Crajie Desiree Teacher is in Korea

New Blog!

2011-01-11T23:26:00.001+09:00

If any of you are still interested in following me, I have a new Blog!

http://desireesmonkeybusiness.blogspot.com/

Thailand - 7 - Last day in Thailand

2009-09-21T15:18:00.001+09:00

We woke up nice and early on our last day to a very nice day. We took the subway and sky train to the tourist's boat, which we road up the river to where we could start the Grand Palace walking tour listed in our Lonely Planet.

We walked down the Amulet market, which had every Amulet Thailand offers, as well as an abundance of other random things, such as health powders and teas, and even people trying to get us to buy Tiger pelts and claws. We just shook our heads quietly to these requests and walked faster, since it was not only sad to see these pelts displayed so openly (they bribe the police to let them sell illegal thongs), but it's just as illegal to kill Tigers and possess Tiger pelts in Thailand as it is in the US. Even if we wanted such a thing (which we absolutely did NOT), we would never have even gotten one out of Thailand.

After the Amulet Market, we wandered into, and about the Grand Palace for awhile. The grand palace was amazing. All of the wats in Thailand are so big and bright, with roofs covered in colored glazed terracotta tiles , but the Grand Palace is almost blinding. Books recommend not to visit there mid day, and it was no wonder, because at only 10 am it was already sweltering among all the reflective surfaces of the Palace.

After the Palace, we went to visit Wat Pho, which has the world's largest reclining Buddah. This Buddah is huge. We tried to take some pictures showing just the massive scale of this things, but it was hard. I was barely as tall as the Buddah's second smallest toe, and it is 15 meters high. It's also 46 meters long, and the building housing it rings with the sound of people constantly throwing prayer coins they had purchased into each of a long row of prayer containers.

After we were done at the wat, we went to a local restaurant for a lunch of a chicken, beef and veggie dish, a appetizer plate with shrimp cakes, spring rolls, tempura, and chicken wings. We also had pineapple and Mango smoothies.

After lunch, we hopped on the boat to China Town for our China Town walking tour.

China Town was either a shopper's dream, or a shopper's nightmare. It was shop after shop, open to a long and cramped alleyway. There was barely any space to squeeze past all the people, let alone the people with cartloads of goods and food for sale and the motorbikes that would periodically attempt to squeeze past the throng.

When we finally made our way out of the China Town alley, we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready to check out as well as to relax a bit from the heat and all the walking we had to be doing. I was excited to find a camera shop on the way back to the hotel that had the new lens cap (with the strap to keep it attached to my camera strap) for my camera, because I was afraid that my camera lens would be ruined at any moment without the lens cap (which it could have been, and that would have been a disaster for a less than two week old camera).

After we packed and checked out, we still had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we decided to have the hotel's dinner buffet. It was probably the best buffet I have ever had. They had Indian food, a ton of lamb dishes and sushi, Thai food, western food, delicious cheese, and just all around good food. My favorite dish was steamed sea bass with chili, lime, garlic, and cilantro. It was probably my all-time favorite cooked fish dish, and I should remember to e-mail the hotel to see if they'll give me the recipe.

After dinner, the hotel called us a cab, which took us to the airport. We got checked in without any difficulties, but due to technical difficulties, our plane was canceled. We then spent the next hour running around to get re-booked on a new flight to take us back to Korea, and ended up having to go through security three more times due to all the running around and confusion with the planes. Luckily, it ended up working out, and we got on a plane about an hour and a half after our original plane was supposed to leave, and we arrived back in Korea safely and with no other incidents.

All in all it was a pretty awesome honeymoon, and if I could do it again, the only thing I would change is perhaps the length of time we were there. otherwise, it was wonderful.

Thailand Day 6 - Back to Bangkok

2009-09-21T05:57:00.007+09:00

Our last day on Koh Samet, we woke up pretty early to have breakfast and get packed so that we would have time to swim and relax. Even though I was still a little afraid of stepping on another Sea Urchin, Cody and I went back in the ocean, but we made sure not to go too deep, because neither he or I wanted a repeat of the day before.

At 12:30 we headed out to the boat, and as we waited to leav, we watched a swarm of small fish crowd the boat and eat food that some people were throwing off the boat for them. We also watched a small Pike swim around the fish, presumably trying to find any small stragglers to eat. Cody was relieved to have the ride back be less scary, but the boat was still rocking a lot more than either of us were used to.

When we arrived back at the pier, we debated on getting a cab back to the bus terminal so that we could catch the bus back to Bangkok, but the hotel told us it would only be 1800 baht, or $53.50 to have a cab take us back to Bangkok. Even though that's quite a bit of money for Thailand, that's cheap for a 2 hour cab in Korea, and ridiculously cheap for a cab in the US, so we decided to splurge and ride in comfort (instead of having to closely watch our bags the whole time on the bus) all the way back to Bangkok and to our hotel. It was a little annoying because our cab driver, Mr. Joe, kept bothering us about booking him for a tour of Bangkok, even giving us all of his brochures of places he would take us. It was pretty easy to say no though, especially since we only had one more day in Thailand, and so we just kept saying no, and when he gave up for awhile, we took a long nap.

Mr. Jo did get us to our hotel in good time, and so we checked in and changed clothes, and then we headed out to take the subway and then sky train to a local shopping area to eat and then go to a Hard Rock Cafe to try and get Bangkok drumsticks for Adam. We ended up eating at McDonald's, because we want to try McDonald's in every country we go to to see what the differences were. The main differences in Thailand McDonald's is that they have double fish sandwiches, and double Big Macs, but nothing really special. After eating, we headed to an internet cafe for a little while, and then went to the Hard Rock Cafe, but our luck hasn't been so great for drumsticks, and they were sold out. We also went to try to find a replacement camera lens cap, but we couldn't find one in the one camera store we were able to locate.

After we gave up on the lens cap, we headed back to the hotel to swim in their pretty pool with a magnolia tree planted in the middle, and a small waterfall running along one side. We also ordered a yummy Zombie drink and a Planter's Punch. After we had our fill of the pool, we headed over to the hotel hottub to soak and relax.

After our soak, we headed back to our room and decided to order room service for the first time. We ordered yummy Asparagus and Portabello mushrooms in oyster sauce and chicken rice baked in a Pineapple. It was all really delicious.

Thailand Day 5 - Koh Samet

2009-09-17T07:42:00.004+09:00

We took day five pretty easy, as we had been going constantly for the first four days. We got up early (but not too early) for the breakfast and then we went swimming in the ocean and started looking for pretty sea shells to take home.

We swam out pretty deep and were diving to the bottom to pull up HUGE (like, bigger than our hands) mussels, to look at and just generally playing around, when I suddenly felt a horrible poke on my feet. I am a really good swimmer, so I immediately started swimming away and I pulled up my feet for Cody to look at, because it felt like I had been poked with chicken wire (for you country children who have dealt with chicken wire, you know how that stings), but then it hurt much, much worse than I thought it should have. Cody suggested that maybe I stepped on a sea urchin and to have it checked, so I swam to shore and limped to the restaurant to tell them that I stepped on something. They looked at my toe and one ankle and confirmed that the purple spots now on them were in fact, Sea Urchin punctures. It got both my feet, but luckily on only three spots, because the more stabs you have, the more dangerous it can be.

After confirming what it was, they called over one of the employees, who brought rags and a bottle of vinegar. He then spent a very agonizing 15 minutes rubbing my toe and ankle and pouring vinegar on them to disperse the poison so that my body could fight it better. It hurt SO bad and I spent the whole time sobbing on Cody's shoulder, and trying, successfully not to scream. I don't know why the rubbing hurt more than the the throbbing puncture, but I never want that to happen to me ever again.

After they finished, and my toe felt MUCH better (Thank goodness, or I would have been PISSED), we walked the two miles in to the nearest town to have a lunch of seafood Pad Thai and Traditional Spicy Jungle Curry.

After lunch, we meandered back to the resort to lounge on the beach and drink Pina Coladas and Pineapple Juice, and I decided to take a nap on the beach.

After my nap, Cody and I took a shower and went to play around in the pool some more (I was really not up to going in the ocean yet).

After the pool, we got dressed and then headed back down by the beach to get relaxing massages. We couldn't do it when we were supposed to though, because the hotel forgot to book it, and so we had to hang out in our room for an extra hour, but then we were able to have our massages. They were really nice, and I liked watching some large red ants climb a nearby tree while we were laying there, but unfortunately, the mosquitoes started coming out during the massage.

After the massage, we changed and were treated to a candlelit dinner where we happiuly munched on:
Fish soup (yummy, tender fish)
Chicken curry
Mixed seafood with fermented salted eggs (good, except for the eggs)
Pork with vegetables
Mixed tempura
Mixed fruit
and a Caiperinha and Planter's Punch

It was all very good and just thinking about it makes me hungry again. After dinner we took a walk on the beach and then headed to bed.

Thailand Day 4 - Back to Bangkok and to Koh Samet (Better late then never)

2009-09-17T06:42:00.009+09:00

Ok, so I am finally going to finish these Thailand blogs, because I am so behind.

On day 4, we woke up at 5:45 am to check out and pick up our breakfast boxes so that we could get to the airport on time. The hotel shuttle then took us to the airport where we were able to check in and fly to Bangkok with no problems, we even arrived in Bangkok 15 minutes early. Unfortunately, we had to wait almost an hour for our luggage to finish being loaded on to the belt, but oh well.

We made our way without incident to the airport shuttle, which took us to the bus terminal where we were able to hop on the 2 1/2 hour bus to Rayong. We managed to avoid the illegal taxis and we made our way to a small street vendor where we picked two random soups. One was a duck and giblet soup, and the other was a fish ball soup. They were pretty good, but were interesting at the same time.

After eating, we had to pay a random "taxi" (we are pretty sure it was illegal... oh well) to take us to the Pier for our resort, but he got us there with no problems. We had to wait an hour for the Resort boat, but we spent the time wandering the piers, and just generally hanging out.

When we finally got on the boat, the water was so rough. We were convinced we were going to capsize twice, because the boat was pretty close to being half out of the water. The driver seemed to know what we was doing though, and we made it safely to our resort, where we checked in and we were given blue margaritas as our welcome drinks. Our room was beautiful, with raised floors, cathedral ceilings, and our bed covered with flowers and towels shaped like hearts. It was so nice.

We dumped our bags, took a quick shower and headed down to the open, beach-front restaurant to grab some happy-hour strawberry daiquiris and take a swim in the ocean. After a quick dip, we decided to have dinner. I ordered fried sea bass with vegetables, and Cody ordered a spicy papaya salad with shrimp and pork . We also ordered sticky rice and I ordered a yummy happy hour Mojito (I love Mojitos).

After dinner, we went for a walk and then we decided to go swimming in the pool for an hour. After swimming, we got dressed and then had dessert of fried pineapple and banana with ice cream, and then we headed off to bed for the night.

Thailand Day 3: Flight of the Gibbon and massage by a prisoner

2009-08-17T20:19:00.009+09:00

Day 3 we had to get up early yet again, 6 am this time, to eat breakfast at the hotel and be picked up by The Flight of the Gibbon people. Flight of the Gibbons is a tour group that takes you on a zip line tour of the jungle and then takes you on a hike to this beautiful waterfall. We drove for about an hour to the headquarters of the Flight of the Gibbon, which is located in a tiny village in the mountains.

After arriving, we were ushered into the office where we signed release formed that basically stated that we would listen to our guide and if we didn't we might die. We were definitely prepared to listen and not die. We then all headed out to the platforms to start our zip line tour.

The zip lines were all so amazing and fun. We also met a cute little 9 year old named Lucy and her mom on the tour. Lucy was so cute on some of the lines, but she was actually less scared than her mom most of the time. It was kind of funny.

Flying through the trees, sometimes having to avoid them and trying to watch for gibbons in the trees was so fun. Unfortunately we never saw any Gibbons, but the group after us did. We also had to be dropped straight down three different platforms through the tour to eventually each the ground level. I was really mad at one point though. I bought a brand new digital camera, and the lens cap wasn't attached to the camera with a string. I was afraid I would lose it at some point, but I had been pretty good with it so far. Cody and I went to go on a couples line,w here two people can go together, and my bag got tangled in the line, so not only did I almost pull one of the guides off the platform, my bad gave me a huge bruise on my arm, and my camera cap fell off into the jungle. Oh well, at least I didn't lose my brand-new camera.

After we finished the lines and were back on the ground, they took us to a nearby waterfall that we hiked up and we were able to take quite a few beautiful pictures. The only annoying thing about the whole tour and hike was the humidity. The heat wasn't bad, since we were in the jungle, but the humidity was probably 100%, so we were wet the whole time.

After the hike, they took us back to the main office for lunch. We had some delicious green curry, rice, chicken and veggies, and some fruit.

After lunch, they took us back to the hotel and we changed our clothes and headed out for our Old City walking tour so that we could see some wats and get a massage.

We checked out Wat Chiang Man, Anusawari Sam Kasat, and a couple of other random wats along the way. We also picked up some Pad Thai at a street vendor, which was delicious. We then decided to take Lonely Planet's advice and head to the nearby womens prison to get a massage. They were full when we got there, but they let us wait, and we were lucky, because they were not letting anyone else in. Unfortunately for us, some of their massages took a little long and the prisoners aren't allowed to work after a certain time, so we were only able to get a 1/2 hour massage instead of an hour, but we got a discount. The massages were pretty intense. A lot of the things they were doing felt good, but a few of the things actually kind of hurt.

The prisoners aren't violent offenders and they are scheduled to get out between 30-90 days. The massage center is intended to help them save money for their release as well as have a life skill so that they don't have to get back into illegal activities when they are released. Many of the women actually go to work at another massage center after they are released.

After the massage, we went to see Wat Phan Tao, stop for a drink and Wat Phra Singh.

Afetr we finished our tour, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and then pick up our finished clothes. We were very excited to find that they fit perfectly on the first try. We then started packing up our things, and headed out to the Saturday night market to buy more art and things. We spent as much money as we could spare (and wished we had more, we are obsessed with picking up foreign art) and we picked up dinner from the market. Our hotel picked us up and we headed back to the hotel to finish packing our new art, and we went to bed.

Thailand Day 2 – Cooking and New Clothes

2009-08-17T17:54:00.003+09:00

For day 2 we got up pretty early to head down for the hotel breakfast and to meet our pickup for our Organic Thai Cooking School at 8:45.

2Flowers growing next to us at the pool at breakfast

The first order of business was to go to a local market to learn about coconut cream and milk, curry, and Thai spices. We first learned about coconut cream and milk. We found out they are the same thing, they just add more water to the cream to make it milk. They let us watch while they made it in a machine, and they let us taste the coconut. It was pretty interesting. Our teacher then taught us about red, yellow, and green curry paste. We found out that they are all the same level of spicy, but green is made with green chilies, yellow and red is made with red chilies and yellow had turmeric added. You can add these tiny peppers to adjust the spiciness to any of the curries. We then learned about the different oils they use, the sugars, and the sauces.

The coconuts used for making coconut cream and milk at the market

We found out that Thai food is actually pretty vegetarian and vegan friendly and they have options for making it those ways. After that, we wandered the market for a bit, taking pictures of all the new food and fruit and flowers. I wish we had markets like these in the US, but we’re too afraid of germs, and not all of the things in these markets are kept sterile.

After the market, we drove out to the farm and we proceeded to pound out our own curry paste.
Making your own curry was pretty labor intensive, but only in terms of the pounding, but in terms of ingredients, it’s pretty easy actually. I plan on making my own when we go home… It will be much cheaper than buying it. After making the curry paste, we proceeded to make our curries. I did a green curry with chicken, and Cody did a yellow curry with chicken.

My green curry

Cody making his curry paste

Me making my curry paste.

After curry, we moved on to our soups. Cody did the traditional Tom Yam soup with shrimp, and I did the well-known coconut milk with chicken soup. Finally, we made our meat/veggie dishes. I did basil chicken, and Cody did fried chicken with cashew nuts with vegetables. We then broke for lunch to consume everything we had made, and everyone sampled everyone else’s dishes.

There was also red curry with chicken, Thai vegetable soup, sticky rice, and papaya salad. We all sat around eating and getting to know each other. There were four people traveling together from Quebec and a couple from somewhere near Berlin. We talked a lot about Korea, the US, and what we had learned about Canada from all of our Canadian friends, and the people from Quebec kept telling us that everything we knew was wrong. They were a bit pretentious and kind of fit everything our Other Canadian friends had said about people from Quebec.

After lunch, we got back to work. We made our desserts, which were bananas or pumpkin cooked in coconut milk, or sticky rice with mango. I did the sticky rice, and Cody did the bananas in coconut milk. Everyone was stuffed at this point, so they put our dessert in take-out bags for us to eat later. We then made our noodle dishes (which we also took to go) I made Pad Thai, Cody made stir fried big noodles, and there was also the option of spring rolls.

The cooking school then took us back to our hotel and we went straight to the swimming pool to cool off. We ordered happy hour Caipirinhas, and Pina Coladas by the pool. After the pool, we checked out the hotel shops and had the hotel tailor try his hardest to sell us clothes. We weren’t sure, but were tempted, so we headed back up to our room to enjoy our cooking school leftovers. After we finished, we decided we did want to hand-made clothes and so we headed back down to the tailors. Cody ordered a suit and a new dress shirt, and I ordered a Thai skirt and a Chinese-style shirt.

After we finished, we headed out to wander Chiang Mai a little bit, and we found an internet café, and then we found a street food called a Rotee. It’s dough made really thin and fried on one side, It’s then often filled with banana and egg, or just banana. I’ve read that sometimes it’s just the fried dough. We had it with banana and egg in the middle the first time, and the dough was folded around it like a square envelope and the package was cooked on both sides on the griddle.

They then pulled it off the griddle, cut it into 12 pieces and drizzled it liberally with condensed milk. It was delicious.

We took our Rotee back to our hotel and turned in for yet another early morning with Flight of the Gibbons.

Thailand Day 1 - Arrival

2009-08-14T20:43:00.001+09:00

Day one of our trip to Thailand was exhausting. We left home at 2am to hop on the 2:30 direct bus to Incheon international Airport. We spent the five hour drive fitfully sleeping and we arrived without incident to the airport at around 7:30 to check in for our 10:20 flight to Bangkok. We spent the flight to Bangkok sleeping fitfully again, only really waking up to eat. We arrived in Bangkok at 1:30, and got through immigration really fast, in fact, almost too fast as our flight to Chiang Mai wasn’t until 7:10 because we didn’t know how long it would take to go through immigration, get our bags, and check in to the new flight. We were also annoyed to find out that our flight was going to be delayed at least 45 minutes. We made the best of it and headed to the food area of the airport to have our first yummy Thai food. Cody had his first banana smoothie of the trip and a chicken veggie and noodle dish. I had my first Mango smoothie of the trip (it was so nice to have these things in a country where they are native and fresh) and a bowl of duck curry. It was all so yummy.

My first mango smoothie of the trip

My duck curry....YUM!

Cody's first banana smoothie of the trip

Cody's noodles

I am tired, but happy with the yummy food

While we ate we rolled our eyes and laughed at the teenagers who snuck away from their school group to take advantage of Thailand’s leniency toward drinking. It’s 18, but they almost never check for ID apparently, unless you look underage or your causing problems. I fuess bars get shut down for a month though if they are caught serving minors, so many of the better bars check, but this was a little airport restaurant, and they didn’t think to check or wonder why people would want to order liquors used for mixed drinks as shots (they kept ordering Malibu rum…which I think should have tipped these people off). They also kept complaining loudly about the taste of the rum, which no person old enough to order drinks would do loudly and continuously. Ah, if only their parents knew what they got up to on their summer trip. These kids were pretty good at dodging their chaperones. Hopefully their parents had a little bit of an idea of what can happen on a school trip like this.

Anyway, so we wait for what feels like forever for our plane, and we finally arrive in Chiang Mai at 9:20 and out hotel pick-up was waiting for us (we had called to say we would be late). It was really nice to have someone else carry our bags and they gave us cold water to drink. When we arrived at the hotel, they brought us welcome drinks. It was some sort of juice with little chunks of fruit floating in it.

They took us to our room, and we were surprised to find that they had decorated our bed with hearts made of rose petals and there was a small cake saying happy honeymoon. We were very surprised at this, because we had ordered this for the Amari hotel in Bangkok for our last day in Thailand, but we hadn’t ordered it for this Amari hotel. They gave it to us as a bonus because we had told them that this was our honeymoon.

We were tired at this point, but also hungry, so we headed to hotel lounge to listen to the piano player sing and play and have some delicious cheeseburgers, a banana cocktail for Cody and a Mojito for me (I’ve missed these in Korea).

After we ate, we went to bed, where we fell asleep very quickly after our long day.

Perogies, inducement party, last waydaldo trip, and attack dogs

2009-08-14T09:42:00.004+09:00

On July 31st Cody and I headed over to Abby and Jason's to learn how to make Perogies and to have the inducement party to try and coax baby Anneke to come on her way already. Jason Showed me how to make potato and cheese Perogies, and they were really good. I already have plans to make them and try different variations when we get home and I have a kitchen to work in. I have some ideas for some dessert ones in mind and I’ll buy a set of three different size dumpling presses when I get home.

After we made dumplings everyone came over for the inducement party. We all showed Abby the funniest things we could think of to try and make her laugh her way into labor. We watched How I Met Your Mother, the Chappel Show, South Park, and various YouTube clips. We thought it worked, because it started her contracting, but alas… no luck.

The next day we all headed off to Waydaldo for what was probably our last trip there. We were lucky because the weather decided to cooperate and be nice for once. We headed out to The island and spent a nice day in the ocean and then at the free water park on the island.

Everything was really nice, but very busy, until we went to take one of the last ferries home. Apparently, some of the Naval or Coast Guard families had taken a day trip to the island and they shut down the dock for an hour or so while the families loaded all of their stuff onto the boats. It was really annoying because there was a steadily growing line of people waiting to get off the island, and the ferries can’t run after dark because they don’t have the technology.

Luckily, we were allowed to board a ferry after about an hour and we arrived back at Mokpo without any further incident.

After arriving, we said goodbye to Jason, Abby, and Chris Snell and headed off with Joe and Shanna to go grab something to eat and go see Chris Strugnell and his bulldog, Chubbs, at the waterfront where Mokpo was having it’s Mokpo Maritime Cultural Festival and Chubbs had been made the unofficial mascot of a local dog club for owners of big dogs. We were just hanging around and playing with the dogs when Chris told us they had asked him to be in a demonstration for police dogs in training. The club trains all sorts of dogs, and police dogs are one of them. Not long after, one of the people came and asked Cody, Shanna, and I if we wanted to be in the demonstration. After some trepidation, we said yes.

