Hand, foot and mouth disease and North Korean missiles!

Anneong ha sey yo! Hello again from this side of the world! Well, its the longest day of the year here today - the shortest day for you guys in the Southern hemisphere! So, how was the longest day of the year you ask? Well, nothing special, except for the fact that there is a disease going around the school! After noticing that a kid was missing from my class- I found him in the computer room - along with a few other kids..apparently in 'Isolation'. Dennis (Korean teacher) told me that they were all showing symptoms of a contagious disease which we've found out is known as 'Hand, foot and mouth disease'! No relation to the actual foot and mouth disease, dont worry! Its apparently a common disease amongst kids here - adults cant get it! The kids get ulcers in their mouths and spots on their hands and feet..there is no medicine, so they've just got to sit it out for 10 days or so. So..good news for us..less kids to teach for the next few days! Just a football update: Korea and France drew their match. They're playing Switzerland on Friday. We have now been told that Wonderland is having an 'Open day' for the parents at the end of the month. so basically..all the parents come to school with their parents!HELP!!!!!!!!!! Basically, we, the foreign teachers are on show - we r going to be 'running' the whole day, and the korean teachers are just going to be there as 'helpers'! So, Rich is going to be doing 'lego' and this thing called 'Gabe' with his classes (Gabe is where the kids use plastic shapes, blocks, sticks etc to make shapes or words. )I have to make peanut butter and 'jelly' (Jam!) sandwiches with my classes and get them to memorise the 'recipe'! David is doing art and craft, and Michael is doing a kind of toy shop with the kids. So wish us luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets hope the kids behave with their parents sitting next to them! Just think, we even have to be nice to the REALLY bad kids..someone better get this on camera! Yes, they are phasing all the Korean teachers out..they hope to do it by the end of the year..at the moment there are 4 korean teachers and 4 foreign teachers..so hopefully by the end of the year there'll be 4 more foreigners around, which will be great! Sue, one of the Korean teachers, is leaving at the end of next week already - shes going to do a course in Canada. And Kim is hoping to take a couple of years off - she wants go to South Africa and do her masters. She has a degree in English. Yay..David found us some steaks at GS Square (one of our local supermarkets)!YAYYY! Meat here is really expensive, but GS Square puts their steaks at 50% off when they are near their expiry..and they are HUGE steaks!Oh, by the way.. Koreans dont eat much meat (obviously cos it is a bit pricy!), so the milk has extra protein added to it. So Rich made us a DELICIOUS steak with mushrooms and melted cheese ..and of course, a fried egg too! So, has anyone heard the news of the planned North Korean long-distance missile launch??! Its been all over the news..cos North Korea says its a test launch, but obviously the Americans are now really worried about whether the missile will actually be real, and heading straight for them! They say that North Korea is aiming the missile at the US- so apparently Bush is ready to shoot it down!!! But South Korea isnt worried about it, they say its nothing new for them, -cos North Korea apparently has missiles aimed at the South permanently!! How scary is that???!!! Its crazy to think that a country like North Korea even exists! South Korea was just on the latest episode of the Amazing Race here, and they showed part of the DMZ at the border - huge army tanks etc driving around, huge electrified fences etc..and thats not even 100km away from us!!! So, we 've just finished Pajama day!! THANK GOODNESS! So, after being told we should wear pyjamas (DID I HEAR RIGHT>>THEY WANTED US TO WEAR PYJAMAS???!!)..we politely refused, and came to school in our normal clothes, but the kids had fun anyway! Rich got the job of the 'Scary movie'(!)- which I'm sure he secretly enjoyed! Scaring the kids so much that some of them burst into tears, and Cornell (the class of 7 year olds!)- were so scared that Rich had to stop it all and turn the lights on! You see, Kim bought a tent which we set up in the one classroom, and the kids had to sit in there and watch the movie in the pitch dark, and she even gave Rich a mask to wear (you know like the one from the movie 'Scream'!)....! Revenge is sweet!I had the cooking class with Sue (korean teacher) and we made 'dalgonas' - a traditional korean sweet which is basically just melted sugar and baking powder..comes out like honeycomb. We also made crumpets with sweet bean paste..I guess they dont have syrup here!!!!! Oh, by the way, the bean paste is disgusting! But the kids love it! So Michael and Dennis (korean teacher) got to do the 'pillow fighting'! Quite fun to see the kids use up some of their energy constructively!!!! And David got to do Nursery Rhymes - sorry Dave - but we know how much you love singing!!!!!! The other korean teachers ..sally and jessica, did the beauty shop..so all the kids were walking around with make up on (even the boys!)..and even cute Daniel from Berkeley got to wear a wig as big as him! So we tried to recover from pajama day by going out to dinner - tried another restaurant behind our apartment block -but it turned out to be a mostly a 'cold noodle' restaurant - the noodles weren't bad..although they came in a bowl with ice!!! So after deciding that we couldnt eat another mouthful of them - we headed for another restaurant -we decided on the chinese restaurant up the road - but the prices on the menu were like minimum R120 for a plate, so Rich pulled a good one and asked the waitress where Sushi was on the menu - knowing that Chinese dont eat Sushi - so the waitress politely directed us to a Japanese restaurant! Which of course we skipped - cos we didnt actually want Sushi..we were just trying to escape!! Good one Rich! Instead we tried another Korean place where we had a kind of bulgogi (meat) barbeque again -it was really nice, but not at all filling for Rich again! Well, thats all our news from this side! Trying to plan our summer vacation - we were thinking of Japan, but that country is SOOO overpriced - a 3 hour bus ride costs no less than R1000! So maybe Taiwan is the place to go cos we're going to Japan anyway in Winter. Hope you guys are all well! keep the news coming and hope you all have a GREAT weekend! Lots of love, us!