Oh, Korea: Happy birthday to me!

First of all, Koreans count age differently than the rest of the world. In Korea, on the day you are born you are 1. The following New Year you are 2. So, on June 27, 1988 I was 1. On January 1, 1989 (or whenever Korean New Year is) I was 2. So, yesterday I turned 23. But I've been 24 since I arrived in Korea in February. "How old are you" has never been such a complicated question.

I feel like my birthday has been going on for weeks. Cards and packages have slowly been trickling in. Thank you everyone who sent something! The cards are now art on my kitchen wall.

Friday night I saw Alissa and Katie. We made pizza in the rice cooker and watched Inception, and Alissa gave me this awesome birthday outfit

So the plan was to go to Busan with a group of friends on Sunday to celebrate the big day. We were going to shop, eat, hang out at the beach...just have a fun, chill day. However, Korea got hit by a typhoon this weekend. My part of the country was fine, but we got TONS of rain. I mean pouring rain all day long and inches of standing rain in the street. The world was a little river. So our fun beach day was cut short. But I did go shopping and buy a dress, and have Quiznos for lunch. Koreans don't eat sandwiches, so that was a very exciting meal :)

Monday is always staff meeting day at school. After the meeting all the teachers sang happy birthday to me. Then Yuri gave me a cake!

Most of the teachers had children to educate, so me, Yuri, principal, and vice principal sat in the office and ate birthday cake at 9:30 in the morning with chopsticks. Truly Asian.

A bunch of 6th grade girls made me birthday cards. They were so cute - 3 or 4 of them would come in the classroom, giggle and hide behind each other, then someone would get brave and say "happy birthday teachaaaaa" Then they would give me their cards and run away, and the next group would come in.