Goodbye Omni

Leaving our students at Omni was really difficult since we had taught most of them for a year and a half. We had developed relationships with these kids and knowing that we would probably never see them again after coming home was so sad. Our last couple of days at Omni were filled with pizza parties, games, group pictures, and some adorable presents from the kids.

Pizza party with the sixth graders!

Sixth graders Jamie and Clara...with Brenda peeking around them in the back.

Frank enjoying some pizza with his sixth graders.

Us with fifth graders Harry, Ethan, and Jessica...our most advanced class.

Frank with fourth graders Dennis, Harry, Alex, Jessica, Joanna, Jenny, and Nick

Melissa with her favorite class of third graders- Louis, Eric, Jessica, Dean Jr., Ally, Crystal, and

Rachel. This class loved to write songs to go along with the stories in the book.

Ally and her mother came to Omni at the end of the day to bring us some very special presents. They gave us a photo album filled with pictures of their family, some Korean tea, matching "couple" cell phone charms, and a very nice letter. We started teaching Ally at ELC when she was in first grade and have watched her grow so much over the year and a half we've known her. Now, she's in third grade and is such an excellent English speaker! We will miss Ally so much!

First graders Jamie and Enya- so cute!

First grader Wendy with her potato stick. This little girl has the biggest personality of anyone else her size. She speaks with so much enthusiasm and sounds like a native English speaker!

First graders Sally and Amy

Fourth grade class Eric, Sally, Jenny, Terry, and Kevin

Funny fifth grade boys Tony, John, David, and Harry

Fifth graders Henry, David, Alex, Tony, Sarah, Jina, and John

Frank with third graders Jessica and Crystal

Melissa with Linda, Cindy, and Ally...which one can I bring home with me?

Frank with fourth graders Emily, Sally, Erica, Alvin, Harry, and Alex

Fifth grade class- Tony, Brian, Sally, Vanessa, Lucy, and Lily

Omni's receptionist Sophia

Korean teacher Lina

Dawn, Frank, Rabey, Chris, Jessie, Josephine, Ben, and Melissa

Omni had a goodbye dinner for us and a welcome dinner for our replacement teachers Dawn and Ben. We enjoyed a traditional Korean meal of grilled pork and beef.

Leaving Omni was bitter-sweet for us. We were there since the opening of the school when around 20 students were enrolled. Now Omni has grown to over 100 students! Although it was a wonderful experience, a lot of extra time and effort went into helping establish the school. Our students were what made the hard work worth it. They were so fun to teach and really made our experience in Korea memorable. We were fascinated by their drive to master English at such a young age. The amount of time our Korean students study is unbelievable. Our elementary students not only go to school six days a week, they attend academies after school until 10pm! The academies are in subjects such as English, Korean, math, science, piano, etc. On holidays, they spend their time studying. We admire their work-ethic, but wish they had a little more time to play and be kids. The great thing about teaching our students is that even though they lead somewhat adult-like lives, we learned they still love to joke, play games, tell stories, sing songs, and act silly. They also did a great job of making us feel loved. They will always have a special place in our hearts and we hope to see them again some day!

Goodbye to Our Wonderful Friends

On June 3, 2010, our journey in South Korea came to an end after a year and a half. Saying goodbye to our friends was difficult because they were all so special to us and made our experience in Korea unforgettable. The Sunday before we left Korea was spent with our Korean friends Michelle and Ellie.

Eating a delicious Vietnamese lunch with Michelle and Ellie.

Saying goodbye outside of Starbucks to our dear friends who we will really miss.

Our Going Away Party:
June 2, our last night in Korea was a fun but sad night. We met with twenty of our friends for dinner at Momo's in Ulsan to say our last goodbye.

Eliza, Melissa, Frank, Patrick, Tom, Ben, Anna, Tarryn, Marissa, Jenn, and Sally

Jessie, Chris, Ben, Dawn, and Josephine...(Ben and Dawn are our replacement teachers)

Josephine and Damien

Melissa and Sally

Josephine, Frank, and Sally

Sally and Jason with the restaurant owner's little puppy.

Julia, Melissa, and Kaye

Jason gave a very touching toast in our honor. We can't remember it all, but it started with "Tonight's a sad night because the nicest people in Korea are leaving us..." What a great friend!

Cheers!

Kaye and her friend

The night finally ended around 2am as we gave our last hugs and wiped away tears. We feel so lucky to have made such wonderful friends in Korea and will definitely never forget them.

Happy Birthday Frank!

On May 22, we celebrated Frank's 31st birthday with a 3 day weekend full of festivities...thanks to Buddha's birthday which gave us Friday off.

Saturday morning, Frank woke-up to his birthday cake...there's nothing like starting the day off with a nutritious breakfast of cheesecake.

We ate lunch at The Golden Eagle, which is a new British pub/restaurant in downtown Ulsan.

Delicious fish n' chips and a Philly cheese steak.

Korea!

The birthday boy
Dinner at Papa Johns:
After lunch, we took a bus to Busan to meet up with 18 of our friends to celebrate Frank, Jason, and Dan's birthdays. We had SUCH a great time, however it poured rain the entire weekend.

There were so many of us in our group that we couldn't be seated at a nice restaurant without waiting forever, so we opted for dinner at Papa Johns, which was still special since we hadn't eaten there since we'd been in Korea.

Damien, Tom, Eliza, and Dan

Jenn, Josephine, and Julia

Kaye and her friend
The Rock and Roll Bar:

After dinner, we all faced the torrential downpour to walk down the street to a well-known foreigner hangout called The Rock and Roll bar. It was so packed inside that we could barely move, but we ended up making the best of it since no one wanted to go out in the rain again.

The 3 birthday guys: Dan (May 23), Frank (May 22), and Jason (May 31)

Frank with the ladies sitting in front of the window with a lovely view of the rain.: Anna, Sally, Jenn, Josephine, and Julia

Eliza, Melissa, and Jenn

Dancing the night away!

Abracadabra Korean dance

Frank and Tom

Josephine(our coworker) and Melissa

Jason Patrick, Tarryn, and Frank

Tarryn, Melissa, and Sally

The happy couple

Jenn, Anna, Josephine, Tarryn, and Cassie

The Next Day: Fuzzy Navel

We all stayed the night in hotels near the beach in Busan and spent the next day hanging out at a Mexican restaurant called Fuzzy Navel. Ideally, we would have been down the street at the beach all day, but the rain was still pouring. It turned out to be a lot of fun, though.

Tom, Damien, Josephine, and Frank

Tom, Dan, and Jason.

A group shot of the servers and bartenders at Fuzzy Navel.

Damien, Josephine, Jenn, Melissa, and Tarryn

Anna and Cassie

We occupied a lot of our time playing darts.

This Korean woman brought her dog into the restaurant for a couple hours...very strange.

Frank with Jenn, Tarryn, and Anna

After Fuzzy Navel, we made our way to Paradise Hotel to play some Blackjack at their casino then ended the night at a Korean BBQ beef restaurant. We arrived back in Ulsan around 10pm Sunday night exhausted, but thankful to have had such a fun weekend celebrating with good friends.