It turned out to be scary but pretty cool. After the dogs attacked us and but the attack gloves, we could try to fling them around all we wanted, and they wouldn’t let go until the trainers gave them their command to let go. It was definitely an experience I won’t forget.

Wonderful Jeju!

2009-08-02T23:07:00.002+09:00

We finally made it to Jeju! We had wanted to go and we were starting worry that we wouldn’t make it, but we finally went.

On Tuesday the 28th we headed out to the ferry terminal loaded down with munchies and clothes at around 8:00. We needed to be there by 8:15 to get the tickets we had reserved and be ready to board the boat, which was scheduled to pull out at 9:00. They started boarding the boat at 8:30 and we were on quickly and in our cabin shared by probably 20 other people.

Fallon decided to lie down and take a nap because she hadn’t slept much the night before, and Chris, Cody, and I decided to explore the ferry a bit as it was huge. We found picnic tables and benches on the outside deck, as well as some statues that were an ad for Mini Mini World (we visited this later). We found some noraebang rooms in the ferry, a sauna for men and one for women, three video game rooms, a bar/café, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a GS25 (a kind of mini mart here in Korea).

Cody and Chris settled down in one of the game rooms to play some GoStop (also called Hwatu) on one of the video machines, instead of playing for free with the set Cody had brought, and I realized how tired I was still and settled down in the cabin next to Fallon with my iPod shuffle going to drown out the people. Chris soon came to join, as he was really tired as well, and we all proceeded to nap. Except for Cody, he decided to take some pictures outside because he had never been on a boat in the open ocean before. We were happy to find that he does not get seasick. Yay!

I got up after about an hour to join Cody and we decided to play some card games and get lunch and generally hang out. The boat trip ended uneventfully at 1:30 when we arrived at Jeju. We left and caught a cab, deciding the bus terminal was the best place to go. We got there and immediately had the feeling that we should have stayed at the waterfront area, because that seemed to be the most bustling place. We grabbed a map of Jeju Island and of Jeju-si (Jeju city) and hopped back into a cab to Dongmun market, near where we had just come from. We looked around for a hotel and almost immediately hit the jackpot. We found a really nice hotel for only 40,000 a night called Hotel Dae Dong. We were really happy because it was so nice and so cheap… we usually only get the cheap part with love motels… not the nice part.

After getting the hotel and dropping our stuff off we headed out to get a snack/lunch at Lotteria (a Japanese fast food chain) and then we checked out the underground market there. Fallon spotted a store that sold handmade jewelry made by the owner who was there when we were. Fallon bought some dangling earrings for her and her mom, and I found my first pair of long dangling earrings. They have a black cord loop with a small Lapis Lazuli leaf at the end. I’m trying to expand the jewelry types I like to wear and it’s hard sometimes because Cody has a strong opinion of what he likes on me, and most of the things he likes are the types of things he’s used to me wearing. The things that he likes on Fallon he hates on me. He usually says no to dangle earrings because ‘they are too long’ and then he’ll like longer ones that Fallon picks out for herself. I was happy to finally find a pair he likes. This way we can both get into different jewelry types for me. I am hoping to find a bunch of pretty things for cheap in Thailand. Anyway, so I got the earrings for only 5,000, and I also got a cure hair clip.

After the underground market, we headed into Dongmun market, a huge traditional market. We saw the usual live and dead fish, and some species were more prevalent than they were in Mokpo. We saw the usual steamed pig heads, hooves, innards, and random pieces. We saw stalls overflowing with pots, veggies, and clothing. I decided to buy some Jeju Chocolates. There were a bunch of different kinds that they had, but the most popular are Orange and Cactus chocolates.
After the market the rain that had been slowly, but steadily coming down started coming down harder, but we decided to head to Jeju Love Land anyway, since we had heard that some of it is indoors. We took a cab out there, armed with umbrellas and Fallon in just her rain jacket.

I have to say Love Land was pretty hilarious. All of the statures were inappropriate, so I can’t post pictures so the underage don’t accidentally come by them, but I wish I could post just a few.

For a country so sexually oppressed, it is so funny that they go against all cultural norms by displaying blatant sex figures in this park. Granted, kids aren’t allowed in, there is a video game area for them to hang out in outside the park so that they aren’t exposed, but it’s just surprising in this society.

I didn’t see any old Adjumas or Adjoshis in the park, until some came when we were leaving. I was kind of disappointed with that because I was kind of interested to see how they reacted to the displays of sex toys and the statues having sex. Oh well. It was funny to visit the gift shops because most of them actually only sold normal innocuous gifts, and Chris found some pretty handmade necklaces for his mom and sister, and I found a really pretty necklace for myself there. Cody got a really cool looking magnet as well. They even gave us dirt with each purchase from Mount Hallasan for good luck, which was hilarious.

When we left the park, we were all pretty soaked; as it poured the whole time we were in the park. We had to wait around for about a half hour in the kid’s area because we had to wait for the staff to call us a cab and for it to arrive.

We made it back to the hotel safe and sound and went to a nearby Galbi restaurant to get warmed up on grilled meat and then we all headed to bed early because we had booked a cab to come at 9am and drive us to sites around the island for the next day.

We all woke up bright and early the next day and Cody and I found a really yummy toast place (they made freshly cooked bacon and a normal egg for our toast instead of the usual scrambled egg cooked in a form with carrot and corn) and I grabbed some Dunkin Doughnuts and bagels for our breakfast and a snack. We were really happy to see that the day was looking like it was going to be pretty skies and no rain. We munched on our toast in the cab on our way to our first destination a half hour drive away… Mini Mini land!

Mini Mini Land is funny. It’s a park filled with miniatures of buildings and monuments, and statues of cartoon characters and funny displays. We saw everything from a Gulliver’s Travels display to The Smurfs, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, and the Trevi Fountain. It was fun to get pictures of all the minis and take funny pictures with some of the displays. We finished in an hour, which was funny because the cab driver thought we should take two. He thought he was going to get a lazy day with us… think again! Anyway, so we grabbed some ice cream and headed off to Sangumburi crater.

There are other craters on Jeju, but we decided on this one because you only spend less than an hour total getting to and walking around part of the crater. The other main crater to see in on Mount Halla and it’s an eight hour hike total to visit that crater.

We walked up a path and came to an old graveyard that looked like a crater and we were a bit disappointed. We were told this was supposed to be a unique subtropical crater with a unique ecosystem, and all we can see is green grass and a few old graves behind stone walls. We kept walking anyway, even though we were confused as to what all the fuss was about, and that is when Cody came upon the real crater. It was pretty cool, and was probably more so because of the disappointment of the previous ‘crater.’ It would have been nice to see some of the creatures and plant life in the crater, but it was a preserve, so we were not allowed to enter, but we were told there are a lot of unique species to the area in the crater because of the sun creating the subtropical environment within the crater. We walked around and took pictures of the crater and with the crater, and then we checked out the gift shop. I happily procured some of the goofy looking Jeju statues, and Cody got a more serious lava-rock Jeju statue, and then we headed back to the taxi after less than an hour when he was hoping, again, that we would take two hours at the crater.

From here we headed off to Sunrise Peak. The cab driver was a little upset that we didn’t want to go get lunch at 11:30 and that we wanted to wait until after Sunrise Peak. We made him wait though, we weren’t hungry. We got to Sunrise Peak and I was a bit daunted. There were stairs all the way up the side of the almost perfectly vertical cliffs, but that didn’t make the hike any easier. I made it though, and it only took me about a half hour to hike it. I do have to say it was a bit easier than the Greta Wall of China, but mostly because the stairs were more even than on the Great Wall. It really sucked because the higher you went, the more humid it became, and I was convinced that we were in another subtropical region, if not tropical. Either way, I made it to the top and didn’t die, even thought I felt like I was going to. It was so worth it though. The view at the top was amazing and I was happy I made it. After pictures and rest, we headed back down and started walking along the walkway leading around the coast, and that is when we all saw one of the most beautiful sites we had ever seen. The left side of Sunrise peak tapered off into the
ocean and an old rock slide where part of the side of the peak tumbled down wad overgrown with lush greenery. At the base the waves crashed over all the rocks and to complete the picture was a black lava rock beach. It was so pretty and awesome. I don’t even think I do the picture justice with words.

When we got down to the beach, we saw the restaurant that the diving women run. They are some adjumas who can dive up to like 20 feet without air to fish for giant snails and sea cucumbers and such. We also walked in the black lava sand… which actually ranges from coarse sand sized to pebbles. There was also a bunch of glass in the sand, but almost every single piece was like sea glass, but the glass had been ground down quickly by the black lava sand. I even found a piece that was part of a ceramic cup that had been ground down almost smooth. We wanted to take pictures on some of the fallen rocks, but there were these nasty little bugs swarming over all the dry rocks, and we refused to get on the rocks with the bugs, even though they ran away when you approached. Fallon tried getting a picture on one of the rocks in the water, but the surf wouldn’t let her do it without getting soaked, so she gave up on that.

After the beach, we headed to the gift shop and I procured some aloe and berry Jeju chocolate and we all bought a potato tornado. This is a potato cut in a spiral and put on a stick and deep fried then covered in salt and mustard, they are delicious, and we even bought one for our cab driver to try and make him happier. After eating our snack, we decided we needed some real lunch and had our driver take us to a Kimbap restaurant, much to his amusement. He thought we should go to a tourist’s restaurant, but that was before I think he figured out that we live in Korea.

After lunch, we headed to the Manjanggul lava tub, which is the longest known lava tube in the world. We couldn’t take a lot of good pictures because of the really low light, but Cody got a few with his night vision on his camera (yay for night vision!). It was pretty cool, but it was a little chilly and very wet and drippy from the previous day’s rains. The lava flow at the end when it solidified while pouring out of a hole in the ceiling was definitely the coolest part of the lave tube.

After leaving the lava tube we headed to our last stop, a hedge maze. This was pretty cool as well, and a lot harder than you think it will be. For once, the boys actually had better luck figuring out the directions, while Fallon was pulling out the map because we weren’t sure we were going the right way. In our defense though, we didn’t have a lot of time left with the cab, and we only had a half hour to get through the maze and by this time we only had 15 minutes left. We found our way out pretty quickly after that though and we were all happy to hop in the can and go back to the hotel for baths and a nap before dinner and drinks in the evening. I for one took a nap; otherwise I wouldn’t have made it very late that night.

After our rests and refreshments, we all headed out to pick up some aloe gel because we had all managed to get sunburned, as we had all forgotten to apply out sunscreen. Oops. We then went to have a very ’healthy’ dinner at Tom N Toms of pretzels stuffed with cheese and pepperoni. The waterfront was pretty cool. Even at 11:30 at night, everyone was out playing basketball, voccer (a weird volleyball/soccer mix), playing with their dogs, and riding bikes. There were even a ton of little kids out just hanging around. Cody was sweet and even bought me some cotton candy. Unfortunately, the candy was slowly melting while I was eating it, it was so humid out. It was kind of weird!

After the waterfront, we headed to a nearby store to buy some wine for Fallon and me. We opened a bottle and headed toward the hotel. This is when things got weird. As we were heading back to the GS25 to get some beer for the boys, a really drunk adjuma walked up to me (I was holding the wine bottle at the time) and started obviously begging me for a drink. I couldn’t understand what she was saying beyond juseyo (please, or give me please, usually used for things like water please or mul juseyo), but I could tell what she wanted. When none of us responded and kept walking, she actually grabbed my hand and started kissing it and pressing it to her chest, and she wouldn’t let me go! She really wanted our wine, but we wouldn’t let her have it. I decided to hand the wine to Fallon, and she immediately unlatched from me, and we all started walking faster before she could latch on to Fallon. We quickly outpaced her short legs and staggering steps and made it to the GS25, Fallon and I saw her still coming, so we decided to take refuge in the store, but she followed us in! Luckily, she behaved in front of the cashier, and just proceeded to try and compliment us and try to cajole us to give her the wine. We ignored her though and left the store to quickly lose her and make our way to the hotel, when we played some card games and reviewed our pictures from the day.

We rounded out our night by asking the desk attendant to order us McDonalds; because we found out the neighborhood McDonalds did delivery 24 hours! We were so excited to have fast food delivered, but as soon as we all ate, we all realized how tired we were, so we headed off to bed.

The next day we all slept late and then checked out of the hotel. We then headed down to the waterfront to hang out and play more cards until it was time to leave on the ferry.
All around, even with crazy drunken Adjumas attacking me, and pouring rain, Jeju was a wonderful trip. I wish I could have spend a day or two more there in order to see the whole island, but I had a good time and I’ll always have great memories of it.

July 26th Waydaldo Trip

2009-08-02T22:43:00.002+09:00

Me and my hubby doing the obligatory self-cam at the beach. Aren't we cute?

Joe and Shanna: hubby and wifey to be next year. Awww... how cute!

Since we are running out of time to be able to visit hot beaches with nice water to swim in without traveling to another state or across the country, Cody and I decided to go to Waydaldo with Joe and Shanna. We were worried about the weather, because often the weather in Mokpo will be iffy, and then it will either be the same on the islands, or it will be beautiful. Luckily for us, it turned out to be beautiful. We woke up early to get ready and I headed to E-mart to pick up our staple PB&J cheap lunch for when we go to beaches. Unfortunately, I went at about 9:15, and I forgot that E-mart doesn’t open until 10. Strange, I know. I’m used to things opening up at 8 or 9, not 10. Even being here a year, I am still not used to the opening and closing times of things here.

Anyway, so I go all the way to E-mart only to have it still be closed. I made the trip worth something by running into the Paris baguette to pick up some break for the sandwiches and some breakfast pastries. I took a cab back to our apartment and ran to the neighborhood grocery store (every neighborhood has a tiny grocery store that sells their main essentials for people who don’t want to go all the way to one of the big box stores), which open early luckily. Strangely, but not surprisingly really, the store had jam but no peanut butter. I bought the jam and ran to the Mini Stop next door to find one small jar of peanut butter for the same price as a large one from E-mart. Of Course. Oh well, I bought it anyway as it was now 9:45 and we needed to be leaving for the ferry terminal and I wasn’t ready to go. Luckily, I got everything done and we got to the ferry terminal to meet Joe and Shanna and get our tickets just in time. We were supposed to head out with Nick, Stephen and his girlfriend Su Nah. Nick made our ferry, but Stephen and Su nah missed the 10:30 ferry and so would have to catch up with us later.

When we got to Waydaldo, we headed to our usual beach and staked out a spot underneath the shaded tent area. After eating lunch and hanging out for a bit Stephen and Su Nah came to say hi, only to leave in favor of the water park on the island. We said we might join them, but at the time we weren’t quite sure about the quality of the park, so we decided to swim in the ocean for a bit. We played around and floated in some rented inner tubes for awhile, but we didn’t stay in too long because the water was a little cold, so we got out and prepared to head over to join Stephen in the water park.

We were really surprised by the park. There was a kid’s pool, a mixed pool, and an adult pool with water slides that are on every other hour for an hour. It was nice as well because the lifeguard was making sure all the little kids were staying out of the adult pool. We really liked it because the pools are just salt water with only a little bit of chlorine, so kids peeing in the pool seemed less appealing than in a usual normally chlorinated pool. The guys were really excited because the little store at the pool was selling Hite beer in chilled glasses. They were really excited to drink ice cold beer by the pool. I decided to be a nice wife and bought Cody a cold Hite (taking a sip or two myself though, hehe), and I got myself a Ramen cup to enjoy in the shade by the pools. We went down the slides a few times and Cody managed to scrape his elbow. I swear, one of us always manages to hurt ourselves on most outings. We are a klutzy pair, aren’t we? Haha. Anyway...we left on the 4:20 ferry in order to get back to Mokpo relatively early and have time to enjoy our night.

My hubby waiting in line for the big slide

Me pulling myself the last few feet. My tankini kept bunching up and slowing m down too much at the bottom. Boo.

It was all in all a good day and the pools weren’t that bad. As per usual Korean bad construction they did the pools wrong though. They painted the pools with regular blue pool paint, not thinking about the fact that they would fill them with salt water. We came out with the bottoms of our feet looking like Smurfs because the blue paint was being corroded by the salt and so just rubbed off on our feet. It was quite funny.

The Seoul Trip

2009-08-02T12:29:00.002+09:00

The trip to Seoul to get married was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. We woke up early on Sunday morning at the Hyundai Hotel to go have the wonderful breakfast buffet. It was delicious, and pretty western. Only a few of the things were the usual Korean way of having the right items, but prepared the wrong way. Otherwise, everything was delicious. After breakfast, Cody and I went for a swim in the hotel pool, which was really nice, and then we visited the hotel gift shop, which had various Korean crafts and pottery and such. We were very happy to find a tea set that we liked, that had actually been made in Korea. Up until then, every tea set that we found that we liked had been made in China, and we wanted a Korean set, so we were very happy to finally find a Korean set that we liked.

At 11 we left the hotel to go get ready to go to Seoul. We gathered our things and left on the 1:10 train, because we wanted to get everything done quickly so that we wouldn’t have to spend too much money there. We got into Seoul around 5:00 but didn’t make it into Itaewon until about 6 because we got on the wrong subway train on accident. We were still lucky that both What the Book and the Foreigner’s Market were still open until 8 or so on a Sunday night, because we were able to get our errands there out of the way, which was nice. After we dropped our stuff off at our hotel and finished purchasing what we needed, we headed to a Mexican restaurant owned by a foreigner and had some delicious chicken nachos and a chorizo burrito. It was so nice eating Mexican food, and I look forward to having a variety of foods when we return home in a month.
After eating, we returned to our hotel room with some snacks to plan out the next day and we went to bed fairly early because we wanted to get an early start.

The next morning we got up at 7:30 so that we could shower and be at the US Embassy by 9:00 when they open. We got there really quickly, not realizing how close it was by Subway and just sat around relaxing and watching all the US and Korean ROK soldiers patrolling around the embassy. We also walked around the block a little bit, and realized that the embassy is right next to Insadong, the Korean traditional craft street (a very touristy area, but you can get a lot of cool stuff there), as well as right next to the big palace we had visited in the winter. We decided that after we finished getting the marriage paperwork filed, we would go visit the National museum that is on the palace grounds and we hadn’t been able to visit before.

Finally, the embassy opened at 9, and we were allowed to enter. First, we had to enter a smaller building where everything had to be scanned by security and we had to go through metal detectors. We had to leave behind all of our electronics (in case any of them were explosives or something that might compromise the security of the embassy I think, which is smart considering North Korea is less that a half hour drive or so from the embassy), so unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures of the process.

Anyway, we finally made it in to the embassy and had to get let through two heavy bullet-proof doors into an office that looked a lot like a DMV, but maybe less crowded. We already had all of our paperwork filled out, so we took a number and were helped pretty quickly. Unfortunately we forgot to fill in our country next to our passport numbers, so he had to step aside and fill that out on five sets of paperwork (we had to have two affidavit forms filled out and three marriage certificates filled out and ready, which caused a lot of hand cramping, lol), but luckily they didn’t make us take another number.

The rest was pretty easy. They took our paperwork and had us pay 110,000 (about $90) and then we waited for our interview. If one of us hadn’t been American, then the interview would have been more in depth so that they could make sure we didn’t just want to get married to get a visa, but since we are both Americans, they just asked us if we were currently married to anyone else. We then had to leave the embassy and take our paperwork two blocks away to the Korean Ward Office to legally get married in Korea.

We were a bit upset because we were there on a Monday, because we found out that if we had been there on a Tuesday or Thursday, then we would have been able to get free Korean wedding pictures in Hanbok done. Oh well. We paid another 10,000 (about $8) for the processing fee and then we were official married in Korea. We then had to take our stamped paperwork back to the Embassy, go through security again (they kept our electronics since they knew we were coming back, so it was easier) and file the finished paperwork with the Embassy so then we were officially married in America. It was all pretty easy and only took about an hour to do.
After we finished getting married legally (yay), we headed to a nearby coffee show to get something to eat and relax for a bit and then we headed over to the palace to check out the free national museum. It was pretty interesting, and I usually get bored at museums really fast. The displays were pretty good and interesting for the most part, and they actually allowed pictures as long as you kept the flask off. It was a big difference from the Mokpo Natural History museum, which was pretty bad. It’s something you really can’t even explain how bad it is, the stuffed animals on display were laughable, and they actually had store-bought souvenirs on display. The National Museum in Seoul was the total opposite.

We finished with the museum around 12:30 and headed through the Insadong Art Street toward the subway to get to the train station. On the way there, we ran into Barry and Lisa, who had been celebrating their wedding anniversary in Seoul and chatted awhile. We then headed to the train station, unfortunately missing the 1:00 train, but that was ok because we were able to hang out at the train station and we found out that there are a bunch of restaurants in the station that we didn’t know existed, and we had some really good bokumbap at one of the restaurants we found.

We finally headed out on the train to come back to Mokpo and we spent the next couple of days just hanging around the apartment resting and catching up on things we had been putting off.

Wedding!

2009-07-21T21:52:00.002+09:00

The wedding went fabulously and almost without a hitch.

On Friday, I got my nails done. I am happy to report that my nails cooperated and did not break in the two weeks before the wedding, so I had mostly uniform nails for the ladies to work with. I played around with the idea of getting interesting nails with glitter and such done, but I opted for simple French tips in the end. It was also a good thing that my nails were in good shape, because they don’t use fake nails here. I guess most women are just really lucky with their nails in this country. While the lady did my toes and painted them a nice pink color (I was not going to have my toes French tipped, and I wanted some color), I flipped through a Japanese nail magazine. I do have to say, they have some pretty crazy nail designs in Japan. They have everything from fake nails with jewelry attached to bows and buttons. Luckily, the magazine had a picture of a pretty basic French tip nail, because the ladies couldn’t understand what I was asking for. They do that style here (although not in the simple style we are used to); they just didn’t understand what I was saying. They took 2 hours to do my nails. 2 hours! And my nails weren’t even completely dry; they just took their time doing everything. Oh well, they did a really good job.

After my nails were done, Cody and I headed down into Shinae where we had some yummy Dak Galbi and some ice cream with Fallon and Susan before parting ways for the night.

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early at 7am to wake up and start getting ready. I used the first hour to mostly wake up and do basic hygiene things, and then Fallon, Susan, and Chris came over to hang out with me while I put on my make-up. Actually, that’s a lie. Chris came over because he was keeping Cody company for after I left the apartment to get my hair done, and so got stuck having to hang out and watch me put on my make-up. I’m sure he was so excited about that, ha-ha.

Anyway, so I hurried to finish my make-up so that we could be to the hair salon by 8:45, and made it just on time, barely. I usually don’t run late, but sometimes I take too long, and this day was coming dangerously close to being that way.

