Another Halloween in Korea

Last week, Gianni and I finished up our second Korean class at the YMCA (our third Korean class total since we've been here). I feel like I'm really started to understand more, especially in reading it. I've learned a few more useful phrases and things to use with my students. I still really enjoy learning Korean, but we're going to take another break until Spring to save money and get a lot of practice in for our black belt test in December.

On Friday night, it was Halloween. Gianni and I decided to have a Halloween/scary movie marathon with Maria and Matthew. We met them at Costco right after school. We did our shopping quickly and picked up a big bag of chocolate and a pumpkin pie to share with them for our 4-person Halloween party. We took a taxi back to our apartment, which took forever because it was raining, and I'm convinced that people around the world get stupider when it rains and forget how to drive. We watched House of the Devil, Casper, and Nightmare on Elm Street. It was so late by the time we were finished that Maria and Matthew decided just to sleep over. In the morning, we watched Paranormal Activity as we ate breakfast. I know there are a lot of sequels to that movie, but I can attest to the fact that the first one is actually really good and very freaky. I don't usually like scary movies, but I think I was feeling bold with my friends there. Also, I'm okay with scary movies as long as there are no body contortions and things--that's the part I really hate.

When Maria and Matthew left, Gianni and I got ready to go to Magic Flute, an opera being performed at the Daegu Opera House as part of the Opera Festival. I got free tickets for working for the Colorful Daegu blog, so now I just have to write about it. I'm not really a big fan of opera, but I think it's nice that they have a festival in Daegu. It teaches people about a different time and culture, bringing art and music to the city even further. Outside the opera house, they had a few interactive booths set up. In one booth, both children and adults could dress up in period costumes, immersing themselves in the time of the opera. People really like "photo zones" in Korea, which is pretty silly but cute. So at this festival, they had a fake stage and curtains set up to use as a photo backdrop, and tons of people were taking pictures by it.

The cast of Magic Flute

Magic Flute is an opera in German written by Mozart. The opera provided both English and Korean caption screens to either side and above the stage. The opera was about a prince who is found by a Queen. The Queen enlists his help to find her daughter, who was stolen by Sarastro. Turns out, the Queen is actually the villain in this opera. Sarastro stole the princess, Pamina, in order to unite her with the prince, Tamino, her true love. A prophecy said that Tamino and Pamina needed to be together, so he captured the princess in order to introduce them to each other. The opera has a really funny character named Papageno, who is Tamino's friend. He is the comic relief of the show, and he was totally pandering to the audience. He even ad-libbed a bit of Korean, which the audience ate up. It was really great! Another random note: the girl who sings opera in Miss Congeniality sings a song from this opera--if you remember that part in the movie.

On Sunday, we slept in for the first time in a long while. I helped Gianni change the scores on his students' writing tests. We ate dinner at home and met Maria and Matthew downtown to see Gone Girl. We had never been to this movie theater before, and it was okay, but the seats were definitely older than we are used to. It was a little bit more of a run-down place. Gone Girl was a fantastic movie! I recommend everyone go see that. It's a movie where Ben Affleck plays the husband of a woman who is missing. He is suspected of having murdered her. I won't give away any details. There were some disturbing scenes, but it was a great movie.