Happy Birthday to me!

I kind of celebrated my birthday last weekend, but I still had a pretty great "birthday week" this week.

First of all the remains of the cake my co-workers bought me - "We *heart* Teresa".

Here's some of my birthday stash - I told my parents I didn't want a birthday present but they still sent me a little package with a Dr Who DVD (with my favourite Doctor - Tom Baker!), a very patriotic passport cover and luggage tag and a kite (flax bag). The package also came with some chocolate from home. My youngest brother Jake also sent me an awesome package of chocolates.From Rich I recieved a little craft kit, a Kuromi hairclip and an Alice in Wonderland style necklace.Here's a close up of the necklace, it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland but my co-workers said "Oh! Romantic Style!".
From my friend Nilanka back home in New Zealand I recieved these really great cookie cutters - they are kind of hard to see in the picture but one is of New Zealand and one is of a kiwi. I really love them but we don't have an oven - however - I do have plans to make something with them later this week. Stay tuned to find out what.I also recieved some goodies from my friend Dani in Korea - some girly stuff from the Faceshop (I can get enough of these Korean body and beauty stores) and some headbands.
From the 3rd Grade English teacher at my school a box of "bows" and a lip gloss - she knows me so well! (actually I teach her twin sons and they told her that "Teresa Teacher likes hair bows"). I also got some foundation from co-teacher Jiyoun but I couldn't get a good photo of that.Finally, here's all my treats from my students! One of my students even bought me a bottle of Elizabeth Arden green tea perfume - well he actually admitted his mum choose it but still it's a very generous present.




After school on my birthday day Rich and I went out for dinner but it was so hot again we just ended up eating popping su again and having a look around the shops in Uijeongbu.

International Snack Swap

I've just recieved a package for what is likely to be my last swap for a while (until we are settled in Taiwan). The theme of the swap was an International Snack Swap, I was paired with a partner from the US and here's the package she sent me which is pretty incredible.

First up some Mexican treats - some look really great but some I am a little scared of as I think they will be really spicy!
Then the treats from the US - so many things! I remeber eating pop rocks once when I was a kid and looking forward to trying them again.
These are all the snacks left in the box after I took the photo's! My partner was really generous.
Finally a little snack pouch - she totally understands my style - cute skulls and glittery fabric.
Finally some "mac & cheese" this is something all my friends from the US seem to talk about - I am going to give this one to Joseph. I hope he likes it.

Impressive birthday present

I received a whole bunch of great birthday presents this year from my friends, family, workmates, Rich and even my students.

But the most impressive birthday present I received was a new job in Taipei!

Just last week one of the recruiters I have been dealing with in Taiwan told me that Taipei is too competitive and I wouldn't get a job there before I arrived, so I was feeling a little disheartened as I really wanted to live in the greater Taipei area.

Then when I opened my e-mails yesterday I discovered that I had received a job offer from one of the two big language schools in Taiwan in Taipei!

So it's happy birthday to me! I'll have more birthday related posts soon.

Happy Friday everybody xoxox

My Korean Birthday!

My co-teacher Jiyeon got a little confused and thought that today was my birthday and not tomorrow.

So she organised a cake and presents for me today. She used the excuse I had to go to the fifth grade teachers room for a "meeting" about classes and when I got there all the fifth grade teachers were there with cake.

But it actually worked out well - if today was actually my birthday I would have suspected she was up to something but as today is the day before my birthday I had no idea!

Mr Moon, our music teacher and technology lover took some video of my grand entrance into the teachers room! Here it is!

Fortieth Film - Night of the Hunter

I am finally making some progress with my "110 films in 2010" as I am now up to film number forty!

Rich had already seen this film before on the big screen with Joseph and I hope sometime I will have the chance to see it on the big screen too.

In this film, Harry Powell is a rouge who spends his time finding down and out widow's with money hidden away somewhere. He marries the widow and dispatches with her and runs off with the loot. All whilst posing as a preacher that everyone in the film seems to be rather taken with. He is honestly one of the most despicable characters I've ever seen on screen - you really don't like this guy and want him to get what's coming to him.

Whilst in prison, he meets a man whose on death row for killing two people and stealing $10,000 (which I imagine would have been a huge amount of money in 1951).