Anyway, so we show up at the salon, and the stylist was there waiting for me. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in the previous blog, but she was there 15 minutes before the shop was supposed to open just for me. She was very sweet and very helpful, and I tipped her pretty well for all of her effort, which surprised her because they don’t often tip in Korea.

I actually have to remember to get her e-mail address and send her pictures, because we were taking pictures of the process, and she was asking for the pictures. She wanted proof that she did a waygook bride’s hair, I suppose. She was really cute though, and I should really let her have the pictures. She quickly transformed my hair, in an impressive 30 minutes, which was wonderful. She was quick in the practice run, but I changed the style a bit for the day, and I was worried she would take a lot longer because it was the day of.

I then headed off with Fallon and Susan to get dressed and give them time to finish getting ready. Again, we finished getting ready to get to the wedding site exactly on time, and the driver didn’t drive too fast or too slow. We were even able to get there just before Cody, so that we could still kind of have a ‘reveal’ where he saw me. We didn’t take pictures of it, but it was nice to have that ‘here I am’ moment.

Cody also brought the bouquets, and I had a moment of being miffed, because the lady didn’t put the right flowers in the bouquets, but I decided it was ok, because they were pretty and it didn’t matter to me that much because she did a good job on them.

The next hour was devoted to taking pictures and trying not to die in the humidity. The weather cooperated by not raining and not being too sunny, but it was so humid that we were sweating even when standing in one place. I think it was 95% humidity all weekend.

People started arriving at 11:30, exactly when they were supposed to start showing up, and I was supposed to hide so that they wouldn’t see me until the ceremony, but we threw that idea out the window. It was so hot, and Fallon and I really didn’t want to hide in the hot bushes, especially because the ants and bugs were out in force that day.

Fallon and I being silly

We started the ceremony almost exactly on time, at 12:00. We ran into our first glitch, because Fallon couldn’t hear her music (Cannon in D, string quartet) at first, because the speakers we used were quiet, and so Cody and the boys had to get our attention so that we knew she had to walk. Oops. Our next glitch came like 15 seconds later. Cody had cut her song so that it was about as long as it took her to walk the distance, but be actually cut the song short on accident, so Fallon’s song didn’t play for very long, when suddenly mine (Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, also a string quartet) started playing. I had to wait a little while to let her get far enough, when I started walking. I walked at just the right speed, didn’t trip (although my feel almost betrayed me by making me almost lose my balance), and I remembered to pause when I was supposed to. I got to the stairs, in place, and handed off my flowers, to have the music end about 8 minutes later, so that was perfect.

Fallon wondering what happened to her music, oops!

Me just trying to walk slow, but fast enough to make up for the music glitch, oh, and not trip

The Ceremony was a mix of really serious and silly

You may kiss the bride!

Bubbles!

Everything else went off very well. Stephen put in a good number of jokes and humorous spots. He even included a part from the Princess Bride, which I loved since it is my favorite movie, but he didn’t know that, what was even funnier. He added a lot of good points, but accidentally mispronounced Cody’s middle name. Oops, oh well. Cody’s vows went well, and so did mine.

After the ceremony, we took a few more pictures and headed out to pick up the cakes and head to Waltz, the vegetarian buffet we had decided to have the reception at. We were a little late getting there, but I think it turned out ok. We had some yummy food, cake, and some speeches.

After eating, many of us headed out to Munich Ice bar to have a beer in an ice cup to cool off (and throw the ice at a target to try and win a prize, hehe) and we had a generally good time.

Cody and I departed from everyone’s company at 4:30, and while they kept on with the party, we headed to Hotel Hyundai, which is a really nice hotel in the area (probably 3-4 stars or so) to have a nice western buffet dinner and stay the night. The food was delicious, and much to the wonderment of the hotel staff, we stayed in the traditional Ondol room. For those who don’t know, this means we slept on thick pads on the floor instead of on a bed. It was pretty comfortable and very nice. We woke up the next morning to have a western buffet breakfast and play in the pool. We also bought a tea set from the cultural show because we had been meaning to buy ne, and we really liked the one there.

After we checked out, we went home, re-packed, and headed out to Seoul to get some errands done, and to get married legally the next day. Luckily, the marriage process was really quick, so we were able to go to a nearby museum and then head back to Mokpo to relax and pick up our wedding pictures from Wim.

This weekend was wonderful. I had a very good time, and am now happily married to my love. I am looking forward to going home now and starting the next adventure in our lives. Who knows what will come, and I am excited to see what happens.

What I'll miss and what I won't in Korea

2009-07-15T17:42:00.002+09:00

So, I probably forgot a ton of things, and if I think of anymore, I will add them, but here are some things I'll miss about Korea, and some things I won't.

Things I’ll miss about Korea

1. Kimchee Chiggae (Kimchee Stew)
2. Friends I’ve made here
3. The things kids say
4. Kimbap Nara
5. Cheap, easy transportation from city to city
6. Fun events
7. Weird things to laugh over
8. Konglish
9. Being so close to many interesting countries to visit
10. Cute stickers
11. People in movie theaters having to dance and bow as you leave the theater
12. Everyone younger than you, or serving you, bowing to you
13. being able to bring anything you want to eat, or drink into a movie theater
14. Most restaurants being OK with you bringing outside food and drink in
15. Seeing animals died in funny colors on their ears and tails (pink, blue, green, yellow, purple)
16. Dakbokki (Rice cakes in a spicy sauce)
17. Dakgalbi (Spicy chicken and veggies cooked at your table)
18. Samgaebsal (the thin-sliced fatty pork kind specifically)
19. Servica! Especially useful, or cool servica… like Tupperware with your tuna, or face mask samples with your lotion purchase, or a bowl with your frosted flakes, etc.
20. Kiwi Soju
21. Noraebang
22. Staying out until 5am is normal, and isn’t hard to do
23. Trying new things
24. Love motels
25. Mandu
26. Ondol (Floor heating)
27. Being allowed to do what I want to do for the most part at work
28. Seoul
29. Cute Korean Songs and TV Shows
30. 5,000 won pizza

Things I won’t miss about Korea

1. Smelly streets
2. Piles of garbage everywhere
3. The miscommunications
4. Not being able to do a lot of things without a Korean speaker
5. Old, smelly Kimchi
6. Stinky silkworm larvae sold at street vendors
7. Adjushis and Adjummas staring when you:
Show your shoulders, or your shirt it too tight.
You have a tan
You eat
8. Feeling like a monkey in a zoo whenever I leave my officetel.
7. The crappy washer/dryer combo in my officetel
9. Foods that is too salty
10. Having to watch for motor traffic wherever you are… even on the sidewalk…
11. Not having seatbelts in your speeding taxi
12. Seeing blatant animal cruelty and neglect often
13. The Ninja-guerrilla-trained-mosquitoes
14. Being asked very personal questions
15. Random people trying to practice their English with you, or asking for illegal private lessons.
16. Not being able to have a choice in English TV
Not having access to a wide variety of foods outside of Korean food.
17. Not having a car
18. Koreans breaking traffic laws, making the roads hazardous
19.The humidity
20. Yellow Dust
21. Things that shouldn’t be sweet being sweet, and things that should be sweet, aren’t
22. People freaking out over Mad cow disease, North Korea, Melamine, and the H1N1 Virus
23. Protests
24. Small Apartments
25. Tiny kitchens and refrigerators
26. The whole bathroom being a shower
27. Uneven sidewalks
28. Squatters
29. Toilet paper not being in the bathroom stalls in many public areas.
30. People putting used toiled paper in the waste paper basket
31. No soap, or only gross-looking bar soap in restrooms
32. No clothes my size outside of Seoul
33. Classrooms that have no air conditioners/heaters
34. Assigned seating in movie theaters
35. Being lumped in with foreign teachers who do bad things
36. Not being told things until the last minute
37. Annoying Korean songs and TV Shows
38. Not being able to read anything that isn’t in English, or is in Korean, but is the same word as in English

Getting there!

2009-07-14T18:27:00.002+09:00

So many things are going on now. I feel like there is so much time left, and yet it is flying by so quickly. I will be back home in Oregon and looking for a new job before I know it.

The main thing that is coming up this weekend is, of course, my wedding. I am excited and yet nervous at the same time, which is normal I suppose. Mostly, I am nervous to walk down an aisle by myself with a bunch of people watching me. I used to do acting in high school, so usually I could pretend I’m just acting, but this isn’t the same, I have to be the center of attention and people are going to watch me, expecting me to be pretty, smile, and not trip. That’s not exactly an easy task to accomplish when you are nervous. I only have two more things to do for the wedding, get my nails done, and practice my make-up some more before the big day. I’m excited, only four more days, and then on Monday we will go to Seoul to make it legal.

After getting married, Cody and I will probably be heading out to Jeju with Fallon and Chris the last week of this month. I’m excited because it’s supposed to be different from most of Korea, and is known as Korea’s Hawaii. There should be some interesting things to go see, but more on that later, if we go.

On August 6th we will be heading out to Thailand for six days, and we are both really looking forward to that. I am particularly excited to get a massage, try authentic Thai food, and take a Thai cooking course. Hopefully the weather is decent while we are there.
Finally, in August 22nd, we will be flying back to the states. I am so looking forward to it, and can’t even begin to name the things I want to do/buy.

In the next few days, I will try to blog about the things I will miss about Korea, and the things I can’t wait to get away from. I will even try to include pictures of some of these things.

Happy 4th!

2009-07-04T11:09:00.002+09:00

I'm gearing up for a really busy weekend and a really busy next two weeks and I am really excited!

Today I have a 4th of July Tex-Mex party to go to at our friend Randi's place. She put together a very Texan 4th of July. I'll miss having the 4th at home, but hopefully this will be fun and make a decent replacement and next year we will be back home to celebrate.

After the fiesta, we then have a birthday party to attend and we'll be going to the local Vietnamese restaurant to get some yummy veggie/meat wraps and celebrate our friend Hugh's birthday. After dinner, we'll probably all go out and get a couple of drinks.

Tomorrow is exciting because we are doing our wedding rehearsal, so hopefully that will go well. I'm starting to get a little nervous because I really have no idea what we will be doing.

I'm happy because I have only two more weeks of school (and until the wedding), and so many classes are being canceled, that instead of my usual 40 classes I would have left, I only have 29. YAY! I only have to teach my 6th graders next week, and then my 5th graders only once the following week. I am so looking forward to being done. I will miss the kids, but I'm feeling ready to be finished teaching, I could change my mind later, for for now I am ready to be done.

Next weekend will be exciting because we will be heading to the Boryeong Mud festival where we will be playing in the mud all weekend. I hope the weather is nice, but I'll have to remember my sunscreen so I don't get burned for the wedding.

The following weekend will be the wedding finally! I'm looking forward to it. We'll be getting married on the mountain, and then going to a local vegetarian buffet for lunch, and then hitting the town and doing whatever sounds fun. For dinner, Cody and I will be heading to the Mokpo Hotel Hyundai for what I hear is a wonderful dinner and then stay the night in one of their nice rooms. We will then wake up to the hotel's beakfast buffet and go from there.

That following Monday we will then head to Seoul to make it legal/official. We were going to do it before the wedding, but my school decided to be mean and decide that I have to wait until school is out. Lame. Ah well.

Hopefully soon after the wedding we will be visiting Jeju, Korea's Hawaii, And then on august 6th we will be heading to Thailand for a week for our vacation, and then head home on the 22nd.

Thailand isn't our honeymoon. Hopefully within a couple months after we get home we will be taking our official honeymoon in Vegas, or more preferrably, Jamaica or in the Carribean somewhere.

Brunch and yummy scones

2009-06-21T21:17:00.003+09:00

Today was really good, although I am so tired now from all my baking and the party last night, and then more baking this morning.

We had made a breakfast/brunch date with Abby and Jason, and so were summoned awake at around 9:45 by Jason’s call. I think he wanted to make sure we didn’t sleep too late and make his brunch too late because we were up late for Cody’s party, hehe. Anyway, we had made plans to hang out and make them brunch because we haven’t seen them too often lately because Abby’s pregnancy has been pretty hard on her and she’s stayed home a lot, and we have all just been really busy lately.

So anyway, we headed on over to their house at about 10:45 after packing up all the breakfast stuff we bought. I then baked them some homemade scones from a recipe I had been using off of allrecipes.com, but I decided to make the recipe my own by adding mini chocolate chips and Cody’s suggestion of chopped almonds. Cody fried up some bacon and made some cheesy scrambled eggs. Add some sliced apples, freshly whipped cream, coffee, and jam, and we had a really great breakfast going. I would love to find a thicker, fluffier scone recipe one day (all of the ones I find say to roll them a ½ inch thick, and would like to make some really big, thick ones just once), but the alterations to the recipe worked out really well. I didn’t measure the nuts or the chocolate chips, I just kind of eyeballed it until the dough looked right, but I’ll have the recipe at the bottom with my approximates added in.

After dinner, Jason generously washed all the dishes for us, and we say around until about 3:30 just chatting about Anneke’s birth coming up in August, the wedding, comedy, and other such things, and just generally hanging out.

After leaving, I then proceeded to be productive and create a pretty great numbers powerpoint using the ‘Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed’ song for my online 3rd graders, and then do these blogs, since I haven’t been too good about blogging when I mean to lately.

Whew, it's hot. I suppose since it's 9:18 I need to go get the Kimbap I said I'd go buy three minutes ago, lol.

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Chocolate Chip Almond Scones

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup chopped almonds
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl, and stir into flour mixture until moistened. Fold in almonds and chocolate chips.

3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. You may need to add more flour because the dough may be too sticky. Roll dough out into a 1/2 inch thick round. Cut into 15 small wedges, and place on the prepared baking sheet.

4. Bake 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Cody's 25th bithday: almost without a hitch!

2009-06-21T19:31:00.008+09:00

I am so happy; Cody’s birthday went off wonderfully yesterday! I’m going to include my recipes at the bottom of this blog, so if this sounds particularly tempting, refer to the end of my ramblings. Just make sure to give me credit!! ;-)

My day started at about 9:30 when my body decided that I was not allowed to sleep in anymore. Cody’s body apparently felt the same way and so we both got up and showered and made sure the apartment was in fit shape for Fallon to come over and help me bake Cody’s birthday cake and mini cupcakes. After that we just kind of rested and picked up some 참치 김 밥 and 고기만 두 for lunch. For those of you that don’t read Korean, that’s Chamchi Kimbap, or kind of like a tuna and spam California roll without the imitation crab and with pickled radish instead; and Goki Mandu which is a steamed pork and veggie dumpling. After eating and relaxing 12:00 finally rolled around and I proceeded to kick Cody out of the apartment so that I could start the process of making his Ugly Duckling cake. This cake is a calorie monstrosity of two homemade chocolate cakes with a chunky peanut butter, butter cream frosting in the middle, and the same frosting spread on top. You then make a chocolate ganache, which you then pour over the whole cake. The cake is then decorated with piped peanut butter butter cream and chocolate ducks made in silicone ice molds.

After the cakes were done baking and were cooling, Fallon came over around 2:00 to help me make some mini cupcakes. These ones were only yellow cake made from box mix, as I was only willing to overachieve and spend a ton of money for the cake, I didn’t want to make more batter from scratch for the cupcakes, and I wanted something other than chocolate and peanut butter as well.

I also used this opportunity with Fallon to give her the Maid of Honor present I had put together for her:

A really nice silver necklace, and miscellaneous face packs, cleansers, hand cream, makeup, and nail polish I picked up from Skin Food and The Face Shop.

I am happy to report that she loved everything I got her. i also guessed the exact facial cleanser she uses from Skin Food and kind of cheated by finding the necklace on her amazon.com wish list. But, considering the necklace was the main present, I wanted to make sure she liked it.

So anyway , with Fallon’s help, I made a ton of mini cupcakes frosted with chocolate icing from a can and an entirely homemade cake for Cody’s birthday with only a few mishaps, which all involved the from-scratch cake, and all led to the ugly-duckling name.

While I had always intended to put the chocolate ducks on the cake, this is not why I called it the ugly duckling cake. The cake was so moist and the day was so humid, and I didn’t have parchment paper to line the cake pans, that when I tried to release the cakes from their pans, they fell apart on me, tearing when they stuck to the pans. I didn’t panic, I used the peanut butter butter cream as glue and put the cakes back into a rectangle shape, and while still having the clear peanut-butter layer in the middle and on top. This, of course, caused my cake to look really, really ugly. I thought the ganache would make it look better, covering much of the problem, and it did make it look better, but it was still really ugly. I then added the piped-on butter cream and the ducks, which pulled the look together. I was originally going to call it my Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, but I suddenly had an inspiration and decided to call it my Ugly Duckling Cake, or Cody’s Ugly Duckling Cake. And so a delicious monster was born.

Fallon and I finished baking and decorating almost exactly on time, and so we headed down to meet everyone with the cake, and headed to the all you can eat Galbi place (Galbi is pretty much any grilled meat, but this place had some other things than Galbi, as well as a ton of sides to eat) to gorge on an unhealthy amount of meat for Cody’s birthday. After eating for way too long (about an hour and a half), we broke out the cake, and everyone then proceeded to have sugargasms and tell me I should have brought milk. It was delicious, and Cody announced that it is now in his top 2 favorites for cake (carrot cake still being a close contender).

Following dinner and cake, everyone headed home to get refreshed, the boys having played ultimate Frisbee before dinner and being all sweaty and tired from the oppressive humidity. I stuck the left-over cake in the fridge and we grabbed the mini cupcakes and headed to Kathryn’s house to play card games, play around on Fallon’s Wii and use her Wii fit to see how we ranked with our heights/weights/balances, and gorge on the cupcakes and other snacks and drinks provided (though no one gorged too much after that cake).

At about 2:00 everyone headed home, stuffed from cake and happy from celebrating Cody’s big 25 in Korea. Happy Birthday honey!

Also:

Thank you to Fallon, Chris Walker-Bush, Kathryn, Hugh, Stephen, and Chris Snell for showing up to come out with us to make Cody’s birthday so special. You guys are awesome!
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Peanut Double Chocolate Chip Cake
Ugly Duckling Cake

Cake:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (3/4 cup)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 1/2 ounces semisweet or bittersweet dark chocolate, melted and cooled (1/3 cup)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups cold water

Peanut Butter Butter Cream:

• 1 (18-ounce) jar chunky peanut butter, at room temperature
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 cup)
• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Ganache:

• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (1 c)
• 1 cup heavy cream

Chocolate Ducks:

• Silicone ice cube molds in the shape of ducks
• 1 ½ 7 oz large sized candy bars (Makes about 19 ducks) – chopped or shredded into small pieces

Directions:

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cooled chocolate and vanilla and beat for 3 minutes to incorporate. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another 3 minutes. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with the cold water. Beat for 1 minute after each addition to incorporate the ingredients. Mix until the batter is smooth.

Coat 2 (9-inch) round cake pans with non-stick cooking spray. Cut 2 circles of parchment paper to fit the pan bottoms and place them inside the pans; then spray the paper for added non-stick insurance. Pour batter into the prepared pans and smooth the surface with a spatula; the pans should be 2/3 full. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes *.

Leave to cool for 40 minutes. Prepare the butter cream and the Ganache.
Make the butter cream: With an electric mixer beat the peanut butter and butter in a large bowl until creamy. Add the powdered sugar and beat until spreadable.

Make the Ganache:

Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Stir in the rum if desired.

Allow the ganache to cool slightly before pouring over the cake**.
Turn the cakes out of the pans and remove the paper. With a metal spatula, spread 1/2 cup butter cream on top 1 of the layers. Start in the center and work your way out. Carefully place the second layer on top. Smooth the sides with butter cream, and then spread the rest over the top so that the cake is completely covered. Refrigerate or place in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up the butter cream.

Pour the ganache on the cake, starting at the center of the cake and work outward. Be careful of the platter you have the cake on and watch the ganache, it is prone to overflowing out of your platter.

Refrigerate or freeze for 5 minutes before decorating. Pipe any leftover butter cream onto the cake in any style you desire and decorate with your chocolate ducks.

Refrigerate for 5 minutes before decorating or cutting.
*Cook's note. The cake is cooked when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean and the cake springs back when touched
**For a fluffy frosting or chocolate filling, allow it to cool until thick, and then whip with a whisk until light and fluffy.

How to make Ducks:

Bring 1 ½ inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan or the bottom half of a double boiler. Do not let the water come to a boil, that will mess with the tempering of the chocolate, and the moisture from the steam may get into your chocolate, causing it to ‘seize.’

Place your chocolate into the top of the double boiler or into a stainless steel bowl (Use a towel or oven mitt to hold the bowl in place), and place on top of the simmering water. Make sure the water level is low enough that the bowl does not touch the water. The bowl should not go down very far into the pan. As soon as you have the chocolate in place, start stirring constantly until the chocolate is smooth. Take off the heat as soon as it is entirely melted, and remove the bowl away from the pan to allow the chocolate to cool slightly.

Now spoon the chocolate into the clean molds, filling to the top (no greasing or anything is necessary with silicone molds). It may be easier (it was for me) to fill a piping bag prepared with the small decorating tip. This way you can avoid too much of a mess and you can fill in the details in the mold better (I have read a zip lock bag with the very tip cut off works, but I find piping bags so much easier).

Once the mold is filled, tap the tray on the counter a few times to release any big air bubbles that will make your candy look misshapen, and you may need to add more chocolate if the level goes too low.

Now, place your mold into the freezer for 10-15 minutes. When the chocolate is solidified, tug on the edges around the silicone to loosen them from the candies, and then tap the mold upside down onto wax paper. The ducks should fall out relatively easy. If the day is very warm or humid, you may need to stop halfway through and freeze all the sucks again, as they may start to soften quickly.

Freeze the chocolates until you are ready to use.

Counting Down Depression and Stuff

2009-06-19T21:31:00.010+09:00

There is so much going on. I almost wish it was July 19th so that there will be so much less for me to do.

According to the countdowns I have going on Facebook right now I have :

~Only about 92 classes left to teach (and some will be cancelled, and some will be parties)
~28 days until my wedding (26 until I'm legally married though)
~About 42 until we are in the Philippines (Maybe, we won't buy our tickets until Monday, so something could change, but I hope not)
~And 63 days until we fly back to Portland

Of course, I can't forget to mention Cody's Birthday party tomorrow, and that next month sometime we will finally be able to ask Cody's Aunt to file our taxes for us and we can both get back quite a big chunk of change from last year, yay!

