China, India, and Avatar land...

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

-Aristotle

     So after I said goodbye to Seoul, I boarded a 6 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then a 1 hour flight to Singapore.  Singapore was the last of the East/Southeast Asian countries I needed to visit.  I only had about 15 hours in Singapore, but it was a great 15 hours!  My first stop after arriving was the Gardens By the Bay.  This is a huge park with botanical gardens and greenhouses, but my purpose for going was to see the Supertree Grove!  These "trees" are made of concrete but have plantings all along the "trunk."  They are between 82 and 160 ft tall.  At night there is a light and music show, unfortunately I was to late to see the show but I was able to see them lit up and it was magical!

The building that sort of looks like a surfboard behind the tree is the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  If you saw the new movie, "Crazy Rich Asians" it was filmed in Singapore and this hotel was featured. 

Singapore is a super diverse country.  It has a mixture of people from China, India, Malaysia, and many other places which means the food is all the best things taken from those places and mixed together!  On the right is a merlion statue.  These statues are everywhere and are the symbol of Singapore. 

After walking around until midnight, I found my hostel and slept for a couple of hours before waking up at 7:00 to get some more sightseeing in.  I hate waking up early but wanted to get in as much as I could before I had to get back to the airport at 11:00. 

In all the cities I have visited in Asia, I have loved the colonial architecture! These are all old shophouses.  Today they are used for all sorts of businesses and houses.  Its so strange to see a 7eleven in such a beautiful and historic building.

My hostel was in the chinatown district of Singapore.  This temple apparently has part of one of Buddha's teeth inside.

After my walk around Chinatown, I decided to visit the neighborhood of Little India.

It was a crazy couple of hours but I am so glad I was able to see a little bit of what Singapore has to offer.  Since this is the end of my adventures in Asia, I have started a new blog to chronicle my next year in Australia.  Please register to get email updates from my new blog!  Here is the link: The Land of Deadly Animals

  

When one door closes...

"There is no real ending.  It's just the place where you stop the story."

- Frank Herbert

     Today is my final day teaching and living in South Korea.  Even writing that sentence is crazy.  I have lived and taught here for three years.  Words cannot describe the countless experiences and adventures I have had while being here.  In the past three years I have visited 17 countries and have taught close to 1,000 students.  I didn't think I would be sad to leave.  I'm ready and I have a new adventure awaiting.  But like the quote says, this is the end of this story and it was a really really good story.  

Last week I was invited to have dinner at the school's receptionists house.  Helen is in the back on the right, her daughter (Liana) was in my kindergarten class last year.  Helen has been like a loving aunt to me these past two years and I don't know what I would have done without her.  As well in this picture, the first one on the left, is Sue Teacher.  She is the manager at the school, but that title does nothing to describe all she does.  This woman even took me to a gynecologist appointment because I needed a translator.  She is that amazing!

The baby on the left is Leo.  He is the son of one of the school's Korean teachers.  He wanted nothing to do with me.  The baby on the right is Helen Teacher's niece.  She of course loved me by the end of the night. 

See very different reactions to being held by me.

Oddly enough this was my first time being in a Korean family's apartment.  The foreign teachers and Korean staff usually pretty much keep to themselves.  I am so glad that we were able to bridge that gap or I would have missed out on so many things! They told me this is very Korean.  Set up some newspaper on the living room floor and grill some meat!

I still don't know what to say about how I'm feeling leaving this class.  I have enjoyed teaching them and they have far surpassed my expectations.  However, they are very similar to me so we are not very emotionally attached.









I am however emotionally attached to escape rooms and am so sad to have finished my last one last week! For those of you who do not know what an escape room is its a game where you are locked in a room and have to solve puzzles and find clues to get out.  They have these in the US but Korea's rooms are on a whole other level.  The one we did last weekend was casino themed and we actually had a roulette and blackjack dealer in the room with us and we had to win certain amount of money before we could move on.

Instead of my replacement teacher taking my apartment, Donna, one of the current teachers, is.  We moved all of her furniture and things in over the weekend.  Its so weird that it is definitely not my space anymore.

I ended my last week with a field trip to a kids amusement park called DinoStar.  The kids were in love and it was so fun seeing them run and play.  How cute are my little bad boy with the backwards baseball hat and his little girlfriend holding hands?  On the right is the most clever kid I have ever taught.  However he is also the kid who has given me the most headaches.  

Wednesday was the start of my goodbyes.  I have only taught this class since February but they quickly became my favorite.  These four are so fun and we discussed so many things.  Teaching is such a joy when the kids take joy in learning. 

This was a journal written by Bella, one of the students in the photo above.  This almost made me cry, but I held it together. 

I know I said the last class was my favorite but these two (and the three other students in this class that were absent) are a close second.  The girl on the right, Yeji, has been in my main class since I started at ILS.  She was so sweet and made a clay sculpture of me for a goodbye present.

So Thursday, I had to say goodbye to two of my favorite students from last year's kindergarten class.  We hugged and said goodbye and I left.  Everything was great until I walked in the office and opened YuJin's present, and then I started sobbing.  

She made me a picture book of our time together.  A whole book of field trips, holidays, and life together.   I walked back to her classroom for one more hug and then she started sobbing, and we were a mess together.  Going into moving to Korea, I never imagined that these tiny little people would have had such a huge impact on my life.  I mean I am not a crier, I never cry.  Yet somehow these little people have turned me into a crier.

This makes it look like my Sea Lions cared that I was leaving but trust me they didn't.  I forced hugs and then they said bye and were on their merry way. 

And what is a final meal in Korea without Ogipsal? I don't know anywhere else in the world where an entire meal is made up of  chunks of barbecued meat and thats it.  

This has been a crazy ride, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I am extremely anxious but also excited for the next part of my story with a whole new setting and cast of characters! I'm hoping this next part is just as exciting as the last!