Part One: The Steph and Alison Odyssey

It's been an entire week since Steph and Alison left Korea. Work has been hectic, perhaps even more so than usual with Open House preparations and I had an obscene amount of pictures to upload so this is what prevented me from updating sooner. If you can say one thing about our visit it is definitely well documented. I'm going to try and break down the trip a bit so that it's easier to write about.

The girls arrived on Thursday night (July 26) and were doing really well considering they had minimal sleep in the previous two days. We visited and caught up a bit and then exhaustion kicked in and they fell asleep. They did well though since they made it to 9:30 and 10pm respectively. The next morning they were up at a reasonable time and were ready to go to school. They got a chance to see what a regular work day is like for me and to quote Alison, "Wow, that was a long day.". Indeed.
All the kindergarten kids were really curious about them and kept peeking around corners to get a better look. They all seemed amazed by Steph and Alison's presence. Quite a few kids were fascinated by Alison's light, curly hair in particular. They got to see me in action and how adorable and smart my kids really are. Seriously! It's no exaggeration!
They had to work a bit too though. At gym time they were treated just like any other student and had to prove their worth at our Obstacle Course of Doom. They did all right but I think some of the kids made faster times. Alison got a lot of enthusiastic high fives though.

Kindergarten ended pretty quickly and I think my Kate was especially was sad to say goodbye. The kids all really loved the little presents (chocolate and stickers) that the girls brought. And the elementary kids had a lot of fun too. They got to meet the kids they had been corresponding with over the year and were grilled by more than one class (What's your favorite color!?! Do you like Korean food? Who do you love more, Amber Teacher or your mother? Which would you rather have, friends or money?). The really amusing and colorful questions were thought of by one of my favorite kids, Robin. He sure livened up our discussion time!

To see all the pictures from Steph and Alison's day at Little Brown you can venture over here.

After school we introduced them to Korean barbeque (galbi). We took them to one of our favorite restaurants and tried to explain what all the delicious food was. I had sent both girls a set of metal chopsticks for Christmas so they would have sufficient time to prepare and practice. Alison fared all right but Steph had been a lazy student. I tried to give her a crash course but it was to no avail.
Luckily the restaurant happened to have a fork she could use.

At the restaurant we played one of my favorite pranks on the girls. I'm a bit unsure if I want to share the prank because then it won't work if anyone new comes to visit us next year. It was played on us and on our predecessors the first time we ate out at a restaurant. Basically we informed the girls that here if you leave food uneaten at the end of a meal they tally up what was left and charge you extra for the waste. This is hilarious because Koreans have endless side dishes and tons of different bowls, pots and plates of food when they have a meal and everyone shares it together.


You should have seen the brave attempt they made to try and save their hosts a few won. Hahah!




After dinner we took them to our favorite watering hole. The last time I saw my sister she was a minor so it was fun to be able to buy her a drink. Soon we had to call it a night. The girls had been very hardy but jet lag caught up to them and we needed rest for our epic day of shopping on Saturday.