Another Festival

First things first and did you guys notice that I've figured out how to justify my paragraphs? It was a bumpy ride, but eventually I managed to get it right. I only rolled it back four posts so far, but I'll go back further as time goes on.

Back to matters at hand now and there has been another event in this festival mad country. This time it was my school's turn.

The festival was basically to show of the skills of students and groups in the school. There were small exhibitions from Mr. Park's wild flower group where they showed other hot to make little phone rings with pressed wild flowers.

There was art from the art various arts classes, exhibitions from the fishing team and lots more. My favourite was the "farmers" who sold their peanuts and hot sweet potatoes for dirt cheap. A hot sweet potato goes down really well on a cold day.

These exhibitions lasted in an active form for about 2 hours or until just before lunch. After lunch the real show started.

We all gathered in the school's hall where various group of students performed for us. Some were obviously well organised and lead by adults while others were just students who wanted to show of their skills.

I have decided to give out my very own awards to the students. To bad they might not even know about it.

The Most Fun Award goes to the Taekwondo boys who were jumping, kicking and breaking board left right and centre, at the same time!

The Cutest Award goes to the students who danced to the Supremes song "Baby Love". Within the same group they ranged from very good do just too darn cute. Just for fun, have a look at the Supremes themselves: Click Here For The Video

The Great Skill award goes to the student who did magic. Some times you could see what they were up to, but their showmanship and skills were nothing to be laughed at for Middle School students.

My last award goes to the girl whom I will call the Broadway Girls. Their dance routine was very well practiced, the girls are obviously good dancers and I did not have to think "Maybe that should be left to the adults" at any point. I hereby award them the My Favourite Act award. *

To finish the show off we had a band from a local high school doing a bit of punk rock for us. The girl who was the lead singer can go a bit further in developing her showmanship, but she is already good and has a really nice voice

Needless to say it was a day in which I had no classes. I am still awaiting a chance to do my "Fuck You!" lesson which I will tell you more about very soon.




* Editing Note:
Since publishing this post I've been told that the Broadway Girls were from the same High School as the band. No wonder I didn't reorganise ANY of them. I just thought they were third graders. They tend to fly under my radar most of the time.

** Readers Note:
Thank you to everyone who has been letting me know when they found mistakes in my spelling or grammar. I appreciate it. I know my spelling sucks and I would rather have someone tell me so that I can correct it that have it hang out there for everyone to see.

Mercury Down!

Today is the third day of cold weather in Icheon. I know it is going to get even colder, but so far we've been experiencing one cold day followed 3 hotter days.

The cold weather here seems to be accompanied by a morning fog that isn't so thick that you can't see your face in front of you, but you can't see much beyond about 150 meters. I can't wait to see if there will be a really thick fog soon. I don't know what it is, but I love the feeling of walking with everything unfolding in front of me.

Another thing that I've noticed is that we are getting frost more often. I love frost. It reminds me of my school days when I had to go to school at 7am in winter. Pretoria often had frost that early in the morning. I would take a detour and slide my bike around on the grass of the park.

The only really bad things about the frost then was that when you were young and playing rugby you had to "clear the field" for the older teams. I assure you that clearing a field of frost when you are barefoot is no fun at all. I saw it again a few years back and I couldn't help but smile while watching the boys drop down to rub their toes when the game was not in action.

Back to Korea now and I tried to get a few nice pictures this morning. I suspect I might have to go out very early over the weekend and see if I can find some thick white frost on a dark background. I will add the few that I took this morning to the end of this post.

There is something fun about this weather that I get at school. Over the last week I have noticed that early in the morning the halls of the school have been very cold. When you leave a classroom you are "blowing steam". I want to look over my shoulder because I am sure I am will see dead people. Maybe I should put some graffiti saying just that.

As a side note, I did look at the weather forecast and it seems like today will rise to a reasonable temperature again, but I will have to wait and see. Outside is not giving me much confidence in that happening, though.

Oh well. I'm still waiting in anticipation for the snow to arrive.

Specialty Fridges

Main Entry: kim·chi
Variant(s): also kim·chee \kim-chē\
Function: noun
Etymology: Korean kimch'i
Date: 1898

: a vegetable pickle seasoned with garlic, red pepper, and ginger that is the national dish of.

*****

As we were approaching winter I've noticed that there are more adverts for refrigerators on TV. I don’t know about you, but I fond this very odd.

At the English Contest the one girl gave a speech on Kimchi and she mentioned that here in you get fridges that keep the Kimchi at the optimum temperature for fermenting. This tit bit opened my eyes to what was happening on the little picture box in my place.

The main reason I didn’t recognize that all these adverts were actually showing how special they were for having Kimchi compartments was that I didn’t recognize the Kimchi itself.

They don’t just pile it in to a container like its normally done. No, sir! They put it in oh so neatly and make these nice little bite sized Kimchi rolls. I have never seen that in my life. Maybe some restaurant will do that if you pay enough, but I doubt that is a reality.

Of course, it is likely just a matter of time before I get shown that I am wrong.

The funniest thing for me here is that they always have these ultra chic couples promoting it. They live in these ultra clean houses with huge kitchens that have never, and most likely will never be used. The wives look like they don’t not know the arse end from the cutting surface of a knife, but, oh, they have to have the biggest most expensive fridges to keep the Kimchi in.

More likely these couples go to the most expensive restaurants every night where the Kims (the Jones of Korea) can see how much money they have.

I'll just go and buy my Kimchi at the store whenever I run out and stuff in to my little plastic container in the fridge.