Birthday, Busan style!

Well, it's official, I've eased my way into my thirties and have officially hit 31 today!   My day was celebrated with lots of fun letters from my Korean elementary students (which happen to be quite funny), rice cakes, cupcakes, flowers, pencils, pens, soap flowers, perfume, a book, a notebook, etc... Never thought I'd be turning 31 and receiving pencils, but I can't complain!  I'm a sucker for a fun pencil!

Here are some of the birthday cards I received throughout the day... 

ENJOY THEIR SILLINESS!

Finally, one letter than shows that I actually DO teach grammar and spelling!  LOL

As if those notes weren't cute and thoughtful enough, I was showered with fun gifts too!  These bagels are from one of my 5th graders who remembered me saying that my favorite thing to eat for breakfast is bagels - LAST YEAR!!!!  Amazing memory, right?!

This GIGANTIC hair bow is from two of my 3rd graders!!  I promised them that I would wear it tomorrow!  I'm not kidding when I say it's almost as big as my entire head!  Oh boy!

One of my 5th grade boy's mom's made these soap scented flowers!  Yep, you can actually wash your hands with them!  Pretty cool, eh?  I smelled them and said, "mmmm, yummy!"  He immediately had a look of complete fright and attempted to tell me, in his best English, that I can't eat them!  LOL

Okk, my darling co-teacher surprised me with 3 cupcakes from my favorite cupcake bakery in Nampodong (RED VELVET), and a famous Korean book which was recently translated into English that she really loved.  The beautiful garden roses are from A!

 

How can you not feel loved when your desk looks like this on your birthday?! 

I was overwhelmed by my students and co-workers generosity and thoughtfulness today!  Feels good to be loved, huh?!  During the afternoon today, I got a couple text pictures of paper towels with arrows written on them from my friends Gill and Sam.  I was so confused, as you can see below!   I thought maybe their phones got hacked and were sending these weird arrow pictures to all of their contacts...

Then, I got home and saw this, hanging over my front door keypad, I immediately put two and two together and smiled from ear to ear, because it meant that my two sweet friends had come all the way to my apartment (about an hour by subway and bus) to surprise me with something before they went to work!!

They surprised me with arrows leading to a GORGEOUS white chocolate Tous Les Jours cake!!!!

... and a DARLING card!

Then, minutes later, Aaron showed up with a HUGE bouquet in hand!

I've only seen bouquets this big in Ms. America pageants!  LOL

Sooo blessed with fabulous people who loved me in my love language today!

Aaron did some research online and found out about a FABULOUS Italian restaurant 

near Gwangali Beach, called Bella Cita, and surprised me by taking me there for dinner tonight!

 It was quiet, intimate, romantic, pretty, comfortable, and the food was, in fact, delicious!

Aaron ordered a BBQ set, which came with two beers.  We laughed about how it was a really nice restaurant but that the beers were MILLER LIGHTS!  lol

I had a super yummy pasta!!!  Wedding diet starts tomorrow... FOR REAL!

  

Fun thing about going to Bella Cita was that the beach was right across the street for an after dinner stroll!

It was supposed to rain all day today, but I never saw a drop!   Thank you Jesus! :)

This is how Aaron hails a taxi!  Apparently it's helpful to stand on something and appear to be much taller!  :)

We had such an awesome birthday date, until.... I got out of the taxi and up to my apartment and realized I had left my wallet in the backseat!  uuugggghhhh!  Happy birthday to me!  I spent about 30 mins on the phone with my American bank, cancelling accounts, and ordering a new debit card and checks... and the other 10 mins on the phone with my co-teacher, who was on the other line with the taxi company trying to file a report!

Earlier today I really wanted some new clothes, but now, 

the only thing I really want for my birthday is my wallet back!  haha... fingers crossed!

Welcome to 31, I guess!

   

The Arrival

Tonight was the closing ceremony for the Busan International Performing Arts Festival, and Aaron and I had free tickets to enjoy the show!

Tonight's performance was called "THE ARRIVAL" and was performed by a New Zealand theater company.  It was a migrant tale where the main character flees his homeland, leaving his wife and daughter, to journey across the sea, only to arrive in a strange, wondrous new land where giant ships fly through the air, no one speaks his language, and weird animals abound.  It's a tribute to migrants, refugees and displaced people worldwide, and was a beautiful story of overcoming hardship, of humanity and of hope!

It was definitely one of the most creative, whimsical, exquisite, imaginative, magical and innovative performances I've ever seen!

To make things even better, I got to see Monica (my old co-teacher) again!  She was hanging out at the coffee shop next to the Theater with some girlfriends and her husband.  When she saw me, she yelled, "Chelsey!!" and then nudged her husband and told him in Korean to get up and buy me a hot chocolate!  haha.  Man, I miss her!

As we were walking in the doors to find our seats, I saw my little baby Korean girl who was introducing the show!  She was really nervous, but super excited!

How cute is she?  Aaron caught this photo of me reminding her to smile on stage, 

"because we always look more beautiful when we smile!"  haha  

She ended up doing the whole welcoming speech, flawlessly!  I was such a proud teacher! 

