From Mountain to sea on the lunar New year...

Hey! We have just finished celebrating the big holiday of sulnal or lunar new year. It is one of the biggest holidays with huge importance on family. Everyone returns to their home for the long weekend and much of the country shuts down.

The holiday began on Sunday with preparation. The goal is to have food ready for early morning ceremonies the next day to honor the parents and grandparents who have passed on. Moon was busy helping mom and and her brothers arrived to relax at home and hang out with Joon. Everyone stayed at the house and on Monday morning we were up early and out the door to a relatives house to honor Moon's Grandfather. Then we returned home for another ceremony to honor her father. We taught Joon how to bow and he seemed fascinated by the whole process. Then it was off to grandmothers house where all the children bow to each elder member of the family and are given around 10 dollars in return. They manage to collect quite a bit of cash most of which usually ends up in a savings account. The new pictures added will show you some of the events of the day including the ceremony at our house and all of the family gathered at grandmother's home.

The next day the siblings , myself and Joon all went for a drive that led us from a small crater site in the hills down to the coast for a sunny day of beautiful scenery. Joon had a blast despite his cold and we were all very relaxed and well fed after two days of excellent grub and sleeping in. Joon really bonded with his uncles and even today calls out for them. We are certainly sad they are not staying here anymore. It was fun.

Interesting fact: I learned that all of the kids turn one year older on the new year day. There is no differentation of age based on what month you are born. One day everyone is 13 and the next they are all 14. I realized this is why when I ask the age of my students they are almost always the same age. Interesting concept I am trying to wrap my head around.

I am updating the look of the blog and playing with colors and any comments are appreciated. We hope everyone has a great new year!

Korean 101

Here is Joon working on his vocabulary with some flash cards. He is 21 months now and adding new words quickly. Of course he will soon (or already does) speak better Korean than his appa (dad). Enjoy!

What's up? Chicken Butt!

Hey! It has been a long delay and the nudges to post are coming. What has been happening? Not a heck of a whole lot really. Post visa approval it seemed that a series of illnesses affected one, two, or all of us at any given time over the past month. I had various stomach ailments, Joon caught a nasty cold that was later diagnosed as mild pneumonia and then moon and mother-in-law caught same cold. It was un-fun. In addition the temperature dropped and the sun disappeared. It was definitely a time to crank the heat watch loads of Big Love and commiserate about our various ailments.

As soon as the illnesses passed it was time to move into the working life. I managed to negotiate a decent contract with a local academy and Moon continues working part time for now. Our schedules are similar so we can go to work together. For now I am working part-time which means about 3 hours a day. It is pretty darn simple and low stress. Moon is teaching elementary aged kids and I work with the middle schoolers. Apparently the younger kids love to talk but in middle school self conciousness kicks in and speaking in English in the classroom can be a tall order.
What is an academy? Essentially kids go to public school during the day and then after school they attend various academy's . Not only english academy's but math, speed reading, and a variety of others ( I'm still learning what's out there). The competetiveness for kids to get ahead in a very uniform system is strong. Moon says it is much worse than when she grew up. Right now the kids are on a month holiday from public school but the academy's are still in session. This means they continue to go to programs and study despite being "on break".

Now it is mid January. Few pictures were taken but I will post what I have. Joon has adjusted well to our working and is spending more time with grandma. They both seem to be enjoying their time together. He is healthy now and putting together two words and learning to ask for what he wants more and more. We think he can't get any cuter and he just keeps amazing us more.
The title of this post refers to my first venture in eating spicy chicken ass. "try iy its chewy" they said. Actually not too bad if I didn't think about what I was eating. Just when I think I have tried it all there is one more new thing on the table. The adventure continues.....Party on!