Halloween Week

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

So I started of Halloween week by going to Everland with Alexa, Chris, and Jisu to see their Halloween events.  We tried to purchase packages online but they were already sold out.  We went in the afternoon for the discounted rate but by the time we got there, everything except the Halloween dance party was sold out.  Which meant no mazes and horror houses or zombie makeup.  We were a bit disappointed.  So we hurried and got tickets for the dance party which came with a free drink then headed to do the hologram ride.  I must say that it was impressive as we watched Big Bang perform as it seems like a real concert and not holograms.  The holograms looked a lot like real people.  Then we went to the gift shop and did the picture machines which let us take pictures with members of big bang in the background.  It was fun.

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

Then we headed off to the dance party.  It was okay, mostly hip hop and rap music.  Not normally my style plus once they started singing songs that were all English curse words I was like I'm done.  I find that Koreans are much like me and don't dance unless they are shown what to do.  Actually, I might dance worse than Koreans as I don't really dance at all.  I did like the goofier rapper who wore glasses and a hat.  He had great stage character though the others were not as interesting.  One ripped off his shirt and another started licking phones.  Granted I can't blame him for licking the phones as people were pretty rude and had their phones practically in the singers faces with what I call selfie rods.  Anyway, the Everland trip was a bust but we had a good dinner at a galbi place that I really like that serves egg as a side dish.

So Monday was crazy hair day so I wore my pink wig that I brushed out for two hours and braided.  Sadly it did not stay looking pretty and because it is a heavy wig, it kept trying to fall off.  My kids had a lot of colorful braided hair clips, gelled hair, a Frozen hat with Elsa hair, and lots of bows in their hair.  Matthew won with his gelled up hair and Olivia won with her colorful braids.  Tuesday was sports day and I just wore a black sweater with an orange T-shirt on top with a logging cap that I stole (well technically it was eventually just given to me) from my Uncle Jon.  It's a close to sporty as I could get as I don't really have sports clothes.  I had a lot of runners and ballerinas in my class though Matthrew's swimming outfit was pretty cool. Sua won with her rhythmic gymnastic ribbons and Cindy won with her belly dancing outfit.

Photo By: Sunny Teacher

Wednesday was Backwards Day which I find normally to be pretty boring.  This year they gave us permission to wear costumes instead on Wednesday and Thursday since all classes would be doing at least a small Halloween event, so I wore a version of my black cat costume.  The kids liked it and a lot of the older kids would play with my tail or ears during the afternoon classes.  They really liked my kitty tights as well.  I learned that I don't like having high pigtails (or what I call twin tails as I watch too much anime).  I find they make me look like an old person trying to look young.  Lesson learned.  Anyway, I actually liked how Yebin's dress looked for Backwards Day, but Jordan and Jumee won.

Thursday was Pajama Day which I decided to ignore and wear a costume again.  This time I chose to wear my Chinese dress outfit (Qipao?) as it had no sleeves so would be easier to keep clean while carving pumpkins.  Again, I was the only one who wore a costume, but that's okay because I enjoy wearing costumes.  My kids all liked my outfit anyway.  We took lots of fun pictures and carved a simple pumpkin.  My kitchen prep skills that I learned in college really help when cleaning out the insides of a pumpkin.  Thank you Elizabethtown College Dining Services! ^.^  Anyway, I'm not really good at carving pumpkins so we had a really simple face but the kids didn't mind.  They all had fun though one class had a rotten pumpkin so the teachers just started calling it a zombie pumpkin.  Being Halloween and all the kids didn't have any problem accepting that explanation and thought it was the coolest thing ever.  This was the first day that Thriller, my song for song contest, started looking good and I hoped they would keep up the enthusiasm.  Bella came back that day and she and Yebin won for Pajama Day.  Though I will add that it was amusing walking around the streets for lunch and after work to go shopping in the Chinese dress.

Photo By: Sunny Teacher

Last of course was Friday and Halloween Day.  For once Halloween actually fell on a Friday so that was nice.  We had a lot of superheroes and Disney characters this year for Halloween.  Megan (Elsa), Alexa (Olaf), and I (Anna) did the Frozen trio.  I was sad because I had washed my costume, not knowing that the flowers on the skirt were hand painted on.  So my Anna costume's skirt has no more flowers.  At least if I was going to mess something up, it was something small that didn't take away from the costume too much.  Kristine was Snow White and Chris was Minnie Mouse.  Ashley did Wonder Woman and Laura was a deer.  I really liked how Laura's costume turned out.  It was adorable.  Of course, all the kids loved that we did Frozen and were all excited.  There were eight students as Elsa and three students as Anna.  Four of them were from my class.  I have to say that because Anna's dress is simpler, the costumes looked better than the Elsa costumes.  Anyway, it was definitely a Frozen Halloween and I hear that back home in America, there were a lot of Elsa costumes when kids went trick-or-treating on Halloween night.