Of course, I am not looking forward to trying to get a job back home, or finding a place to live, but I am looking forward to starting my diet and exercise regime that was working so well for me back home. I've lost some weight while I have been here, but not as much as I hoped to lose in the past year. Some of it has been excuses I know, but some of it has been the problems I have run into here. It's so hard to keep try of calories or points here (I did a little of both back home), it's also hard to enter my food into my sparkspeople page because even if bibimbap is listed, or kimchi, it's something that someone has entered in themselves, and you just never know if they were correct, of if the adjumma who made your bibimbap put that extra 300 calories worth of sesame oil in when she added that extra shake she thought would make it better.

It's frustrating also not to have my 24 hour fitness to go to and my pool. they do have gyms here, but women aren't as frequent and you get stared at and laughed at when your a women using the "men's" equipment. there is also not as much of a variety of equipment. The gyms are also horribly expensive here. It's about 7,000 a visit when you don't buy a membership. You can buy a member ship for 3 months, but typically that's 150,000 - 200,000 won for the member ship. That's about $50-75 a month, and most of them do not even have a pool, and the pool isn't included in the membership.

I also miss pools and swimming. before I came to Korea I was starting to get back into my old swim team habits (to try and get my Varsity swim team body back, hehe). and I was up to swimming about 1200 or more yards in an hour. For those who aren't in the know, that's 24 laps in a pool. I think one day I did more than that, but I often just zoned out and got into the rhythm and lost track of whole lengths of the pool, so who knows. I know there are pools here, but I just never made it. Partially because it took me months to even hear of a good, swimmable pool, partially because I couldn't find a swim cap (And you must have one to swim in the pools here, and I hate lap swimming without one anyway, it slows you down, and just feels wrong), partially because I couldn't afford the fee per time with all of our budgeting right now, and partially because I was lazy.

Like I said, I do have to take some credit for my problems, but I can't wait to get back as i'm starting to feel extremely huge again. I know I'm quite a bit smaller than I was, my cheekbones are back, and I don't have as much of a second chin, and my clothes are much smaller, but i need to get better. My wedding dress fits pretty well luckily, but I ordered wedding lingerie and it doesn't fit right, even though I ordered what torrid recommended for my measurements. I think it's partially because it was a cheaper set than most of them, and it fits everywhere except my waist, which sucks. If I hike it up a tiny bit, it works, but otherwisde it doesn't, and it also looks funny on my boobs. Oh well, the underwear fits perfectly. i'm going to try and lose a little, even an inch to make it work, but we'll see, if it doesn't work it's not the end of the world, I have more to worry about right now than my stupid wedding lingerie. It will work out. And my wedding shoes did come, so that's great.

I just have to keep track of the good things. When I finally realized I had become obese and found the will to change it I clocked in at 285 pounds. That's not good, even for a girl of my height and bone structure. I realized I was still reating the same way I did in high school while on the swim team when I has to load up on calories for meets and practices.

Since then I have lost, and kept off so far, 35 pounds. I will lose more, my goal is the 270-285 I was in high school. I also wish to fit into a size 16 pants again. I am already down to a 20, and maybe an 18 if I am lucky. I used to wear only 2x shirts and some 3x when it came to sweaters and jackets. Now some of my shirts are 2x, but i have at least one xL that fits well, and I found a large that fit well in Seoul, so who whows where I'm at, but I'm definitely smaller, and most of my clothes are wat too big, even the size 20 jeans my dad just sent me.

I'm feeling fat, but feeling very motivated to get home and start moving again. Let's hope I keep this motivation and always remember my reasons for getting skinny again. My family used to tell me I should be a model. I want someone to tell me that again. Friends used to joke and call me a muscular barbie because I was thin and my arms were huge from swimming. I didn't believe them at the time. now I look at pictures of myself, and I believe them. I will get that way again, and I think it will be in the very near future.

Wedding!

2009-06-02T22:45:00.002+09:00

Things also seem to be falling in place for the wedding. Cody's grandma is sending me a
package with the wedding "intimates" needed for a strapless dress and stuff, as well as a pair
of white flip flops (in case the shoes I ordered don't come, because I'm feeling dread that
I ordered them from a bad website, because they never really confirmed shipping), hair dye to
fix my highlights and low lights I got in Seoul in September and can't afford to get re-done
right now, Cody and my wedding rings, wedding jewelry for me (hopefully simple enough for me),
and the presents for Cody's best man here and my maid of honor, Fallon.

I received my veil already, and my hair-piece, all I need now is my wedding dress, which should
be here any time, as soon as they finish making it and ship it, which should be any day now.

I'm getting really excited. We decided to have our wedding on the local mountain, Yudalsan
(Yudal, and San literally means mountain, although I think it's an honourific as well, because
'san' in Japanese is an addition to the name of someone above you, or who you respect). If the
weather is nice, we will have the ceremony in front of a giant bell there. If not, there is a
pagoda up the mountain a little bit that we will have the ceremony on, some of the guests
standing under umbrellas if need be.

After the ceremony, we haven't decided 100% of what we're doing, but we're thinking of having
the reception in the banquet hall of a brand-new buffet in town that has really yummy food
(and sushi!), and people will buy their own dinners. After that, we might head out to drinks
with whoever is feeling like attending, but, like I said, we haven't decided for sure quite yet.

We will also have some sort of reception when we get home, but it will probably be nothing more
than a cake and family and friends bringing food to a park and having a small party in the park.
But, it will be fun, and we're really excited.

We're also haveing our bachelor and bachelorette parties in 10 days, and we will have to see
how those go, hehe.

One funny thing about this, is the ceremony doesn't even legally marry us here, it's just for us.
In Korea, you fill out the paperwork and that is all that counts (I think it's similar in
Oregon as well). So, we will officially be married two days before our wedding. Ah well, I will
still count July 18th as our wedding anniversary, not July 16th. How funny though.

The countdown for this starts as well:

11 days to our bachelor and bachelorette parties!

and

45 days until our wedding!

Getting things in order

2009-06-02T21:42:00.003+09:00

It seems things are slowly falling in place for going home. I purchased my plane ticked home
and in a few weeks I can officially apply for my reimbursement. It seems that Cody was
successful in getting the Office of Education to buy him tickets for the same flights home.

*For those of you who don't know the story, the Jeollanamdo office of Education decided that
they were going to buy the tickets home for all JLP and JCP contracts, but that anyone on the
Regional contracts still had to buy their own tickets and be reimbursed at the end of their
contracts. It seems that they get some sort of discount by buying their tickets through Korean
Air. What irks me is that meant I had to buy my ticket through Korean Air in order not to fly
home alone (and I do not do flying well sometimes), and that means I didn't get to partake
in this discount, which could have saved me some money and hardship up front. I could have
gotten a flight for about $800 US up front,but this meant I had to shell out about $1100 up
front. I just hope that the exchange rate doesn't bomb between now and August, or that they
will reimburse me before the exhange rate might decide to tank again.

Oh well. Cest la vie. We both now have our tickets and it will work out I suppose. We will fly
out of Seoul Incheon International Airport on korean Airlines at 4:45 PM (so 12:30 AM Pacific
Standard Time, I think) on August 22nd. We will then fly for about 10 hours to San Fransisco
(SFO) Airport and will arrive at around 11:30 AM PST (So, maybe 5:50 am Korea time). We will
then have to hang out in the San Fransisco Airport afor about four hours (but we may have to
go through customs here), and then at 3:20 we will hop on an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland
International Airport (PDX) where we will arrive at about 5:05 to hopefully a bunch of family
members waiting for us.

From there, some of our family will take us to my dad's house where we can pick up my car. We'll probably head straight to a restaurant or grocery store before we go to where we'll be staying with our friends Adam and Jacob until we find jobs and a place to live. Soon after we get home, we will also have to buy new wardrobes (all of our old clothes are either too big for us or worn out and stained), and we will be traveling a little bit as well (visiting friends and family). We will also have to send out official announcements of our marriage, since it's difficult to do that from here, and write thank you cards for any gifts we receive between now and then.

I'm looking forward to going back, but I'm really not looking forward to getting a job. I know I can get a job, no problem, but the question is, can i get a job in what I really want to do? Ah well, I suppose we will see.

And so the countdown continues. Only about 81 days to go!!

Lucielle

2009-05-24T20:06:00.002+09:00

This is a short story I started four years ago in my Intro to Fiction class... it has evolved very slowly over the years and I hope to add more eventually, maybe turn it into a novel. Tell me what you all think! Oh, and the formatting isn't all that great... sorry.

Lucielle

These last two days were some of the most wild and crazy days that I have ever had in my life. Lucielle Du’Marniér was the most wonderful person and I hope that I can go back one day. I will try to relate what happened to me Monday evening and what followed. It is a most fantastic story, so I suggest that you take a seat before I continue.
It was Monday night and I had to work late. My manager felt like he needed the store to look as perfect as it could be. I am one of the only employees who actually likes to be perfect, and since I was there, he decided to put pressure on me to make my section of the store as spotless and beautiful as I could.
Of course, my section was always chaotic by the time that I arrived, and this day was no exception. I am also always doing many other things besides just cleaning up the store. I stock shelves, and am a backup cashier, so of course the store was very busy and I was being called up front every five minutes to either do a price check or to ring up some customers. Life was very hectic for me that night and I was really upset that for just one day the customers couldn‘t be polite and not make messes everywhere.
By some miracle I was on the last aisle just as the store closed. I was just completing the job of facing a display of dish soap on the end of an aisle when my eyes started throbbing, then my fingers started tingling like when they fall asleep. I blinked a few times and flexed my fingers slowly, moving the bottle of soap that was in my hands from one hand to the other, to try and get the feeling back into them. I looked down at the soap, and to my disbelief, the liquid inside was turning from green to purple, and was bubbling really fast.
I quickly put the bottle back on the shelf, but the liquid was bubbling so quickly that the bottle rocked right off the shelf. I watched, unable to move, as the bottle tumbled to the floor in what seemed like slow motion. It hit the floor at just the right angle so that the spout broke off, leaving a perfect hole in the top.
As soon as the liquid started pouring out, it stopped bubbling and turned green again. I would have left it there and ran away, but a coworker came by and asked me if I needed help cleaning my mess up. I shook my head, unable to speak, and quickly retrieved the bottle before more than half of the liquid poured out.
I hurried to clean the soap up off the floor and I decided to buy the bottle and take it home. Maybe I just wanted to find out if I was crazy or not. After I taped the top so I could get it home with the least mess, I hurried to finish my other duties. We ended up finishing early, and my bus was on time for once, so it took me less time to get home than usual. When I got in my room, I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was go straight to bed. I went to wash my face and I realized that some of the soap had splashed on my neck. I quickly scrubbed it off, but it left a ugly red splotch on my neck that looked like a burn. I didn’t think that I had ever been allergic to dish soap, but I ignored it anyway, thinking that it had just irritated my skin.
So that I wouldn’t spill the soap again I poured it into a clear glass container and then set the container next to my bed. I had a feeling that when I woke up in the morning I would feel better about this whole thing, but I wanted the soap there for me to see.
After I changed into my pajamas, I crawled into bed with relief and laid in bed for a few minutes, watching the bottle. After only a few minutes I started to drift off to sleep, still contemplating my sanity. As I was losing consciousness I saw the liquid begin to turn purple again and my neck began to get a little warm, but it was too late, I was already too far asleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I slept a deep and unhurried sleep. The dreams were slow images of soap bubbles floating by my head and popping, only to burst into a shower of shimmering powdered dish soap showers. Soon after that was a floating crystal ball where my own face popped in front of me and screamed.
“Don’t touch the powder! Argit will get you!” My face yelled at me.
I woke up suddenly, sweating, but I felt as if I had been just laying there and had decided to open my eyes. It was one of those sleeps where you wake up unsure if you really slept or not, the dream was so real, and yet so fantastic. I slowly stretched my arms, not wanting to jump out of bed too fast. I wanted to let the dream images leave my head so that I wouldn’t have the dream again. Soon, I realized that I did not hear any alarms or car horns, I heard birds singing and chirping away. This was strange because I live in the middle of downtown Portland. Since it is also the middle of February; most of the birds are all off in warmer climates or are pretty quiet during the winter.
Even though this seemed like such a little thing, it confused and disorientated me. I also realized that I was feeling unusually warm, in the middle of February my room usually feels like ice in the morning, before the heat gets turned on. I sat up in bed and started looking around, I immediately saw that I didn’t recognize any of my surroundings. Instead of seeing my tiny dorm room filled with posters and my fish, I saw a huge room filled with plush pastel green and white furniture and huge windows that opened outside and that had billowy white floor-length curtains.
I started trembling, where was I? What was this place? Why wasn’t I in my own room? I crawled slowly out of the bed, which I now saw was huge and pastel green and white and had a feather mattress. This furniture was definitely not mine, as I did not even like pastel greens. I stumbled towards the windows and I felt unsteady and unbalanced on my feet, I hoped that I would wake up soon. I was astonished as I looked at a sprawling, plush lawn with people attending to it. I saw a few buildings that looked like houses and barns but they were so far away that I could not make them out. I was also surprised because beyond all of this and some fields all I could make out was forest. I could see no telephone lines and planes were nowhere to be seen. I also noticed that the air smelled so clean. Not even when I lived in the country had the air smell so fresh and pollutant-free. All I smelled was the tangy smell of lemon peels wafting through the room, the kind that makes your tongue throb and water because all you can imagine is a lemon wedge in your mouth.
I turned away from the window and almost tripped over my own feet. I looked down at myself, wondering why I was so clumsy, and almost collapsed. I was suddenly thinner than I was the night before. My feet and hands had become skinnier and more delicate, before my hands had been huge hands with big bones. My fingers and toes used to be long and chubby, now they had grown a little longer but they were skinny and delicate and covered with golden skin. I carefully closed my hand and opened it. I felt the golden skin stretched over my fingers. It was so soft and smooth and the tiny hairs covering my arm were so fine that I almost couldn‘t see them. I thought that if I wasn’t careful my hands and arms would snap into tiny pieces like porcelain. I looked at my torso and touched my waist with my hands. I used to have a thick waist and huge hips. Now I was much thinner than I had been, and my waist was tiny and my torso was longer. My legs were longer also, to match my torso. No wonder I had been stumbling and tripping. My brain wasn’t used to moving in this body. I was used to balancing in a whole other way.
I stumbled over to a great silver mirror, trying not to panic and slowly gaining my balance, I stood there staring at someone who was not me. I didn’t even think that anyone on earth looked as I did. I had a very different body from when I had gone to sleep. I was still around the same height as I was, but the body underneath the silken nightgown I was wearing when I awoke seemed to be much thinner without an ounce of fat anywhere. I looked at my face and gasped at what I saw. A thinner face sat on a long and graceful neck. My mouth and nose were smaller and different shapes than they had been. My nose looked like it was shaped to have a better sense of smell. I thought that maybe that was why I could make out the lemon peel scent and the fresh air so well. My eyebrows were perfectly sculpted. Instead of the always-changing hazel color I once had, my eyes were the color of dark emeralds and my skin was a pale gold color. My hair hung below my waist, which wasn’t much of a change, but instead of being dark brown, it had changed to a very pale platinum. The last thing that I noticed was that my ears were no longer short and round, they were tall and pointed. I gaped at myself and then I realized what had happened, I had woken up as an elf.
As I looked at myself a woman servant walked in, she then came up to me and bowed. She waited for me to acknowledge her but I could only look at her wonderingly.
She just smiled at me and then said, “Miss, my name is Ariah and I am your personal servant. I know that you are confused. I will help you to get dressed and then take you to speak with Miss Lucielle.”
Ariah led me by my arm to an adjoining chamber and told me to wait. She went to the wardrobe and pulled out a flowing emerald green dress and a matching cloak with silver trimming. She helped me on with these, and although they looked heavy, they felt like they were made of some satin material and they turned out to be very light and cool. Ariah then helped me on with some skin-tight slippers that perfectly matched the dress and cloak. She slipped a silver chain around my neck with a hanging emerald and decorated my hands with a silver bracelet and a silver and emerald solitaire ring.
Ariah smiled, “You look better Miss, but we must do something with your hair, Miss Lucielle would not be happy with what it looks like now.”
Ariah sat me in a chair next to the wardrobe and began fixing my hair. With deft hands, she quickly made several long, tight braids. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but she was gentile and I could feel her coiling and looping these all around my head. I saw her reach for some silver pins with emeralds sitting on a little silver tray, and I felt her she secure all of the braids. I expected the braids and pins to make my head feel heavy, but they didn’t. The braids let cool air circulate through my hair and Ariah had balanced them so my head wouldn’t feel heavy.
Ariah acted like all of this was very commonplace so I began to loosen up, hoping that this Lucielle would answer my questions. So I began to enjoy this treatment I was receiving. Ariah finished with my hair and she stood me up. She took a little purple bottle from the wardrobe and sprayed my hanging wrists, making me smell faintly of lilac and lillies. She surveyed me for a moment and then, seeming satisfied with her work, she led me out of the room and to the same great mirror I had stood in front of before. As soon as I saw the image I presented, I melted. Ariah had changed me even more than I had changed when I had woken up. I had thought that the green and silver would wash out my Elven features, but instead it only enhanced them. My eyes seemed to soak in the color and brighten up. The shade of the green Ariah chose seemed to make my golden skin darken and shine. I thought that I shined just like the emeralds that adorned my body, and I started to preen in front of the mirror.
Ariah started laughing, “That is a form of Elven Magic for high ranking elves of the Du’Marniér family. The dress didn’t bring your beauty out better, you did. All any blood member of the family has to do is believe that they are beautiful and his, or her beauty is enhanced. That is why I did not use any cosmetics on you. Also, Miss Lucielle didn’t tell me your name. Would you like to tell me now or we can wait for introductions?”
“My name is Aurora.” I said. “Did you say the Du’Marniér family? That is my last name also. I don’t know what is happening Ariah, can you tell me why I woke up this morning as an Elf? And what do you mean magic? What magic?”
Ariah shook her head, “I cannot tell you anything, I must leave that to Miss. Lucielle. Now, come Miss Aurora, we must speak with Miss Lucielle now. She has been waiting. ” I followed Ariah out of the room, not wanting to get lost. I really wanted to know what had happened to me. I wanted to know why this Lucielle and I both had the same last names. Was this some sort of weird coincidence, I thought. Did this all have to do with that soap bottle? I wanted answers, so I followed Ariah, now more comfortable, if not secure, in my new form.
Ariah led me down a long corridor past many doors and hallways leading off on other directions. At the end of the corridor was another door and Ariah took out a set of keys that all looked old fashioned. She used one of the smallest and opened the door into a little room. This room was entirely circular with no windows and had only a little table and chair in the center of it. On that table was a large flawless crystal ball. Ariah shut the door behind her and latched it, she then made me sit at the little table while she stood against the door. I looked at the crystal ball and noticed that the only light in the room was coming from it. It was also the clearest crystal I had ever seen, I could see right through it. As I watched it, the ball started to fog up and the glow became even brighter.
After a moment the fog began dissipating, but the ball was no longer clear. After a second more, I thought that I could make out a face in the ball. The face slowly became clearer, and I realized that the face that met mine in the ball was my face. But unlike the face I was wearing now, this face was smiling. I just looked at the ball, unable to believe what was happening; even after all I had just been through. I assumed this must be Lucielle, but how could she be me?
“Hello Aurora.” My face said to me. “It is nice finally meet you.”
“I assume you must be Miss Lucielle.
“Yes, I am Lucielle, but you may call me Luci. I see that Ariah has gotten you dressed up for your day and I assume that she explained very little about what is happening. I am sure you are very confused and would like to know what is going on.”
I nodded, “Yes, Ariah only told me that I have some magic that allows me to be prettier if I think I am beautiful. She also told me that is runs in your family. This brings up a question I have for you. Ariah told me that your last name is Du’Marniér. My name is also Du’Marniér. Does this have anything to do with what is happening to me? Also, did that soap incident have anything to do with this?”
Lucielle sighed, “You figure things out so fast Aurora. I thought that even though you are smart, you wouldn’t make those connections yet. Oh well, I will explain it all to you. As I have already said, my name is Lucielle, and as Ariah has told you, my last name is Du’Marniér. My family has been among the high nobles of the world Homith for as long as you humans have inhabited Earth. Your kind is a sister race to my kind, and we have a brother race called the Trolls, who live on Argit. Homith and Earth and Argit are all planets that each of our kind resides on. Each planet inhabits its own dimension, but we all are on the same plane of existence. I am now in your dimension, which is called Purgitoria. You are now in my dimension, Haevenica. The Trolls live in the dimension known as Haell. You never want to visit them because they live in a very evil world. The reason why your last name and my last name are both Du’Marniér is because we are sisters. My father found a way to Earth and found a human woman, your mother, who he fell in love with as much as he loved my Elven mother. Well, he decided that before he left he wanted to leave your mother with something to remember him by, and he left you. Since you needed to fit in on Earth he did not leave you with any magic or Elven attributes except for your color changing eyes. They are the only magic that your human body carries and they help you to improve other’s moods, as well as changing color with your own moods. When my father came back, he told us all about your world and recently, I decided that I should meet my half sister.”
I smiled, “So I really do have family. My mother never married and never had any other children so I had always thought that I was an only child. Now I know why she never wanted to have more children. She must have loved our father too much to remarry. She also didn’t have any brothers or sisters and her parents died a long time ago so I have never had any relatives. So tell me Lucielle, why did you decide to change bodies with me? And you didn’t tell me if that soap incident had anything to do with it. And what about these Trolls? If they are so evil how can I avoid them? Can they do the same thing that you have done to me?”
“I have been watching you for quite some time Aurora. I saw how much you like to arrange the shelves at your work, so I picked that shelf of soap to set my spell. I thought that you might linger there for a few minutes to fix it, rather than risking that you wouldn’t pick up a bottle of soap at home. I also picked soap because it is more likely to stick to your skin longer that anything else, and the spell needs a few minutes of physical contact to work well. I had also applied a little bit of soap to my neck and so when we went to sleep and unaware, the spell was set and switched our bodies.
The reason why I switched bodies with you is because Homith is a very peaceful world, but it is sometimes too peaceful. I needed to get away from the quiet life I was leading. I also needed a vacation before our political season opened up again. Our cousin, the Queen Mauriana is going to look for a husband soon and I wanted to be away from all of them for a day before all of the males start trying to convince her that each one of them is the best match. I only switched bodies with you for today. The bottle of soap that I used is tucked under the pillow of the bed you woke up on this morning. All you have to do is to daub some of it on the red spot left from last night and then go to sleep. When you wake up again tomorrow morning, you will be yourself and the spot will fade after only a few days.”
“Luci, you seem to have had all of this planned out. I admit that at first I was afraid, but now I am curious. So I only have today to look at your world?” I asked. “That’s alright because I have things I need to do soon in my world. I have tests coming up soon and I don’t think you would like to take those for me Luci.”
Lucielle grinned, “I do believe you are right. We Elves study things that are very different from what you study. Would you like me to tell you about the Trolls now? I must leave soon.”
I agreed. If these trolls were so bad, I wanted to know how to avoid waking up on this evil world.
Luci went on to tell me that in the beginning of time the Great Mother, Gaia had many children. She gave birth to Chronos, and many others, but specifically she gave birth to Helios, The Unicorn Spirit. Helios eventually fell captive to the great Aphrodite. He did not want to be with this Goddess, but he could not help it and together they gave birth to our three races, the Elves, Humans, and Trolls. Soon after these three were born, Helios realized that the three could not live together on one world. The Elves were too good, the Humans were too chaotic, and the trolls were too evil. So Helios consulted Gaia and they decided to separate the three races on three different planets, in three different dimensions, so that they could each live out their lives without harming each other.
Lucielle went on to tell me how each race had stayed true to their natures. Elves had remained good, if perhaps a little stuck-up because of their status. Humans were still chaotic, with a third of the population being good, a third being neutral, and a third being evil. And lastly the trolls remained evil. If anything they had become more evil than before.
She told me that Trolls were very fond of doing the opposite of anything the Elves did. Since she had used liquid dish soap with me, one of them was bound to notice and try powdered soap.
“These Trolls have a big sense of humor, even if it is an evil one. I would suggest that you stay away from any powdered soap for awhile. Even after you are home for awhile, they may try the same thing with you.”
Thanks for the tip, I thought. I doubted that any Troll would ever want to bother me. After all, I wasn’t related to any of them, right?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I sat up suddenly in bed. I had had that dream again. Soap bubbles turned to powder and a crystal ball showing me a face that was telling me to stay away. I was confused, almost not sure if Lucielle had been a dream. I looked around, taking in the scene. My fish were lazily swimming around their clean tank, looking content. My room had been freshly vacuumed and there were no signs of occupation. I glanced at my mirror then and saw that there was a note taped to it.
I slowly climbed out of my bed, stretching all of my muscles and yawning. I took a step towards the mirror and tripped. Uh oh, I thought, balance problems again. I took a few more careful steps, until I was standing in front of the mirror.
The note had my name printed on the front in neat letters. Aurora. I opened up the letter, now knowing if that that day on Homith had been a dream. A tiny crystal pendant dropped out of the note. I smiled, knowing that Homith had not been a dream, and Lucielle left it for me. I began to read Lucielle’s handwriting.
Aurora,
Thank you for letting me spend the day in your body. I had such a nice time. I met some of your friends. Don’t worry, I am a wonderful actress, and I don’t think they suspected a thing. The crystal I left in this note is for you to wear always. As long as you wear it, we can always talk to each other. Wish me luck with Queen Mauriana , this wedding will be very trying. I hope to hear from you soon my sister. Be safe.
~Lucielle
I smiled and slipped the pendant over my head. I sat down on my only chair and closed my eyes. It had been such a nice day on Homith. I had gone horseback riding and also learned more about Elven history. I didn’t bother to learn any more about trolls because I was convinced that they couldn’t bother me.
Oh well, I thought. Maybe she’ll want to do that again one day. I looked around my room again and noticed the glass bottle I had put the soap in. I got up and went over to it. I looked at it, wondering in the same soap would work again. Then I noticed that something was wrong with the bottle. There was a crack running all along the bottom and the soap didn’t look the same any more. I carefully shook the bottle and I saw that the soap was now powder. My hands started shaking and I accidentally dropped the bottle. I watched, afraid, and the bottle dropped at my feet, shattering. The powder spilled all over my feet and they immediately turned bright green. They were also turning red from the cuts that the glass inflicted on my feet. I sat in my chair and grabbed a nearby washcloth from my little sink. As I wiped the blood and glass from my feet, I saw that they were still bright green. I pulled my feel up onto the chair and I leaned my head against my knees. Soon tears started winding their way down my legs. I could not stop crying because I knew that I would soon be on Argit and there might not be any way out.

