New Years, English Camp, Vacations...oh my!

Sorry for the lack of posts everyone, but it's been a crazy few weeks. Gianni and I decided not to go to taekwondo this month because of our two week long trip that begins on Saturday! We're so excited to be going to China. I still have some last minute planning and stuff today, but nothing major. We're going to Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai for two weeks.

We have one more semester to go in our contracts in Korea this year. Gianni and I finished the Fall semester just after Christmas. Following that, I was completely consumed planning last week's English camp. English camp is held for a week during each school vacation. This time, Rhys and I decided on a travel camp. We taught one class of kids between the two of us, so we split the days. I taught on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and he taught on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Monday, we did a funny introduction to the theme where we did an airport simulation. The kids made passports, and I gave them boarding passes and everything. We made them go through check in, security, and boarding. It was pretty cute. On Tuesday, I taught about North America, focusing on Canada, USA, and Mexico. The kids did information scavenger hunts where they read some posters I made and collected information about the different countries. I think they found it somewhat interesting. After each information hunt, we did a little activity. For Canada, we tasted maple syrup. For the USA, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And for Mexico, we made pinatas that we hit as our last activity on Thursday. The rest of the day on Thursday, I talked about Africa, focusing on Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. A lot of the time it seems like the kids don't understand that Africa isn't just one kind of person or one country, so I thought it was important to discuss that. I gave a brief intro before the kids did their scavenger hunts. After talking about South Africa, we made beaded bracelets out of newspaper (an activity Sian gave me). I didn't have activities for Ghana or Kenya, but it was fine because we had to finish up the pinatas anyway. The kids went crazy for the pinatas, but most of them fell off their ribbon before the bottoms broke. Oh well! At least the kids had fun. On Friday after camp, the English teachers (along with two of the other teachers still at school during break) went out to lunch at a shabu, shabu buffet. Shabu Shabu is a Japanese style of food where you cook meat and veggies in a hot broth at your table with noodles. It is tasty, and the buffet was great too.

The past few weekends and weeknights, we've been playing games with Maria and Matthew (who left on their trip to New Zealand over the weekend), watching movies (we saw Predestination, which is billed as Time Vortex in Korea--really good movie), and preparing for our vacations.

We spent New Year's Eve at Maria and Matthew, eating chili and playing games with Marie and Ben. It was a nice, relaxing day. For the last year, Maria, Matthew, Gianni, and I have been tallying our wins for all the games that we play together, and Maria emerged victorious. We all had to buy her a pair of fun socks as her prize. We have started a new tally with a points system for this year so that the 1st-3rd place winners still get points. Hopefully, this makes it more fair and gives everyone a better shot at winning.

Gianni and I have been doing some nice date nights--getting dinner out and seeing movies. I've been doing a little bit of shopping too. I got a yoga mat and some little weights from someone on the facebook group called "Daegu Flea Market" where people buy and sell things to each other. It's a handy thing we have in Daegu since so many people are always coming and going. I also got a new pair of really cool sneakers that actually look like books. They are really cool sort of high tops with fur inside--super warm. I keep asking Gianni if the shoes are too cool for me!

This week is being spent planning last minute things for China, but also planning the MAJOR things for Japan! Unfortunately, Gage was unable to make it to Korea for our vacation in February as planned, so we had to make some other arrangements (we hope she can come at another time). We are taking a 10 day vacation in Japan just 2 weeks after we come back from China! It's going to be an insane few months! We just found this out, so now I'm in serious travel planning mode, and I just hope we can get it all together. Japan is a place both Gianni and I have really wanted to visit, so I need to do a good job with them. This doesn't feel like desk warming at all, but I guess that's a good thing. At least I'm not super bored. :)