The man he's met in prison hid the money before he was arrested and only his children know where the money is - his wife has no idea.

Upon his release from prison Harry Powell decides to find the grieving widow, Willa Harper and her two children Pearl and John. His plan is to marry Willa and of course take off with the loot. The whole town is transfixed with this preacher man and almost immediately he is married to Willa.

Things go pretty much down hill for the Harper family from here, Willa doesn't know where the money is so Harry spends most of his time bullying the children to find out where it is - whilst Pearl holds a soft spot for the "preacher", John remains loyal to his dead father and insists that he and Pearl keep their father's secret.

Ironically the money that was stolen by the children's father is inside the doll that Pearl carries everywhere with her - meaning the money is literally under Harry's nose the whole time.

Eventually, being the rouge his is, Harry gets tired of finding out the location of the money the "nice" way and decides to kill Willa and claim she's run away. Leaving everyone in town feeling sorry for him having to raise two children on his own.

Without their mother's protection, John decides it's time to make a run for it. After a chase the children manage to get away from Harry by travelling down stream in a skip.

The film appears to be set in the depression era, where I assume many children were abandoned by parents who could no longer care for them. With this in mind, John and Pearl travel through rural area's sleeping where they can and finding food wherever they can get it.

However, finally they are found by Miss Cooper, who is officially one of my favourite female characters in a film.

There are so many films with weak female characters who don't know how to get along in the world without men.

Miss Cooper is the exact opposite of that - she is already looking after three children when John and Pearl arrive and has no problem taking on two more, as she says during the film about the new additions to her brood, "I'm a strong tree with branches for many birds. I'm good for something in this world and I know it too".

The rest of the film revolves around Harry trying to get the children (or money) and Miss Cooper trying to save them.

This is a much longer review than I usually write for a film but I simply loved Night of the Hunter, I won't say how it ends thought, because you're going to watch it and find out how truly beautiful and amazing it is for yourself!

Is it a tiger? Is it a bunny?

The answer is...it's both! Awesome street art in Hongdae.

Deer, Hello Kitty & an aquarium

Last Saturday, I went out with Rich and my friend Val for a pre-birthday birthday day out in Seoul.

I had a really great day - unfortunatly Val couldn't stay long as she was taking part in an AIDS fundraising treasure hunt. But it was still great to see her.

We started the day out in Seoul forest, we started out with a morning tea in a part of the forest where a garden was made from the foundations of an old building. I really liked this idea of a rugged urban garden.



Later on when we were walking around we found a playground, a pond a fountain and lots of carp.



We also found some deer at the park! That's right deer in Seoul! This city never ceases to amaze me.

When we arrived we saw some children feeding the deer and we wanted to feed them as well but weren't sure where to buy the food from. We walked around near the deer enclosure and found our answer - you buy deer food from the deer food vending machine (of course!).





After some amazing times in Seoul forest it was time to head to Hongdae, first of all we had to visit Soho travel to apply for our visa's to Vietnam *EXCITING*. We will be flying to Hanoi on July 27!

Next it was time for lunch and seen as it was my pre-birthday celebration I decided we should eat Mexican food. There's not a whole lot of Mexican food in Korea and you sure can't get Mexican food in Uijeongbu! So I figured it's my almost birthday - let's eat Mexican food.Next up was somewhere I have been wanting to go FOREVER! The Hello Kitty Cafe in Hongdae. This place is decorated with everything pink and Kitty and super girly. I'm pretty lucky that Rich is the kind of guy willing to go to a Hello Kitty cafe to make me happy, although sometimes he must feel like he is living in Hello Kitty Hell.




I also bought a brand new Kitty themed charm bracelet at the Hello Kitty store - it's super Kaiwaii cute!We finished up the day with a trip to Sea World which is the aquarium in the 63 building. I have now been to three aquarium's in Korea and this one is at the bottom of the list. I felt a little sad for the turtle and the penguin's - they really didn't seem to have much space.

It's also a very small area for people and a large school group was standing behind us in line, when we got in there it was really packed.

I didn't dislike this aquarium but if you're in Seoul and want to go to an aquarium I would recommend visiting the one at COEX and not the one in the 63 building.