Lots of Fun!!

With the end of the month, comes a lot of stress at work and usually not a whole lot of fun. The end of this month, although still stressful, was also lots of fun.

So Ian came up with this language exchange idea where a foreign teacher would be partnered with a Korean teacher and we would meet once a week to hangout and learn each other's language. Well, I was supposed to meet 2 Thursdays ago with my partner, but as you know, I was sick, and so this past Thursday we met for the first time. I say this like I have never met the girl and I don't work with her, but honestly, I never have really talked to her because 1. She is the receptionist so besides the friendly hello in the morning, I never really have time to chat it up with her 2. She isn't a teacher, so she isn't in my office where I have most of my conversations with the people I work with and 3. Well, I got nothing. But basically we haven't ever had a conversation so I thought if nothing else, this first meet would be interesting. Anyways, so her name is Boram, aka Rebecca. She is the cutest Korean girl ever and I LOVE the way she says her American name and the fact that she LOVES to say it. Ok, so I make her out to be like 4... she is 23 Korean, 22 American which makes her the youngest at ECC too. I am the youngest foreigner and she is the youngest Korean. We are less than 2 months apart and we get along great. She speaks very very little English, but she is such a good student that she came to our first meeting with a paper front and back of questions to ask me to get to know me written in English (with Korean below so she remembers what she is asking). Not to mention she brought an English/Korean translated phrases book, a personal electronic dictionary, and she invited one of the kinder teachers who is her friend who speak English rather well. We had dinner at Shebu Shebu which is a common place the foreigners go to eat because it is delicious! Dinner was fun and after it the three of us went for coffee. Three and a half hours after meeting, we all went home with new friends. We arranged to meet this Sunday downtown to hangout and maybe go shopping and/or see a movie. I'll get to that in a minute. So... I think this exchange thing will be lots of fun and very useful for all of us. I learned how to say the money bills names and count using them, that something was "too expensive", "I want a discount", "please", and some other random but useful stuff. I'm pretty excited for our next official exchange. Oh, not to mention the Kinder teacher that came along to help the two of us communicate is a Korean teacher that teaches the kids only Korean and has her office upstairs instead of downstairs with all of the foreigners and Koreans who teach English, so it was fun to talk to her for the first time really too. I look forward to getting to know her and spend time with her too since I see her everyday but also isn't someone I say more than 2 words to usually because most of the Kinder Korean teachers don't know much English and I didn't realize how good she was.

So, that was Thursday night. Friday at school the Kinders had English Market day. Basically instead of teaching 3 classes after lunch on Friday, all of the Kinder teachers got to have lots of fun. We set up different items in several classrooms and the children came through the classes and acted as if they were at a market. The market consisted of the stationary store, fruit market, vegetable market, flea market, and the snack store. Caroline and I were put in the fruit market which had boring items to sell but it still ended up being fun. Each student had specific lines they were supposed to say and we would respond accordingly. We had been practicing lines in a couple classes the previous 2 weeks but I don't think the kids really understand why they were memorizing these lines until they actually got to the "market." Then, I think it clicked for some kids. Some kids were still clueless about the whole thing and acted surprised that we expected them to ask us certain questions and respond with a specific answer. haha. Oh, and the smartest and oldest Kinder class was videotaped so when we have "open day" and all of the parents come to see what their kids do at ECC, this video will be played and they will have an idea. I got to be in a couple of these videos, so I made my second debut in Korean tv/movies.. haha. the first being when I lived here 15 years ago and was on "Hello English" :) hahah. OMG and I almost forgot to tell you the best part of the whole thing.... everyone working HAD to wear a yellow Miss America Sash that Read "ECC English Market" and headscarfs!!! :) We looked so... Korean. It was AMAZING! And the kids all had the cutest matching purses that held their fake American dollar bills. It was such a fantastic day. Good thing Caroline remembered her camera cause we got some great pictures! I was soooo mad I left mine at home, but its ok cause the two of us always share pictures anyways. As soon as she posts them to facebook you will see them on my facebook page as well so no worries.

My afternoon class on Friday, I spent giving oral, written, and writing tests as well as doing book reports. I then spent my free time grading and even managed to still take a ton of book reports, evaluations, and tests home to grade. :( Oh the life of a teacher....

Friday night we went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant that was really good and then called it an early night because we were so tired.

