Pepero (빼빼로) Day!

Our pepero gifts.

Giant pepero boxes; about
half our height.

A couple of weeks ago, on November 11th (11/11), Korea celebrated Pepero Day. What is pepero? The picture above shows an assortment of pepero. There are different kinds & sizes. Basically, pepero is a stick with flavor. Sometimes it's covered with chocolate flavor or strawberry or chocolate and almonds or mango or cookies & cream... and so on. Pepero Day is celebrated on this day because it is 11/11. It's the "stick" date. Our own pictures we've taken show special gift baskets &giant pepero boxes. Nicole got A LOT of pepero from her students that day. She received 3 giant sticks, a typical box of pepero, some Ferrero Rocher chocolates, & a chocolate bar from her co-teacher. John also received a box of pepero from one of his students. In short, the day is like Valentine's Day (which Korea also celebrates), but with pepero.

Pepero & teddy bear gift baskets

Entertaining clothing sign at Costco.

It feels like we've had an eventful month but we can't think of too much exciting news to share. Each weekend this month we've discovered new places; a couple of stores & a delicious brunch cafe. Other than that, we're just in our daily routine of work & workouts.

Snow outside of Nicole's classroom. The kids were thrilled.

Pikachu just roaming the
streets in downtown Daejeon.

In other news, Daejeon, Korea had it's first snow of the season! It was on November 18th. Nicole can't believe that she got a little excited. But then, after about 10 minutes she was over it. John was not excited at all because it snowed at the exact time he was walking to the bus stop to get to work. Most places it didn't stick & we haven't seen any since then which we are pleased with. It's going to be John's first winter! And Nicole's first in two years. We have prepared well so far. Maybe a few more scarves, hats, & boots to buy this weekend. It's surely going to be a long winter!

This week we hope our friends & family have a fantastic Thanksgiving Day. Eat plenty of food for us! We will both be working on Thanksgiving Day but we are planning on making some Thanksgiving comfort food this weekend to celebrate too. We will miss each & every one of you!

Jombies & Swords!

In Korea, the 'z' sound doesn't exist, so their word for zombie is actually jombie (좀비). This year, Daejeon held its first ever 5k "Daejombie Runpocalypse" on October 19th. Mostly put together by foreigners! It was to raise money for Daejeon Paws, the animal shelter here. There were 200+ people who signed up. There were 50 zombies & approximately 170 runners. Before the run got started, there were 8 of us jombies that did Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' dance to get the runners hyped up & to let the rest of the jombies to get to their zones & await their time to scare. The dance was fantastic! (See video below.) Everybody was really excited & we were all happy it went well. As you can see from pictures, the make-up was done very well too. We had so much fun that day. The race even made its way to the local news that evening!

Ninja!

Peter Pan!

So, our first Halloween costume, we were zombies. The following weekend was the big Halloween weekend. We went out with our friends to a new place called Traveler's. It's officially our new favorite place to go! That weekend, John was a Ninja & Nicole was Peter Pan. We had a lot of fun getting into sword fights with our friends Zorro & the Lumberjack (except, he had an ax). That night was a good introduction to the new bar & one of the best Halloweens we've ever had. Also, that weekend, Nicole attended a Tea Party hosted by one of her ex-coworkers. It was a lot of fun & she got to meet a few new people.

All of us with weapons ready for a throw down! (L-R: Zorro,
Peter Pan, Ninja, & Lumberjack)

Peter pan can surely take on Zorro!

Queen bee stole Lumberjack's ax & is ready for Ninja attack!

Ninja vs Zorro!

Skeleton games

Nicole made special ghost krispie
snacks for her coworkers.

Halloween day! Nicole's school had a Halloween event so all of the teachers dressed up. Nicole's 3rd Halloween costume this year was a minion (from the movies Despicable Me & Despicable Me 2). That day, Nicole learned that her students actually call that movie 'Super Bad'. That irked her quite a bit but thankfully, there were a few of students that called the movie by its actual name. It was a fun day playing games & passing out candy. The students had a lot of fun & looked adorable in their costumes.

Minion costume = success!

Happy Halloween from the foreign teachers!

Nicole's class: 4 princesses, 4 witches, Batman, & Army man

Ready for some trick-or-treating!

We saw Thor: The Dark World on Halloween night... it was amazing!

Having fun at Traveler's

After our Halloween weekends, we had a friend's birthday to celebrate. We returned to Traveler's & managed to get some food this time! We got fried pickles!! And some bacon & cheese fries. All of us are beyond excited about this place. We see many dinners happening there in the future.

Seoul Lantern Festival

We also went to Seoul to see one of John's old friends. Someone he hasn't seen in 6 years! He was in the country for business & had Saturday evening & Sunday free. We went out to see the Seoul Lantern Festival on Saturday night & then to Western Bar. We had other things planned but we made friends with the bartender & found a moose we named Stanley. On Sunday we all visited the Namsan Seoul Tower. The Teddy Bear Museum was updated from the last time we went. Of course, there was a Psy teddy bear... that was hilarious.

Seoul Lantern Festival

It was warm!

We loved the warm ball

So many beautiful lanterns- bummed we didn't
have a good camera.

N Seoul Tower again!

The Teddy Bear Museum updates; Christmas at Lotte Dept Store

O-World!

K-Pop

PSY!

Observation Deck: It was a little foggy, but still a beautiful day.

This time we added a "love locket" to the plenty.
"We'll never be royals" is what we wrote, due to
it being stuck in our head.

