a conversation with iris

for your enjoyment :)

ilsan and hiking and BUNNIES!

Ilsan specifically Western Dom (about 20 min away). There is tons of shopping, restaurants, and a movie theatre.
Trying out some new food. India. Actually reeeally good.

These bikes you can rent in Ilsan and ride around anywhere you want. They are sooo fun. and go really fast....until your battery dies.

the 'kanye' glasses

all the teachers at the top of the mountain (ken, me, justine, ricky, susie, and nickie)

justine, nickie, susie and me

the trusty hand that can show you where were climbed to.

the random wall of ski's at the place we where we ate lunch after the climb.

there were rails and ropes for the steep parts

everyone at lunch

this random hole i found on the climb down. quick picture since i didnt know what lived there :S

cookin' up the meat for lunch.

jumping picture at the top

the soccer-volleyball game involved old drunk korean men.

Susie (the receptionist/lady who does everything) and her son Jerry (who i teach in elementary).

the view from the top.

justine and i at the top

the phillipines guy who works for the company on the very scary, very small rock, very high up.

ricky taking in the view

ken (my boss) posing at the top. ps.most awkward picture EVER to take.

the lanterns for buddha's birthday leading up a the temple

steep spot on the way up

THE BUNNIES!

Piper and Penelope.

Piper (the one who died) :(, eating some lettuce

hanging out on the bed

front view

Penelope likes to hang out in the food dish sometimes.

and Piper liked to eat the food in the food dish, so he would push her out.

Penelope. soo small.

teacher's day

this past week has been pretty eventful

on thursday it was teacher's day so we got lots of presents from the kids. as soon as we walked into school there were 3 kids waiting to give us roses and presents, tooo cute. so i got a ton of roses, some soap, a candle, tea, chocolate, and some nice/funny kid written cards. parents sent a ton of food to the school too. tons of cakes and breads, and fruit and rice cake thingy's. this one parent sent pizza's and pop for the teachers too. Also I got a Chanel wallet! It came with an authenticity card and everything and in a nice box so there's a good chance it's real. Justine and I both got them from Iris, who is one of my favourites. She also wrote the most adorable note. Her brother Joshua is in Turtle class which is the youngest kids in kinder (the 4 crazy 4 year olds) and she's in Rabbit class (the oldest/top class in kinder). This is what the note said:
Hello, my teacher
I'm Iris Joshua
I wanted to thank you for the first
Beause of you my English is getting better and easy
And sorry that I didn't pay attention in the class
From now on I will try my so I can be a good person
Please look after me
I love you

From: Iris Joshua

tooo cute.

last weekend a few teachers from school, our director Ken, and the owner of the school Ricky all went hiking aka mountain climbing. we met at the school saturday morning and then took the michigan bus there hahah. we were told it was a pretty easy hike. not so much. it was definitely a challenge, good thing it was surrounded by trees or we would have died in the hear. there were some seriously tricky parts with lots of ropes to help and at the top the rock was only big enough for our group of 9. amazing views though, you could see the Seoul Tower from there. im not sure how long it took to get up there, maybe like an hour and a half or so. the trek down was much easier although still pretty hard on the knees. after getting slightly lost with Ken, Nickie, Susie and Justine, we finally made it to the bottom and met up with the other 4. they had already settled in at the outdoor restaurant in the little village below the mountain, with the rice wine flowing. ive concluded that koreans will use any reason to drink. so we had some rice wine (which is very delicious mixed with sprite) and this lettuce sandwich type thing. you take a little piece of meat and then you put it on a leaf of lettuce and then throw some kimchi, garlic, jalapenos, and other sauces on it and eat up. i wasnt a huge fan of it the first time i ate it, but have learned not to put full cloves of garlic on each one since then, so now i really like them. next to the restaurant was this soccer type game going on. you have a soccer ball and 2 teams but theres this net thing in the middle so its kinda like soccer volleyball. its pretty cool and i would love to have played minus the fact that old drunk korean men were playing . maybe some other time.
sat night we got bunnies! they are too cute. piper and penelope. we set up a little room for them in the laundry room/storage room. unfortunately, piper got sick wednesday night and then was still sick thurs before work so the plan was to take him to the vet after work . when i got home though he was no longer alive :(. tres sad. penelope seems to be doing well though so at least there's still her.
sunday we went to itaweon for breakfast and then were gonna head to Seoul Land which is an amusement park but by the time we were finished eating it wasnt really worth it. so instead it was a day of shopping and pedicures. there's another long weekend in june and we're finally leaving the country. taipei is the plan so we both bought smaller suitcases in order to avoid overpacking . as well as a few other things.
monday was spent in ilsan and we went to iron man. suuch a good movie. and im not usually a fan of those types either. loove robert downey jr though, such a good actor.
this weekend was pretty low key. not much exciting happened, besides some delicious chicken fingers from rmt and getting my eyebrows waxed. woohoo ahah.
ill put up some photos some point this week hopefully. its the first full week of work in may so im not exactly thrilled for monday hahah.

xoxo

Birthday Parties and Picnics

Kinder classes plus teachers during the picnic in Ilsan

Isaac and the rock.

Me and my buddies Eddie and Harry hanging out on the bench
Iris at the picnic

Alison, Vanessa and Iris representing Team BLUE!

Relay race at the picnic.
Jae after the race (they had to dig for candy in flour without their hands)

and also grab an onion ring chip from a string with their mouths. Willy with a lil bit of onion ring and some flour covered candy, mmm.

Playing the numbers game.

Amy and Sonia with their faces painted for the birthday party
Willy and Tom (from Penguin class) being silly

Koala class with birthday girls Alison and Kate

Brody from Koala class

Iris wearing my glasses after she stole them.



Pooh class with all the birthday goodies.

The May birthday kids with the cards Justine and I made for them. (Iris, Sally, Alison, Kristian, Emily, Ann, and Kate)

Lisa signing the birthday card.

Cindy and Andy signing the cards.
May birthday party featuring Emily the cat.


Koala class with the birthday kids Isaac, Lisa, and Shine (he picked his own name).

vanessa and jae from Turtle class
pinata time! with lisa the birthday girl
ps. we were up veeery late making these/blowdrying them dry the night before.

posing for the birthday party in april (bottom row is Turtle class, the 4 year olds. vanessa, jae, daniel, and joshua.)

iris aka nelly after after a slight incident with the cupboard