Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! It started off nice and rainy. Felt like I was back home in Kansas City. So here are some pictures of the Halloween party. I hate how blogger makes it almost impossible to move pictures around. And I am to sick to make an effort to put them in sequence. So here you go in no particular order. I was a Hogwarts Student by the way.

Sally as one of the many Snow Whites. Alex as one of the many Ninjas.

Joey, Ninja

Joseph, Spider Man. Michael, Power Ranger. I didn't know they looked like that now.

DC, Ninja

Matthew, Batman? I wasn't for sure. Joseph again. They're both super cute.

Group shot of Brown class. I love Dave's smile.

Matthew, Joseph, Michael

Sally, Sleeping Beauty. Jinny, Snow White

Joseph

Chris, Buzz Light Year. Super cute.

Apple, Snow White (and still crazy)

Justin, Broody Harry Potter

Allen, Alien

James, Death? He had a big ax or something but what's with the party hat?

Yun Jee and Jenny from Yale

Stanford Ninjas

Anika, Witch. Joy Han I don't know.

Sally again. She's one of my favorites.

And lastly a little message from Stanford.

Ashley Versus Korean Hospitals

I usually don't mind blissfully going about life in Korea not understanding what people say, until I actually have to do something. So begins the horribleness of today. Well actually lets back up.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to my cousin Nahun's 1st birthday party. The 1st birthday party is a very big deal in Korea. Tons of food and just everyone getting together to celebrate that the child made it without dying. I couldn't sleep that night and by 7:15 my whole body ached and my throat hurt bad. So I texted Jun Gu and told him I wasn't going to be able to make it. He asked me what was wrong and after telling him told me I should go to the emergency room. I said I'm not that sick. So I laid in bed all day freezing one minute and then getting really hot the next.

At around 6 pm I get a text from Jun Gu saying that they were coming to give me fruit and see me. So I start cleaning up my place a little bit and him, his sister Di hun and their mom and dad all come into my room. They decide I need a heating mat for my bed. So they all leave to go to E-Mart. An hour later they come back with potato soup, a chicken salad, full length mirror and the heating mat. That thing gets extremely hot.

So this morning I woke up around 3 and couldn't fall back to sleep. I got up when my alarm went off and went to school miserable all day. Eunice let me take a sick class (I'm now down to 9 that I can miss boo) and leave early. The person that had to cover my class was not a happy camper. Oh well.

The directions she gave me were horrible and after walking around for an hour I finally found the place. I'm always emotional when I'm sick so I go to the 9th floor, where Eunice tells me to go, and my mom thankfully calls. I start crying and I just give the phone to the secretary. Come to find out I am not at the health clinic but at a plastic surgeons office. Thanks Eunice. Maybe I'll get that lipo on another day.

I go down to the 2nd floor where I tell them I need to see someone about my throat. It was very quick. No appointment. I sat down, a minute later I'm seen, I go into the doctors office where he looks in my throat and tells me I have tonsillitis. I can feel the sides of my throat are swollen but he refused to touch my neck. He says, "You still have your tonsils right?" "Yes" "Then you have tonsillitis." Genius medicine. . .

I get two shots in my butt, one on each cheek and then 6 packets of 4 pills each that I must take three times a day for two days. The Doctor visit was only 5900 won and my medication was 7800. Hopefully I will never have to go again.

For Grandma Sandi

And anyone else that wants my email address. (Sorry Grandma my Northwest account closed before I could write your email address down :( )

A.Quinn23@gmail.com

Nothing to terribly interesting has happened to me as of late. I have been trying to have a positive attitude towards my job and it's really working quite well. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up but I hope for another 304 more days :)

Every day I get up and say to myself "It's almost over," which I know is kind of weird but it's very positive thinking for me. It makes my day go by very quickly and I'm generally a happier person through out work.

This weekend I am on a winter coat mission. It's supposed to be in the 50's in the next couple of days. I don't know how quickly it gets crazy cold around here but I'm sure it will happen soon enough.

Oh I got a gym membership today at OK Gym. It was 210,000 won for three months which is only like $160 with the current exchange rate.

