. If she hadn't I'm not sure what would've happened - with temperatures in the twenties at night I'm not sure how I would've managed to stay warm on the balcony.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

Last Friday the teachers gathered together for a  dinner to celebrate the acceptance of a student into Seoul National University (the equivalence of an ivy league school here in Korea). Afterwards, Ms. Oh gave me a ride back to Jeomchon and invited me to go somewhere with her on Sunday though due to a language barrier I was unsure exactly where. However, I agreed since I thought it would probably be interesting experience since Ms. Oh herself is an intriguing woman. She is a self-described "jet setter" who has traveled throughout Europe and Asian countries such as Mongolia and Nepal and has done volunteer work in India.

Promptly at 10am Ms. Oh picked me up at my apartment and by communicating through a smattering of English, a bit of Korean and the translation app on her smart phone she explained we were first stopping at her husband's parents' home before going to a Buddhist temple for the winter solstice. The stop at her relative's house was a quick stop during which she dropped off a few goods before we continued onto the temple.

The Buddhist temple, situated on a small mountain outside of Mungyeong-eup , consisted of a few basic brown buildings. They lacked the intricate and colorful designs of a typical Korean Buddhist temple and other fairly obvious Buddhist symbology such as swastikas and statues of the Buddha. After arriving we entered one of the buildings in which there was a basic wooden Buddha (pictured above). In front of the Buddha on an altar were plates of offerings - oranges, tomatoes, pomegranates and rice cakes. On either side of the Buddha were thin shelves filled with small lotus shaped lamps that changed colors.

Inside this simple room were a group of 30-40 people, most in their mid-to-late 40's and older who were seated on cushions on the floor facing the Buddha. A clean shaven Buddhist nun sat on a slightly elevated platform in her loose blue garb with a saffron colored clothe wrapped around her. She was chanting Buddhist sutras of which some of the parishioners joined her. For the next hour or so we listened to the chanting and at specific moments went through a bowing ritual which involved standing up with one's hands clasped in front of you, kneeling on the ground and then touching your head to the ground.

After the nun completed chanting the sutras we listened to a short discourse on dharma in the upcoming year before they thanked members of the temple board and announced the new members for the upcoming year.

Following this ceremony we went down to a clearing between a few small building in which food was being offered to the visitors. Ms. Oh explained that the red bean and rice porridge with which people filled their bowls was a traditional food for this festival. Other dishes included kimchi made at the temple (and therefore vegan), deuk (rice cake) and a small pancake type food filled with some sort of sweetened bean paste.

We spent another hour or so at the temple walking around the temple grounds, warming up in one of the rooms reserved for meditation, briefly chatting with the nun who gave me and other visitors a bracelet  and enjoying a cup of pine tree tea before heading back to Jeomchon.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

My friend Melanie has a tradition on her blog where she posts a single photo every Friday with no words which illustrates a moment from the previous week. I felt inspired by the concept and decided to adopt it for my own blog. Each week I will post a single photo with no words from a moment in my life - either from the previous week or something or someone about which I've been thinking. A simple yet memorable image to share with everyone.

For the past week or so much of my free time has consisted of perusing a travel book and hours of internet research as I begin the process of planning out a month long vacation in South East Asia. While some people are more "go with the flow" and can travel throughout Asia with little to no plans that's not really my style - I'm a planner and when I arrive in a new country I, at the very least, want to know where I'm going to sleep at night. Also, since my travel plans are a bit "intense" I want to have at least a basic plan so I'm not wasting time trying to figure out my next step.

I designed my vacation with a few things in mind - 1) I want to observe diasporic Hindu traditions in other countries which is why I'll stop in Malaysia and Singapore which both have substantial Indian populations, 2) I have friends in southern Thailand who I want to see and 3) I have become increasingly interested in visiting Laos and returning to Cambodia (the picture above is from my trip to Cambodia 4 years ago). So, in just 4 weeks I'll travel through 9 cities in 5 different countries and I'm quite excited. While most of my days will be free to wander around the streets, temples and markets of each destination I have made reservations for cooking classes in both Cambodia and Thailand to which I'm really looking forward.

Until my trip I have 3 more weeks of classes and then a week of working in the office so my vacation is still a ways off but I'll keep reading up on South East Asia so I can get the most out of my trip.