Saturday was lots of fun! We woke up and I got to do some skyping and then Caroline and I went hiking. We hiked for a good 2 hours. We went a different direction which was again really pretty and had even more fun exercise machines along the way! :) The weather was absolutely perfect. It was in the low 80's and sunny! After hiking we met Aaron and went to a place called Kimbop Nara. I think Aaron said it best when he described it as "the Waffle House of Korea." It is open 24 hours and sells really good and extremely cheap Korean food. We had Mandu (Korean dumplings) and Kimbop (seaweed around rice and several vegetables. We got tuna in ours) Yes, Anne, I actually like and eat Kimbop now. Its "Mashitta" (that's delicious in Korean) After that, Caroline and I headed to the bus station in search for a specific Korean learning book, which we did not find. boo :(. Then we came home for a bit before heading out again to meet some co-workers for a couple rounds of bowling. It ended up being a last minute thing and people backed out so it was just me, Caroline, Devon, and Jake but we had an absolute blast. We bowled a couple rounds. I bowled a 96 and a 110. For those of you who really know me, you know this is an absolute record for me! hehe. Caroline kicked all of our butts though and won both games. It looks like I need to take lessons from her. After bowling we ate some amazing Galbi and then went to a local bar for some drinks. We had some Soju cocktails which is Soju (Korean liquor) mixed with real fruit. We tried Kiwi, Mountain Strawberry, Blueberry banana, and Orange/ Grapefruit red. They all were delicious but I think the kiwi one is my favorite. That night ended around 2am.

Sunday we slept in and stayed in our PJ's most of the day. At 4 we met Boram (Rebecca) and Gina (the Korean Kinder teacher) downtown. It had been raining all morning and still was raining so instead of shopping we went to see a movie. We saw "Fame". It was in English with Korean subtitles. It was REALLY good and a must see if you like singing and dancing movies. Anne, Taylor, Tams, its the newest "Center Stage". hehe. We also had some coffee (Caroline and I had Smoothies) and then we went home. Gina and Rebecca are becoming my new best Korean friends! :)

Monday was a good day at work. It was activity day in my afternoon classes which means I got to watch movies and eat all afternoon with my classes. Today was good. Nothing too special but another good day at work so I'll take it. Tomorrow is my last day of school this week. Then it is the start of the Chusok, Korean Thanksgiving, holiday! And guess where Me, Caroline, Aaron, Prairie, and Katelyn are headed?! CHINA!!!

That's right. I leave for CHINA on Thursday morning for 5 days. I am BEYOND EXCITED!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to hike the Great Wall and do sooooo much sightseeing!!!! :) I will update everyone about my trip when I get home! :)

Miss you all and love you more!!!!!!!!!

Another long update... get used to it!!

About a week ago, I got to talk to one of my most favoritest people ever... my old roomie twin friend Taylor! (Quite the title!!) After talking for awhile we decided that neither one of us is very good about updating our blogs and so she gave us a challenge. She challenged us to both write 3 times this past week, even if it was just a paragraph because then it wouldn't seem so daunting when we sat down to write it at the end of the week. Well.... I am not sure if you have noticed, but I definitely failed. Here I am, one week later with no posts and am having to write another long one just to update everyone. :( But, in my defense, I was sick this past week and definitely was not feeling up to it. Which, is a story of itself...

So this week started out pretty well. Nothing out of the ordinary. I started getting a stuffy nose on Monday and my throat hurt the smallest bit but it does that sometimes so I didn't think anything of it. Tuesday I was ok, just tired. (Before I start on Wednesday, you must know that my school requires us to check our temperature upon signing in every morning just to make sure we don't have a temperature and ultimately they are checking for the first symptom of Swine Flu.) Anyways, so Wednesday I woke up again with a sore throat but did not think too much of it since this happened on Monday and I was fine. I took my temperature when I got to school and it was 37.0 C. This is a slight fever but I didn't want to tell anyone because they might freak out that I was getting sick and make a bigger deal than it was. Throughout the morning I started to get more and more tired and my throat started hurting me more and more! By halfway through the day, I was laying all over my desk feeling tired and my throat was killing me. I really wanted to go home, but I knew that I had to make it through my afternoon classes. It hurt tons to talk and even began to ache to move but I finished out the day. I went to bed early and decided that I was going to get someone to cover my 3:00 class on Thursday (next day) and go to the doctor's during my break before that class and in to that class if I needed to. Thursday morning, I walked in to work feeling REALLY achey all over, my throat was killing me and I just felt like I could not even function. I took my temperature, almost hoping I had a fever so it would be known I was sick and needed to go home. Sure enough, a fever- 37.8 C. I told the only other teacher that happened to be in my office (She was Korean) and she decided I definitely needed to let Tanya (my principal) know because they don't mess around with fevers because of Swine Flu. My principal was called and to make a long story short, Caroline and I were driven to the hospital by one of our bosses to begin getting checked. (Caroline had a 36.6 temperature when we first started the morning but somehow 15 minutes later had a 37.0 temperature and they decided she should get checked out too. I think since she lives with me and I was sick and that's borderline sick too) Anyways so we got to the hospital and had our temperature and blood pressure taken before we were handed a mask and confirmed to both have fevers and be "sick". My temperature was about 101 F at the hospital. Shortly after being handed a paper and told to wait upstairs somewhere, my principal arrived at the hospital. She explained that we were going to be tested for Swine Flu and if the test came back negative we would go back to school and if it was positive we would have to take another Swine Flu test that was much more expensive but more accurate. Anyways, so the results of the Swine Flu test came back negative for both of us, but the throat culture showed I had Tonsillitis. No wonder my throat was killing me. Caroline was confirmed just to have the common cold but both of us were prescribed meds. We both got the same ones and then I got one pill extra... I assumed that was for my tonsillitis. We have no clue what these meds we took were except for one which read Tylenol ER. Is that emergency room Tylenol. We don't know, but we both took them diligently along with the other pills for 4 days, 3 times a day. Anyways, so after we got our meds, we were both driven right back to school, fevers and all, and began teaching 10 minutes later. Keep in mind, meds don't work instantly so I was STILL in pain, achey, and my throat was on fire! Oh and I was contagious. Oh, and I forgot to mention... It was Kinder Birthday Party that day and guess who had been chosen a couple days earlier to be the MC? ME!! So... Tonsillitis or no, the show must go on. I MCed (is that a verb?) for the birthday and taught in pain the rest of the day, laying all over my desk in between classes. I was not in a good mood at all and getting home in to my bed was the only thing on my mind. The day could not have gone by any slower, but eventually I made it home and in to my bed. I was passed out hard by 10pm and didn't wake up until my alarm went off the next morning at 8am. Feeling WAY better but far from 100 percent, I went to school the next day.... I had no choice anyways. If they made me teach the 2 days before feeling like I did, no way was I going to get out of teaching when I was feeling better.

