Children's Day

May 5th has come around again. Mostly, I appreciate the long weekend this gives me, but its always fun to have a children's day party at school. It was a fun day, but I was exhausted after... and still had to teach 4 hours of Elementary classes.

We kicked off the day making candy necklaces.

Then we ran a relay. The girl's won.

Then everyone got their faces painted.
Then threw water balloons.

And to top it all off, had a big buffet for lunch.

Olympic Torch Relay

Sunday the Olympic torch passed through Seoul on its way to Beijing for the Olympics in August. While there were some protesters it was mostly Chinese students. Lisa and I went to the Olympic Stadium to see the torch handed off. When it arrived there were bicycle cops, running cops, police buses and hundreds of Chinese students surrounding it. It was kinda cool, but only lasted a few minutes and it was off down the street. Reading stories about it later sounds like we really missed the excitement. There was a man who doused himself in gasoline and was going to light himself on fire, but the police grabbed him so he couldn't. Another man tried to jump on the torch bearer to put it out, but he was stopped, too. What I saw was peaceful, just a bunch of people really excited about China.

Best. T-shirt. Ever.

Enough said.

The Disappearing Appendix

Many of you have heard, but for some this may come as a surprise. Last Friday I woke up at 2am with serious stomach pain. I thought I had the flu and spent the night vomiting and trying to find a way to ease the pain. By morning it was pretty clear that it wasn't going away, I called in sick and asked my boss to send a bus driver to get me to the hospital. Three hospitals, an ambulance ride, and an ultra-sound later it was pretty clear I had appendicitis. Luckily, it didn't rupture, just got really swollen, so they did emergency surgery Friday afternoon. I spent 5 days in the hospital, but am home now. I've still got a couple staples and some stitches in my stomach, but I'm on the road to recovery. Thanks to everyone who visited me in the hospital and sent their get well wishes.

Now, here's a lovely picture of the missing appendix! Woot.

And this is how lovely I looked post-surgery! The pj's were pretty comfy :)

A Day Of Firsts

Yesterday I threw caution to the wind and did 2, yes 2, daring things.

First I bungee jumped! I leaped from a 45ft tower dangling from the end of an elastic band. It was awesome! Getting off the tower required a few deep breaths and the ability to not look down, but I made it. I even did a completely unplanned flip. Unfortunately, my photographer on the ground thought it was someone else going and so the actual jump wasn't caught on film, just the after bounces.



Second, I ate Bondaegee. I have no idea if that's how it should be spelled. The English translation is the completely unappetizing Silk Worm Larva. I now know it is as bad as I thought it would be. Kids here love the stuff so you can always find it for sale next to cotton candy at any event where children may be present or outside the gates to elementary schools. It has a disgusting smell, as anyone who's spent anytime in Korea can tell you, and now I know it tastes as bad as it smells. Fortunately, this was caught on film, but she flipped it halfway through. You get the gist.