Happy Chusok

We have some catching up to do from our long weekend and first on the agenda is the Activity Day we had at school on Friday. It was Korean Thanksgiving so the point of the day was to dress up in traditional Korean clothing (called hanbok) and make Thanksgiving food (unfortunately, no turkey or stuffing to be seen). The food here that symbolizes Thanksgiving is called songpyon. We spent part of the morning making this with the kindergarten classes (we had 2 Korean teachers with us with the recipe and the proper cooking utensils - we weren't left to our own devices, or else we would have made turkey). We rolled up little pieces of rice dough, filled them with raisins, and folded them into half moon shapes (or as the kids were good at - folding them into blobs of dough). Once we finished rolling them, they went into a double boiler of some sort and while they cooked we went for a walk with the kids in the park.

This is the pagoda park that Jenn and I have been looking at for the past three weeks from our hallway window. We've never ventured over to look at it yet, until today, with 6 little munchkins as our escorts. We finally got to see it close up and it is lovely and peaceful - we will be spending more relaxing time here in between classes. Here are some pictures from the park with the kids. There were very few hanboks this year for us to see - only Julie in the pink and blue and Cindy Teacher in the hot pink. We didn't go out and buy our own hanbok for the occasion, but we did wear our new matching yellow Wonderland shirts.


Next we tried the songpyon that we made. Raisins aren't my favourite, but they were okay. We've had better ones with honey and sesame seeds in them, but those weren't on the menu today. After the kindergarten classes were over, we weren't sure what the rest of the Activity Day would involve, and we were told by the Korean teachers that we didn't have to prepare anything, so we were just going with it. What ended up happening was the students brought their own snacks and we were to facilitate a "party." The party consisted up dumping the snacks in the middle of the table and everyone digging in. Jenn made her party a bit more fun by playing a Yo-Yo-Ma CD (not the most rocking music for a party, but the kids liked it and Chad - one of Jenn's favourite little boys - started doing tai chi and yoga moves). Remember the days when a student would give an apple to the teacher?? Today we got some roasted chestnuts, some crab-flavoured chips, and rice cakes. And the absolutely most disgusting Korean treat - candied octopus tentacles. They smell repulsive and they taste worse. The kids suck on it like it's candy, but it's a dead fish. I don't get it.