Anyways, so as the day went on I started feeling better and better. School ended and well I wasn't gonna let anything spoil my weekend so with meds in hand I went out to eat for dinner with Caroline, the other 2 Kinder teachers (Jason and Erica) and Ian. After dinner we went to Ian and Aaron's (both co-workers and good friends) house for a lo-key Friday of playing games. We played Apples to Apples for several hours before going home and passing out as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

Saturday afternoon a group of us got together to go to the Green Tea Fields. This group included Me, Caroline, Aaron, Paul (Aaron's friend), Steven, Miranda, Prairie, Monica, and Carol. Monica and Carol are Korean English teachers at our school that are adorable and brave enough to go out with the foreign teachers for some fun. I LOVE those two and am so glad they feel comfortable hanging out with us, because the trip would not have been the same without them. Anyways, so we headed about an hour south to Boseong. The Green Tea Fields we went to are the only green tea fields in the country with 5.8 million plants being grown. It was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL and not like anything I have veer seen before. I have uploaded a couple of pictures on here and a bagillion more on facebook that you should check out to get a taste of what we saw there. I can't really explain what it was like and the pictures don't even do it enough justice of how beautiful and cool it was to see. Anyways, so we had to wait for 45 minutes for the bus to come pick us back up and by this time it was really dark outside. We didn't mind though because everyone started talking about how we could be in a horror film at that moment and we started making up a plot of how everyone would die. It was loads of fun. We finally caught the bus that drove us to the bus station where we caught another bus that drove us home. The bus ride was a lot of fun as Aaron and I talked for awhile before deciding to rock out hard to some Taylor Swift and some Korean Pop Music. We got back to Gwangju around 9:30pm and since we hadn't eaten dinner and had been on our way to and at the fields since 2:30pm, we were all really hungry. We ate at a Galbi place that was really cute and absolutely delicious! Caroline and I then went home and went to bed. We still needed to catch up on some sleep to get rid of our sickness.

Sunday, I went to church with Ian. It was pretty sweet, but still no Wesley Foundation at FSU. I really miss that place, and especially Vance, who was by far the best pastor I have ever had! I think i am looking for that here and I need to accept that I am not going to find it. Probably not here, nor anywhere! Anyways, so I enjoyed church and was super glad I went. Its something I really miss and something I felt I really needed to go to. I will probably go back again. The real pastor wasn't there so I would like to hear him as well if nothing else.

Monday and Tuesday were good days at school and I can now say I am about 99 percent over my sickness. I still have a small runny nose but I'll take it! :) Tomorrow I have my fourth Korean class, third Korean test. Wish me luck cause I have a feeling its gonna be bad! I enjoy learning the language though and get excited about class.

Past my bedtime now, so I am off to sleep. I love you ALL!!! I hope everyone is doing well!!

I less than 3 my co-workers!!

So..... I really need to start updating this thing more often because SO much happens in a week here and I can't even remember everything. Go to the bathroom, then grab something to eat because this is going to be a long one...

Last weekend was INCREDIBLY fun!! Friday is always a long day at work because I have all of my classes and I don't get out until 6:20pm. The middle school teachers don't get out until 9, some even 10pm so by the end of Friday, we are all ready to either 1. pass out or 2. go for a drink. This past Friday we decided to go with the latter of the two and hit up a local bar. Caroline and I had never been to the bar we went to, but it was quite nice because it was a 5-10 minute walk from our house which meant we didn't have to deal with a taxi driver not knowing what we were saying and taking us to a completely different apartment place on the way home. (Side note- Caroline and I try so hard to say where we live and sometimes we are taken right to our house, while other times we are taken to random different places or to this one apartment building that we also believe has the same name as ours- Line Cha. Go figure- there is another apartment building 204 that isn't ours too... hmm.. silly Koreans... they are trying to get us Americans without the proper pronunciation skills to speak Korean, lost and I DO NOT appreciate it!) Anyways, so the name of the bar was Hofbrauhaus- just like in Munich. However, it was not like the one in Munich at all- no HUGE glasses of beer, no German band, and more importantly, no crazy Russians. hehe. But it was tons of fun to go out with the other foreign teachers and have a 맥주 aka Mekju aka beer. (or two... or three...) We all hung out quite late that night having tons of fun before going home and crashing.