~*The End*~

Countdown

2009-05-24T19:43:00.003+09:00

I feel like I am on a perpetual countdown now...

~Every paycheck feels like a countdown
~I'm counting down do all of my online class money and my extra class money
~About 2 15 days until I become an Aunt for the first time (2 weeks)
~20 days until my Bridal shower/Bachelorette Party (less than 3 weeks)
~30 days until Cody's 25th Birthday (Just over 4 weeks)
~55 days until Cody and my Wedding (About 8 weeks)
~69 days until we are planning on going to the Philippines (About 10 weeks)
~94 days until the last day of our contract (Just over 13 weeks)

and then an un-named amount of days until many other parties and events. It's crazy. Some days I wake up and can't believe I am in a foreign country and that I am about to become a married woman. Other days I can't wait to become a married woman and get out of this country.

I love it in Korea, but I miss home a lot. Korea has left a lot of impressions on me...

Samgaebsal, Bibimbab, Kimchi Chiggae... well kimchi in general... and many other dishes.

Korea has also left a lot of cultural impressions on me, both good and bad. A lot of days recently I don't want to go to school and wish I could just fly out the next day. I know I'll make it, and I know leaving will be kind of bittersweet. I have made a lot of friends here and i know some of those friendships might not last through the severing of our close proximity and the continuance of our adult lives... but so goes being an adult and growing up, it happens. I also know that once we leave this country we might... well, not lose... but definitely have to let go of friends that we expected to return home with and continue our lives with in Portland. Fallon may be leaving us to go live in Australia for awhile.. and while that is awesome for her (I would love to live in Australia), and I hope everything works out well for her, I will miss her and cannot help but being upset or angry in a silly way that I feel like I am losing her.

One thing I don't look forward to moving home is feeling like I am losing all of my friends. I have friends back home, but all of them are male, except for Fallon, Jen, Lori and perhaps any work friends left back home. Jen is planning her big exciting move to Italy, and Fallon will be spending most of her time in Idaho until she leaves for Australia, and Lori is busy being a newlywed. I am a bit afraid that I will have a really hard time making more close female friends. I seem to have had a hard time as an adult making female friends... until I came to Korea. I think I have come out of my shell a little bit since coming here, and I think in a way, being forced among so many strangers and being almost made to make friends so wuickly, may have helped my friend-making skills. I really hope so anyway. I love my guy friends back home, but a girl really needs girl friends... and friends who are willing to hang out with her apart from her husband....

I don't know, maybe I am worrying all for nothing, and I have a lot more worries than that for when I get home. I have to change my name, get a job, find a place to live, find a place for Dante to stay until I find a place to live... pay off debt... travel some more. Mostly travel. Cody and I need to go on our honeymoon when we get back (somewhere in Mexico or the Carribean I think), we want to visit our friend Scott, who is currently serving in the airforce in California, and I really want to take Cody back to Ohio for a few days to visit my ailing grandmother and my very large quantity of family there... and maybe take him to one of the two main theme parks there... Cedar Point or King's Island... maybe even drive to Six-Flags or Sea World. Either way, he has only met a little portion of my family, and it's really important to me that he meets most of it, especially my grandmother, and as she's about 90 years old, there's not that much time left...

Anyway, i am really looking forward to being married to the love of my life and going home and starting our life together. I hope everything works out, I am sure it will, it always seems to, but I always worry too much.

At this point though, I am really just very excited about my bachelorette party and bridal shower... Hehe... more on that in three weeks...

So tired...

2009-04-14T15:31:00.021+09:00

Recently a lot of things have been going well, but in a way that's bad. A lot of things have also been going bad... and that's really bad.

Spring had brought around a lot of activities in Mokpo, and that means Cody and I are doing something almost every day. It also means I don't seem to ever get enough sleep, and since the weather is getting warmer and warmer, that means I probably won't sleep well until we leave. Right now the weather can't decide whether it's going to make me feel hot or cold, and Cody always wants the window open because he's always hot and because of his tinnitus (for those who don't know, it means y6ou have a constant ringing or buzzing sound in your ears). The open windows always bother me because either I get cold easily, or most often, the noises outside bother me, especially in the early morning. Some mornings my body has a hard time waking up, but many, my body doesn't want to stay asleep until the proper time because of many factors (light, the sheets or blankets are bunched up funny, there is a dog barking, the birds are just a little too loud, a good or bad smell). I suppose I am just sensitive in the mornings, as my mind seems to take all that is going on around me if I am even the least bit awake.

Anyway, here is my typical schedule right now:

Monday:
In school by 9:00 am; 5 classes total between school and Online (3.5 hours of teaching, 4.5 hours of 'down' or lesson-planning time), out of school at 5. Take a taxi home to gather up my orphanage things, leave for Kimbap to meet the other Orphanage teachers by 5:30. Eat Kimbap or some other delicious dish there, leave by 6:15, head to Ti Amo to pick up a ritual coffee drink or treat ourselves to Gelatto. Walk to Orphanage, have class with my two wild 3rd graders from 7-8pm, taxi with the people living in hadang to Trista's house, walk home, and homefully be relaxing on the couch by 9:00. I am usually exhausted by the end of Mondays.

Tuesday:
In school by 9:00 am; 5 classes total between school and Online (3.5 hours of teaching, 4.5 hours of 'down' or lesson-planning time), out of school at 5. Try to force energy into self for weekly soccer from 6-whenever we can't see anymore because it's too dark, usually 7:30. If Cody and I skip, we usually end up having some other activity or important thing to do...

Wednesday:
In school by 9:00 am; 5 classes total between school and my extra Kindergarten class (3 hours and 16 Minutes of teaching, 4 hours and 46 minutes of 'down' or lesson-planning time), out of school at 5. This is technically a free day for nothing, but it's becoming board game day, or often another activity will insert itself here...

Thursday:
In school by 9:00 am; 5 classes total between school and Online (3.5 hours of teaching, 3.5 hours of teaching, 4.5 hours of 'down' or lesson-planning time), out of school at 5. Unless something comes up, this is my only day for "me" time. Cody has Hockey, which means unless he's sick or something, I get at least 2 hours by myself. These hours are precious to me, even though I usually end up doing nothing or watching TV, but still, I'm by myself for awhile.

Friday:
In school by 9:00 am; 6 classes total between school and Online and Kindergarten (4 hours of teaching, 4 hours of 'down' or lesson-planning time), out of school at 5. This day is inevitably Date night, or some sort of party or dinner, which I love, especially date night. We've been Double-dating with Fallon and her new b/f, and it's really fun to be able to do that with another couple more often.

Saturday:
This is always a party, a festival, or soemthing. We almost never have a Saturday free anymore, and we have to plan an event on a Saturday at least a month out.

Sunday:
It depends int he morning, but from 4 or 5 pm to 8 or 9 pm Cody and I are almost always playing Dungeons and Dragons with Niles, Stephen, and Wim. So, we pretty much spend Sundays being general dorks, and we love it.

The good thing is we keep busy, and we are always seeing people, and we can't say we wasted our spring in Korea being lazy people, and we will always have a ton of pictures and memories from this experience.

I do have to say we have made a lot of friends here, and I love them all, but I think I am ready to go home. I miss cheap gyms, a large variety of food from many cultures, my friends and family back home, efficient heating and cooling, laws and rules that actually make sense most of the time, Winco, Target, New Seasons, Trader Joes, Red Robin, The Racoon Lodge, McMenamin's, Applebee's and their late night 1/2 off appetizers, The Max train, temperate climates, Portland in general.

I think we'll miss everyone in Korea and always miss Korea itself, but I really can't wait to e done with my contract in... 4 months and 2 days (or 126 days). I keep telling myself to not countdown yet... it's still to early and I'll drive myself crazy!

My school has been driving me crazy lately, I really think that's part of my wanting to go home, so we'll see, but I think the decision has pretty much been reached by Cody and I...

Update on School and Such

2009-03-31T14:09:00.015+09:00

OMG! Now that I finally forced myself to finish the China blogs (today is a test day at school, so I have nothing else to do, haha), here is an update on School:

~Eun-Su is no longer my co-teacher, she didn't even bother to tell me, I called her a few days before school started back up to see why my paycheck was late and she was really confused as to why I was calling her, I was to have a new co-teacher....OKAY....

~I come to school...surprise...Shinsook is my new co-teacher. I thought she was leaving Korea to get married and live in the Netherlands, she is, but not until June/July... OKAY....

~I find out half the preperations I did over break are worthless, I am only teaching 5th and 6th grades now.... CHECK....

~I tell my school I refuse to teach the 3rd-6th grade extra class because they screwed me over last term, they aren't happy but accept it... CHECK...

~I tell them I am doing online distance classes for kods with no Native teachers in small areas... not happy with me, but they don't say much... Check

~Classes aren't too bad yet, I changed the reward system from stars to fruit and put a fighting ban in my classroom, period....OKAY....

~We have confiscated 3 cell phones, yelled because of 6 swear instances and yelled at one kid for doing a double-fingered flip-off... Not too bad yet...

~I've started to get more and more frusterated with my school on many small things... I'm not feeling like staying a second year right now....

~I found out I have a $2,000 budget for my wedding, maybe $4,000, but I have to plan on $2000... GREAT, NOT REALLY....

~The orphanage is going good, but my two boys are way too rowdy and I can't control them very well... GRRR

~My school computer was upgraded to english, then had the memory upgraded because the programs took up too much memory, then the power source died and had to be replaced... they should just replace this thing...

~Online classes seem ok, but really confusing and hard, but easy at the same time... confusing? I know...

~I'm almost 25, My birthday party was on Saturday, and it was really fun. We had Galbi, went to Japanese Bar for some fruit Soju and birthday songs, then we went to the Noraebang! Cody got me a new Nintendo DS Lite for my birthday, I love it.

~For the first time I was able to send money home with an Ok exchange and have about $450 to spare! I put $300 in savings... that's the most I have had there in a LONG time...

~I am enjoying my friends and activities here a lot

~Finally:

I am trying to plan a wedding while trying to decide whetehr to extend my contract or not if my school asks me.

China - Day 9

2009-03-31T13:40:00.006+09:00

So, finally, I am almost done with these China blogs... I've been too lazy since we came back... obviously....

So it was Tuesday. We had a great week, although my ankle was still killing me. Cody and I got up early, packed up and cleaned our hostel room so that we could get our 100 yuan deposit back. We then checked out, but asked the hostel to watch our stuff, and headed to the Silk Market to spend our remaining money.

We walked in, and we were immediately accosted with stalls EVERYWHERE selling all manner of fakes and goods, people grabbing at us and shouting prices. "I have Prada, you want Prada bag? Gucci? 100% silk scarf! Very cheap!"

It was insane, and I had a headache almost immediately, but we were ready to jump in. We quickly bought another mask, cheaper than the other ones I had bought this time, but not by much, Cody picked up a tie, and I bought one "silk" scarf for 30 yuan, then bought two more, this time the "45"% Pashminas (So better than the last one, thicker as well), for only 50 yuan. By the time I was done arguing and bargaining, the lady breathed hard and said "You are a very hard bargainer!" I could have probably gotten it lower, but maybe not, she was very adamant about not going to 50, but I got her there!

After spending all the money we had, except enough to get us to the hostel and airport and a little for food, we headed back to the hostel, got our stuff and said goodbye, and then headed to the Airport again.

At the airport, we got stuck behind yet another tour group, this time an older group and at the check-in counter (I don't know if I mentioned, but when arriving, we got stuck in customs behind a huge Korean tour group made up of high school kids). It was really annoying, and really slowed the line down because theyw eren't prepared for check in (both groups weren't prepared...) and had a ton of bags, but we finally got checked in and through security without incident.

We ended up in a downstairs terminal and waiting for our plane and a shuttle bus to take us to our plane (as we had to enter the plane from the tarmac. Yea for tarmac experience dos!), which ended up being about a 1/2 hour late, adn then the bus took about a 1/2 hour to shuttle us to the opposite side of the airport.

It was long and slightly frusterating, but we dinally took off without further incident, and made it to Seoul. BEcause it was so late, we ended up staying in Seoul at the Paradise Hotel (the love motel we stayed at with Fallon in january) and eating late night Burger King and Street food. We also took turns soaking the China dirt away in the big Jacuzzi tub there.

The next day we got up early, lugged our stuff to Outback Steak house, had a nice steak, and then went back to Mokpo on the train.

All in all, our trip was really good, if a bit smog-filled. Cody and I deperately tried to find China Cola there (Also known as Future Cola), but it turns out they don't sell it in cities. Dang them, only marketing to small towns! Ah well, maybe if we ever make it back to China...

China -Day 8

2009-03-31T13:01:00.016+09:00

On Monday, we were again busy. We grabbed some street vendor food in the morning, and made our way to the Beijing Zoo.

Wow, all I have to say is, even though we were prepared, we really weren't. We went to see the Giant Pandas first, and they had a nice exhibit. It was bit and pretty clean, and about average with a large Gorilla enclosure back home, but that's where decent-sized cages ended. From then on, we saw dirty enclosures that were too small, and had no toys or entertainment for the animals.

The Lions and Tigers were all in Enclosures slightly bigger than a large jail cell, and the outside was not much bigger.

About halfway through the Zoo we took a break and went to the Aquarium. This was much better. All the fish had clean, nice tanks, and everything was really nice. There was a big Sea Turtle in an open tank and you could sit and watch it. If you felt like breaking the rules, as most of the visitors did (me too, I'll admit), you could easily put your hand down and touch the turtle without being too obvious about it.

The Aquarium ended way too soon for us, but we made our way back to the Zoo for more depressing sights. We saw the Zebras in a big pen, but with low walls so that you could easily pet them. You weren't supposed too, but people did anyway. I did, carefully, and it was pretty cool, like petting a mule actually, with a little more of a propensity for trying to bite you when you were near their mouths. One got bobbed on the rump with a toy someone had, and he wasn't too happy, but looked kind of used to it. We walked through the "deer park," which was just a huge section of pens, where you could easily pet half the animals if they were close enough, and we did. We saw a kid feeding a people snack to a big wild goat, and that was bad. We looked in the children's zoo and saw a Camel in a too-small enclosure, a small hut just filled with cats, and a bunch of pens packed with a ton of different dogs. Finally, we saw the penguins and reptile house. The Penguin's tank was too small, and in the reptile house all the snakes were either in the wrong cages, or not in their tanks.

So my opinion: The Aquarium was cool, the Zoo was not (Except the Giant Pandas, they are so cute), although it was nice to pet some animals, hehe. China is definitely not nice to their animals at the Zoo. I definitely will not visit the Zoo if I ever go back, maybe the Aquarium, but not the Zoo.

After the Zoo we made our way to Beihai Park, and the island in the middle of it so that we could have our Valentines dinner at Fangshan. Fangshan means "Imitation Imperial Cuisine." Basically, some of the cooks who last worked for the Emporer decided to open a resteraunt on the island in Beihai park so that they could still make imperial cuisine. The Emperor allowed it, but stated that it was not imperial cuisine. It could onyl be imperial if made in the imperial palace, so it was subbed imitation imperial cuisine, even though it was the same food. The last Dowager Princess, Cixi, likes to visit Beihai Park, and whenever she did, she would take her lunch at Fangshan. These days, it's a pretty expensive resteraunt (by Chinese Standards) that served set course menues ranging from 295 yuan to 1200 yuan.

We made our way to the resteraunt and were greeted by servers all dressed very traditionally, and by very gold decor. Everything was gold or yellow. We took a look at the menu and picked one of the two cheapest meals for 295, only about $50 for a 12 course meal!

Over the next two hours we got so many things; little cakes, smoked duck, ham, and chicken, Mandarin fish, Camel hump meat, pork buns, tea, fruit, scallops, more cakes/buns, and a couple more that I can't remember right now, but posted pictures of on my website.

Finally, about two hours later, we were very full and made our way out and took some pictures of Beihai Park at sunset. Although we were full, we decided we wanted something sweet, and made the 1/2 hour walk to Grandmas Kitchen. I had left Cody's gloves there, and we decided to go back for them and some delicious sundays.

On the way there, all the tea I had drank at Fangshan caught up with me, and I had to find a public bathroom. Luckily we found one about halfway to Grandma's Kitchen. Unfortunately for me, I walk in and realize all of the toilets have no doors, and there's a lady using the squatter right in front of me! There was on western toilet, right next to the door, where someone could just peek in and see me, but I sucked it up and just did it. It was insane. I never thought "public restroom" would be so public, none of the other ones were, but I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go.

We finally made it to Grandma's Kitchen, recovered the gloves and had some really delicious sundays. So yummy. We then made our way back to the hostel, found some room and strength for a beer and chat in the hotel bar, and then went to bed for our last sleep in China.

China - Day 7

2009-03-31T12:14:00.005+09:00

Sunday dawned, and we decided to take it easy yet again because of my ankle, but also because we were kind of running out of things to do, so we decided to go check out the Qianmen market streets.

Qianmen is insane, but cool, there are so many people and shops down there, and they are opening up more very soon, adding another street to the chaos. What will be the main street is new and doesn't have much on it yet, but the current main street is bustling. We didn't buy much there because we were seeing the same things over and over again, but I did buy a scarf, a "30%" silk Pashmina, a little cheap looking, but nice.

After the main strip, we crossed and started exploring the smaller hutongs. We took in the small shops, bought a couple of Chinese masks to add to my new mask collection, bought yet more scrolls to add to our growing pile, and just took in the scenery. There were tons of electric/cable/telephone wires hanging in the sky, drying fish, and garbage everywhere. It was truly wonderful. We even saw a couple of butchers with curing sausage hanging from the ceiling.

We meandered, watching street vendors make their food, and even succumbing to trying a few things.

At around 2 or so, we wandered back to our hostel, ate yet another meal at the nearby resteraunt (and yes we had cashew chicken every time, except once), and just chilled out at the hostel, drinking and talking to some of the people we had met.

China - Day 6

2009-03-31T11:59:00.005+09:00

Saturday dawned and it was Valentines Day. We made plans to go to dinner Monday, but for today, we still wanted to do some things.

First, we headed to the Panjiayuan Dirt Market. This is a market that's open all week, but on the weekend people travel from all over china to bring their "antiques," fakes, jewelry, and art to sell. On the way there, we picked up some street food, little bread disks topped with lettuce, spicy sauces, egg, and chicken, and folded ike a taco. It was so yummy, but the spicy disagreed with Cody a little bit later.

Once we made it to the market, we were overwhelmed. We had meen smart and saved the majority of our money for this day, but there was so much STUFF. It was crazy, aisles and aisled of stuff spead on the ground, stalls, and shops. I ended up doing a lot of haggling, most specifically to get a large Buddah picture down from 800 yuan to 300 yuan, so about $50 (and I could have gone lower maybe, but she was a hard bargainer, and buying two Buddhas, one for 260 yuan (He originally asked 700), so about $43, and another one down from 600 yuan to 200, so $34.

