Halloween is for Witches

Halloween isn't widely celebrated in Korea, although I hear there are festivities wherever there is a high concentration of foreigners (such as in Busan or Seoul). Also, most hagwons have some sort of celebration, in order to bring some American culture to the students via the foreign teachers. Paula and I thought it would be a great idea to have a halloween celebration at our hagwon, and even started planning everything from dressing up to candy for the kids. We figured it was a go since our boss loves when we plan events for the kids. I told my Korean family (the family I live with) about it and they seemed very excited about it, too. Anyway, the other day, I was in the teacher's office with the other teachers when our boss walked in. I told him the idea and asked if we could get a letter sent out to with the students about it. His response?

"No, I believe Halloween is for witches."

I was a little shocked by that response and I guess he could read it on my face because he quickly added, "But how bout we have a really big Christmas party?"

My family was pretty excited for it so I'll probably take the kids over to the other teacher's houses for some trick-or-treating.

Speaking of my Korean family...the family is a couple with two kids (14 yr old girl and a 7 yr old boy), and they have all but adopted me. The dad works in a different city so he only comes home on weekends, so that leaves the mom and kids. The daughter, Lilly, is one of the students at our academy and is a lot of fun. Every night when she gets home and I'm not home, she'll send me a text saying simply, "Where?"

Her younger brother, William, is very quiet and shy but occasionally has spurts of energy during which he'll yell out random English phrases like, "you can buy your friends!"

The mom speaks enough English that we can communicate, with some help from Lilly, and she is extremely nice.

I've spent a lot of time with them in the past couple weeks and have actually really enjoyed it. They invited me and Jesse to their grandmother's birthday party in a neighboring city the other weekend, and I was able to experience a traditional Korean birthday meal, including everything from birthday sea-weed soup to octopus tentacles to porridge, and many other unidentifiable things. We were seated on the floor around a very long table, and every single inch of it was covered in little dishes to try. Then that night the younger uncle took Jesse and I out to sushi with some of his friends. That was another new experience. Instead of sushi rolls, like I was expecting, we were served huge plates with slabs of raw fish on them. This was followed by about 8 other courses which included, among other things, fish eggs in rice, octopus, and something that was still moving when I ate it.

Also new to me is this FREEZING COLD weather. It's only fall and I feel like I'm going to get frostbite. I don't know how I'm going to make it through winter here!