Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can!

My school had its Halloween party last Friday.  After classes Thursday all the teachers stayed after work for a bit to get their rooms ready for the party the next day.  For as little time as we had to prepare our rooms they all looked pretty cool.  Friday, all the kindergarteners got to dress up in their costumes.  As you might assume just about every girl dressed up as a princess and alot of the boys were ninjas.  I decided to dress up as Spiderman.  It was quite the costume.  I got it at a halloween shop (only a few stores) in Seoul.  All of the kids absolutely loved my costume.  There was a number of activities going on during the day.  We started off the day by carving a pumpkin.  It was the first time I have carved a pumpking in a long time.  I managed to only break one knife!  In my defense the knives were quite dull! Next, we made spiders using styrofoam balls, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes.  The kids liked making these since they were able to "customize" their spider after they put it together.  During the activities a few of the classes would go around to the other classrooms and Trick or Treat.  The teachers as well as the students handed out candy to the class that came to Trick or Treat.  I believe that I ended up with more candy than I started out with because whenever I gave a kid 1 piece of candy I seemed to get 2 or 3 in return.  Toward the end of the kindergarten classes the kids got to watch the movie Monsters Inc. 

All of the teachers (North American and Korean)

Korean teachers with Spiderman!

During lunch time that day a bunch of the teachers went to get lunch and walked around our area for a little bit.  To my surprise, not as many people gave us stares or weird looks as I would have imagined.  You would think that if Spiderman, a cowboy, a panda, someone in a suit wearing a Disney World style Mickey Mouse head, and a bee would cause nearly everyone to stop in their tracks and stare.  It was funny for the people who did stare at us.  Their eyes got really big as we walked by and looked confused!  A few people stopped us to take pictures with them.  It would have been fun if the rest of our day consisted of walking around Seoul trying to amuse people.  During the afternoon classes we taught a few classes and also gave the kids candy and played some games such as Halloween bingo and pin the nose on the pumpkin.  Not as many kids dressed up in the afternoon, since the Halloween party is mostly geared toward the kindergarten kids. 

Another picture of the infamous Andy.  He was a Korean drama character from TV.  His twin brother was the exact same character!

The Hummingbirds all dressed up!

Spiderman and Spiderman Jr.

A few weeks ago I went to Bukhansan National Park to "climb" a the mountain with Emily, Ray, and Matt (co-workers of Emily).  This park was just outside of Seoul and took about an hour to get there on the subway.  The mountain is the 2nd tallest in the Seoul area (I believe) at 2,744 ft. above sea level.  If you know me then you know how afraid I am of heights.  We began to hike up the mountain which was a very good workout.  At one point the hiking got very intense as the path got steeper and steeper.  Needless to say I did not make it up to the peak!  I made it about 3/4 the way up before the heights got to me and I didn't want to try and go farther.  Word on the street (Emily) is that the hike only got harder and scarier.  She said right before the peak you literally had to hold onto either a rope or pole to hold yourself from flying over the edge and dying?  The hike itself didn't scare me since it was very wooded, but at one point there was a wide open shot of Seoul which started to freighten me.  By the way, Seoul had so much smog that you could barely see the city.  So instead of trying to climb higher I hung out the trail for awhile with Ray, he didn't want to leave there all alone.  Thanks ray!  Walking up a mountain, hill, or anywhere in Korea is always a challenge since Koreans don't have a consistent walking pattern.  They walk EVERY direction possible.  You're always dodging people as you walk anywhere.  One thing I liked about the hiking was the funny outfits Koreans wear when they hike.  They all get completely decked out.  The huge backpacks, sun visors, sunglasses, hiking shoes, ski pole looking walking sticks.  They take hiking very seriously here!  I'm surprised I didn't see any women hiking in high heels because it seems like women do everything in high heels.  Just like how men at the gym I belong to wear their golf shoes when they "lift weights". 

Stream while hiking up the mountain

Up at the top is the peak.  This is a very popular spot for rock climbing. 

Peak from a farther distance.  No way you could ever get me to go up there!

Outskirts of Seoul?  I know, I can barely see it too

Random picture of the Korean hiking attire

On another note, Emily, Cindy (Emily's co-worker), and myself just booked a trip to Thailand for winter break.  We are set to leave Christmas Day and get back on Jan 2nd or 3rd.  We don't have much planned as of yet but we plan on staying in Bangkok for a few days to see/do some of the stuff there, then head down to Phuket which is where the beach is.  I'm really excited for this trip since it will be awesome to get of the the cold weather for a week!  After going from around 65-70 degrees Saturday to 30 degrees Monday, I definately can't wait for warm weather. 

The past few weekends I have been able to not only listen to the audio but actually watch the Iowa Hawkeye games live through various websites that stream sporting events, movies, tv shows, etc.  I have no idea how they were able to pull that game out on Saturday.  I got back from celebrating Halloween Sunday morning and I found the game and they were losing by 14  I think.  On top of that I watched Stanzi throw 2 more of his 5 interceptions!  But I still stayed up and watched the rest of the game.  I can't believe they came back to win.  It was very exciting to watch!! Lets hope these last 3 games go in their favor.  It would be awesome to see Iowa in a BCS bowl game.  It's always weird watching a college football game at 1-4 a.m. here when its only the early afternoon back at home.  As long as they keep winning I won't complain! 

92 yard touchdown!