Indian Buffet in Itaewon

YUM YUM!

Today we went to the Taj Palace Indian Restaurant in Itaewon. It is an all you can eat buffet. We stuffed ourselves with butter chicken, piping hot garlic naan, tandoori chicken, chana masala, lamb curry, vegetable curry, raijta, and more. It is SO SO good. The meat slivers apart with your spoon in all the rich hot (and sometimes spicy) sauces. We love Indian food and we can't wait until we actually get to go to India and eat our fill. Until then, Sunday buffets at the Taj Palace keep us happy.


After lunch we stopped by the English book store (called What The Book, haha) to grab some new reading material and then we popped into the foreign food market. Lo and behold, they had Ken's Steakhouse Ranch Dressing! REAL Ranch Dressing! I mean, sure, it's not Hidden Valley, but after 7 months of no savory dressings (only sweet or spicy here) we were ecstatic. We also picked up some frozen green beans, olive oil, and Ritz crackers. Tonight we snacked on carrot sticks and ranch and it made us smile.


We are happy that tomorrow is a holiday and we get another three day weekend. It's supposed to rain so we figure we will stay in and watch movies and be cozy :)

Movie Time With MAG5

Today we took my fifth grade class on a field trip! We all went to the movies and watched "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief". It is a movie about a teenage boy who is a demi-god; his father is Poseidon. Someone has stolen Zeus's lightning bolt and Percy must find out who it is and return it before the Gods break out in war and destroy the Earth. I was surprised to see such big name actors in it as Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, and Rosario Dawson. It was a visually stunning movie with lots of special effects. It was a lot of fun for the boys to watch the characters battle Harpies, The Minotaur, The Hydra, Medusa and Hades himself.


After the movie the director took us all to Kraze Burger and we had dinner together. One of my students (who ate two bins of popcorn AND nachos during the movie) ordered a burger AND a chicken sub sandwich. We goofed on him as we sat, slightly amazed, and watched him eat EVERYTHING, even his friends' chili cheese fries when they couldn't finish. It was funny though, watching him attempt to fit the gigantic chicken sandwich in his mouth.


We had a lot of fun with the kids and it was a great Saturday evening. Tomorrow we are off to Itaewon to check out the foreign food market...we heard they had sour cream and ranch dressing. We haven't had ranch dressing in seven months.

Pine graduation

Today was our kindergarten graduation. All of our students and parents came to school and we had a nice little ceremony. We started in our classrooms, taking pictures with all the families. Then we had the children give their graduation speeches. We've been working on them for quite some time now. I was so proud of my students, my kids - they did such a GREAT job with their memorized speeches. They spoke loudly and clearly and even though they were nervous with all the parents there they did excellent jobs. I'll post a few of my favorites - but I will have to edit them down to little clips of their speeches, EACH kid had a 2 minute or more speech :)









Then, we all went into the library and we had the graduation ceremony. The kindergarten teachers each gave a speech and then the director handed out diplomas to all of them. We took pictures with the new "grads" and the parents gave their kids bouquets of flowers. Then the children all sang a song for us and after that was more pictures.


I managed not to cry, although I really wanted to - I'm sad that I won't get to spend my mornings with them. No more special art classes with my little ones, no more writing lessons or phonics classes with them. Come Tuesday I will have a whole new bunch of babies to teach and play with. I am sure that I will be happy with all of my new kinder kiddies, but I will miss my original nine. I AM happy though, because today I found out that I will be an S1-1 teacher (our highest level of first grade) in the new semester, so I will have a good chance of teaching most of my kinder kiddies again!

Mmmmmm Burritos!

Nick and I woke up to a sunny day and all the snow was melting off the ground. Lounging in our pj's, we munched on some oranges while deciding where to go for lunch. I asked Nick what he wanted and he answered, "Burritos!"


So that's what we did. We took the 1000 bus into Seoul and went to Tomatillo, a Mexican restaurant that is reminiscent of Chipotle's in the US. After a thirty minute bus ride we got to the restaurant. We were HUNGRY and ordered ourselves some carne asada burritos with extra sour cream and a platter of nachos with chili and cheese. It was DELICIOUS!! This place is by far the best Mexican food we've had in Korea. Not to say that it is the best Mexican food we've ever had (living in California has made us privy to some AMAZING Mexican cuisine) - but in a country that specializes in bulgolgi and not in burritos, Tomatillo makes us very happy.




We munched through our loaded burritos and very tasty nachos and then walked down to City Hall to grab the subway over to Yongsan. We did some more pricing for our potential camera purchase and then headed back on home to Hwajung. We watched "Men Who Stare At Goats" which is an amusing movie with some great actors in it. It was a nice way to spend our afternoon. For dinner I made spinach curry loaded with veggies. All in all another great Saturday.

Last few days with my kids...

Well, I figured I'd grace this blog with my presence and write a post, seeing that Marie is pretty much the only writer in these parts, nowadays. Since I've got about a week left until my kids are movin' on up to the big-boy land they call kindergarten, I wanted to get some final pictures of them all as a class. Lucky for me, I'll be a kindergarten teacher next semester, so I'll probably be teaching a good portion of them anyways. But it's still nice to get some photos of all of them together every now and then.

They both had a birthday this month, so we celebrated today. Marie was making them giggle by making funny faces. I love it!

I, too, was trying to make them giggle. It appeared to work. My face = nice!

More excellent work by Marie getting them to be cute for the camera!

Ahh, little birthday girl.

