One of the suggestions in the pre-Korea information package that I received from my teach-abroad agency was to bring a gift for my director because Koreans are gifty people.  So I brought some maple syrup (thanks mom), which I think was well received, and since then I've come to find that it's true, Koreans do seem to give a lot of gifts.  This has been especially demonstrated to me by the mothers of our school's students.  Every once in a while we find a box of donuts on the table in the teacher's room, from one of the parents.  And sometimes, when I come into my classroom in the morning, one of my students will come up to me with a iced coffee - which I don't usually drink, but I certainly appreciate the sentiment.  Then on more festive occasions, bigger gifts are sometimes given; I received a very nice Korean fan from a student over Christmas.  But it seems that the most popular gift to give someones teacher on these occasions is socks.  The Lunar New Year happens on February 3, which has meant that I've received 6 new pairs of good quality socks in the past week.  One pair is even a nice pink color.
  Another interesting part of Korean life is how the value they place on all things cute.  This means that even regular, everyday tools are made to be as cute as they can in Korea.  This includes cute socks, pencil cases, note books, backpacks, bags, cell phone charms, cell phone ring tones, and even pencil sharpeners.

This is the one we have at school, but I've seen much more extravagant ones.

The cuteness also extends to restaurants and cities.  On the outside of many restaurants is a cute cartoon picture of a smiling animal (duck if it is a duck place; cow if it is a beef place).  But these pictures are also very helpful to foreigners who don't know enough Korean to read the restaurant sign.  Moreover, every Korean city that I've been to has a cute slogan (interestingly always in English) and sometimes even cute little mascots that you see on a sign as you drive into the city. 

  Changing the subject, as I mentioned, the lunar new year will be starting later this week and according to wikipedia this is the most important traditional holiday in Korea.  I've never celebrated this event, so I'm interested to find out what it's like.  Tomorrow, our morning classes are going to celebrate by playing Korean games.  Then we have the rest of the week off, which I'm very much looking forward to.  I'm not sure yet what I'll spend my time doing over the break, but I'll probably be heading up to Seoul for a couple of days.  I'd like to see more museums there.  It would also be nice to get the scooter fixed.
  Changing the subject again, I've been watching a lot of the documentary series "Planet Earth" by the BBC lately.  It's awesome.  If you haven't seen it, you should.  And, I'm learning a lot about the earth's atmosphere and it's surface from the two higher level science classes that I just started teaching in the afternoon.  Whoever knew that science could be so interesting?

Thanks for reading.
Michael

P.S. : Did you hear about the baker who stopped making donuts because he got tired of the hole thing.  (chuckle chuckle).