It was a really cool place though, and we got quite a few things. I probably spent too much there, but that's ok. And one of the Buddhas was actually Cody's Valentines Day present, so that was really good.

After the Panjiayuan Dirt Market, we headed back to the hostel for some food, rest, and to we meet up with some of the other people at the hostel because we were going to a Kung-Fu Show. I was so excited because I had never seen one before, and it was pretty amazing, and in English too! We even bought some luggage there. I know, it's strange, but we needed luggage and they
had some nice stuff there. We ended up getting taken advantage of a little bit, but it was worth it I think. We now have Kung Fu luggage, LOL!

The Kung Fu show was really amazing, and it was in ENGLISH! There were Chinese subtitles, but I was amazed. I don't think the actors/athletes spoke English, I think most of the speaking, except singing, was recorded, but still. It was a nice surprise. The show was also different from what I expected, I thought it was just going to be a bunch of flips, kicks, and such, but it wasn't. It was actually almost a play with Kung Fu in it. They did a lot of the acrobatics and kicks and feats, but it was all worked into the story. It was really cool.

After the Kung-Fu show, and narrowly avoiding buying nun chucks from the souvenir stand, we headed back to the hostel for a couple drinks and bed.

China - Day 5

2009-03-31T11:40:00.004+09:00

Friday: Military Museum, Olympic Green

On Friday, we kept things pretty laid back. First thing, we went to the Forbidden City and walked up to a restaurant called Grandma's Kitchen, where we were told we would get the first American Breakfasts we had had in a restaurant in months. We were not disappointed, it was fabulous.

After breakfast, we started walking to a nearby park to hike to some more temples, but we had to scrap that idea last minute because my ankle was killing me, and we didn't want to risk me getting more injured than I already was.

After breakfast and vetoing the hike idea, we made our way to the Military Museum. It's all about China's history and winning free of Japan and other "evil" countries. It was pretty cool, and all the displays were really good, but it was full of propaganda and lies, most of which were in Chinese so we wouldn't understand them, but some were actually in English. My favorite part was the Hall of Presents. It contained a lot of the presents that other countries have presented to China over the years. Cody's favorite was a gold plated AK-57.

Directly after the military museum, we went to have lunch at the restaurant near our hostel again, and then we made our way to the Olympic Village again. This time we made it to be able to walk on the strip, and even caught the very end of a figure skating show. Unfortunately, we were too late to take a tour of the Bird's Nest, but we took a lot of pictures, and it was still really cool.

That was about it for Friday, unfortunately because of my ankle, we had to take it kind of easy.

Oh, we also had a dumpling making party at the hostel that night, we made them, then ate them...yum. It was great, in fact, we couldn't even finish them, hehe.

China -Day 4

2009-03-16T16:06:00.014+09:00

Ok, so on to day four. It rained. It was the only day it decided to rain, but it was raining all day, and steadily. We braved it though, went and bought some Chinese umbrellas and set out.

First, we headed to the Temple of Heaven early and spent a few hours there. It was really nice, and huge, but only Cody could take very many pictures, while I held the umbrella, so that wasn't very nice. It was interesting that there were so many people there. There were doing everything from playing card games under cover, to selling trinkets, to dancing and performing some martial arts everywhere we looked throughout the park surrounding all the temples and palaces. It was a lot of fun.

After the Temple of Heaven, we headed out to check out the ancient observatory. It didn't take us long because it was small, but it was really cool to check out all of the old astronomy equipment.

After the Observatory, we headed back to the hostel for awhile to dry off and catch lunch at a local restaurant. I still dream of this place with their huge bowls of soup, fried rice, and best cashew nut chicken I have ever had... so delicious!

After lunch, we hung out at our hostel for awhile to rest. This was good because somewhere along the way I mulled a muscle or tendon in my ankle and it was really starting to hurt. After a little while, Cody and headed out to check out the Olympic Village because it was going to be dark soon and we were told that the Olympic Village would be lit up. Unfortunately, we got there at about 7:30 and the park had closed at 7. We could tell that the buildings were lit up, but it was really hazy and rainy, so we couldn't see much. We left, but we hoped that we could make it back before we left China.

Before heading back to the hostel, we made our way back to Wangfujing market so that we could check out the long line of food stalls they had there. We ended up eating a bunch of dumplings, and noodles, and candy-coated strawberries and pineapple. The fruit was the best, and I thought a genius idea. They basically made a basic hard candy and dipped the fruit in the boiling hot sugar while it was still liquid, and then the candy would harden into a thin delicious shell over the fruit. We didn't buy anything strange or exotic, but they had everything from dog and scorpions on a stick to sea snake and bird's nest soup.

We left the market and went back to the hostel to have some cheap beer with some of the other people staying there, very happy with the food we had just eaten.

China Day 3

2009-03-16T14:38:00.014+09:00

Up early to catch the free hostel breakfast included in the Great Wall tour, we were tired but ready to go. Cody requested the Swedish plate, which was fruit, scrambles eggs, a slice of processed cheese, homemade yogurt and toast. I ordered the English plate and had fruit, toast, eggs, and my first ever breakfast baked beans. Norman also joined us for the tour, and he ordered the Swedish plate as well. Thus fortified, and with some snacks we had procured the day before, we all piled into the hostel's van and started the 1 1/2 hour ride to the Great Wall.

Once we arrived to the parking lot area (about a mile below the wall itself), we made our way past the souvenir stands, and to the ticket counter. Before giving us out tickets, our "guide" (really just the guy driving us there and back) told us to be back by 1:00, giving us about 3 hours to get to the wall and back. We all then made our way up the 40 minute hike to the wall itself, which was brutal for me, as it was all uphill, on a very steep incline. About 10 minutes into our hike, we thought we should have paid the extra 40 yuan for the lift, but we didn't and I miraculously didn't have a heart attack or aneurysm on the way up (I was close though, having dressed warm in preparation for the cold weather, but it turned out to be a mild day, grrr).

After making it up, we were assailed by one of about 5 vendors that made it up their witht heir cokes and cookies, but we ignored them and began our 2 hour hike and picture spree of the wall.

It was amazing, and while I did lag behind Cody and Norman most of the time, I did make it as far as them. We got some incredible pictures, and we even had a snack break. I am now proud to say I ate an Apple, some cashews, and dried pineapple on the Great Wall of China. I really cannot even describe the views and the feelings it gave me. Check out my pictures on:

http://web.me.com/cwgabel/Desiree/Welcome.html

Hopefully that will give you an idea of my experience.

At the end of our time, we made our way back, but instead of hiking down, to save time and for fun, we took the toboggan down. That's right, they had a toboggan there, and it was 40 yuan. It was so fun, but someone a few people before us crashed, so as I came around one corner, there was a back up of people. It turned out that he went too fast around the corner and didn't lean the right way, so he flipped his toboggan off the track. After that, Cody and Norman were a little annoyed with me because I still went fast, but slowed down a lot around the corners because the side of the track were really rocky and steep, and I refused to crash and get hurt only three days into my vacation. We did make it to the bottom unscathed though, and it was very fun.

We only had to wait 15 minutes to leave, and unlike Cody and some others, I actually managed to avoid buying anything at the Souvenir stand, as they were selling all the same things as any other souvenir stand I had seen so far.

We headed out, and actually made it back to the hostel around 2:30. Cody and I ditched some of our stuff, and we decided to head out to try and catch the Lama Temple again. On the way I grabbed some soba noodles that looked much like Yakisoba, and they were SO good! They were slightly spicy, a little too oily, but ton die for! Anyway, this time we made it to the temple , and it was pretty cool. We couldn't take pictures inside the temple for some reason, but there were a ton of people burning incense and bowing and praying to the many Buddhas there. We even saw the largest Buddha ever carved out of one piece of wood. He stood about 3 stories high and was huge. Even if we were allowed to take pictures, we couldn't have captured a good one of him because he was so huge.

Everything there was so pretty and smelled so good because of the hundreds of sticks of incense being burned outside. We also made sure to buy a few strands of prayer beads and some other things.

Later that night, we met up with our other friends again and attempted to find this bar that was supposed to have good food and around 45 home-brewed Belgian beers. We were so excited, but unfortunately we were having a ridiculously hard time finding it, so we wandered around the area and found a American food diner where we ordered anything from macaroni and cheese to deep-fried catfish. Everything had a twist on it to make it seem upscale though, and some of the food didn't end up to be too good, but it was still fun. After dinner, we all realized we were very tired and parted ways. Cody and I decided to take another trip into the Wangfujing market though, and we ended up wandering around and buying candy-coated strawberries before going back to the hostel. they were fabulous!

China - Day 2

2009-03-10T14:26:00.015+09:00

The second day of China was busy form the start. We woke up at 5:30 in order to be at Tiananmen Square by 7:00 to meet up with Norman for the dawn flag raising. It was interesting to watch, everyone who was watching had to line up a certain distance from the flagpole, and couldn't go any closer until the ceremony was over. They played some music, and a double line of Korean police/soldiers marched from The forbidden city, crossed the busy street they temporarily blocked, and surrounded the flag pole. They then slowly raised the flag to music. It was really interesting to watch.

After the flag raising, we wandered around the square, taking pictures and looking for some friends we were to meet, we found out later that they had made a last minute decision to sleep in. After not finding them, we decided to head over to see Mao's Memorial. It turned out, they don't allow you to bring in any bags or anything, so we had to walk across the street to pay to have our bags stored for us. Since The memorial itself was free to get into, I believe that this is how they made there money because they charged per bag, and also per camera. It was 9 yuan for my purse and camera and only slightly more for Cody's backpack and camera. Granted, 10 yuan was less than $2, but still...

After dropping our bags off, we headed over to Mao's Memorial. We were immediately subjected to the fourth security check of the morning, and ushered towards the memorial. On the way, we were allowed to purchase yellow carnations for 3 yuan, which Cody did, because he decided he wanted to honor Mao. We entered the building and immediately formed 2 lines, one with carnations, and one without. The people with flowers were able to go close to a statue of Mao and place them on a huge table covered with flowers (we found out later, yet another money-making ploy, as they re-used the same flowers throughout the day). Then, warned by signs to keep quiet, we paraded past the crystal tomb. Under the lid, we could see Mao lying there, looking waxy because of how he has been preserved. It was kind of cool, yet creepy to be in there. After looking at Mao, we walked around a corner and were bombarded with souvenir stands. I couldn't believe it. One minute we are being quiet and respectful, the next, we are getting harassed to buy everything you could imagine with Mao's picture on it.

After making our way out, and only buying one or two Mao souvenirs, we made out way to the Forbidden City and spent the next three or four hours wandering the labyrinthine halls and palaces. It was pretty amazing, and we didn't see a third or so of it because we had a hard time getting out of the North West section, and were really tired once we had made it.

After the Forbidden City, we attempted to head to the Lama Temple. We were really excited because it's an actual working temple, rather than a pure tourist trap. Unfortunately, we didn't make it. We located the temple only five minutes after ticket sales had ended. Discouraged, but resolving to go another day, Norman headed to his hotel, while Cody and I went to our hostel to freshen up. After that, we met at the Wangfujing Market Street and headed to a restaurant to try our first ever Peking Duck. It was fabulous, and fatty. You definitely should not eat it too often, but it was delicious.

We were really excited because we ran into our friends who we were supposed to meet that morning at the restaurant. We hung out a little bit, and made plans to meet the next night for dinner.

After we parted ways, Norman, Cody, and I headed into the Wangfujing market again to do some shopping. I grabbed a Starbucks, while Cody and Norman had some Blizzards from the Dairy Queen we found there, and we wandered through a side alley where they were selling everything and everything. This is when I first tried my hand at bargaining. I chose a little chess set that I decided wasn't worth more than 15 dollars, as you could tell it was made from poured resin. The lady immediately claimed it was ox bone pieces and said it was 650 yuan (about $130). I laughed and said no, no more than 10 yuan, she went to 500, and we went from there. I stopped at 50 yuan, refusing to budge from there. After much arguing and me walking away many times, she finally accepted my offer of 50 yuan, less than $12. It felt good winning and not getting taken advantage of too much.

After my acquisition, we all decided to part ways for the night, and Cody and I headed back for the hostel for some much-needed nights sleep, as we were leaving the hostel at 7:30 am to visit the Mutianyu Section of the Great Wall of China!

China - Day 1

2009-03-10T14:22:00.000+09:00

Beijing was wonderful in many ways, but in many ways it really made me miss Korea.

Day1:

After heading to our hostel and checking in and dropping off our packs, we immediately headed out to meet a fellow teacher from Korea, Norman, so that we could go see the Summer Palace together. After meeting Norman as one of the subway transfer stations, we immediately made off to the palace. It wasn't too dicfficult getting there either. After leaving the subway, we caught a taxi who took up straight there. The cab fare was only 10 yuan, which was less than $2. After paying our 40 yuan entrance fee (less than $7), we were free to wander most of the premises with the other tourists and locals who were checking out the palace next to it's frozen lake. I do have to say it was beautiful, even in the middle of winter, and I had a good idea of why the emporer would have wanted to stay there in the summer (other than the fact that the forbidden city is a veritable maze).

After the Summer Palace, we decided to hit up a popular western-style mall with a huge food court. I know, you are wondering why we went to a food court, well the food court at this mall consisted of at least 15 full resteraunts, all carrying a different style of Chinese food, and even many Korean resteraunts. We avoided the Korean, since we eat Korean every day, and headed to one of the Szechuan resturaunts. I was really excited because Cody and I watched the old Iron Chef all the time, and we had never had Szechuan food before. Cody went with a chicken dish, and Norman chose a non-spicy chicken dish (most Szechuan dishes are spicy and laden with Szechuan peppers). I decided I wanted to try something new and went with the Szechuan Bullfrog. Now, I've had frog before (At a Asian buffet back home), but the frog was always overcooked and deepfried. This was a whole bull frog chopped into pieces and stewed with Szechuan peppers and garlic and chili oil I believe and served in a big bowl with all the peppers and oil and such. I was immediately scared because I was starting to be afraid that I ordered something unbearably spicy. It turned out to be really good. The peppers were spicy, but not horribly so, and very flavorful. I had the strangest sensation of knowing the food was spicy, but my mouth not being affexted and my lips going really numb and tingly from the spice. It was delicious, and only 75 yuan ($12.50!), a little on the mid range/expensive side for China, but still really cheap!

After dinner, we stumbled on a Dairy Queen, and could not resist buying some blizzards for 35 yuan (less than $6), and then we made our way down to Tiananmen Square and the front of the Forbidden City to see them and night and to see fireworks because it was the Lantern Festival (the last day of Chinese New Year). It was fabulous lit up, and everyone in Beijing was crowding the sidewalks buying things, and going to blow up a firework or ten. You actually couldn't see too many fireworks in the sky because of the tall buildings and smog and smoke, but it sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone with bombs going off everywhere. The ground was constantly booming, and it was very loud.

We were actually lucky to avoid any street firecrackers because when we went back to our hostel, we could tell by the amount of firecracker papers that walking in the street there would have been hazardous while they were going off. There was even a newly constructed hotel that burned down that night, and not far from us, because of all the fireworks going off next to it.

We headed to bed around 10:30 pm that night to finally get some sleep, only to get up at 5:30 am the next day....

China - On our Way

2009-03-10T14:19:00.000+09:00

Cody and I finally set out on our journey to China on Sunday, the 8th of February in the evening. We had eaten some Kimbap at the local Kimbap Nara in order to save money until we got to China, but when we reached Gwangju Bus terminal around 10:00 pm and realized that we had until 12:30 am until the direct bus to Incheon International airport, we inevitably got hungry for junk food. We admirably didn’t head for the stands full of Pringles and Powerade like usual, but then any good that did went right out the window when we decided to visit the bus terminal’s TGIF’s and grab some fries and a brownie covered in ice cream. Whoops, bad us, but it was worth it.

After the food, we settled down to await our bus with some books we purchased from the tiny English section of the bus terminal’s bookstore. Cody settled into some Sherlock Holmes, and I started my random pick The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, a story about an Autistic boy researching into a dog’s murder.

The bus finally showed up, and we hopped on the bus, hoping to be able to sleep for about 4 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, what with being keyed up from the brownie and the trip, it took me about an hour to fall asleep. I had only been sleeping fitfully for about 2 hours when, surprise, we arrive at the Incheon International airport about an hour and a half earlier than planned. We are there at about 3 am, the check in desk does not even open until 6:30, so what do we do? We attempt, and fail, to sleep on the uncomfortable benches near the check-in counters. 6 hours later, after almost getting lost in the airport, and splurging on McDonalds, we finally were on our 2 hour flight to Beijing.

My first view of Beijing through the window? Smog. Oh, and Brown landscape. I realize it was winter, but this was ridiculous in anything but a desert. It turns out it wasn't quite as bad as I first thought, but it was a startling sight.

The last thing I will include in this slightly boring blog is disembarking the plane. For the first time in my life, I was startled to discover that we has to climb down stairs out of the plane! I was the first time I've ever been on the tarmac, and it was strange, and yet exciting.

That about ends how I made my way to China, now on to describing my time there...

Vacations

2009-02-05T12:27:00.004+09:00

As much as I have been loving having a 2-month break from teaching, in some ways it is starting to get to me. I fear that I am getting used to doing nothing all day, and I will have a hard time adjusting to working again. I haven't had a full two-months off to do nothing (except maybe travel of course) since probably my 6th grade summer due to summer camps, jobs, and one summer I chose to take summer school to get ahead.

January was supposed to be a work at home time, and I did get many lesson plans and games thought out, and finish some flash cards and game cards, but really I've only worked...maybe 12 hours all month. Even though February is officially my vacation, I might work a bit more, but probably less than 12 hours because I will be traveling out of the country and such.

It doesn't really help that throughout last month and currently, I have always had a stack of money, but I can't spend it because the money has been devoted to China. I don't plan on spending the full one million won I set aside to bring to China, but I have to make sure I don't run out of money until I get back home. I have been wanting to travel a little bit more around Korea, but due to my money issue, I haven't done as much as I might have liked to.

Ah well. I have had fun on some days, been bored on others, and just relaxed on others. Even with all my spare time, I have procrastinated on many things. I have enjoyed my time off, I just want to make sure I'm ready to go back to work when it's time. If we stay another year, I am going to try and make sure that when this break comes around again, I have planned and saved better so I don't end up perpetually broke during the break again.

Almost ready for China

2009-02-03T00:14:00.004+09:00

So it's almost here. After languishing mostly around Mokpo in January, except for the trip to the Boseung green tea fields and two days in Seoul, Cody and I are about to leave for China for eight fabulous days where we will explore Beijing.

I have bought everything I need and read everything that will help me in a new country. I have everything packed, including hand sanitizer, my own chopsticks for the places where I shouldn't trust their utensils, and tissues for the inevitable public restrooms without toilet paper. Luckily, I think Korea has indeed given me a head start towards knowing how to Survive China. I just need to remember to only drink Juice, Hot tea, and Bottled water, if I want to avoid being sick during my vacation.

We plan on seeing the lantern festival on the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration, the Mutianyu Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven, Pickled Mao's Shrine, The shopping streets of Qianmen, as well as try Beijing Duck, roam the labyrinthine hutongs, take a bike tour, eat large quantities of dumplings, and spend too much money on stuff that was made in China, but that's OK because we would have bought it in China.

I am also hoping to see the Beijing Zoo. I hate how animals are treated and the conditions they are kept in in Zoos, but somehow I am drawn to visiting the Zoos in places I am visiting. I have yet to visit one in Korea, but I am sure I will before I leave.

I am so excited to get to China. I have my bags packed and our officetel is almost clean and ready to be left empty for a week. I only have about 15 pounds of stuff in my pack, so I have almost 30 pounds left for bringing back stuff from China. Dante will be staying with our friend Chris, so we don't have to worry about him too much. I am ready to just get a move on.

Seoul

2009-01-26T21:49:00.023+09:00

When not closed for Lunar New Year, Seoul is actually a pretty great place to visit (but maybe not to live in from what I hear). Here are some must-do's and some good places to go for fellow waygooks that I have learned from my visits to Seoul so far.

~Foreign Restaurant (Itaewon): This is a pretty good place, especially if your a fellow waygook stuck in a small town or city without much western food. For 16,000 you can eat all you can at the buffet complete with Naan, lentil crackers, lamb curry, and french fries. The sodas are a bit expensive at 4,700 but otherwise it's really good if you just want to stuff yourself because you missed that kind of food.

Directions: If your back is to the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon (easily located via Taxi and the Itaewon subway stop), cross the street and turn left. Walk a few blocks until the next intersection and take a right. Walk up the hill and it will be on your left. If you've hit the Foreign food store or What The Book, you have one too far.

~Namaste: This is a really good Indian/Napali resteraunt, and it's right next to a subway exit. Everything is really good here. The only thing I haven't cared for too much is the Mango Lahssi. The best deal by far here is the 15,000 set. It gives you little bit of everything and is really tasty.

Directions: Take the subway line 6 to Dongmyo station. Leave via exit #5, with the stairs to your back, turn left and look up. It's on the second floor of the building right next to the subway exit.

~What The Book: A great little bookstore for anyone searching for English books in this country. Sometimes other bookstores will have some books in English, but the selection is quite small, and there will never be any magazines in English. What The Book has everything from literature, to language learning books, cook books, travel books, to English Magazines. They will also take your used books and give you store credit so you can get more to read.

Directions: See directions for the Foreign Restaurant.

~DMZ: This is a must-do in Seoul. There are many tours available, and sometimes, depending on the time of year and circumstances, there are tours into North Korea as well. Check into it well ahead of time and be warned, there are many rules you must follow (although the camera rules are sometimes allowed to be ignored).

Directions: Check out the internet for a goo-priced tour. Also, many tourist booths and hotels will have brochures for you, but it is best to plan ahead and schedule tours ahead of time, especially if you will only be there a day or two.

~Clothes for big-sized Waygooks: Itaewon is the best place to look for larger sized clothes if you are like most westerners and have curves or are larger than the average Korean.

Directions: If your are facing the Hamilton Hotel, turn left and walk straight. Keep an eye out for the "big-size" signs. Most of these are men's shops, however I do know of one on the side you would be walking on. It's a few blocks down from the Hamilton, and on the second story above a shoe shop. Just keep an eye out and you may get lucky. The shoe shop also has larger sized shoes, but it's a bit expensive as they claim everything in there was made in Italy.

~Palace: Another must-see for Seoul. Sostly just empty restored buildings, this provides many photo ops and is a good place to get really nice pictures of your surroundings. Don't be surprised to see many of the tourists carrying around their $1,000 cameras and tripods for all of the photo opportunities available.