On Saturday we went downtown and did a little shopping on art street. I got two really cool water colors that I am really excited about. Now I just have to figure out how to hang them because no holes can go in the walls, tape I think would ruin them when I tried to take it off, and I don't have them in frames... hmm... anyways, so after a little shopping, we went to a travel agency and booked our flight to CHINA. Caroline and I, along with 3 co-workers, are going to China in October for 5 days over the Chusok holiday. This is the Korean version of Thanksgiving. We are SUPER excited about China and I think all 5 of us are now counting down the days till the holiday break!!!

Saturday night was A BLAST!!! My school had a farewell/welcoming dinner for the 2 Kinder teachers that were leaving, and Caroline, Me and the 2 new Kinder teachers. EVERYONE from our school to include all of the teachers, receptionists, school managers, the lunch ladies, and the bus drivers came. We had assigned seats at this restaurant but it was still fun. Caroline and I got to sit by each other which was good cause then we could talk and be surprised together. I say surprised because the first dish that came out was a huge fish. The next plate was a plate full of raw cow parts. It included cow tongue, cow liver, and cow stomach lining. Let's just say that I didn't eat any of the appetizers. the main dish though was galbi which is meat that you cook at your table. Then you wrap it in a leaf and put a special bean spread, maybe some garlic, perhaps some of your salad or a different sauce on it and eat it. It is quite good and probably one of my favorite meals in Korea. While we were eating, the manager of our school came around to everyone and served us Soju. This is Korean alcohol that some people can handle no problem, while it is deadly to others. We HAD to accept (with 2 hands as this shows respect) because turning down our manager would be REALLY disrespectful and a definite no no. Everyone of course took it, but some just didn't drink it while others drank theirs and got drunk. It was kinda funny to see people drunk at the dinner. Anyways, so Caroline and I, as well as the other new teachers and the teachers leaving all had to make a speech and bow several times and then dinner was finished. After dinner, the foreign teachers decided they wanted to go out together and talked several Korean teachers in to coming with us. A big group of about 20 or more of us started to walk towards a cheap bar. Our manager happened to be following and noticed what we were doing and told us she knew of a better bar that we should go to. She led us there and then handed us her credit card, and then left. Can you believe it?! We couldn't! She did this though in order to create "harmony" between the foreign and Korean teachers. They are big about that at our school which is awesome, but we were going to be "creating harmony" at a cheaper place, but hey we didn't turn her down when she said she would pay. So after our HUGE cap ran out, we decided to continue the party at the cheaper bar. Lets just say that we had A LOT of fun that night and everyone seemed to be thirsty. :) The Korean teachers were so much fun to hangout with and I can't wait to hangout with them again.

Sunday we went to this HUGE 7 story electronic mall like place called Kuhmo world. It was pretty sweet and sold any electronic thing you could possibly want as well as a few other things such as furniture or houseware stuff. Weird, but super sweet. I didn't buy anything and Caroline only bought a tuner for her new guitar, but it was neat to go and look around.

This past weekend was also tons of fun. I went to Seoul with 7 other foreign teachers to see a Korea versus Australia soccer game. One of the teachers we went with is from Australia so we decided we would cheer with him for Australia. We all got decked out in Australia's colors- green and yellow- and he had some extra headbands and flags we all passed around to wear and cheer with. We learned the Australian cheer. "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie- Oi Oi Oi" and sang it several times that night even though we were losing from the start. We had really good seats pretty close to the field and near the cheering section so it kinda in a way reminded me of the student section at FSU football games so it made me happy. The score ended up being Korea 3, Australia 1, but it was still fun and we managed to make some Korean friends we took pictures with at the end of the game and Ian even traded stuff with. That night we all just kinda hungout around the area and then slept in this "love motel". It was an experience but it turned out being just fine and the owner was a super cute older guy who ALWAYS had a smile on his face which made us love him.

The next day, we did a TON of shopping and had so much fun. I bought my mom's birthday present there along with some other souvenirs and a super sweet giraffe purse. There were so may stores that were all selling similar stuff, but it was all so cool. There were fans, flags, jade, pottery, dolls, masks and other random stuff everywhere. I definitely want to go back around Christmas time as this is where I think I will be getting several Christmas gifts. It was awesome!! We came back back to Gwangju late that night and had school the next day.

It was an awesome weekend because its always fun to hangout with some coworkers/ good friends!