Other side! Can't wait to go back one more time
& find it!

Potato swirl!

Walking around in Myeongdong & we found this. Shows
currencies of 44 different countries.

An interesting building we saw

We are exhausted after this crazy month & hope to relax for a little while in November before things get crazy in December!

By the way, due to the time change, we are now 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time & 15 hours ahead of Central Standard Time.

Thanks for reading!

International Food & Wine Festival (and more)

We've been living in South Korea for almost 7 months now! These last couple of weeks have been crazy busy & the craziness shall continue throughout October. But we're very excited about this because it mostly has to do with Halloween!

Birthday boy!

Yummy cake!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated John's 27th birthday. He mostly celebrated by eating copious amounts of meat. Nicole made him delicious burgers on the day of his birthday & we went out with a few friends to one of our favorite Korean barbecue buffet restaurants. Our friends also got him a yummy chocolatey ice cream cake. That was a nice surprise. We all enjoyed devouring it in our own private room at a bar. It was a great 27th. Also, special thanks to John's family for sending 2 giant bags of gummy bears!! :)

GUMMY BEARS!

Food display... don't touch!

Exactly one week after John's birthday was a Korean holiday: National Foundation Day (개천절 - Gaecheonjeol). Because it was a holiday we got the day off! Also on this day began the 4-day long International Food & Wine Festival. That Thursday it was open from 1pm to 6pm. We arrived just after one o'clock. When we got there we got wine glasses for the both of us, $3 each, & then entered into the glorious madness. Inside there were booths set up for each country to display & serve wine. We first saw Australia & New Zealand. Only managed to get a couple of Australian samples because the lines for New Zealand were already 5 minutes long. We walked around some more & tasted wines from Germany, Japan, Italy, Austria, France, Hungary, Czech Republic, & more. Our favorite wines came from Germany & Japan. We tried a Mozelwein from Germany. It was very crisp & sweet. We also really enjoyed the rice wine we tasted from Japan. Later in the day we went back to both of those booths but they were closed.

So many Australian booths!

Much love for the Kiwi wine!

Christmas wine!

More food display

After going around to all of the booths, we went to another section. It was a large area full of shelves with wine. It was self-serve. Nicole found a Spanish wine she absolutely loved: Estrella Frizzante Vino de Aguja. We remember this because the bottle ended up coming home with us. Around 3:30 we decided to get some food. There were many choices but the food wasn't free. We ended up eating a whole deep fried (twice) chicken. It was worth the 20 minute wait. After that, we ventured back into the self-serve wine area & drank some more. We ran into a few more friends & by 4:30 it was packed with people. It was impossible to move without touching someone. We ran into some more friends & sort of made new ones. At 6:00 it was time to leave. We left the building but were talking with people in the parking lot for almost another half hour. When we left that, someone was selling some light-up toys that caught our eyes. John got a sword & Nicole got a wand. Then we had to ride our bikes for 25 minutes to home. It was an interesting ride. It was a fantastic day. Probably one of the best days we've had!

Nicole's favorite

Beautiful wine display, Japan.

Bike riding over the bridge after work

Soju, Beer, Whisky, & BODKA?

We don't understand... these
signs were EVERYWHERE.

Nicole's kids on Sports Day. Go Red Team!

Such a beautiful day.

A couple of days later (on Saturday), Nicole's school had "sports day". It's a big event every year. This year it was in a large grassy area right next to the river. From 1-5 the kids were playing. There were a couple of people there to coordinate games & activities for the kids & their parents. We were even in a race for our team. There was red team & white team. One of the last events was a team race. For each team there were 2 male students, 2 female students, a male teacher, a female teacher, a mom, & a dad. We both ran for our red team. It was a long, but fun day. After it was over we all went to dinner at Shabu Cook (paid for by the owner of the school). We weren't very hungry after all of the food that was given to us from snack time but it was a free dinner... & a delicious one!

At H&M in Cheonan. It took a few
looks before we saw the first 'S'

Burger King logo on the
ceiling. It changed colors too.

This past week Korea had another holiday on the 9th - Hangul (한글) Day, celebrating their language. We spent the day shopping with a few of Nicole's coworkers so that we could get John some clothes! He was in desperate need of new pants. At the end of the day he had 2 new pairs of jeans, a pair of workout shorts, a nice button up shirt, & 2 long sleeve shirts. Nicole got a couple of shirts too & part of her Halloween costume for work. It was a successful day of shopping.

Interesting art

Later that evening we had dance practice. Yes, dance practice. We are both going to be participating in the Thriller dance for the 5k Zombie Run happening on October 19th. Nicole had never been to any of the practices before so she had to learn the dance all in one day! But she managed & that night we all did the whole dance together! It was pretty awesome. Now we just have to keep practicing until we get it down. Now less than a week until the run! We will also be doing it for the Halloween party at one of the foreigner bars & possibly again on Halloween night. We're having a lot of fun.

He had a great day.

Happy Birthday to this
awesome student!

Went to watch the sunrise on Expo Bridge. This is Smart City.
Oct. 12

Panoramic

Hello, sun!

Yesterday we went & discovered new territory - a beautiful place called Techno Valley. It's just north of the city we currently live in. We've discussed working & living there next year. (Don't worry, we still plan on returning to the states before we sign on for another year of teaching). There are several English schools there & it's a smaller community, thus a much cleaner one. We walked around for a couple of hours & enjoyed everything we saw. We are going to actively try to make connections there & see what we can find.

Thanks for reading!