Best Field Trip Ever

Samsung Children's Museum just may be the happiest place in all of Korea!! Where else can you do all this!?

We hugged an alien, who then told us he loved us.

We played with a camera that put the picture up on a 10 foot screen.

We stamped cherry blossom trees.

We preformed a way too realistic ultrasound.

We splashed around in water.

We shot balls through pneumatic tubes.

We learned about the Bernoulli effect... the hard way.

We built a house. Safety first!

Then we headed to the kitchen.

And best of all....we saw this little 3 year old with a FANTASTIC mullet! Poor kid!

Buddah's Birthday

May 24th is officially Buddah's Birthday this year so to celebrate the city put on a street festival and lantern parade. The street festival took place around the Jogysa Temple in Insa-dong. There were crafts you could do, like making your own lantern, but we just walked around looking at the sights. There were various stages with Buddhist related preformances. At one point there was a big crowd of people on stage chanting 'Hari-Krishna' and dancing around. There were pulling people on stage to join them. We stood back from that one.
The parade goes from Dongdaemun to the temple, it takes about 2 hours to walk it. We just waited for the end of it. There were thousands of people holding lantern, it was really beautiful. There were also big floats lit up, one was a boat that shot fire out of the cannons. The mood was really festival. There were some university students running around trying to get pictures with all the foreigners...Its almost like being a celebrity!

Happy Children's Day!

May 5th in Korea is Children's Day. What this means is that most businesses (except those catering to children) are closed, candy flows like water, and kids run wild in the streets. Usually its a great day off for me, but this year its unfortunately a Saturday, which basically just means an inconvenience. Its gonna be crazy taking the subway today and I went all the way to the gym only to find it closed, Bah!
Anyway, on the brighter side, we didn't have to really teach Kindergarten yesterday, we spent the whole day playing. We made play-dough 'cookies', blew bubbles, threw water balloons, painted faces, made candy crowns and pigged out on pizza, chicken and cookies for lunch.

Anyone Wanna Buy a Rooster?

Yesterday, Leslie and I stumbled across blocks of pet stores. Koreans are a little unorthodox in their pet choices. Small dogs that fit in purses are popular, but children seem to like their pets to be a little more exotic... or rural, I suppose. The stores did have some standard pets (I only saw one cat between about 10 shops), but here's a sample of some of the stranger ones. One fish store even had sharks! Keep in mind that about 95% of Koreans live in apartments without even a balcony.
Tadpoles, anyone?

Naked Little Frogs


You can get a whole family of chickens...I'm not sure where you'd keep them in an apartment though. And do you really want a rooster crowing every morning. Your neighbors would hate you! I've had students bring these little chicks to school in paper bags, I'm guessing they don't live long.


I saved the best for last. I'd really like to know who has a chipmunk in their house, and how do you play with it?

Won't My Mommy Be So Proud Of Me

Here's a video of my kids singing the classic "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" Its a performance you won't soon forget!