School is still going well and I have started taking Korean class at ECC on Wednesdays. Our "principal" made it so that all 4 of us foreign kinder teachers have 4th period off so we can take the class during that period and over lunch. There are the 4 of us plus 5 middle school teachers taking it, so its a good bunch and lots of fun. We have had two classes and took our first test this past Wednesday. I got minus 1 on writing and did not miss any on the speaking portion. It was only on the consonants but you gotta start somewhere right?! My next test is this Wednesday on most of the vowels which scares me because I have a hard time even hearing, let alone pronouncing the different vowel sounds. There are a couple that sounds SOOO much alike. I won't be doing well on that test I don't think but we'll see. I am super excited about the class in general and really can't wait to start learning words.

Each day I spend with my kids, I love them even more. Or in one case, I have one class I really don't care for and each day I find myself getting more and more annoyed. But I am trying a new discipline system with them that I think might be helping. I made a deal that i would give them a pizza party if they could spell out the word pizza 7 times during the 12 times I see them. Sounds way too easy but this is hard for them. They have 2 days where they did so far and 2 days where they didn't get it. But I think they are trying really hard now since they know I am serious and hopefully this works. Its a room of 8 boys and 2 girls, so its just a lot of goofing off, being silly, and basically just acting like 5th grade boys. Overall though, my kinder kids are the ones that steal my heart with their cuteness and how smart they are and I love all of them! I will be posting pictures today or tomorrow on facebook.

Sorry this post was ridiculously long!

I love you guys so much and miss you more! I hope all is well with everyone!!!!!

Lots to update you on... last weekend's activities

So, I have been slacking and have not updated this in awhile so now I have a lot to tell you about. Where to start.....

Last Saturday Caroline and I went hiking. This is a Korean past time and we thought we would give it a shot. Koreans get all decked out in their hiking outfits, with hiking boots, special bookbags, hiking sticks and more. Caroline and I are lacking in the hiking gear department so we left the house in a t-shirt, athletic shorts and tennis shoes. Guess what? This was perfect, so we will not be investing in any hiking gear while we are here! Anyways, hiking was sooooo much fun! The mountain we hiked was practically in our back yard. It's awesome! We walked out of our apartment complex and maybe for 5 minutes before reaching the mountain. We climbed about 50 million steps to get from the bottom of the mountain to more of the top... ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. It was probably only 150 steps but it felt like a ton and they were quite steep that even this gave us a workout. Once we got to the top of the steps we reached a bridge. We followed a trail for a long time one way before we realized we were starting to go back down the mountain, so we turned around and began our hike back the other way. We hiked for quite awhile, stopping twice along the way to play on some exercise equipment. It was so much fun because they have these twisty things, pull-up bars, this rolly thingie and other fun stuff to play on. We finally reached the top of the mountain which had a great view. We could see part of the city and several mountains. We continued to hike for awhile before turning around and heading home. We had such a great time while getting a workout that we have both decided that we are going to start hiking regularly. In fact, we have set a goal to hike some mornings before school. I'll let you know if this ends up happening and how long that lasts. hehe

That night, our head foreign teacher, Ian, decided we should all get together and meet the new foreign teachers who are going to be the other 2 Kindergarten teachers. On a side note, this is kinda scary because there are only 4 foreign kinder teachers and Caroline and I are the other two. We have only been teaching like a month now so it is going to be strangey to not be the rookies anymore but instead the people the two new people turn to in order to get help and ask questions... AHH!!! Anyways, so they had just gotten to Korean like a day and a half earlier and Ian knew they would be bored and not know what to do, so he arranged for everyone to meet them at dinner. Only thing is, they were supposed to be in quarantine just in case they had swine flu so we were to have no contact with them. Oops. So if asked we were going to pretend we just happened to meet them at the restaurant because they just happened to be there for dinner too. Anyways, so the restaurant was the same one we were taken to by our school's manager the day after getting here. We have been there a couple times now and each time it gets less and less spicy! yippee!!

On Sunday, we went to church for the first time. It was ok. The pastor was super creepy in the way that he talked and prayed. It seemed like he was being possessed and was either going to cry or explode every time he talked. I didn't like this. Neither did Caroline so we might try somewhere new next weekend. Not to mention, the service was really small and I just didn't like it overall and there are other places to go so hopefully we will figure something out. Anyways, so after church we finally went downtown during the day (we have only ever been at night to go to the bars with the other foreign teachers) and just walked around for awhile. Neither one of us did too much shopping but we each got a couple of small things like puppets for our classes, and I got the cutest pair of socks with a boy and a girl talking on one of those cans with the string in between them phones. We had lots of fun window shopping and it ended up being a good weekend.

I will update you on this past week and weekend tomorrow because there is so much to write and this has already been a long post.

Love you all and miss you more!!

3 Day Weekend to Busan

This past weekend was a 3 day weekend. We had some sort of holiday on Friday, but I couldn't tell you what. Either way, it was nice to have a long weekend and Caroline and I definitely took advantage of it. We took a bus 3 1/2 hours away to Busan.

