I love it here!

I must say that coming to South Korea was the best decision I have ever made...I absolutely love it here! Between the wonderful friends I'm making and cultural experiences I'm having, life is good. My job is wonderful too. The kids are so sweet and I actually look forward to waking up and going to work each day. That hasn't really happened before and it's a good feeling! The weeks are still jam packed with work, but we are doing some pretty cool things on the weekends. This past Friday there was a free Circus in a park nearby. It was called the Flying Italians and was amazing! There is no way to describe how cool it was, you have to see the pictures! There were pianos and ballerinas and huge globes suspended way up in the air with the Italians dancing around them. Beautiful!

We always do things together on the weekends, and always enjoy the nights out in different areas of Bundang or Seoul. Of course I miss things from home...my family and friends and of course Harley!

This weekend we are going to see Grease on Broadway and I am super excited! We have also heard about a place in Seoul that has indoor skiing year round and Si's pretty excited about checking that out. Our next big vacation is in September, which is a holiday, and I am going to Beijing, China with Britt and another friend. Can't wait! Hope everyone is doing well and I love hearing from you all!

A little about the food

Ok, so overall the food in South Korea is amazing! They do serve rice and soup with pretty much every meal, but there are certain dishes and restaurants that I love. Korean food is generally really spicy, but we have all pretty much adjusted and are used to it. One of my favoiretes is traditional Korean BBQ restaurants where you sit on the floor on a mat and there is a grill on the table where you cook meat, usually pork or beef, and wrap it up in lettuce with different sauces and things. It is so good! Another one of my favorite things is called Omu rice, which is like a rice omelet, with spices and veggies in the rice. It's covered in a brown gravy like sauce. Sounds kinda wierd but it's so good! Dunkas are another favorite. It is kinda like a fried pork chop with cheese in the middle, that you dip in a sauce. Curry rice is pretty popular here and is also so good! I also like another rice dish, called kimchi-bocimbop, which is rice with kimchi cooked in it, along with other veggies and a spicy sauce. Kimchi is a traditional korean food served with every meal. It is fermented vegetables, usually cabbage, that is made very spicy, and is different at every place you have it. It sounds disgusting, and it was an acquired taste, but we all pretty much love it now.

There are several dishes that I don't personally like, but are pretty popular amongst Koreans and other foreigners. Kimbop is almost like a california roll. It is filled with various vegetables, and usually ham or some kind of fish, wrapped first in rice and then in seaweed. They also serve a lot of tofu here, which I am still trying to acquire a taste for. Sometimes it's good, when cooked in the right thing, but the texture is just too much for me.

Now...as with every foreign country, there are some food nightmares...things that kinda make me sick just looking at them or thinking abou them. The obvious one is dog...which is usually served in a soup, and said to increase male's sexual stamina, yeah I don't need that. Seafood is very common here, which I have a hard time with even in the states. It doesn't help when some of the dishes here are just horrifyingly awful. For example, live octopus that is still moving on your plate, or raw fish with the head still attached...yeah, enough about that. There is also a fish version of spam...that is served on a stick by a ton of street vendors, and the koreans absolutely love it. Can't quite make myself try it.

Most of the time our school serves awesome food, but as always there are exceptions. One day we were all excited at what we thought was green beans, until we looked closer and realized they were small, minnow type fish staring back up at us. Gross! Luckily they did not make it onto my plate! There are some days when all of the employees walk into the kitchen for lunch and turn around and walk right back out. On these days we settle for convenience store food!

I'm sure I'll come across more intersting food dishes while I am here, and while I am travelling. I will update you on these and warn you if it is too graphic!

haha, love and miss you all!

Hey hey!

So alot of people are commenting on how funny it is that all of the kids make a peace sign with their hands in pictures. I have reacently learned that it is not a peace sign, but they are making a V, which became tradition after their victory over Japan. You learn new things every day! It is simply custom now, and pretty cute I must say! Several of us got into a big discussion about it, hence my learning experience, and I also discovered that as girls get older they tend to make the V close to their faces. Women here are VERY self conscious about their size and their appearance, especially Korean traits such as round faces. Apparently holding the V close to their faces, near their cheeks is intended to make their cheeks look smaller. I guess every country has their own quirks!

In my past experiences living abroad, I have always told myself I would try anything once. I've definitely had experiences I wouldn't have otherwise, such as eating guinea pig and some other unusual things! I do, however, draw the line at eating cat and dog. I absolutely cannot do that, no matter what the customs are in Asia! Wonderful to find out, however, that the restaurant right next to my apartment is well known for serving dog soup! I think I need to move...haha! I just picture Harley and it makes me sick to my stomach. How can people have pet dogs and cats, and also eat the meat without getting sick???

This week has gone by super fast, but has been pretty hectic since I got three new students in my morning kInder class. I'm looking forward to the weekend. I think I am going to have my fist experience in a spa here, which are very popular, and get a massage or something fun and relaxing! We are also booking our tickets to Bejing, where we are going on our vacation in September. I can't wait! Love you all!

Relaxing!

We came home early from our trip to Busan, but we are all still enjoying our vacation! Today we went to Itaewon, which is a small part of Seoul that is very Western, and went to a swimming pool at a hotel. Apparently it's the hot place to be! There were so many people there and the pool was amazing! It is in a really nice hotel, out on the roof, and you have to pay to get in. You can stand up and see a lot of the city which was pretty cool. We hung out there a lot of the day, refusing to let being back in Bundang bring an end to our vacation! Itaewon is a great place to go shopping. They have a lot of Western things that you can't get anywhere else, like Dr. Pepper and Diet Mountain Dew. (you can see where my thoughts were!) It's also the place where most military people and a lot of other teachers hang out, and most people speak English. There is a great night life there, and we go out there on occasion. It's about a 30 minute bus ride depending on traffic so we don't go too often, but we are headed back there tonight and it should be a blast!

Unfortunately, being in Itaewon does not bring an end to the Korean fashion diasters. Speedos and bikinis with stiletto heels were raging, and florescent colored clothing is also a big hit. Ahhhhh, still getting used to these things! Have a great weekend!!!!

No more beach =(

We got back from Busan last night and it was so sad to leave the beach! We had such a fun time, and there was not much sleeping between going to the beach during the day and going out at night...then returning to a room stuffed full with 7 people. We decided to come back a little early to catch up and have a few days to relax before going back to work.

We definitely bonded way too much on our trip! You see and hear way too much about the other people when 7 are crammed into a small space. It was so much fun and we all made memories we are not likely to forget any time soon. I am working on putting my pictures up so you can all see the beautiful beaches and the fun times we all had!

On our last day there we went on the huge banana boat...it's like a huge raft in the shape of a banana that is pulled by a jet ski out in the ocean. I had never done it before and it was a blast! The second beach we went to after leaving Haeundae was called Songjeong Beach, and it was a lot less crowded. There were still umbrellas on the beach, but we could actually see the ocean from our spot! There wasn't much to do other than spend time on the beach, so at night we took a taxi to beaches nearby that had nightlife for people our age. All of these beaches are part of Busan, the city in Korea, and i'm glad we got to see more than one area! They were all so different, but fun all the same. In Songjeong we had a pretty hard time finding a hotel. It was surprisingly a lot more expensive than Haeundae, and the guys went to just about every hotel on the beach. We finally settled on a love motel...yes that's right. We got two rooms so we had a little more space, but it was still a tight squeeze.

We still have a few more days left of our vacation time and we are going to enjoy in back in Bundang. Talk to you all soon!