Learning that balloons have static electricity, thus raising hairs.

He's so smart, and so adorable.

The other birthday girl - beyond cute! I love her smile!

This is one of the newer girls, she just got here a few weeks ago. She's fitting in quite well!

He's a goofball, who oh-so-rarely smiles. This is one of the closest I'll get to an on-camera grin.

Another photo-shy kid. He was playing a little game called cover-the-face-while-Mr. B-takes-pictures. Luckily, I was able to outsmart this 5 year old (barely) and catch a shot when he looked up.

I love this kid. Always full of smiles, loves to be tickled.

Me and quite possibly the cutest kid of all time, ever.

Here she is again. Her little glasses are adorable! And she is super smart to boot. It has been such a pleasure having her in my class. She is the sweetest child, and always has such a positive attitude. I never see her without a smile!

It was tough getting a shot of this one too! She's a bit shy of the camera.

Another one of my favorites. It's getting harder and harder to declare favorites, because I really do love them all. She is especially cute and funny though. Her personality is a riot, and she has some great expressions.

Here's a little video of the class in action. Nothing too special, it's just fun to see how they all interact with each other. Plus, when they don't think you're taking a picture, they get much more relaxed.

I'm gonna miss the ones I don't get to teach next semester!

A Lazy Monday Off

Happy Lunar New Year!

Today we celebrated a glorious day off...with lots of oranges. Our director kindly gave us each wonderful New Year's presents - cases of oranges. Together we have over 100 oranges!


We kept it very comfortable today and had a relaxing day off. We decided to only leave the house to take a nice little stroll down the street to grab a new Starbucks orange honey latte and some absolutely delicious snacks from Paris Baguette. Paris Baguette is a bakery that makes fantastic little treats, from sweet breads and cakes to stuffed pizza breads, sausage croissants, and potato egg salad with ham and cheese toast. They also make the best curry chicken croquettes I have ever tasted. We munched on tasty treats and did some laundry. It was nice to relax and have a bit of a breather after such a hectic work schedule.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to all our family and friends!

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. Nick picked out a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me and we had a dinner date at a fancy foodie's paradise. The restaurant is called Ahndamiro. We stumbled upon it one day many many months ago. It is a gorgeous (and very very good, which is surprising in Korea) Italian restaurant in Insadong, one of our favorite districts in Seoul. We got all dressed up and had a lovely time. I even went out and bought a new dress - a silver and french blue silk handkerchief dress :). We took a cab into Seoul and walked up the charming stone path that led to the restaurant's doors.


We had five courses of amazing food and enjoyed the immaculately romantic interior design. We took pictures of everything but due to the low lighting the photos are a little dark, so please bear with us. Our table was tucked into a little corner behind the amazing candlelit stairwell. The stairwell had silver butterflies attached to it and the glow from the candles bathed all the amazingly ornate flower arrangements and wrought iron details of the decor in a soft, warm light. It was really beautiful.


We ordered a bottle of wine and nibbled on fresh ciabatta bread, sunflower seed and walnut mixed grain bread, and roasted garlic bread. Then our first course was brought out. It was a delicious pea and pumpkin soup with cracked pepper. It came in these sweet little ceramic pots that kept the soup piping hot down to the last spoonful.


Next came a caprese salad with large slices of fresh tomato and pesto topped mozzarella. There were also thick slices of melon wrapped in thinly sliced proscuitto. The moist and sweet melon was perfectly paired with the salty ham. It was a great insalata.


The third course was the pasta course. We had lobster tails on top of a bed of spaghetti with a garlic tomato cream sauce. Fresh parsley and olive oil were drizzled over the plate. Each course was better than the last! The presentations were beautiful and the blending of flavors were very well done. We REALLY enjoyed the lobster, as you can see from the photo of Nick digging in, hahaha.



Then a very zesty lemon sorbet was brought out to cleanse our palettes before the carne course. Nick LOVED the tartness of the sorbet. For our main dishes, I chose a beef tenderloin with fois gras and roasted rosemary potatoes. The tenderloin was perfectly cooked, grilled to perfection on the outside and warm and pink on the inside. It was smothered in a peppercorn and currant merlot sauce with whole roasted garlic cloves and sauteed mushrooms. I couldn't have asked for a better meal! Nick was also incredibly pleased with his choice - a spiced seared salmon fillet on top of tomato risotto with capers and oven roasted tomatoes in a lemon cream sauce. We have had so much amazing food in Korea but it was nice to go back to "foodie" fare. It reminded us how much we love the fine dining culture of San Francisco and while we have loved eating in our bulgolgi houses there is something equally satisfying about a fancy several course feast.




After we soaked up the last remnants of delicious sauces from our plates our table was cleared and dessert was brought to us. Our dolce indulgence was sweet potato cheesecake with fudge and raspberry sauces adorning the plate. Nick had coffee with his cheesecake, I had black tea with cream. After filling ourselves with tasty cheesecake we sat and savored the rest of our wine as we simply enjoyed each others' company.


After our wonderful evening with each other we took the subway back home. We are very happy not only because we had such a pleasant evening but also because we do not have to go to work tomorrow! As many of you know, it is Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) and our school has a three day weekend. We are looking forward to having the extra day off to relax!


If you'd like to check out the restaurant's website, you can go here: http://www.ahndamiro.com/

It is in both Korean and English and is a truly beautiful website. It also has the restaurant's full menus and some interesting information on the interior design and creators of the restaurant. If you are ever in Seoul and want a fantastic date place, this is our recommendation!