We stayed at a hostel. I am becoming quite the hostel frequenter. Up until this summer I had never been in one, now I have stayed in too many in so many cities and countries to even count. I love it! People at hostels are always so friendly and we always end up having a good time. Not to mention, the experience is always something different. This hostel was called the Actor and Backpacker hostel. We didn't meet any actors, but that would have been neat. It was a unique hostel because we had to go in a building and walk up 4 flights of stairs. Then we had to walk outside and on to a roof and this was the start of our hostel. The hostel was on top of a roof. It was sooo sweet and had quite the view. The owner, Mr. Lee was very nice and had a cute dog named Cha Cha. They lived there and the hostel was basically his house. Sound familiar to our hostel in Seoul?! :) Caroline and I want to start our own hostel now. Our apartment is pretty big, especially for Korean standards and we could easily put bunk-beds in our living room and rent them out to people. We are currently in the process of finding bunk beds for cheap somewhere. :)

Caroline's family went to their beach house last week and she was sad she couldn't be there, so we decided since we got our first pay check, which was next to nothing because it only had 2 weeks of pay on it plus deductions for insurance and crap, we would spend some of our paycheck on traveling to another city to hangout. Busan is known in all of Korea for its beaches so we figured we would take our own beach holiday.

Before going to the beach though, we spent the first day there shopping at their well known market. We walked up and down many many streets filled with vendors and stores selling every and anything. Neither one of us bought too much but we both did end up with some sweet socks that cost less than a dollar. Also Caroline bought an umbrella and a fan, and I bought a sweet watch for about 4 bucks. I would say we got some pretty sweet deals. This was tons and tons of fun even though we didn't buy much, just Korean shopping is a unique kind of experience and one that I always enjoy.

The next day, we decided to experience the beaches. Because Busan is known for its beaches, it also means that Busan beaches are known to be packed. We definitely found this to be true but it was still really fun and reminded us a little bit of home. There were people absolutely EVERYWHERE. When we first got to the beach, we were immediately approached and asked if we wanted to buy an umbrella, chairs and an intertube. We bought (rented) the umbrella which we realized later was required but decided our towels and the mat they give you would be sufficient and a chair was not necessary. So the way Korean beaches work, or at least in Busan, is that once you rent an umbrella a guy leads you to it and then puts it up for you. There are about 1000 or more umbrellas on the beach all in rows. One umbrella touches the next so there is absolutely no space where there isn't shade. Koreans like the shade and none of them like to layout. This is because Koreans believe the whiter you are, the higher the status because only working people have dark skin from being outside all day. Anyways, so after seeing that all of the umbrellas were touching and there was no sun to be had unless the umbrella remained down, we accepted the fact we would not be sun bathing either. However, the guy who sold us the umbrella I guess realized we wanted to layout so he put us 3 rows back from anybody. This was too funny because if you looked around everyone on the beach was in the first 3 rows, and then there we were the only foreigners on the beach in the 6th row. :) But it was good because we could keep our umbrella down and not bother anyone or force them to be in the sun. You can imagine the stares we got though- more than usual.

After laying out for a little while we became hot and decided to get in the overcrowded water. It was really cold at first so we just waded. Then 2 foreign boys along with their Korean friend who apparently doesn't like Koreans (weird huh) approached us and invited us to sit under their umbrella and talk. We did and what we thought would be a small talk conversation turned into a 2 hour conversation and ended with us being thrown around and tackled in the water by them. It was cold at first but we quickly got used to it and enjoyed swimming, or should I say drowning and being thrown around. :) It was fun though. Oh and a boat or two would drive by every so often to make waves and everyone in the water would ride the waves and get pushed into each other, and as much as this sounds miserable, it was surprisingly really fun. Nobody cared and everyone just kind of accepted the fact that you were going to run in to someone. A smile would then be exchanged followed by laughing at us foreigners and then another wave would come and it would happen again. It was lots of fun. We ended up being at that beach for quite sometime before heading back to the hostel to shower before walking to another closer beach to look at it.

This beach is supposed to be less clean and pretty but also has a better view with a nice bridge in the background. It was a 10 minute walk from our hostel to this beach. It seemed to be about the same as far as it being crowded goes, but the LONG bridge was beautiful and there was a place to walk and places to eat all up and down the beach which we thought was fun. We ate dinner along the beach and then just walked along the beach and enjoyed the Korean beach experience. We stopped to just hangout and sit, but we weren't sitting for even a minute when a Korean guy approached us. He just wanted to talk to foreigners and practice so we talked with him for about 45 minutes, or longer, and then began walking again. We stopped to take several jumpy pictures and pictures of the bridge. then we talked for a bit and watched a cheesy Korean play that was being put on along the beach and then it turned night and we were able to see the bridge all lit up. It was soooo pretty and changed colors every couple of seconds. We both got some great pictures. We talked for a long time just sitting on the beach before heading back to the hostel and passing out! It was a long day but super fun.