Directions: In Insadong, walk to the end of the art street to where there is a statue of one of the giant brushes they use for paining. There are two roads to the left, one that angles back, and one less so, take the one that doesn't angle back the way you came do much. Walk down the street until you hit an intersection with an old-style building on an island in the road to your right. Take a right and head down that road, cross the street as soon as you can and you can see the entrance to the palace. You can't miss the tourists and food vendors milling around.

~Dr. Fish: If you've heard about the little fish from Turkey who will give you a natural pedicure, this one of the places to go in Seoul. For 2,000 won plus the cost of a drink (starting at 7,000 total), you gain the opportunity to sit with your feet in the fish tub for 22 minutes, and then relax, refreshed, with your drink and some fresh toast that you can make yourself. The fish are gentle and it feels like many tiny little pinches, but it doesn't hurt at all. You might have trouble if your very ticklish though. Also, the pool is only big enough for two, maybe three people at one time.

Directions: Go to Insadong via the Jongno 3 (san)-ga subway stop and leave at Exit 1. Walk straight down the sidewalk you are facing when you leave the stairs. Walk down to the 2nd intersection (If you look left you will see a big 24-hour Burger King, this is also the same street, if you go right here, you will be on Insadong art street). Cross toward the Burger King, and then cross again immediately on the right. There is a big brown banner outside the building that says Book Cafe and also Dr Fish. Head up to the 2nd floor of the building, but your drink and specify "Dr Fish" They will take you up one more floor, you wash your feet, and then head to the small tub with the fish. Afterward they will bring your drinks and you can toast some bread.

Going to Seoul for Chinese New Year

2009-01-26T18:31:00.007+09:00

So to anyone who may read this blog and may do it in the future (or to remind myself to never do it again). Do not try to spend Chinese New Year in Seoul. To be honest, it sucks. You would think that the largest city in South Korea, with by far the largest ammount of foreigners, would have everything open on a day when government workers are going on holiday. Nope, it turns out next to nothing is open.

Cody, Fallon, and I came down to Soeul to plan on shopping for a few more Korea Soveniers and just do some things, like visiting a Dr. Fish Cafe for a pedicure done by tiny fish. We couldn't find the fish and most of the shops we were interested in were closed.

We started in Insadong, and since there was nothing there, we made out way to Itaewon, the foreigner district, hoping for more since all the foreigners would be off work looking for something to do... nope, next to nothing. We spent most of the day walking among the few shops open, just walking looking for stuff to do, eating indian food when we found the couple of open resteraunts (Foreign Resteraunt and Namaste), and riding the subway a lot. Although, we did visit What The Book and I picked up a Martha Stewart wedding magazine so that I could get some ideas.

Fallon's leaving for Thailand tomorrow morning, but Cody and I will be here a little bit longer tomorrow, and we are really hoping more stuff is open...at least in Insadong because then we can get something out of our trip. If not, I guess we'll just have to go home early and not really have done anything, but have gotten out of Mokpo for a couple of days.

I realize I complain lot in these blogs, so I will say... I guess we should have expected it because the first day or so of Chinese New Year is all about staying home with the family and cleaning for a new start to the year, so i guess we should have expected that the majority of the Population would be at home doing that.

I think I need to start some actual reviews of the places we've been though...that would keep me from complaining too much...

Tickets to China

2009-01-08T22:00:00.000+09:00

January 7, 2009

We bought our tickets to China today and it was so awesome! We had set aside 700,000 won for the tickets and visa, as per the original pricing the travel agent told us about. She had told us though to wait until after the New Year because taxes were expected to go down on flights (along with fuel fees). We went in today to inquire about tickets and visas, and it took the agent a little while to understand who we were, because she spoke little English, but she understood that Jason and Abby, good customers who had already paid, sent us. After a little bit of back and forth over what we wanted and such, and a lot of paperwork, she had our priced for us. Instead of almost 700,000 each, it turned out that it was only going to be 370,000 including visas and taxes. Cody and I are so excited, because we were very broke and on a budget, and now we’re feeling a little less strain. I’m very happy and really looking forward to our trip, even thought I know absolutely no Chinese.

Being Sick in Korea

2009-01-08T21:59:00.002+09:00

January 5, 2009

Being sick in Korea both sucks and is the most awesome thing ever. It’s pretty awesome because it’s really cheap to go to the doctor here, It sucks because if you have a cold they just give you a bunch of vitamins and Tylenol. No cough syrup, nothing, just vitamins. I went to the doctors the other day because I had been really sick for a couple of days. I have every symptom from not being able to breathe through my nose much, to coughing all the time, to being able to taste absolutely nothing. So, I go to the doctor because I was afraid I was really sick. The doctor asks for all my symptoms and he goes on to tell me that I am seriously sick and I would not have gotten better without medicine. He then tells me I have nasopharyngitis, which at the time made me freak out and go, oh, I must be REALLY sick! I went home to take my medicines and see what kind of illness I had. I was almost shocked to see that all I had was a severe common cold. It really shouldn’t surprise me though, even Koreans who are really good at speaking English tend to use the wrong words or use the more complicated words a lot.

New Years Eve

2009-01-08T21:59:00.001+09:00

January 1, 2009

New Years Eve was pretty great this year. It was so exciting to know that I was spending the change over in years in a foreign country. We decided to take a bus out to Gwangju and stay the night in The Windmill (as usual) and spend the night partying with some friends. It was pretty fun. We ate some Burger King, which was cool because we don’t have a Burger King anywhere in Mokpo. We then spent a couple hours partying with some Soju and Orange Juice in one of the Hotel Suites we were staying in for the night. About an hour before midnight, we decided to head out to some clubs to experience Gwangju at midnight. Some of us headed out to the Germany Bar, but after one pitcher, and about 20 minutes before midnight, we decided to join a large group of our friends at Vanilla Club, just a little bit down the street.

I had a moment of annoyance because the club was charging a 15,000 cover charge, but I soon got over it when I learned they were providing everyone with unlimited free beer (which was the really cheap kind, cut still, it was free). The countdown to midnight was really anti-climatic because the bar didn’t do one and a lot of our friends didn’t notice the time, but Cody and I had our own private countdown and kissed at midnight. We stayed another two hours, but left around 2 am because we had been drinking awhile and decided we wanted to make our way back to the hotel. I would like to say we made our way back easily and went to bed and woke up hangover free, but unfortunately I would be lying.

It had been snowing that night, and while walking down the steps of Vanilla Club, I slipped down the last four steps because unfortunately Koreans make their steps out of granite, and the steps were covered in a film of water. As soon as I fell, a very well-intentioned, but drunk guy behind me, decided to try yanking on my arm that I had just fallen on, to help me up of course. Luckily Cody convinced him to let go, because he was really making my arm hurt worse. Cody then helped guide me home because I had been drinking, and now I was crying because I was hurt and now dreadfully afraid of falling down on the very packed snow.

I made it another few blocks, almost back to the hotel, but unfortunately I slipped again, this time on the down slope of a sidewalk, and this time bringing Cody down with me. Of course I also fell on the side I had just bashed on the stairs. By this point I was very sore, but luckily for me, we made it back to the hotel without any further events happening to me, and I slept very well and woke up hangover-free, but very sore.

It was a very fun night, but also a very bad one for my poor body.

Christmas

2009-01-08T21:22:00.000+09:00

December 26, 2008

Since we had no plans for Christmas other than hang out at home, Abby and Jason invited us to their house for presents and Christmas dinner. We headed over at around 1:00 to assist with the dinner prep, but we didn’t get underway (except for the turkey) until 3:00 because we decided to watch South Park Christmas episodes, plus some miscellaneous other Christmas things. When we finally got under way at 3, we put together a group effort to get dinner ready, because Abby was suffering from some pretty major morning sickness pains. We paused around halfway through, around 6:00, for some presents. Abby got us a really nice Christmas/engagement present consisting of candy, candles, massage oil, champagne flutes, and champagne. We spent the rest of the night hanging out, finishing up dinner, and eating until we burst. None of us stuck around long after dinner because Abby was really feeling sick, but all in all, it was a pretty good Christmas for not being at home.

Christmas Eve with Fallon

2009-01-08T21:08:00.001+09:00

December 25, 2008

After we finished with the gift giving at the orphanage last night, we went over to Fallon and Wim’s place to have a nice quiet laid back Christmas Eve. We watched the old animated How the Grinch stole Christmas, we also listened to Wim recite “The Littlest Angel.” For some non-traditional Christmas Eve fun, we played some drinking Jenga. This involved writing some rules on various blocks, and if you drew a block with a rule, you had to do what it said.

Orphan Christmas

2009-01-08T21:07:00.000+09:00

December 25, 2008

For the past couple of months I have been volunteering at the local orphanages in and near Mokpo. For awhile I went to teach the teenagers at the Elo Orphanage, about 20 minutes outside of Mokpo. The girls were very sweet, but I came to realize that I was really not a best fit teacher for them at all, as I am a bit more comfortable with young children. I then started teaching the Kindergarteners at the more local Mokpo Orphanages. They are very sweet children, although some of them do have some emotional and behavioral problems, for understandable reasons of course.

Some of us spent Halloween and since trying to create a great Christmas for the Orphans, from raising money, to buying presents, to wrapping and presenting them. Abby put in a lot of the administrative work, but it took a lot of money and many of the volunteers to make everything work out as planned.

With all of the contributions to our effort, we were able to provide all of the orphans with some sort of Christmas present and everyone had a wonderful time. It was definitely a good experience as a volunteer as well, and if we stay for a second year, I would definitely look forward to doing it again.

Shinsook Leaving

2009-01-08T20:56:00.000+09:00

December 24, 2008

So, I was told today, with no warning, that I will most likely never see Shinsook again because she might be getting married this spring, and if she does, she’ll be moving away. Unfortunately Koreans tend to do this a lot. They think because they get married or have children, they must always quit their jobs for a year or so, or they move to serve their husbands or children. Koreans also tend to think that they don’t have to tell the native teachers anything until the last minute. The strange thing is, Shinsook was usually good about telling me things a head of time, and this time she didn’t. I will miss working with her, because she was legitimately a good teacher.

Fake Guns in School

2009-01-07T20:02:00.001+09:00

December 24, 2008

I as I walked into the school yard today, one of my students pointed what I thought was a gun at me, I almost has a heart attack. It turned out that he was just playing with an empty Airsoft gun. Lucky for me. Unfortunately, Airsoft guns in this country don’t have the orange plastic on them that proclaim them fake. All I could do was push the gun forcibly away and try to admonish the student never to point guns at people, ever. I’m sure he didn’t understand me, and there were no co-teachers around to complain too, but back home, the kid would have been expelled for less!

Swearing in school

2009-01-07T19:56:00.001+09:00

December, 23, 2008

Today Shinsook and I were letting our students watch all Mr. Bean episodes because it is their last week and we wanted to take it easy on them. When watching a particularly funny episode, I had a student right next to me exclaim, almost naturally “Oh shit!” when Mr. Bean did something strange. It took me half a second to say anything, because for a second I was happy that he used it in the proper way, but then I had to reprimand him because he swore in school. I’m usually not a person who really cares either way if someone swears or does a dirty gesture, as long as it’s not directed at me. The only other time when I care is in school, a church, or in front of grandparents. So, although I was proud of him for speaking a proper sentence, and naturally, in English, I had to yell at him, but he was immediately sorry, which told me he really did say it naturally.

How we Met

2009-01-06T18:11:00.000+09:00

December 20, 2008

Warning: Very Long, and potentially boring and sappy

For those of you who don't know the story, here is the long story about how we met and our first date three years later:
Cody and I first met in the ninth grade when we were attending Westview High School in Portland, Oregon in 1998. We didn't really start getting to know each other until we were scheduled to take a math class together Sophomore year with Mr. Keene. We may have never acknowledged each other if it wasn't for the fact that Mr. Keene was too nice and so the class tended to take advantage of him and ignore much of the lesson. Those of us who actually cared about our grades and were trying to be polite to the teacher ended up migrating to the same area of the classroom. This included my friend Christian and Cody.

Soon, we all ended up talking and becoming friends during class. I was very quick to develop a crush on Cody, but I had a hard time asking boys out, as I was very shy, and had a tendency to just go out with whoever asked me out first. Due to me not feeling up to asking him out and him not asking me, we never got together, but we were friends.

Finally, in my senior year of high school, I finally got up the nerve to tell him I liked him. It only took me three years and a 5-hour phone conversation, but I thought that he liked me too and finally got fed up with waiting. To my surprise he said he liked me too and we scheduled a double date for December 1st with our friend Scott and his new girlfriend Lori.

I anxiously waited for the 1st to roll around, and when it did, I was ecstatic. My dad dropped me off at the movie theater, as I was meeting the other three to watch Spy Games, and then we would go back to Scott's house. We saw the movie, and then we all squeezed in to Scott's tiny 2-door Dodge Neon and drove to Scott's house to hang out. Not long after we got there, Scott and Lori disappeared, presumably to make out, and Cody and I were finally alone. We sat together and talked for a few hours and then it was time to go home. Scott dropped us off at my house and drove around the block to give Cody and I another minute alone. After saying goodnight and having our first kiss, Cody left.

Now, eight years and 5 days (or 4 days if you count USA time) we are finally engaged to be married. Who would have known that I would be getting ready to marry my crush from Math class so long ago.

Engagement

2009-01-06T18:09:00.000+09:00

December 20, 2008

I think I had the best anniversary this year. Not because I got some cool new toy or got taken out to a fancy dinner, but because Cody proposed to me.

Our anniversary is the first of every year, and that is when we celebrate when we first started dating. We had decided to wait to celebrate our anniversary for a week because of various circumstances. We ended up staying at our friend Abby and Jason’s house with our friend Randi because the girls had had a chocolate-laded birthday party the night before, complete with the game “I never” and plenty of wine. The weather had been getting progressively bad all day and night, and when Cody and Jason came back over after playing poker with the guys, we decided it would be fun, and safer, to have a group slumber party. We woke up early, to a very pretty sunrise and about 5 inched of snow and ice everywhere. It was very pretty.

After hanging out and talking with each other for a few hours, and sending the boys on a trek to McDonalds for some sausage McMuffins, we all remember we had things to do and so we went our separate ways. Cody went his own way to finish up some errands (unbeknownst to me, trying to get the ring), and I went home to shower and start the process of beautifying myself for our anniversary dinner. After probably four hours, I start to get restless because I’m ready and I have no clue where Cody has gotten too. Of course, at this point I don’t know that he is having major ring drama, which led to money drama. I am also starting to get r hungry, as I have not eaten since McDonalds at 10 am and it is nearing 6 o’clock.

Finally, at around 7:10, I hear a key in the door and I go to help him, being antsy to go, he opens the door slightly and tells me to go sit on the couch and close my eyes because he has my present for me. I do so and I hear rustling, then he tells me to open my eyes. I do and see him kneeling before me, holding out two KTX tickets to Seoul, and he proposes. Of course, I am feeling quite a bit startled, so I look at him and say “What?” He looked me dead in the eyes, expression never changing, and repeated the question “Will you marry me?” I am still quite a bit startled and just starting to think, he’s asking me now, if feels so sudden, and yet so waited for… so I say “really?” At this point, he is starting to look a touch exasperated, but all he says is “yes, really.” I, of course, forget to say yes, and just start hugging and kissing him just like in some Hallmark movie, and then, as if on cue, he reminds me that I still have to say yes, which I promptly do.

I am allowed a long hug and kiss, and am immediately asked for permission to take a shower, because due to his long day out and ordeals, which I will learn on the KTX, he has not showered. I proceeded to call some friends, and was just about to post it on Facebook, but was promptly ordered not to, as we have family of Facebook who had not been told yet.

We took the train to Seoul that night about hour later, laden with a few snacks to tide us over. We arrived in Seoul at about 1am, and the first thing I did was grab a spicy sausage from a food vendor, because I was starving. We stayed in a nice hotel that we hadn’t stayed at before; it had a Kingsized bed and a really nice shower and huge flat screen TV. The next day we had Quiznos for lunch and we saw some of our other friends who were visiting Seoul, including Fallon and Wim. We purchased some new clothes for me, and some fabric wall scrolls for us and one as a thank-you present for Abby and Jason (because they helped Cody out a lot with the ring fiasco). After that we took the subway down to an area of Seoul that has at least two jewelry stores per block and we went ring shopping. I loved the first ring that she saw, but was convinced that we had to shop around, just in case, so it didn’t end up me just picking the first pretty one because I was excited. We went looking in three more stores (each store has at least 15 separate jeweler stands) and seeing if there was anything I liked better. Cody kept having to ask me "I know you like it, but do you like it more than the first one"? I never did, they were only cute, or fairly similar to the first one, and the first one had the advantage of being sold by an English seller. About three hours later we went back to the first seller to buy the first ring I looked saw. I got to pick my diamond, which was pretty cool because the Jeweler too out a fat book full of diamonds and stowed me a few, and allowed me to kind of carefully touch them a little bit. We went with a Korean diamond because it was a really good one. There was an American one of a slightly better cut, but it was over twice the price, so there was no way, and I was more than happy with a Korean Diamond because it is just as pretty, and now I can commemorate my time in Korea in my engagement, which is fitting since the engagement happened here! Well, we purchased the ring with the promise it would be made (yes, made, not re-sized, whoo hoo!) and shipped to Mokpo by Christmas Eve.

We ended the day by shopping a little bit longer, and then we had some fabulous Indian food (which we would NEVER be able to buy in Mokpo), some Tandori Chicken, Curries, Naan, and Mango Lassi. Finally, we made our way via subway to the train station, and just like the first time we went to Seoul, we went to Seoul Station rather than Yeong-san (arg), and had to find our way to the correct station. We decided when we got there, that we wanted to sit and sleep in semi luxury, so we decided to go for business class on the KTX, which only cost us an extra 17,000 a piece. While I wouldn’t recommend doing that for a trip in the daytime, when you are awake, but when your tall and want to sleep, it’s fabulous as there is a lot more room.

We finally made it home that night, after walking a few blocks away from the train station to catch a cab, since there was a 2-block long line of people waiting for a cab at the train station. Yes, we were technically cheating!
About a week later, and a week earlier than promised, my ring was delivered to Cody’s school all shiny and ready to wear.

We are very excited, and barring things we can’t do while we are in Korea, we have started to think of things we want for the wedding. The main thing right now is we are pretty sure we will have the colors white and crimson and Cody really wants Calla Lilies everywhere. Oh, and not a church wedding, it will probably be in a hall with an official or justice of the peace. More blogs will come (probably late like always) when more details are hashed out.

Katrina’s Birthday Party and More Snow in Mokpo

2009-01-06T18:08:00.001+09:00

December 7, 2008

Katrina’s Birthday party was a pretty fun party for me. We had chocolate everywhere, chocolate bars, brownies, homemade chocolate candy, and even a huge pot of melted chocolate that we dipped pears and such in. It was wonderful and decadent. We also had wine flowing everywhere and the chocolate and wine both contributed to a lot of fun. We also had a really fun game of “I never” where we all learned some really interesting things about each other. The night ended when everyone decided to go downtown to Hadang and P-Club and New York Bar to drink. Abby, Randi, and I all decided not to go because the weather was getting worse and we did not want to risk the roads. Instead, we said good-bye to the girls and decided to have a group slumber party.

The other great thing about the night was the snowstorm we were having that day. It usually never snows in Mokpo, and this time it seemed to make up for it in one night. We went out and played in the snow for awhile after the party and then we talked for quite awhile, but we finally made it to bed. We woke up pretty early the next morning to a beautiful sunrise, and we were very happy to find that it had snowed about 5 inches over the evening. It was very pretty and exciting. If I only knew by a few hours later that I would be proposed to.

Thanksgiving in Mokpo 2008

2009-01-06T14:29:00.002+09:00

November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving this year was about as awesome as we could have made it in a foreign country that does not eat most of the foods you consider Thanksgiving foods. We had to hold it a few days late though because none of our schools recognized it as a valid holiday for them. We were lucky to be able to order a decent sized turkey and get some cranberry sauce from The Underground Market, so there were two things set for us to have a relatively normal Thanksgiving. I made a fairly tasty, if kind of gross-looking apple pie (the Korean shortening and flour isn’t quite the same as at home, so it didn’t turn out right), an apple crisp, and a type of candied sweet potato. Cody made two batches of stuffing that turned out pretty well. He wanted to make corn bread stuffing, but we had to resort to baguettes because we couldn’t find corn meal anywhere in this country. We also provided a ton of wine, juice, soda, and stuff for gin and tonics. We actually finished off the whole bottle of gin, they were so good.

We invited probably about 10 other people (who we magically had just enough room for) and they each brought one of two dishes. Abby made some awesome sweet potatoes, Jenns made a fabulous pumpkin pie because his sister had just brought him a huge can of pumpkin. Randi made a sweet potato casserole, and others brought rolls, salad, corn, etc.

The turkey turned out fabulous. I altered Alton Brown’s Recipe for a turkey quite a bit, but I still cooked it the same way, and it turned out fabulous.
Everything turned out pretty awesome, and we all had a wonderful meal. Wim had to leave early because he was pretty sick, but the rest of us hung around and chatted for a long time, and the last person didn’t leave until nearly 10:30 at night. Not long after everyone finally left, Cody and I agreed not to touch the dishes until at least the next day, we put away what we could save, and I went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Maria’s Baby Shower

2009-01-06T14:11:00.001+09:00

November 23, 2008

I attended my first baby shower today. It was pretty fun. I bought some tea for Maria’s mommy care basket that we put together, and I bought some baby toys that were not made in china per Maria and Emanuel’s wishes. It turns out that the toys were even better because they were made out of a corn material rather than plastic, so they were even safer for baby.

The party was pretty fun though. The men went playing Screen golf and hung out, as a kind of man’s baby shower. Randi made little “buns in the oven,” which were little tasty cinnamon rolls that she even wrapped up and labeled. We had many delicious foods, and even a sorbet based drink. We signed cards for Maria and we played some of the usual baby shower games with her. We tried to guess the girth of her belly, which I was way over on. It’s really hard to try and guess how big a Korean is pregnant because she was so much smaller than most of us normally. We also came up with the dumbest baby names possible and then voted. The winner was Lamby Fluff, but some of the others were pretty ridiculous, like Toxic Waste Dump, and such. A couple of the names involved Kimchi and other random things.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. It was exciting watching her open all the presents and see here reaction because Koreans don’t have baby showers. They have some sort of a celebration about 6 months after the child is born to celebrate the fact that the baby survived the hardest time. This is due to the history of high mortality rates among Korean babies.

But it was fun, and I would definitely go to one again, and in some ways it made me excited to have kids sometime in the not too distant future.

