Lunch is.. um, served…

12:10pm, the bell rings and it is now lunch time. The kindergarten portion of the day is half over and it’s time to refuel for the rest of the afternoon.

Everyday at lunch we have to eat with the kids in the classroom. Basically we’re babysitters telling them to eat all their food and to stop making a mess on the table and themselves. Rice is sticky, it sticks to everything including their clothes and even their hair, and yes it happens more often than you think. Once the kids are finished lunch they have to wash their hands and brush their teeth and then it is playtime (aka break time for teachers).

We’ve taken a few pictures to show everyone what we eat on a daily basis. But first, a little background knowledge. Korean food is base upon rice, noodles, vegetables, tofu and meats. Traditionally, Korean cuisine are most known for the number of side dishes that accompany short-grain rice.

Our meals are served in box like dishes that have 4 separate sections. The largest section is for rice, the main component of the meal, the other three are for side dishes. The food here does not get mixed on top of one big plate like it generally would at home. Also, there is always a soup of some kind that is served up as well. Let’s take a look…

1. Rice 2. Jelly cubes and zucchini 3. Chicken, potato & carrots 4. Jelly cube, quail eggs 5. Kimchi radish 6. Bean sprouts 7. Egg drop soup

The rice and the bean sprouts are good, as well as the quail eggs. Surprisingly, the chicken and potatoes were decent that day also. We don’t particularly care for the kimchi radish (even though we like kimchi) so we just leave it.

1. Rice 2. Kimchi 3. Rotini noodles and cocktail wieners 4. Sesame leaf covered in think red pepper paste 5. Bok Choi / Chinese cabbage that was pickled (we think) 6. Meat patty of some kind 7. Cabbage soup

The plain rice is ok, the kimchi this day was not good. Of the regular types, baechu kimchi there is “old or new” kimchi. New is recently made and has not been fermented as long. Old kimchi is MUCH better, and yes we can tell the difference. I don’t touch new kimchi, it smells and tastes funny (That may sound like an odd statement considering kimchi itself has a distinctive smell that lingers in your fridge and home). The noodles were “so-so” (that is a common phrase here) and the cocktail wieners were cold. I should also point out that most people call hotdogs, sausages, and other similar meats all sausage, or as Koreans pronounce it – sausagey. The meat patties again are so-so, but I like meat so I finished them off, with the a nice dollop of ketchup. The soup was pretty good and as for the Chinese cabbage, I didn’t try it (and yes, I do eat quite a bit of veggies otherwise here)

1. Rice 2. Kimchi’d radish cubes 3. Small pieces of beef 4. Pickled cucumber (tastes nothing like a real pickle) 5. Squid and some veggies in a light red pepper sauce 6. Some kind of shellfish in a think salt red pepper paste 7. Seaweed Soup

Plan rice again.. I don’t care much for the kimchi’d radish cubes. The meat was mediocre, but the squid was delicious as always! The pickled cucumber was decent enough to eat. The shellfish was too slimy and the sauce/paste was too salty. The seaweed soup is hit and miss, sometimes it tastes too much like the ocean, other times it is a good filler for the soup and adds texture.

1. Rice 2. Pork 3. Lettuce leaves with red pepper sauce 4. Kimchi 5. Noodles 6. Black beans 7. Cabbage soup

Surprisingly the lunch this day was not bad, minus the lettuce leaves. Krista loves the black beans! The soup was spicy and warmed us up that cold afternoon.

1. Rice 2. Battered and fried pork 3. Fish with skin and bones 4. Zucchini 5. Daikon Kimchi (made from a root) 6. Spinich 7. Light potato soup

The battered pork was good, but then again, anything battered tastes good. I hate the fish. I’m not a fan of pulling of the skin and picking out the bones to try and get the fish, which isn’t always tasty, yuck. Krista is getting much better with her chopstick skills and ate both of our fish, sans bones. The zucchini and daikon kimchi are good and so was the soup.

Each student has a metal dish like this. Rice on the left, soup on the right and side dishes at the top. Usually their lunch is slightly different than hours. Sometimes we have better side dishes, sometimes they do. Depending on how hungry the kids are, there can be extra dishes on the cart for us teachers to grab :)

Since our school is fairly new, we only have 9 morning kindergarten students in 3 classes. Instead of hiring someone to cook at the school, lunches are catered and delivered each day. Our lunches come in the black boxes and the students dishes are shown in the picture above. Each student brings a lunch box/tray from home each day. The rice comes in a small cooler that keeps it warm, although I see our lunch boxes get nuked in the microwave each day, with the tinfoil in it!

