surprise gifts

Today was a day of gifts. The parents of the students will randomly bestow gifts on teachers—and every once in a while they will buy things for all of the teachers at the school. Today I received the following:

1) Chocolate from Jeju Island. Jeju is an island to the south of Korea. It’s a really popular vacation spot, so popular in fact, that two of my students have been there in the past week. Both of them have brought back pieces of the island’s signature chocolate for the entire class. It’s pretty amazing chocolate. There’s two layers of milk chocolate with a fruit flavor wedged in between. Both of my students brought tangerine chocolate back. Yummy! =)

2) A handful of dried noodles. My elementary class loves to eat snacks during their assignments and they always share what they’re eating with the other students and myself. Today the snack was uncooked ramen noodles with the seasoning sprinkled on. It’s not half bad, but my favorite snack that they bring is Cola flavored candy.

3) A coffee flavored popsicle. I’m not sure who this was from… someone just handed it to me when I came back from break.

And the gift to top all gifts! Drumroll please…..

4) SPAM! Every single teacher in the school received an entire case full of SPAM—complete with a handbag that says “For Your Smile: SPAM.” We were in hysterics in the teacher’s office. What are we going to do with this much SPAM? Between David and I, we have eighteen cases of the stuff! I have no idea why, but SPAM is huge here in Korea. It’s all over Lotte (the big grocery/department store we shop at). Anyway, we know what we’ll be eating for the next few months….


SPAMalicious.


Me with the ridiculously large case of SPAM.

On a terribly sad note, I think my Rainbows may be on the downhill slope of their life. I can only hope they’ll last me until Christmas when I can get back to the States and buy a fresh pair. If not… I shudder to think.