It's always nice to have a date night out... even better when it's FREE! :)

We took a taxi back to Yeong-do and stopped in for a late night dinner at the restaurant under my apartment.  It actually closed a couple months ago and was re-opened under a new name and new owners last week.  So, we went in, sat down, and checked out the menu, which was completely in Korea.  We read through it and didn't recognize anything, so we asked the waitress for the most delicious menu item.  Her response was ******* (can't remember).  We said, great, we'll take it, and then looked it up in our phone translator... PIG TAIL!  Ummmm.... We've both tried some really weird stuff here, but pig tail was something we'd never even heard of Koreans eating!   When the server brought it to our table, it was actually THE SKIN FROM A PIG TAIL!  Eeekkkk!  Aaron and I are in to trying new things, but an entire plate of pig tail skin was something we weren't really up for indulging in.  Luckily, the server gladly allowed us to change our order to MEAT, instead of just SKIN!  lol   It turned out to be a delicious dinner and a really fun night out with A!   

Happy Birthday Loola!

Today is Loola's 28th birthday, so last night I made a trip to the foreign market to buy some baking supplies!  I knew her favorite type of cake was red velvet, so I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting!  YUMM!!!

During tea time (after our first class of the day), 

I arranged the cupcakes on the table and lit the candles for a little birthday party...

Loola was very touched and made her birthday wish...

...and the 6 of us (Hana, behind the camera) had a little party between classes!
** These are the people I drink tea with everyday after 1st period.

Loola sent me this message:
Lovely Chelsey...

I was really touched today because of  your lovely event!!
Actually in Korea, Teachers don't have a birthday party in school.
Sometimes my students prepared the surprised party, not a teacher.
Today I had a  very special birthday party which my co teacher prepared.^^
I'll never forget~
Thank you so much~

As a words of affirmation lover, this made my whole day and made my messy kitchen totally worth the hassle of cleaning! 

Happy birthday Loola friend!

Cooking up a 6th grade storm!

One of the 6th grade classes spent the first 2 hours of the morning cooking recipes from their school textbook!  Each student group decided, before hand, what they would make, and brought all of the ingredients needed... Then, when the bell rang, they went at it!  

Min Ju's group made pizza on pieces of white bread.  

She was in charge of spreading the sauce and putting the toppings on!

This is Hana, their teacher, displaying their first attempt at cooking the pizza in the pan!  Check out the completely BURNT bread!

2nd time around, however, was PERFECT!

MinGee's group was in charge of making some sort of egg, rice, carrot, kimchi sandwich!

The different parts of it looked appetizing, 

but when it was mixed all together, it looked like a big mess of nastiness!

This group was in charge of making duk-boki, a Korean favorite! 

It's basically rice and fish cakes mixed in a red sauce.

 

 Here are the rice cakes cooking! The first time I tried one of these, I almost gagged... now I'm a HUGE fan!  They're the consistency of cooled down mozzarella sticks.

30 minutes later, and WALA!  It was ready to devour!

 

 Song Min's group made these darling mini hamburgers!
 I'm a sucker for food presentation and little colored umbrellas, so this was my favorite!

 They were very proud of their little hamburger creations!

On cooking days, I'm always offered food, either by their hands, or on chopsticks, which are shoved right next to my mouth!  Luckily, they were all wearing gloves today, which made it a little more sanitary than usual!  

 But you can't be so sure... because you never know which of the crazies are licking the cooking utensils when they think no one is looking!

Bon appetite!

Wedding crafts!

Yesterday afternoon, I got the bright idea to make fabric chopstick holders for the wedding!  We're having a great company called El Kimchi cater the wedding... Korean Tacos!  We couldn't get married without having some sort of Korean influence.  We've spent our entire relationship in the country! Granted, Korean tacos don't necessarily require chopsticks, but we're used to having them at EVERY MEAL in Korea, and we're ready to watch our American friends fumble with them like we once did!  

So, with said, I thought, 

Why not make something beautiful for them to sit in before the comedy ensues!  :)

I used left over fabric from two of the patterns I used for the wedding invitations and that will also be used to decorate the wedding!  Here's the final product, pre-ironed, FYI!

I can't imagine many people would need to know how to make these, but for any of you planning an Asia dinner, I'd encourage you to get your sewing machine out and make some pretty chopstick holders for your table setting!

First, I cut about an 8 inch by 3 inch piece of fabric.

Then, I folded it over and sewed three sides, leaving a small one open for the chopsticks to get in!

The next step is REALLY time consuming!  It's the part where you have to turn that fabric right side in, which basically means you'll have to push and pull the fabric for a good 5 minutes!  If you happen to have a guy around who wants to help while he watches basketball, take full advantage! :)  If you happen to have a chopstick to push the fabric through, it seems to help do the trick, too.

Next up was the top of the chopsticks holder!  One single fabric looks good... but two different fabrics looks BETTER in my opinion! :) Cut a long piece of fabric about 2 inches in width and turn either side up and sew along the edge.

Then cut it about 3 inches in length.

 Now it's time to put the two fabrics together.  People who "do things right" or sew all the time would probably say this was a no-no, but I happen to think Elmer's glue works just fine and it's FAST!  

Besides, it's my design, so I can say how to make it, right?!  lol

I overlapped the blue fabric to hide the unfinished green fabric.  It's a fun trick!

That's the final step!  You're finished!  

Well, that is, unless you're making them for a wedding and have to repeat, repeat, repeat 62 times!  In my opinion, it was worth the mess, tired hands, and hours of sewing, cutting and gluing!  Hope our wedding guests agree!

*** I'd probably get in trouble if I didn't mention that Aaron helped sew some of the green fabric!  I'll probably get in more trouble after I tell you that he told me he really likes sewing! ahahah! Such a sweetheart!