As you can see for yourself, these lunches are not very exciting. I try to fill up on rice and soup when I consider the side dishes to be “craptacular”. On a more positive note, we eat for free..yay!

In case you’re wondering what it is really like eating lunch with these students, take a look at this video.. priceless!

(click here if you’re viewing from email)

The Great Wall of China

The day after our arrival in Beijing, we took our first tour to The Great Wall of China. The tour was roughly 7 hours including travel time, lunch and a few other stops along the way. This was a really awesome tour, the history of the Wall and actually being able to walk along it was really amazing. We also had a great tour guide which made the day that much more fun!

The weather was fairly cold, but by the same token, it was nice not to climb the wall in the sweltering heat with 5x the people! However, we would still go back to see the wall during the warmer season.

History (courtesy of Wikipedia):

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC. The most famous is the wall built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,508 km (4,000 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total. At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men. It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall. (Wikipedia)

Entrance to the Great Wall is a tourist trap, equipped even with a roller coaster type ride to the top! There is also a fake wall built a few miles before the Badaling that was built for overflow tourists. Our tour guide informed us that even though, "in China, we can copy anything," the Badaling section of the Great wall was authentic.







We took a kind of rollercoaster ride up to tower 4 and then climbed to tower 8 on foot. I don't think anyone had a choice but to use the rollercoaster, unless you climbed up from somewhere on the other side of the mountain.







The Great Wall loaded with tourists like us!






























The Great Wall is coagulated with Chinese labors' wisdom, sweat and toil. Ancient records report that at least one million slaves and prisoners of war were conscripted to build the great wall which followed the contour of the land, taking advantage of natural defenses. As many died from exhaustion and starvation while working on this colossal task, the Wall was also known as "the longest cemetery in the world."


The bricks, rocks and lime used to build the wall had to be carried up to the mountains by bare shoulders. Those who succeeded in climbing the wall today are often regarded as "real heroes", from this we should realize the difficulty in climbing the wall, and can imagine how difficult it is to build the Great Wall without modern machinery at that time. Chairman Mao proclaimed that any person who wanted to be a real hero must climb the Great Wall, which has inspired many ambitious visitors. All tourists now know Chairman Mao's famous words, "He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a real hero!"





"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man" -Mao Zedong

"This is a Great Wall and only great people with a great past could have a great wall and such a great people with such a great wall will surely have a great future" -Richard Nixon

Hua Hin Train Station / Pier

The Hua Hin railway station is one of oldest railway station in Thailand. Its most striking feature is the unique Royal Waiting Room in Thai architectural style. The Royal Waiting Room was built in the reign of King Rama VI in order to welcome the King and his entourage. The outstanding feature of the station is the pavilion constructed in the reign of King Rama VI; it was originally named as "Plub Pla Sanamchan", and it was initially situated at Sanamchan Palace in Nakorn Pathom Province.

The Royal Waiting Room, the original building built in the same architectural style as Maruekkhathayawan Palace, stands adjacent to the station,and is a favourite spot for taking pictures for both Thai and foreign tourists. (info from Hua Hin Tourist Site)









The royal waiting rooms



Why did the nun cross the road?



To get to the Hua Hin Train Station!



While we were cruising around on the scooter we decided to check out the pier. There are many fishermen lounging on the decks of their boats while docked, one of them yelled to Krista "I love you!"

We also came across this navy ship with automatic weapons on it.





No uniforms... they don't really look like they belong on a ship with an automatic weapon.

Wat Khao Klailat - Temple in Hua Hin, Thailand

While in Hua Hin, we had a chance to cruise around on the scooter we rented and see the area. One afternoon, on our way to the beach we came across this temple - Wat Khao Klailat. There were a lot of monks walking on the grounds doing some odd jobs such as sweeping, raking rocks around trees and tending to the gardens.

Not much to say, but the temple designs were quite nice!









A fancy window shutter.





Treasure!



The temples has a few large paintings such as this one inside.



This was a railing leading up to another temple (which was closed off at the time).





King crab!



Turtles!

Preschool Christmas Program at SLP

Christmas at SLP! For the month of December all the preschool teachers were teaching their classes Christmas songs to perform in front of their parents during the Christmas Program.

Each class sang two songs, after all classes were finished performing their two songs all classes gathered together to perfrom two more songs as a group. After the performance was over, all the kids went back to their classrooms with their parents and decorated Christmas cookies. During that time, Santa Clause came for a visit! Each child received a gift from Santa.

This was the last day before our holiday to Thailand YAY!! (pictures will be posted soon!).


Kindness Class



Dream Class



Friendship Class



Motivation Class



Nature Class



Imagination Class



Loyalty Class



All preschool classes







Sharing Class



Dream Class



All classes