Teacher’s meeting in Gwangju

2009-01-06T14:09:00.000+09:00

November 21, 2008

We got almost a free day off the other day in order to go to a huge teacher’s meeting in Gwangju. Everyone was required to go, so all of the schools had to allow all of us to have at least part of Friday off, but most of us got the whole day off. They split the meeting into two halves, one three-hour meeting starting at 9 am for the Elementary teachers, and one three-hour meeting starting at 1 pm for the Primary, or middle and high school teachers.

Since I am Elementary, and it takes about an hour to take the bus from Mokpo to Gwangju, Cody and I decided to head out to Gwangju the night before so that we could hang out with other people who got there early, and have a better chance at a cheap room at The Windmill Motel there. The Windmill is a really nice Love motel (and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that means, like what a cheap Motel 6 is used for, but way nicer) that all the Waygooks (Foreigners) use when they stay in Gwangju because it’s kept really clean and many of the rooms have nice showers or bathtubs, and it’s also central to where we like to shop and eat there.

When we arrived, we went and had some really good marinated pork Galbi (Galbi is either grilled or pan-fried meat, either alone or with veggies, served with rice and typically wrapped in Lettuce leaves). We then had a few drinks, but called it a night relatively early due to the meeting the next day.

The meeting itself was fairly unproductive. It gave us some ideas of games for the classroom and discipline, but otherwise it was a run of the mill meeting where they served bad coffee, green tea, and a ton of mandarin oranges.

After the meeting, the organizers gave each of us “lunch” which consisted of a heavily-frosted doughnut, and one piece of “vegetarian” pizza toast. First, what they consider as pizza in this case consists of cheese, and a ton of mayonnaise and ketchup piled on top, with a piece of ham shoved in the middle. For some reason, Koreans don’t consider ham as a meat, so they threw some in the pizza toast as sevice-eu. Korean seems to like service-eu, and usually I do too, because it means you get extras thrown into your purchase all the time, but in this case it was not wanted.

After the meeting, we spent the next two night partying with friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, going to a friend’s surprise party, and shopping. I was able to pick up some Christmas presents and have an all around great time.

Iro English Festival

2009-01-06T12:06:00.001+09:00

November 20, 2008

So, about a week after the school festival ended, my co-teachers informed me that they were starting their planning and preparing for the school English Festival. This interested me a little bit as I saw how much effort they out into the school festival. They even asked me to put together some simple true and false questions that they could ask the kids and the kids could earn prizes. That was all they asked me to do, and my co-teachers would take care of the rest.

Well, the day of the festival pulled around, and classes were canceled for the festival. I was called down to one of three installments of it (since the auditorium is not big enough for the whole school). About 10 minutes into the 1-2nd grade presentations, Eun-su came and told me that they didn’t need me for the game questions I prepared, and I could leave, which I did, because the 1st and 2nd graders were only doing ABC and number songs.

After being at my desk for another hour or so, I was again informed, last minute that I was not needed at the 3rd and 4th grade performances. I decided not to go because I had already heard these kids sing their “Bingo” and “Mr. Sun” Songs.

Later, I wasn’t informed until last minute that the 5th and 6th graders were performing. I was rushed over, and had to sit and watch some very interesting interpretations of some American dancing and some classes attempting to sing songs like “Because of You” by Kelli Clarkson. I was forced to hide in a side room during the last two songs, and then I was whisked out as a surprise for the game. I then had to read the questions I had prepared, some which had been changed or added by my co-teachers, because they thought mine weren’t as good.

Finally the whole, annoying, let-down of a festival was over. It turned out to be a slightly offensive, thrown together, boring event, which was supposedly for me, but they didn’t care if I was there or not.

Ah well. That’s Korea for you.

First Snow In Mokpo!

2009-01-05T22:22:00.000+09:00

November 18, 2008

We saw the first snow in Mokpo today! It was pretty cool, but it wasn’t very heavy and it really didn’t last very long, but it was still pretty. It was also a surprise since it’s so early and no one freaked out here at all, not like they would have back home.

Being filmed for TV

2009-01-05T22:05:00.002+09:00

November 10, 2008
Yesterday Cody and I were filmed for a Korean TV show called Mat Jang. Well, first of all, Cody and I technically lost. We only officially won one challenge, and that was reciting a Korean poem correctly. We were originally supposed to memorize it, which we pretty much had down, but Abby and I convinced them that if pronunciation was the most important, then they should let us read from our notes.

Here's pretty much the breakdown:We left MBC at 7:30 ish and drove about an hour or so into the country to a small town where a famous Korean Poet lived and his house still is as a historical tour estate. It was very pretty with thatched roofs and a giant bamboo forest behind it. Here, we find out we are supposed to memorize a famous poem and recite it later. We have a teacher recite it 4x for us (at normal speed, not slow at all).

After that we has to walk to the bus terminal and find people along the way and in the terminal who weren't afraid of the weird waygooks to help us with our pronunciation. This was really hard as sometimes two people wouldn't agree on the word to use or pronunciation.

By 10:20 we hopped on a bus which took us out to a traditional Korean Tomb site where Anny and I had to sit out and watch Cody and Jason take part in the Men-only ceremony with wine and "dried" (Read: rotten/moldy) persimmons and rancid pig meat (they luckily avoided the meat). While they were doing this Abby and I practiced our parts of the poems, gaining the assistance of the Adjimas there in their traditional dresses. At this point is when we prevailed upon the director to let us read our notes, so that at least half of the poem might be said right.

After about 45 minutes of sitting there (and being asked if it was unfair that we couldn't participate and if we had any ceremonies for the dead back home), we joined the men and recited the poems. After some confused voting it was decided that Cody and I won that challenge (not that we could tell why). We then joined the men for food and soju (although the Soju wasn't really offered to Abby or I). We started to get the feeling that this show's theme was supposed to be waygook women feeling left out In Korean culture.

Post lunch we headed down to our next challenge, which was clam-digging. Let me tell you, it was the worst thing ever. First, they gave us special Adjima pants to dig in, which did not work AT ALL because they were too small for all of us except for Abby. I could barely kneel down or bend over, and when I did, the pants exposed A LOT of my back area (very lady-like I'm sure). Also, both couples were supposed to dig together, but because they didn't have big enough shoes for all of our feet, it ended up being only Abby and I digging because I had to take Jason's boots, and Cody couldn't wear them at all. Cody was filmed ranting at them for it, which I am proud of him for defending us.

Anyway, so because of wardrobe problems, it ended up being Abby and I going out into the rock and shell-thick mud to dig for clams with the Adjimas. It should have been fun, but at least for me it wasn't because I could not bend over for really any length of time because my ankles and knees protested due to the usual problems and the ankles of the too-short pants and the too-small top of the boots cutting off the circulation around my mid-calf area, plus the pants trying to show off b\my butt and threatening to tear in one place or another. They had to finally give me a blanket to wrap around myself because my pants kept trying to make me moon the camera.

Well, basically they were supposed to give us an hour to dig, but they didn't apparently. Cody said they only gave us 40 minutes or so total, and the last 15 they had Abby and I dig in this small area together. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing/looking for because my Adjimas didn't really show me and clamming here is WAY different from clamming I have dome back home. Well, Abby and I soon ditched the tools in favor of trying to scrape away all the empty shells, rocks, and mud with our hands, which worked for awhile, but I soon realized that the clam shells had sliced through the cloves I had and has sliced up my fingers, which were now bleeding and covered in mud.

Well, I worked through all my issues and I don't think I did too badly, but whether is was luck, problems, Adjimas that don't follow rules, or Abby being better than me, we publicly lost that challenge. We decided to make it a tie because non-publicly though because the Adjimas couldn't control their helping us too much. Oh well. My legs and fingers hurt really bad today because of THAT whole fiasco.

The next challenge was for the men only, which was shucking the clams. Before yesterday I would have never thought about being able to shuck a clam, but it can be done. After a short practice Cody and Jason got approximately 30 minutes to shuck as many clams as they could, and they pretty much stayed neck and neck the whole time. Jason beat Cody this time by only 4.5 grams of clam, and they were both freezing and smelling of clam by the end.

Finally, we had the cooking competition. They showed us how to make a clam-sushi type salad and a clam-pancake thing and we all took detailed notes. Again, we pretty much stayed neck and neck for the whole thing, but Cody and I did finish the sushi salad a bit quicker so we had more time to decorate our plates. We both had a harder time with the pancakes because the director said they would measure out the exact flour the chef used for the pancakes, that way we only had to worry about water amount.
Well, they did not do what they said. They gave us both way too much four, so we had to guess at how much water and figure out the batter consistency by eye. it was also hard to fry the pancakes to the right color.

Pretty much it came down to the wire on this one. There were 5 judges, one which was like the mayor of the town we were in. All the judges had two votes, but the mayor was given three. they were instructed to vote on whoever had made the best dishes. Unfortunately this made it a little
uneven because they all put in two votes, at that point we were exactly tied.

The mayor had the tie breaking vote, and of course he would be predisposed to putting all the votes on one team, so whoever he preferred would most likely get three votes instead of the possible two.

So, Abby and Jason kicked our butts for Korean television.I have to say this was a fun experience, it just at times seemed unfair and uneven because the planners of the show did not plan the show well enough at all.

I don't mind that Koreans are going to see me and say "Oh she lost" because we were able to have fun together and were often trying to help each other more than we were supposed too. In fact, they kept asking us, "why do you help each other, this is a competition."All four of us left a little frustrated, tired, and I know I was glad for it to be over and done with.

We all won something and it was something we could laugh at and be annoyed about together. I am so happy I was able to do this with Cody, Abby and Jason, and would not have traded to go against anyone else even if I had the choice. I would suggest for anyone else competing to go in with an open mind, patience, and be ready to either defend yourself or the "competition" because they really don't understand foreigners or their needs at all.

In terms of making a korean Tv show, i have learned: Try not to be too competitive, try to help make entertaining TV for them without allowing them to degrade yourself, and do not back down if you have a problem with what they are making you do or say because it goes against what you believe.

I know I whined an complained a bit in this blog, and I know it was a bit long, so I'm sorry, but I hope it entertained you or gave you a good idea of what to expect on the show.

Student car Accident

2009-01-05T21:47:00.000+09:00

November 10th, 2008

6th graders are out of school for the week attending English town and my Co-teacher just oh-so-casually told me that one girl was banned today because she pushed another student too hard into the street, thus causing an accident where the student was injured, but not killed.

My co-teacher could not tell me how injured the student was or which teacher is teaching the kids this week, but I am curious for multiple reasons:

~What happened

~How the Student was/is

~How my 6th graders are acting

Of course leave it up to my co-teacher to tell me someone was hurt, while laughing about the situation (ugh!) without any details!

I find this really disgusting and it really upsets me when I witness the types of thing they take seriously and the types of things they don’t in this county!

The Festival

2008-12-23T18:10:00.000+09:00

October 23, 2008

Oh, so I will try to keep this one short.

Today I didn’t have any classes except for my extra ones (again) because today was the actual festival. I missed a little bit of it because as usual, they did not bother to tell me when it started, but luckily I did not miss much because I realized that everyone had disappeared.

I almost can not put into words the insanity of this festival. Some of the acts were cute, the little kids in costumes or uniforms and playing their instruments, and one of my co-teachers, Shin-Sook, put on a short Peter Pan play with some of my 4th graders.

The part I have a hard time with is for some reason, some of the teachers saw fit to put many of the children in skimpy costumes and have them dance suggestively. One 4th grade group did a belly dance that was a little disturbing, but some of the 6th graders also did a belly dance that was worse because they were basically wearing sequined bras with their belly dancer skirts. One girl even has some fake tattoos on her belly for the dance. *Shudder* Weird.

The most disturbing acts had to be my Kindergartners. They were all in crazy outfits and doing nasty dances. One of the groups danced to an english song and did some really suggestive moves in their acts. I can’t explain it, you will have to see my videos to believe it.

Videos:

School Festival Dress Rehearsal

2008-12-23T18:09:00.000+09:00

October 22, 2008

Today I did not teach any classes because the whole school is doing a dress rehearsal for the festival tomorrow.

All month my school has been preparing for a festival. I have no idea what is going to happen. All I know so far is that Shin-Sook, one of my co-teachers, has been preparing some kids to do the play Peter Pan in English. My other co-teacher, Eun-Su, has been preparing some of the 3rd graders to sing the "Mr. Golden Sun" song and the Barney "I Love You' song.

Each child participating gets a outfit for their performance. The 3rd grade boys received velvet blue,red, and white pants and jackets with sequins on them and long gauzy sleeves. Most of the girls got red and white velvet dresses with sequins and short gauzy sleeves. There was another outfit, but I wasn't able to see it very well as they weren't in the classroom for long.

I am very curious to see what is going to happen tomorrow because on the way to lunch I saw two other horrible cute but awesome costumes. My only class today was my Kindergarten extra class and I even caught a glimpse of some gold sequined outfits with glittery top hats.

Korean Taxi Drivers

2008-12-23T18:08:00.000+09:00

October 22. 2008

Taxi drivers are insane here. Half the time you speak Korean to them asking where to go, and they look at you like you don't know what you are talking about. You keep repeating the same phrase to them and usually they will figure it out after pronouncing it exactly the same way.

The most annoying this is when I try to take a cab to school. 75% of the time the cab drivers only need me to say "Iro Chodem Hakyo" (or Iro Elementary School) once or twice and then they take me to the right place.

10% of the time they do the annoying pronouncing the phrase the same way and then they get it.

The other 15% of the time I say my phrase and they either repeat it back the same and take you to the wrong place, or repeat it differently and won't listen to you at first, thinking they know better than you.

It's not just going to school either, it's any time you take a cab to a place that there is another place with a similar name that they think you meant.

Last week Cody and I were on our way to a restaurant called VIPS to celebrate Fallon's birthday with her. We told the cab driver the phrase that means take me to VIPS, as well as the phrase for restaurant. It took us 3 cabs to actually get there because 1 cab had no idea what we were saying, and the other one actually said "No speaka English," even though we were speaking Korean. Believe me, it is more than frustrating

Rice

2008-12-23T18:07:00.000+09:00

October 21, 2008

So I came to a realization today. I now believe Koreans have so many side dishes because they want to try and add flavor to the ever present rice. The rice they serve is always the same. Sometimes they add things to it make it look different. Sometimes it has something in it to make it purple, little yellow things, and sometimes sesame seeds. But it never tastes any different. I've discovered the best way to eat any of the rice they give you for lunch is to eat some with Kimchi or soup, or one of the many side dishes. The only rice I've had that is any different is when a lot of stuff is mixed into the rice (like Bibimbab). I'm starting to get tiered of rice. not because I don't like it, I love it, but Koreans eat rice the same all the time.

Dante

2008-12-23T18:06:00.000+09:00

Octover 10, 2008

So we now have a kitten, it didn’t take us very long to miss having a cat around. We did not just go out and find a kitten to buy, we rescued one.

The day before Chuseok Fallon called us to see if we were thinking about taking in a kitten (which we were). She told us that one of Wim’s students had found a tiny kitten separated from his mother. Without committing to anything, we went over to check out the poor baby.

Once we saw this poor baby, skinny, tiny, and dirty, we could not resist. I hadn’t had a kitten around in a very long time, and Cody has never had a kitten around.

We didn’t name him for about three weeks because at first he was so small and frail, we were afraid he wouldn’t last very long., but I told Cody if he survived, he would be able to pick the name.

Luckily for us, Dante gained strength quickly and started acting like a normal kitten. We took him to the vet after he had gained some strength, and he was healthy, but he had some sort of a fungus (like mange) that made some of his hair fall out. Now, after about two weeks, shampooing, cream, and medicine, his hair is growing back and he has grown at least twice his size. He can now climb the furniture and the stairs and is now always trying to attack us in his sleep.

We came here thinking we wouldn’t get any pets, but we obviously didn’t last very long. We will be taking many more pictures of Dante as our little monster gets bigger.

Seoul

2008-12-23T18:04:00.000+09:00

October 6, 2008

So we went to Seoul this weekend and it was absolutely amazing after being in Mokpo for a month. Don't get me wrong, I love Mokpo, but there is not very many English restaurants or stores for someone who is any larger than size 12 pants or a medium shirt. In Mokpo we have McDonald's, Dunkin Doughnuts, and Baskin Robins. That's it. The moment we arrived in Seoul there was Cold Stone, Starbucks, The Hard Rock Cafe, Burger King, Quiznos, and on and on. The most exciting part was to be able to eat things I am used to eating again. The first full day there we couldn't stay away from Quiznos, Burger King, and a Mexican restaurant that was a little expensive but so worth it. The last night there we were so excited to go eat at the Hard Rock Cafe. Again, way to expensive, but after not having a decent burger for a month and a half, I think they were the best burgers ever!

Friday I went with Tanya and Kristina to a hair salon in Seoul and spent four hours getting my hair done with red low-lights and blond highlights. It turned out fabulous. I have to say I absolutely LOVE my hair now. After the Salon we hit Burger King and then headed down to meet Cody and the rest at a huge outdoor market. The market was fun because there was a really interesting fashion show going on and there were so many booths to buy from, it was insane. I actually found a pair of warm boots for the winter that fit me, which makes me so excited! I also found some things for my halloween costume, a purple scarf, a new backpack, and a awesome hat (I usually can't find hats that fit/look good, so this is kind of a big deal for me). After the market we took the Subway home, which was kind of cool since we only have the Max at home and it's nothing like the Subway. We the made our way to What the Book, which actually has english books (so exciting) and then went to the Mexican restaurant. I can't tell you how great it was to have mexican food again! Oh, we also went to a foreign foods market near there and got some western necessities. I got some ranch, some Pho soup bouillon cubes, some BBQ Sauce, and some Crisco. I am so excited!

On Saturday we got out of bed fairly early and headed out to meet our DMZ tour group. The DMZ was cool, but kind of crazy because there was a dress code and we had to sign a release form saying we realized that we could die. We headed out on the bus around 10:30 am and the tour lasted until around 5:30 pm. It was the coolest thing ever. We got to see the Freedom Bridge, The Bridge of No Return, and we got to technically be in North Korea for 3 minutes. We got some pretty great pictures while we were there too. At the end they took us to a souvenir shop where I got a korean mask and some magnets. Cody bought us some North Korean Brandy and Blueberry wine. We haven't tried them yet, but it's cool anyway.

After the tour we headed out to the Seoul Electronics Market, which was pretty insane. There are electronics everywhere and your supposed to haggle for them. We didn't end up buying anything so we made our way to the Hard Rock Cafe and had the largest, cheesiest hamburgers ever. Afterwards I purchased some new clothes at a store that actually had my size and then we took the five-hour train back to Mokpo. We wanted to take the KTX, which is really fast, but there were none heading from Seoul to Mokpo.

All in all the weekend was awesome, and the food was great. We all spent way too much money, but it was worth it.

Chuseok

2008-12-23T18:00:00.000+09:00

September 14, 2008

Chuseok is a sort of a Korean Thanksgiving. We got the weekend off and took off to Bigum-do for some end-of the season sun and surf. We rented some cabins to stay in with 14 other people that he have become friends with here in Mokpo.

The weekend was so much fun, except for the sunburn I got despite all of the sunblock I put on. We went swimming a lot as well as sunbathed on the beach. The owner of the hotel we stayed at provided us with some “servica” which is something Koreans often do. It means that they often add on something extra when you purchase an item or service. In this case, he decided that he would drive us for free along a tiny road to heart beach, which is the most popular beach on Bigum-do. It certainly was pretty.

Both nights we gathered enough wood for a small fire and hung out around the fire while we worked up the courage to go night-swimming. When we finally did both nights it was worth it because there is phosphorescent plankton in the water that leaves trails of sparkles when you swim through them.

There were only three bad parts about the whole weekend, my sunburn, Cody and I accidentally broke our camera, and the weekend had to end eventually. I have decided that Bigum-do is one of my favorite places to go so far for beaches, but I can’t really decide because I haven’t visited any other beaches.

Training Week

2008-12-23T17:59:00.000+09:00

August 24, 2008

So the plane ride was long but not as bad as I expected. Cody slept a lot and I watched a lot of movies and slept. Korean air is so far the best ever airline I have ever been on. The first thing they did was give us little packets with socks, a sleeping mask, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, as well as headphones, pillows, and blankets. Each seat also had it’s own TV screen where you had the choice of about 20 movies and a few video games to play as well. It was pretty great.

Well anyway. We flew out of PDX at 7:00 AM on 8-15-08 and three planes later we arrived in Gwangju at 10:00 PM 8-16-08. We got to bed around 11:00 PM only to get up for breakfast by 8:00 AM and officially start training at noon.

Training week was pretty great, even the classes were OK. We met most of the new teachers coming into Korea to teach who were employed through Canadian Connection. We had the opportunity to visit the Nagan Folk Village, a Buddhist temple, and the Gwangju National Museum. We also had the opportunity to explore Gwangju quite a bit.

We visited a few western-style bars, one of which was the Germany bar, which had home-brewed Germany-style beers. We also explored the underground shopping mall in Gwangju, it spans many blocks underground in central Gwangju and is pretty awesome.

That’s about it so far. I’ll add more when I have time to blog about it.

Leaving Friday

2008-08-13T15:17:00.000+09:00

August 13, 2008

So, I am so excited. I'm Flying out at 8:00 am Friday. I found out that I'm going to have a studio apartment, but I'll have a loft area where my double bed is. I also have one of the few apartments that actually have a washer AND dryer. most places only have a washer and they hang-dry their clothes. I'm not sure, but maybe i'll get lucky and have air conditioning too!

I also found out I can make between $300 and $1200 extra a month doing extra classes. that's exciting!

Anyway, that's about it for now, I'm off soon!

Itenerary

2008-08-08T14:24:00.000+09:00

So, it turns out we are NOT flying with Fallon and Wim so here's what our flight plan is going to look like:

~Arrive at PDX around 5:30 am.
~Depart for San Francisco at 7:59 am
~Arrive at SanFrancisco at about 9:51 am
~Go through customs and generally hang around the airport for EVER
~Depart for Seoul Incheon Int. at 1:40
~Arrive at Seoul Incheon at (according to the itinerary, but this is were the times get all messed up and confusing) 5:40
~Pick up baggage, take a taxi from Seoul Incheon Int. to Seoul Gimpo (Seoul has one airport for international flights and one for domestic), Meet Fallon and Wim somewhere along the way
~Depart from Seoul Gimpo for Gwanju at 8:40
~Arrive at Gwanju at 9:30
~Go to where our training will be

Almost Gone

2008-07-28T08:31:00.000+09:00

August 8, 2008

Cody and I are almost there!

We have less than 2 weeks until we're done at work, we'll be done in August 8th. In less than 3 weeks, August 15th, we'll be on an airplane for almost 24 hours to Korea.

I am so excited!!