Gyeongbokgung Palace/ Lotte World

I was so excited when I found out that Hannah's mom was coming to Korea. I was also excited because it was the first time since I've been here that I saw Hannah (who has been here for over a year an a half). Anyways we ended up going to Gyeongbokgung Palace and Lotte World. It was a crazy long day but good to see them!

The first pictures of Hannah and her mom at the Express Bus Terminal subway station.

The second gate to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. They were changing the guards right as we got there.

Some of the traditional looking guards. Note the fake beards.

Outside the palace.

Hannah forced me to stand next to the guard for a picture.

The first thing inside the palace walls. Some building I'm not sure what it was used for.

The statue is sticking it's tongue out at what would have been the water that used to run through it. It was to scare away evil spirits.

Where the King sat.

Some cool Dragon thing on the ceiling. The more claws the dragons have the more powerful the King or something. I'm probably getting that all wrong.

A painting that was done over 140 years ago. It's one of the only ones that hasn't been retouched.

Another sitting area for the King.
A place where the King, Queen and military officials would sit and read, reflect or pray.

I forgot what this is but I thought it was pretty.

The place where the King ate. There where always three tables. The biggest one had white rice with 12 side dishes. The second table had red bean rice with all the meats. And the smallest table was just for stews or soups. I think some lady would always sit at the second table and test the meat just to make sure it wasn't poisoned.

The "couch" that the King would sit on. Looks comfy.

The Queen's Garden. She was never allowed to leave the inside of the palace unless it was to move to another palace or ceremonial purposes. So she could look out at her garden for some beauty. Looked kind of sad to me.

Then we went to Lotte World. I didn't get very many pictures here but I love this one. We were waiting in line for literally over an hour for this ride. It was dark and as I took the picture I couldn't tell Hannah was making that face.

Inside Lotte World. There was an indoor and outdoor part to the amusement place.

These are our pink tails.

Stanford on the Bus

Stanford/ Field Trip to the Zoo

Happy One Day Late Birthday Mom!! Love you! :)

Today was a field trip day for all of the Kinder Kids. We got to go to the Zoo. It kind of sucked actually because we didn't get to see many animals. We were all on such a time crunch. Anyways I got to be the teacher that lead Stanford around. These are the kids I teach about three times a day. They are older then Brown.

Group shot of the crazy kids.

D.C., who is the smallest. He is very smart and way cute. He's probably one of the better readers in the class. Reese, who is also smart but can be a tad annoying. She always says "It's to easy," on everything they have to do.

Alex, who has been crying for his mother the last few days. He gets to see her when he goes home but he will still cry all through class. Joey, who is like Jekyll and Hyde. One day he'll be really good and the next day he won't listen at all.

Anika, who only speaks Korean. Oh she knows English, she'd just rather not use it. She will burst into pretend sobs if anything happens to her. For example if her pencil breaks or something. Cindy, who is sweet. She's generally nice to everyone.

Allen, who is smart but has a short attention span. He has this weird obsession with holding all of his pens in his hands while he does his work. I guess to play with them the instant that he is done.

Sally, who can be the teachers pet one minute and then not want to listen to me the next. She has a lot of personality. Joy Han, who also speaks only Korean usually with Anika.

D.J., who is very smart and knows it. He always wants to read the most and give out the answers. James, who is a sweet heart deep inside but can be a pain. Sometimes he'll just come up to me and hug my side and then he'll sit down and won't work.

We are now on to the animal portion of the blog. These monkeys would just hang on to the cage and catch food people threw at them. All the kids kept saying they could see their butts. Personally I think their nipples look beat up.

Elephant who looked very lonely.

Polar bear who had a friend swimming in the water.

Monkey and baby

Lions. Just like in San Francisco they were just laying around. It was a little cold today.

Bears. The fences that separated us from the animals where actually very short. It was kind of scary.

Tiger all by his lonesome.

We saw a seal show after we got to see all 7 animals. It was alright. Some weird take on Snow White but the kids seemed to like it. While we walked around Joey wanted to hold my hand the whole time. I wonder if his mom told him to so he wouldn't get lost. All the other kids would take turns walking around holding my hand. Kind of cute except now I'm sure I will catch a cold from all of their germs. I will not get sick. I will not get sick!!

On a side note I wired $300 to my bank account back home and it cost me 400,000 WON. I'm so sad :(