Chuseok at iSponge

Chuseok 추석 is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Like many other harvest festivals, it is held around the Autumn Equinox. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food.

This holiday is similar to Thanksgiving in North America, and like our holiday at home, Koreans enjoy copious amounts of food with their families during this holiday. One of the traditional foods prepared is Songpyeon 송편, a crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles.

At school on the last day before the holiday, all the morning kindergartners made Songpyeon together. Another tradition is to wear a Hanbok, the traditional Korean dress. It is often characterized by vibrant colors and simple lines without pockets. Although the term literally means "Korean clothing", hanbok today often refers specifically to hanbok of Joseon Dynasty and is worn as semi-formal or formal wear during traditional festivals and celebrations. Modern hanbok does not exactly follow the actual style as worn in Joseon dynasty since it went through some major changes during the twentieth century for practical reasons. Our director brought a hanbok for all of the teachers to wear.

Krista and I in a hanbok. The pants tie up high above the waist and bunch up, so my stomach is really not that big :)

Amy, Krista, Jon and Joe (our Korean co-teachers)

David, Jon and Kelly. These are my two kindergarten students. They are 7 years old Korean age, so about 6 or so Western age.

Christopher, Alex, David, Seung Uk, Jade (in the back), Danny and Kelly.

Krista, Christopher, Alex, Seung Uk, Jade, Danny and Amy. Krista’s kindergarten class, they are 6 years old Korean age.

Jon, David, Kelly and Joe.

Jade making Songpyeon, he is flattening the dough, first you roll it in a ball, then make a pocket with your thumb and flatten it out.

Christopher making Songpyeon

Alex making Songpyeon

Jon and Kelly making Songpyeon, after you have a good pocket, you fill it with crushed sesame seeds, brown sugar and honey. After you fill it, you shape the dough into a half moon.

Seung Uk making Songpyeon

Krista and Christopher making Songpyeon

Krista and Alex

Christopher showing off some Songpyeon the class had made. It is said that if you make beautiful you will have a beautiful daughter. :)

Christopher and Amy

A variety of traditional folk games are also played during Chuseok such as Yutnori (pronounced yoot-nori) which involves the throwing/rolling of 4 sticks to move games pieces around a stitch cloth game board. It is actually a fun and interesting game.

The best part of Chuseok for us was the time of from work! Our director gave us all a few extra days of holiday, so Krista and I flew to Tokyo to stay with one of her old college friends for four nights. We should have pictures up soon!

Gwanghwamun

On Sunday afternoon Krista and I took a trip to Gwanghwamun 광화문 in Seoul to see the newly renovated plaza. We had read in the September issue of Seoul Magazine that this 3rd plaza had opened up August 1st and thought it would be nice to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather in downtown Seoul.

This is now one of three large plazas Seoul has to offer, after Seoul Plaza and Cheonggyecheon. It was named after the main gate of nearby Gyeongbokgung Palace and is located outside of Gwanghwamun Station, Line 5 and the gate (which is still currently under construction). It is also located in the middle of what was 16 lanes of traffic. The plaza is 30m wide by 550 meters long.

This plaza along with numerous other construction projects occurring in Seoul are part of a large marketing strategy to portray a new vibrant, but stylish image for Seoul and the country.

During the first week after construction approx 1 million people had visited the plaza. If you want a more detailed history, click here.

Aside from the plaza’s beauty, there is a bit of controversy surrounding the plaza. All of the plazas have space available for public demonstrations, but with all of the floral decorations, there is no room for such things, and many Seoulites are quite upset by this fact. Krista and I however really enjoyed our afternoon there.

“Haechi” – Symbol of Seoul

Haechi, the symbol of Seoul, is an animal of “justice and integrity” that discerns good and evil. Haechi is an imaginary animal with divine power that protects by repelling disaster and brining “fortune and luck.”

Haechi has a horn on its head and a bell on its neck. It’s body is covered in scales, and it has wing-like feathers under its arms. It is the gaurdian animal of Seoul and can fly in the sky. It lives close to water in the summer and in the pine forest in winter. It is known to live mainly around Gwanghamun and Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul.

Currently, the logo and slogan of “Hi Seoul” has been used to promote the city. what do you think of the new branding?? You can post your comments at the bottom of this blog post!

Below is a statue of Yi Sun-sin 이순신 (April 28, 1545 – December 16, 1598) was a Korean naval commander noted for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598) during the Joseon Dynasty.

Along each side of the plaza are flower benches with flower displays built in and even speakers playing classical music.

We snapped a picture of the plaza staff’s flower cart as well as them planting. A lot of work went in to planting the 200,000+ flowers!

There is a light stream on each side of the plaza with engravings of each year from about the 1400’s, and here you can see two men scrubbing the tiles clean.

Green Haechi lawn statue, you can see the US Embassy in the background.

A little bit of extra history for you: One of the major benefits of the new plaza is that it helps correct the damage done to the downtown area’s basic orientation under Japanese colonial rule. When Seoul was made the capital of the Joseon kingdom, the main axis of the city ran from Mt. Bugaksan to the Shinto shrine they built on Mt. Namsan. When the restoration work on Gwanghwamun is completed, the traditional axis will be restored. –Robert Koehler, Seoul Tour and Culture

The 2009 Seoul International Drama awards had a display at the plaza as well. SBS had a few TV sets there to promote the various dramas they have running.

One drama they have is a horror, we took this pic inside one of their sets.

We left Gwanghwamun and walked a few blocks towards city hall and came across some kind of H.O.T pepper festival. There were various different kinds of peppers in all shapes, sizes and colours.

Two arches covered designed with red peppers

Aren’t we HOT?

We wrote on a red pepper in Korean, it translates to Jon + Krista Forever. Yes, cheesy, but our Korean vocabulary is not that extensive!

iSponge Campus – Our School

After being in Seoul for a week and going for a medical check, we finally got to have a tour of the school we will be teaching at. We are working for a franchise called iSponge, the location we are at is brand new – students are just registering for the first time there now! We will be the first native English speakers to have worked at this school, so we get to help get the place started!

The school looks amazing! Lots of bright colours, it is designed to make the children feel that they can have a lot of fun while learning. The teaching style the school employs has a lot do with learning through activities as well as regular workbook learning.

The school staff consists off one owner/principal, vice principal, secretary, two Korean-English teachers and two Native English speakers (Krista and I), and the bus driver! As it turns out, I am the only male on staff, aside from the bus driver, but he is not around often.

These last two days we have been going through lessons and role playing – pretending to teach each other. On Friday and Saturday we will have two days of training at their head office.

On Monday we will be doing some other prep work and then Tuesday is the big day. September 1st we have our first day of teaching with brand new students!

We took some pictures of the school, check it out! (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Front entrance

Front desk

Play room

Classroom

Classroom, same as above but different view

Sponge room, this is used for various activities and games

Classroom

Kids can wash their hands here before lunch and after activities

Activity / game room

Classroom

Classroom

Classroom

Teacher’s room – this is just a partial view

Until next time.. after we start teaching!