The Seoul Trip

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!

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

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!

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!

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

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!

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

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!

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

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!!