Kyungbokgung Palace

This day was so wonderful. They are my new friends. Well, one girl is my friend Grace, and her friend Hyungshin (the guy from the soccer game), and the other girl is Hyungshin's friend from Arizona. Great people to hang out with!!

Last Day Pictures

Playing football for the first time in their lives
It was sooo hot!!
Contemplating the football...how does this thing work??


Girls Class

Bongsunghwa

My flowers have gotten so big!! They started out as seeds pots, and grew slowly, slowly...until about a month ago. Then they shot up! The stalks are so tall that I thought the roots wouldn't be able to hold them in such shallow pots. BUT, I was so sad because they didn't have flowers.

A week and a half ago, my first flower opened. And every day there are one or two new ones. They die and fall off the stalk quickly, but they are still very beautiful and able to maintain at least one or two flowers per pot at a time.

Last night I left my room at 9pm, and this is what they looked like. There were 4 flowers.
This morning I came into my classroom, and my students were gathered around the windowsill. I came over to find the most flowers I've seen blossomed at one time (7)! They're beautiful colors: pink, purple, red, white...and what a beautiful sky while walking home to compliment the day.

Seafood

(Picture from the internet, but this is exactly what it looked like)

Today I was invited by a professor out to lunch. We drove for a ways, and ended up at a Korean-Japanese fusion restaurant. They picked the set menu, that turned out to be a 5 course meal. It was fun talking...until the food arrived...(cue the scary music)...

The first course was octopus and squid along with another few food items I don't know what were. But, the food was REALLY expensive, so I had to be grateful and at least appear to enjoy the meal! A few squid and octopus legs later came course number 2.

This was 회 (pronounced hwae), a Korean version of the Japanese sashimi--similar to sushi. Someone basically takes a fish, slices it up, and puts it on top of dried radish noodles. Sounds appetizing, huh? ^^ Course 3 was just another variety of hoe.

Course 4 was deep fried sea animals.

Course 5 was...fish soup!

I can honestly say that if you put all the seafood I've eaten in my life onto a scale of quantity, today's meal would by far win. By far. And you know what? It wasn't the end of the world. I've proven to myself that I can eat fish (raw or cooked) and other seafoods without being sick. It was a little hard to swallow, but I did it with a smile on my face. I only hope I never have to do that again.

Italy with Jamie

Jamie and her family asked me to lunch yesterday. So I hopped in their car during my lunch break and we headed north. After driving for 30 minutes, we arrived at Pinnacole (an Italian Restaurant). It was a beautiful glass-walled structure in the middle of the mountains. What a wonderful break from city life!

The food was good, but more delightful was walking in the flower gardens and spending time with Jamie and her family. On the way home, we stopped by a farmer selling fresh tomatoes. It was so relaxing! I'm blessed to know and have good relationships with Koreans here.

Soccer Game #1

Last Saturday was the first Korean soccer game in the World Cup, and it's been pumped up here!! Everyone's so excited and energized by the media as well as by commercials and word of mouth. I was privileged to spend the first game with my friend Grace. She invited her other 3 friends, so it made for a nice group party.

We met at her house, went shopping for food, and cooked and talked while waiting 2 hours for the game to start. We made chicken/potato/kimchi stir-fry, kimchi/tuna fried rice, kimchi pancakes, and what else could we need but more kimchi ^^ I LOVE kimchi!!!

Whenever Korea made a score or had a good play, people all around would yell out their windows: "Dae-han-minguk" to which people would echo: clap, clap - clap, clap - clap. It is amazing how so many people can be united together through a simple soccer game.

It was a good time meeting and getting to know new people. I really enjoyed that. It was a good chance for me, and I'll never forget it!

Jeju Island

I forgot to mention that in the beginning of May, Sujin and I traveled together to Jeju Island!! It was windy and cold, but still fun and beautiful. I love Jeju-do!!

We stayed in pensions on the beach, so we had great views of sunsets over the water. Because we rented a car, we were able to drive all around the island easily. We were there for 3 days, but it was plenty enough time to see everything that we could imagine wanting to see. We traveled up and down each road there was it seemed!

The first day we went to O'Sulloc Tea Farm. It was huge, and fun to walk up and down the hundreds of rows of tea bushes. I picked a few tea leaves (don't worry, I paid for other stuff too) and dried them in our car. When I came back to Seoul, it made a surprisingly delicious tea!!

There was a beach with cliffs that had unique rock shapes. It's a little similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. They were beautiful, and it was amazing to see how glorious God is through His creation.

One day we went to a crater/hill that had once been volcanic. It was amazing walking up along the ridge, and then down into the crater. It's been completely filled in by trees and land, so it didn't seem as strange as one might imagine. It was interesting to see caves that the Japanese had built to hold up in during their occupation of Korea.

One fun part of our trip was going horseback riding! Our pension gave us tickets to go for free, so of course we took them up on it. Even though their intent was to get us to buy more things, we stood strong and went for a short 15 minute walk around the tracks. BUT, at the end, they asked if I'd like to go for a run! It was so fun to not just trot, but to gallop on the horse!!

On our last day, we went to Udo Island (a smaller island off the east side of Jeju) where we took a bus dropping us off at random intervals. We walked up another really steep crater and got great views of the entire island. At the bottom of the crater were cows that we tried to pet. We weren't too brave, so didn't get that close, but it was still an adventure. At the end of the trip, just relaxing on the beach was worth it. God's beauty through nature amazes me more and more the longer I stay in Korea. Maybe it's because I take notice of the smaller details now, but it's still a great comfort and blessing to be reminded of God each and every day through life around me.

At the airport, we realized we were a day late coming home. Our tickets were for Saturday, but we'd assumed Sunday...Oops!! It was still ok though. We traded our tickets in for $10 and it ended up to be a great day of extra sightseeing for just a few dollars. It was so great to travel with Sujin. She's a great friend, and I'll miss her next semester!!

First night at our pension
O'Sulloc Tea Farm
Those planes fly low!!
The volcanic crater we're about to climb
Inside the crater
A weird animal/bug was inside this cool cocoon...
Can you spot the foreigner?
Neat rock formations
Drying seaweed out on the streets. Strange to think this is the stuff I eat every day...
Pretty horses
Submarines down below!