Archive for October, 2009

Oct

Open Class

Today was our open class/open house for the incoming students. I met one new class of 7 year olds, one new class of 5 year olds and two new classes of 6 year olds. I’m not sure what ages the other new classes were for.

There were quite a few kids who seemed really into our demo lesson. I was in charge of doing the food pyramid lesson. It was fun, although exhausting. Jared, our not so new, new teacher (the two new teachers replacing Jess and Nick arrived tonight) was my assistant. I think he was a bit overwhelmed with everything. Not necessarily the students, but my superhyper, in front of parents, personality.

posted by Kathryn in Little Campus,Students and have Comment (1)

Oct

Songpyeon

In my post on Chuseok, I talked about songpyeon.

I was at Lotte Mart this afternoon doing my weekly grocery shopping. I was actually having a songpyeon craving. Does this mean I’ve been in Korea way too long for my own good? I don’t know.

So I bought a small package of them. The homemade ones (as provided by my students in the past) are better. But these were passible. There were white ones and green ones in the package. I’ve also eaten pink ones.

Songpyeon

The green ones had a very nutty filling. The white ones had a smoother, sweeter filling.

posted by Kathryn in Food and Drink,Home Life,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Pictures and have No Comments

Oct

Happy Chuseok!

Hello everyone! Today is 추석 (Chuseok). It’s basically the Korean Thanksgiving. It’s a festival celebrating the harvest. People usually travel to the cities and towns where older relatives live. Many of my students go to their grandparents’ house.

One traditional dish served on Chuseok is 송편 (Songpyeon). Songpyeon is a chewy rice cake (떡) filled with a sweet filling. My favorite kind had chesnuts and brown sugar in it. You can also get them with other fillings such as sweetened red beans.

For Chuseok, people wear 한복 (Hanbok). Hanbok is the traditional Korean clothings worn for special occassions. Wikipedia has a nice overview of the history of hanbok. By the way, that’s a long O and an A like in father. So it sounds more like hanboke. I said it incorrectly for a long time because of the weird Romanization of the word.

posted by Kathryn in Celebrations,Food and Drink,Korean Vocabulary,Off time and have No Comments