Seoul Lantern Festival, Studio Ghibli Exhibit, Thanksgiving Dinner, Seoul Comic World + More

First off, sorry for the delay in posts as I have been pretty busy or sick.  But here is an update of the things that went on in November (yes, I know I still need to do December and January T.T).  So first we learned about fire safety in school as many parents were concerned after the Sewol Ferry sank and I was shocked about how little the Koreans I know (even the adults) knew about safety in general.  I mean they were telling the kids to go up not down if their was a fire.  Needless to say I told my students to always go down and never to use the elevator.  They can tell you that you don't go up because smoke rises and, the more you go up, the farther you will be from the exit.  I also taught them to Stop, Drop, and Roll and some other random safety rules that I have learned over my life.

 

The following photos are from the photographer Ga Whan.  Thank you for the amazing pictures.

 

Later I went to an oboe concert by one of Chris' student's moms, Yun Sun Song.  She gave the tickets to all the teachers but only five of us were able to go because it was right after work and some teachers were still teaching.  I don't know much about oboes but I could tell that Yun Sun Song was pretty popular and I enjoyed the concert.  It was a nice change of pace instead of just sitting doing prep work on a Wednesday night waiting for work to end though we were in a hurry because we were almost late due to traffic. 

Next I went to Asia Asia, my favorite Indian curry restaurant, with Anna and her coworkers.  I gave Tristan some costumes for his 48 hour movie project, which he ended up using my maid costume.  Tristan's group actually won best costume with the costumes people lent them.  I think they used one of Anna's too.  Anyway, after Asia Asia we went to the Seoul Lantern Festival.  I had gone the year before but it was nice because the lanterns were different from the ones I had seen before.  It's nice to know that it changes as its a nice relaxing way to enjoy a walk.  We entered from the back this time so we didn't have to wait in line though the walk was longer.  I felt like the festival was a bit smaller than the year before but still enjoyable.  They must have had an around the world theme for part of their exhibit because they had lanterns of the Statue of Liberty and the Great Wall of China.  Then they had random floats of robots and Pororo.

Before Megan left we wanted to go to the Studio Ghibli Exhibit at the I-Park Mall.  We actually just missed the entrance and ended up walking around a lot of the mall looking for the entrance only to end up right where we had begun.  But it was worth the wait to see all the life-size movie exhibits.  They even had some exhibits of my favorite Miyazaki movie, Spirited Away, though sadly they did not have any Haku statues from the movie.  My favorite was probably the evil looking Eubaba with the papers flying around, but being able to sit on the train next to No Face was pretty cool, too.  It is definitely a must go if you are a Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miyazaki fan.  Plus I bought some cool cards and planners at the gift shop to add to my collection.  The only down side was that the exhibit was pretty dark so it made taking pictures difficult.  We also got to draw dust bunnies at the end which was just like the Miyazaki Exhibit I had gone to before at the Seoul Arts Center.  I'm so glad that Korea likes Miyazaki because I get to see things I would never see back home in America.

 

After the Miyazaki Exhibit we went and had some amazing strawberry bingsu near Megan's church (we have since found the same chain of restaurants near my work place and favorite galbi restaurant).  Then we went to Megan's church to enjoy a nice Thanksgiving dinner.  We met Megan's friend Heather and we had a geek out moment about Once Upon a Time which she recommended a site so that I didn't have to wait a week to watch the newest episodes.  The dinner was good and it was a lot of fun watching everyone's musical and dance performance.  I think the event was much smaller than the previous year but still very enjoyable. 

The following photos are from the photographer Western Sky 임명연.  Thank you for the amazing pictures.

We went to the November 2014 Seoul Comic World (we now go regularly) wearing our Chinese dresses.  Anna was in her white Chinese dress as Sonogi Yukina from Senjou no Night Raid and I was Maria Wong in her blue Chinese dress from Descendants of Darkness.  I didn't expect the costumes to be popular because the characters were less recognizable but I guess because they were real Chinese dresses we were a huge hit.  We had a line of photographers waiting to take our pictures.  When one photographer left, another took his place.  Seems once they know you are nice and willing to work with them despite the language barrier, they have no problem putting in some effort and we got some really nice photographs out of it.  Sadly my blue fan broke at the end of the day but it was still a great day.  I can't say that we saw much of the convention but I really like having my picture taken for once instead of being the one taking the pictures.

The following photos are from the photographer Kaoru 쥐.  Thank you for the amazing pictures.

The following photos are from the photographer Psman.  Thank you for the amazing pictures.

 

The following photos are from the photographer Ui-Chel (Spike) Jung.  Thank you for the amazing pictures.

A few small things that I did over November include watching Hunger Games.  The movie was good and ended exactly where I thought it would end though I won't say for those of you who haven't read the book or seen the movie.  Basically if you read the book, it was obvious where they would split the movie.  Then my class did a light bulb project where they watched me hook up a circuit.  Then I took it apart and let them put it back together.  It was fun watching them say, "This goes here," or "I think this ...."  It was a good group exercise and they managed to reassemble the light bulb and get it to work again.  Last, despite being crazy busy, I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) and actually managed to write 50,000 words in one month.  I didn't finish my story and haven't written anything since, but I'm proud of myself that I could commit to it and actually finish it.  Hopefully after this I will do the December and January posts.