So this year I did game room as I didn't want to do face painting again for the third year.  I was in charge of the eye ball tossing game.  Chris' class did the best out of all the classes who tried my game.  The other games were a straw sucking carrying game and pin the bow tie on the skeleton.  We also added a ring toss over pumpkin game and keep the pumpkin balloon in the air later on when the elementary kids participated.  After games were done, my class went to Kristine's class and went trick-or-treating to get candy.  Then we practiced Thriller again and I changed some positions which really helped the song.  After lunch we had the costume contest and Ashley and Maychel won for my class though personally I liked Yebin's Anna costume and Jordan's pirate costume the most.  Then we took a group Frozen picture, a group picture for other Disney characters, a group picture for superheroes, and a group picture for everyone else.  

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

Last was song contest and like always I was the MC, which is fine because I love MCing.  Most of the classes did pretty well, though a few of the newer classes were shy and didn't quite understand what they were suppose to be doing.  My class was awesome and I hope someone downloads a video cause they kicked butt.  Though they did have a little trouble staying in character and pretending to be zombies throughout the song, they were able to keep up all the dance moves and I only had to help them a little towards the end.  Then as a class they said with me the final creepy poem and fell to the end which was awesome.  The fell dead so well I was afraid that one of them would have gotten hurt.  My class won the song contest this year with Thriller and I think this is the first time I have won song contest so I can't complain.  I have gotten second before but never first prize.  From what Megan and Chris told me, my class always does well in song contest because they were very expressive.

So, while the voting was going on, I had a little surprise for the kids.  I brought the Frozen CD knowing that there would be time when I needed to occupy them.  So, I was going to sing Let it Go when much to my surprise as well, Megan, who was playing Elsa, joined me and we did a little Let it Go skit together.  Lucy was nice enough to send me an eight second clip of the two of us going through the motions, though you couldn't hear us because the kids were singing along.  I also did Do You Want to Build a Snowman by myself for the kids to kill some extra time before they had to go home.  Chris and Megan won the classroom decorating contest.  

Video By: Lucy Teacher

Photo By: Lucy Teacher

Either way, Halloween was a blast and it didn't end there.  This year, we also allowed the older students to have a short Halloween event.  They had fifteen minute to play in big gym and then they got to go trick-or-treating.  Since I was hanging out with Alexa after school, I stayed late and joined in with classes that I don't normally have which they liked.  A few of the kids wanted to take my picture which didn't bother me at all.  I took some pictures as even some of the older kids decided to wear costumes.  They looked adorable.  Then afterwards Alexa and I had galbi at my favorite galbi restaurant that has a nice salad and egg as sides before we headed off to her place to watch Another, a horror anime that I enjoy, though we didn't finish it as we were both exhausted and I went home to crash for the night.  It was a fun Halloween week and to follow I started writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month so hopefully I stick to it.  I wrote 3,873 words on my first day.  I am participating because I wanted to do something with my mom and sister.  Wish me luck. ^.^

Photo By: Kristine Teacher

Photo By: Kristine Teacher

Photo By: Lauren Teacher

Photo By: Lauren Teacher

Seoul Comic World

Thank you Yonghan Kim for the awesome photographs.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So I ended up organizing a group to go to Seoul Comic World on October 18th and 19th through Facebook and Meetup.  It's been a while since I organized any events and as always things didn't go as planned.  But that is okay because I had a blast and I fully intend to go back again.  The convention costs 4,000 won a day, which is pretty cheap.  So Saturday was the first day and we met up with the group but the person who was suppose to help out with translating overslept.  Thankfully we had a Korean with us who could speak English and she helped us out. 

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

The cosplayers got to go through a separate line as they had different lines to go through and an extra 1,000 won fee.  So me, Anna, Alex, and I guy named Wade got separated from the main group.  Luckily the Korean speaker went with the other group so we didn't have to worry about them.  Plus, Alexa understood enough Korean to get us through the lines without too much difficulty.  Plus the Korean staff did their best to help us as much as possible and didn't get angry when we made mistakes despite being busy.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Anyway, I think they let us through the first line ahead of people because they didn't want to deal with the confusion.  Then we got in the wrong line and had to be escorted to the registration line where we filled out the information about ourselves and our cosplays. Then we stood in the changing room line for a while where Alexa did my makeup.  She did make me pale which worked since I was a vampire.  Alexa misplaced her wallet but thankfully Wade, who didn't have to change into anything as his was more a jacket, found it at the lost and found.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So after we got changed into our costumes, I was being Moka Akashiya from Rosario vampire that day, Anna and I had to get into another line to finish hair and make up.  Anna was Kaya from Midnight Secretary and Alexa was Alessa from Silent Hill.  Wade was an original character for his friend's movie.  I must say I miss Otakon where you could just get ready in your hotel room and head on over without any problems.  Alexa and Wade explored while were were busy.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

So it must have taken two-three hours just to get through the lines to get into the costumes, so by the time Anna and I were finished, the non-cosplayers were ready to leave so we didn't get much time to hang out with them.  We had to find a spot where we could take pictures as you can't take pictures inside too much.  I'm not sure if its because you block the way or because they don't want others in the pictures.  Anyway, we took our pictures and the non-cosplayers left, leaving just the four of us. 