We left the next morning, rode the 3 1/2 hours bus home and then just kinda crashed on the couch and hung out for most of the day. It was a great 3 day weekend.

This weekend Caroline and I want to go hiking here in Gwangju since it is known for its great hiking paths on its enormous beautiful mountain. I can't wait!!

I love and miss everyone tons and tons!!!

What I have noticed so far...

Korea is so different from America in soooooo many ways. I thought I would inform everyone of my insights that I have had so far while being here.

1. Korean guys all carry man purses. No joke, starting around teenage years you will see almost all guys carrying some sort of bag or purse. Caroline and I sat in a very crowded bus station waiting for a bus from Seoul back home and counted the number of guys WITHOUT a purse, and I think out of about 100 guys, only 15 were without. That is definitely not something you would see in America. What do you think they carry in those things anyways?

2. No matter the age, height, or outfit being worn, Korean women all wear heels. We have seen heels on the youngest of girls to the oldest of women. We have seen them worn with shorts, t-shirts, or something fancy. Women who are already really tall still wear heels. And the Korean teachers at our school wear their heels on their 15 minute walk to school only to take them off as soon as they enter the building and wear slippers all day. NUTS!

3. I like to think of chopsticks as skis. Much like in skiing, if you cross the ends, you are in trouble. Its all about holing them parallel and never letting them cross.

4. Some things here are backwards. For example, the faucets at school, you have to push down instead of pull up in order to get the water to turn on. Also, the fast forward and rewind buttons on a tape/CD player are completely opposite and what would look like the fast forward sign to us would be the rewind button here. That definitely threw me off at first.

5. The trick to eating is you go to your food, don't bring the food to you. Although it is traditional to bring the fork full of food to your mouth in America, if you do that here, you will end up with food either all over yourself or possibly back on plate or on the floor because you can only hold on to things with chopsticks so long.

6. When Koreans teach other Koreans English, the letters S, F and random words are taught wrong. The kids at school all pronounce the letter S as "Essa" and the letter F like "Effa". Also, my students and all of the korean teachers at the school say the word strange as "strange-ee". There are also other words I can't think of right now that get the ee sound added to them as well.

7. Random American sayings that make absolutely no sense are printed all over things here. For example, I bought a jewelry box the other day that read "Is like an apple. The smell of sweet apples. The girl is a gift of the apple." I had to buy this because it was just sooooo great. You would think they would pay an American to

8. Spicy to a Korean would be deadly to an American. Koreans eat a TON of extremely spicy food and think nothing of it. They don't taste the spice at all. I hope I develop this taste bud soon because I am dying here. :)

This is all I can think of at the moment. I know I had more, so I will add to the list when I think of them. :)

Love and miss you all!!

Summer Vacation trip to Seoul

This post is WAY OVERDUE. So, here goes another long entry that you will need a HUGE chunk of time in order to read.

After teaching for just one week and one day, we were told the school was having summer vacation and we would have to take it, even though we just got here. Its one of our longest vacations (6 days) we will have while we are so it kinda stinks it was so early on, but we were excited about getting out of Gwangju and seeing somewhere else. Our school currently has our passports in order to get us alien cards so staying in the country was our only choice. After much debate we decided on Korea's capital, Seoul. Although I would have loved to travel outside of the country just because, I will not even pretend that I didn't really enjoy our trip to Seoul. It was sooooo much fun and definitely a good choice for our first time off.

But before leaving for Seoul, we spent our first day off hanging out with our Korean best friends and doing laundry. Both interesting experiences. Ok, so to backtrack, our Korean best friends are two Korean guys our age that we randomly met on the streets walking home from work one day. They stopped us and talked to us for a bit and proceeded to say that they wanted American best friends and that they could be our Korean best friends. Caroline and I both laughed, but decided that it might not be such a bad idea to have someone who can speak the language and help us figure out Korea a little more, around sometimes. Anyways, so we emailed back and forth for days before they got a little too anxious (We are pretty sure they want more than best friends and instead girlfriends) and finally we agreed to have lunch with them. One guy can barely speak English and the other guy is a little better but there is still definitely a language barrier. This just made for an interesting and funny lunch. They ensured us "We study English this week" so the next time we can have an even better conversation. None the less, we talked about all sorts of things at lunch and had a good time. As they dropped us off at our door they told us to have fun in Seoul and that "We wait for you". whatever that means. hehe. We have already since arranged to have dinner tomorrow with them. Apparently its going to be takeout and we are having it at our house. I'll let you know how that goes. Anyways, so after lunch with our friends, we did laundry. This was quite the experience as we have not been told how to work our washer and it is definitely all written in Korean. It has about a million buttons and setting you can push, so we pushed several buttons before getting it to turn on. It worked for about 7 minutes before draining all of the water and turning off. We are guessing this is the prewash setting or something. who knows. Finally, after pushing more buttons we got the washer to stay on and wash our clothes. At the end, the water drained from the washer and on to our floor. I thought for sure we were going to flood our house but apparently the reason our laundry room is so big and has a drain is so that this can happen. The water eventually went through the drain on the floor and left us with just a damp room. Weird. Anyways, it worked and we began hanging our clothes outside on our laundry rack to dry. Apparently it takes more than half a day and a night to dry clothes this way so we each picked a couple things we wanted to take with us to Seoul and used our fans in our room and my hairdryer to finish drying them. We packed and then left our house to catch a taxi that would take us to the bus station that would take us there.

