Happy Seollal (Lunar New Year)

On Friday, we all wore Hanbok (Traditional korean clothing, as seen in the picture) to celebrate Lunar New Year with the kids and take a staff picture together. Here you can see me and one of my coworkers all dolled up.  We played traiditional korean games and took pictures together.

The children were also wearing their Hanbok!  They all looked so cute.

The preschool and kindergarten children all performed an elaborate bow in front of their teachers in order to receive money and blessings for the new year. I don't have my own preschool or kindergarten class yet, but I've been team-teaching a class so I attended all of the festivities anyway.

The school also gave all of its teachers this gift set for the new year. It's one of the two biggest holidays in Korea, so companies will thank their employees with a gift set. This one includes canola oil, tuna, and Spam.  It may seem strange but Spam is super popular (and a bit expensive) in Korea, so, this is a very nice gift set.  The packaging is also nice and came with its own carrying bag.

Anyway, Lunar New Year happened to fall on Valentine's Day this year. It doesn't usually fall on the same day-- it's a bit late compared to most years. I didn't do anything in particular to celebrate, though I did have today (Monday) off.  It was nice to sit back and relax on a Monday, and it's going to be awesome to have a 4-day work week!

In bad news, my washing machine suddenly broke.  It's not a big deal in that I can easily do my laundry at a coworker's place, but it's just going to be a hassle to get it taken care of. Gonna talk to the school about it tomorrow.