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

 

We decided to check out the park and there were a ton of cosplayers.  I sadly didn't take many pictures myself, but it was still a lot of fun.  Anna wanted to take pictures so we stopped near some trees and started taking pictures.  One of the photographers there, Yonghan Kim, started talking to us and took some nice pictures.  He sent them to us later and they turned out to be really cool.  He edited one picture for everyone which was nice and he did it all for free so I definitely can't complain.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

After exploring the park for a while, we decided to head back in and do some shopping, which is good because we never made it back to the vendors on Sunday.  I bought some tarot cards for fun and some other random cards and a mini cat pillow.  The art there was really amazing and I was surprised how much current stuff was there.  Actually the art was mostly from current animes or original works.  Either way, I like what I bought but at that point my eyes were starting to hurt from the contacts and we hadn't eaten anything except and ice cream since we had gotten there so we changed and headed to a place that served galbi across the street.

 

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

Photographer: Betti Jyun Young Jae

We started talking about Sunday and we managed to convince Alexa to come back again and do Olaf since Anna wanted to take pictures of me doing Anna from Frozen.  And let me tell you this, I knew my costume would be popular but I didn't expect it to go over quite as much as it did.  Poor Alexa had to deal with being dragged into a lot of pictures with me.  Thanks Alexa for being awesome! ^.^  Anyway, we headed home and after getting my costume ready for Sunday and giving Amber some props for a cat costume, I was soon asleep. 

So another early morning and I woke up early so I tried to put the white in my hair with hair chalk but it didn't seem to agree with me and put my hair in knots.  Anna had to help me get them out because the chalk bonded with my conditioner, making it useless.  Thankfully with my Anna costume, my hair was just going into two braids so it didn't hurt anything in the end.  We got there and eventually found Amber but somehow missed the other people who showed up.  Ended up catching up with two of them, Peter and Miguel, later on and they followed us along.

So the lines went so much quicker on Sunday, though a lot of people, I think they were more spread out in coming, perhaps because of church, so we got through pretty quickly.  A Korean/American (I think) lady, I think her name was Kathy Kim, from Washington if I remember correctly, started talking to us and she ended up joining us.  We headed to the make up station which was downstairs this time and she helped Alexa do my make up while Anna did my braids.  I'm kind of hopeless with those kinds of things. T.T  Though it took a while to get ready, it was much faster this time.  I ran into two Korean girls who were doing the other Anna outfit, the coronation gown, and got pictures with them.  I was wearing her winter traveling dress.

So Kathy wanted to introduce us to her photographer friend and led us towards the park right away.  We ended up taking a lot of pictures of me as Anna and Alexa as Olaf and it was hard to move ten feet without people stopping me for pictures.  One girl even hugged me after she took my picture, which I have to admit was kind of cute.  I also liked taking pictures with the little kids who looked up at me shyly.  It was adorable.  ^.^  I will admit I did enjoy the attention though I definitely don't ever want to be famous and have to deal with all that attention every day.  They ran around and eventually found one of the Korean Annas to take pictures with me and Alexa. 

Then after borrowing some gun props from Kathy, Anna wants some props of her own, so we head back towards the entrance so we can buy props.  On the way we got stopped by a guy who asked me if I could speak Japanese.  He must have been a native speaker or at least very fluent because I had a hard time following him and he was struggling to find a simple way to ask me to take the picture.  I'm just glad I was able to speak enough Japanese and understand enough to understand what he wanted.  At least I hope I did...

We also took a break around this time to eat some of the snacks we brought as we didn't want to make the same mistake as Saturday and not bring food.  It took a while as I am not joking about being stopped every ten feet.  Even Anna was getting some followers with her pirate outfit.  We were going to go back inside but then Kathy set us up with another photographer so we ended up going back the way we came to take more professional pictures.  And these guys are pretty serious about what they do.  They literally leaped up into trees so they could take aerial photographs of us.

So after that Kathy headed off after inviting us to come to the weekend photo shoots and hang out.  We headed over to the stage as we expected the costume contest to start around three.  Well, we were wrong about the time and ended up waiting an hour.  And what was supposed to be a twenty minute costume contest turned into a dancing talent show.  I recognize many of the groups, such as Sailor Moon, Black Butler, Haikyuu, and Sword Art Online, though there were a few I couldn't place and I definitely didn't know all of the songs.  But it was definitely worth the wait to watch all the dancing and the Black Butler group did a fifteen minute reenactment of the Book of Circus arc.  Of course the Black Butler group won which made Anna pretty happy.

After that, everything was closing and we never made it back up to the vendors.  We changed out of our costumes as otherwise we would not get anywhere with me dressed up as Anna.  We ate at the same restaurant that we ate at the night before, except this time with Miguel, Peter, and Amber instead of Wade.  It was a lot of fun, totally exhausting, and something I will definitely do again.  Though now I know what to expect on Halloween when I dress up as Anna for the kids.  I went home, took a shower, and just crashed after posting some pictures.  It was a long but awesome weekend.

Photo By: Yonghan Kim

(This is my favorite picture that has been taken of my Moka Akashiya cosplay.)

P.S. I finally added some photographs that I got from Betti Jyun Young Jae from the Frozen cosplay shoot with Anna.  Thanks for the photographs!