만세! 好哇！Hooray!

MANSAE! HAO WA! HOORAY! Chinese New Year is almost here which means that the celebrations have begun! The stores, houses and sidewalks are all decked out in red and gold. Blessing lanterns have been turned upside down to ensure that blessings will pour out during the year of the Red Monkey and red envelopes are being handed out left and right. With the New Year, comes the end of the semester! In fact, for the college students at the University next door, the semester has already ended and they have all gone home. The shop and restaurants around the University, and my apartment, are starting to close too as the owners all head back to their hometowns to celebrate the New Year with their family and friends. Because this is such a big

holiday, and most people have a month or so off from work and school, everyone travels. (Also, the traditions of this holiday involve visiting family members and close friends on certain days, so travel is often required...) So, the cost of transportation, hotels and typical tourist attractions around China tend to skyrocket! Also, everything is crowded. Planes, buses, trains, sidewalks, everything! Since, like the rest of China, we will have close to three weeks off from school, we decided to do some traveling! But, since we don't really want to travel with the crowds or pay on-season prices, we will not be traveling in China -- but in THAILAND! Woo! It will also be a nice little break from the cold( 80 degrees and sunnnnnnny)! Of all the Asian countries, Thailand is one of the ones that I know the least about, so I'm not totally sure what to expect, but that's what makes it so exciting! For the first few days, we will be traveling around the northern part exploring temples, ruins and villages and then we will be heading down south to see some national parks, spend time on the beach and maybe even do a little bit of island hopping! Yay!

Unfortunately, we still have a week before we leave for Thailand. Even more unfortunately, my students have their finals coming up (even though they're 9....). They have finals for the last week and a half of the semester and then there will be a big closing ceremony for all the students and their parents on the last day of January before everyone leaves for New Years ( 7 hours before my plane leaves for Thailand!) We weren't really aware of what the schedule was until two weeks ago when we sat down with our coteachers to talk about the end of the semester but we had assumed that we would be at school until the closing ceremony...BUT NO! While I was talking to my coteacher she explained that our finals will be done within the first few days and that we don't have to come in again until the closing ceremony. She even said "that's enough time to take another little trip! You could go to another mountain, or village or shopping!"

YES! I LIVE FOR TRIPS!

However, due to the time inbetween when my teacher told me this and when I could tell Carly, I couldn't remember her exact words so instead of "mountain, village or shopping" I believe I ended up saying something like, "Mansae!! We have enough time to go to Korea!" So, that's what we are doing. We bought plane tickets the next day. We booked a hostel. We are going to Korea. WE ARE GOING TO KOREA! I love Korea. Or at least I think I do. I'll know for sure next Tuesday when I'm frolicking down the sidewalks, eating ddukboki, singing Big Bang and using the very little Korean that I know. This is only the thing that I have been waiting for forever. This is the dream, people. This is the dream. And I cannot wait to tell you all about it when I get back! Good luck on finals kids, I'll see ya next semester!

*In recent news, school has been shut down for the past seven days because of extreme cold and snow (as I sit here typing, I can see my breath)! So, we crammed all of our oral english finals into one day and then we got the rest of the week off! The closing ceremony was pushed to February 3rd, to make up for the days lost, but unfortunately, we will already be in Thailand! Ah, well! See you in March, China!*