All went well until we got off the bus in Seoul and headed to the streets to find our hostel. All we had was an address and name of the place. We got on a metro and found a stop that we guessed would get us there. Lets just say after we got off the metro, we walked around for a bit before deciding we had no clue where this place was and we would never find it without help. This reminded me of my Europe travels and I immediately decided that we should go somewhere where people might speak English and be able to help us. We found a Starbucks. The people who worked there passed around our sheet of paper with the hostel name and address before a girl walked in and ordered a coffee. Apparently, the guy behind the counter found out she spoke English and handed the paper to her for her to help us. She took us to her boyfriend who helped us look up the address again and google map the place. We got a general idea and the couple walked us up and down the streets for probably 15 minutes in search of the place. Here they thought they would sit down and enjoy their coffee but instead they were sent roaming around the city with us. They were both so nice and so helpful. They spoke perfect English and come to find out this was because of their schooling. The boy was a physics major at University of Illinois and the girl had just graduated from Berkley. We were impressed. Finally after lots of walking and searching with no luck, the girl found the building. Everything was written in Korean and there was no way Caroline and I would have found it on our own. They walked us up to the door of the building and when we knocked, a Korean guy answered it and it definitely just looked like his apartment. We walked in and there were 3 sets of bunk beds and a computer and that's it. No reception, no common room, and looked nothing like any hostel we stayed at in Europe. This was straight up a Korean guys house that he put bunk beds in and called a hostel. There was one other couple there which made it less sketchy and helped us to feel better about the situation. It turned out to be a fine place and we stayed there 2 nights. We even spent the next day with 2 guys that "checked in" right after us and had a great time with them.

So the first night after "checking in" (by that I mean putting our stuff on the bed to claim them) we went out to explore. We walked around Sinchon, which is name of the area where we were staying. There was lots of shopping and fun stuff to look at. We mainly just window shopped, except for I did get a knock off brand of Converse All Stars for only $12. So that was sweet.

The next day we went on a city bus tour with our new friends from the hostel. We didn't end up riding he bus long because you could not see anything from it, so instead we got off around the fifth stop and walked on our own around the city for some sightseeing. We spent most of the day at this one Korean Palace that was divided into 12 sections and is the biggest palace in Korea. It was soooooo sweet. I got soooo many good pictures, all with beautiful mountains in the background or other awesome views. Those pictures will be up on facebook shortly. After that we ate some good Korean lunch and then did some more walking and sightseeing. Late that night Caroline and I made our way to the Seoul Tower and rode a cable car up to it. The cable ride itself was a lot of fun but when we got to the top of the mountain that has the tower, we bought tickets and went up the tower itself to see the view of Seoul at night. It was so amazing!!! Caroline and I took several pictures but they do not do it justice. It was beautiful! We spent a couple hours there and then made our way back to the hostel to pass out. It was a good day.

The next day our friends took a tour to the DMZ, North Korean border, which was something we both wanted to do but because our school still has our passports we weren't able to do that. :( Instead, we went shopping in Itaewon. This is a super cheap area of town with lots of stuff to buy. Caroline and I both did well and ended up with our names in Korean on a necklace and some other random souvenirs. After shopping, we went to Yongson Army base so I could relive my childhood experience here. I took a million pictures and surprisingly enough a lot of what I remembered was pretty accurate. However, a lot of it seemed so new to me as well and so different than I ever pictured it. It was a lot of fun getting to see my old school, home, friends homes, and everything else. After exploring for awhile, Caroline and I eventually made our way to the commissary in hopes of buying America food that we cant buy here in Gwangju. We had no such luck as Korea now requires that everyone have a rations card in order to get in and buy stuff. So we left empty handed and disappointed. It was still a good day though. That night we stayed at Caroline's friends apartment in Seoul. It was really tiny, a one room studio apartment but it was nice of her to let us stay there.

The next day we went to the national Museum of Korea. This museum was kinda neat, but would have been a lot nicer if we could read Korean. There was an explanation under every piece of art, statue, artifact, etc but it was written in detail in Korean with just a very very tiny description in English. It was still cool though. Later that day we headed back home. The bus ride took about 5 hours due to traffic and such but it wasn't too bad.

Yesterday was spent grocery shopping, getting ourselves prepared for work today and just kinda hanging out. It was a relaxing day and good end to our vacation. Today it was back to work. It was a good day at school.

Sorry this post is EXTREMELY long! I need to start updating more often.

I miss everyone soooooo much but am so glad for skype and facebook so I can keep up with everyone. I love you all lot and lots. Skype when you get the chance, it makes my day!!! :)