insadong!

though it reeks of too many foreigners, insandong is still one of the coolest of seoul's many cool places. on monday, after work, i went into seoul to insandang with esther and her family. in accordance with tradition, i can not say "no" to an offer to go to seoul. so, even though i was virtually exhausted from the first day of ANCA's "english camp", i had to say yes.
we spent an hour or so shopping, and got some fun food to eat.

pizza time

pizza!
all year i've been leading "sunday school" for a few middle school girls that come to church. i took the two regular girls (sue and sofia) out for pizza for lunch today, during our "meeting time".
we got sweet potato pizza...something i doubt i can get in america. fun times.

the week in review

here's my past week, backwards:
on friday night, i went out with my neighbors (ella and jacqueline) and rizza and anna (the preschool teachers). we first went to anna's husband office, a home theater installation business with a beautiful theater model and a thousand dvds to choose from. we watched a movie (in our leather lounge chairs and surround sound) and then we headed off to Dongdaemun Market for some midnight shopping. we were out until around 4 am. it was fun like always but i was a lot more tired this time. so, when i finally got to my bed, i was quite thankful and, horribly exhausted.


on friday, the mother of the 18 year old student that i tutor took me out to lunch on friday afternoon. we went to a supposedly famous restaurant nearby that serves chicken soup. it is supposed to be excessively healthy for you.
these are random shots of town and its outskirts by the train station on friday.

on thursday i got a crazy body massage with eunice. crazy because i was climbed on and stepped and snapped and cracked. it was wonderful but, the next day, i was in some serious pain.
here, eunice is demonstrating how we stick our faces into the hole on the massage table. oh, and they give you these oranges outfits to change into, identical to the orange outfits you wear when you go to the korean baths.

here are kids from my B2 class. this are my oldest kids. and this, obviously, is my classroom.

these are photos from last sunday at church. in the pink dress is eunice. in the red shirt is grace, a high school girl from america who was helping at our school for the last month. and, at the computer is Sue, one of my middle school sunday school girls.

the goodbyes have begun

i am leaving soon.
i realize that.
i am 2 weeks shy of leaving korea, 3 weeks shy of arriving back in america.

and the goodbyes have begun.

my last session of tutoring my business man student was on friday. that made me surprisingly sad. he was a really good story teller and i feel like he is the first thing i've had to say goodbye to.

i have one week of teaching left. and, it'll be a strange week because it's the beginning of a four week "english camp" (a camp that is nothing like camp and everything like summer school for the kids). which means my whole week will be nothing like my routine meaning, it won't feel like anything i'm used to. the nice thing is that we'll be finished a tad earlier (4:30 instead of 6pm).

after finishing work (on this friday), i have a week of korea left (the one week that the school gives teacher's for summer vacation...so generous, right?) in this week, there is talk of going to Busan, the popular beach on korea's southern tip. or, i might spend the whole time in seoul staying with my Finnish friend.

and, i've started to have that feeling when i'm about to leave a place and i want to properly savor each moment. and, in it all, there is still an element of surprise, disbelief that i'm actually almost done here. which kind of makes me worry that i might forget to say goodbye because i kind of forget that i'm leaving.

but, in 3 weeks this will all be a memory.

not so rainy season

thick humidity hangs in the air these days. it makes me want to change my clothes by 9 am.
this is the rainy season, everyone keeps saying that. july is the month of rain. the rain is coming, it's coming. that's what they keep saying. but, it isn't raining. it's just hanging in the sky, clinging to the clouds, making it really hard to want to do much these days. nothing much beyond sitting and waiting for the rain.

some days the caffeine from my morning cup of coffee affects me more than other days. it makes me feel hipper and anxious and nervous. other days it doesn't do squat.

today i feel nervous. i feel an anxious anticipation for something that is coming. and, i don't know if it's good or bad. and so, because i don't know, because i can't know, i imagine. i wonder often how in the world i ended in korea. i certainly never saw that one coming.

i like surprises, i welcome adventure. and sometimes, i think its worse to go back to what i know that to enter into something new and potentially thrilling.

i'm not sure i'm ready to settle back into something so ordinary.

icheon with hannah and her mom

another shamelessly fun saturday. my time remaining is short, i have to take advantage. so, today, was my day with hannah and hannah's mom (who incidentally loves me). we started our day going into Yangpyeong for lunch. Tak-kalb-be is definitely in my top 5 favorite korean foods. it is chicken and sweet potatoes and rice cake and vegetables, all stir-fried right on the table in front of you. and, it is mixed with a wonderful red hot sauce. i love it. plus, they give you cute little aprons to protect you from the splashing as it cooks before your eyes.
so, Tak-kalb-be was our first stop. and then we off to Icheon (do not be confused with Incheon which is where the airport is).



















Icheon was a fun and cute place. the town has just enough population to pull in some exciting shops to the town (Dunkin Donuts, an adorable gelato cafe, etc). It is (I would guess) about twice the size of my little town. and, consequently, twice as cool as my little lame town.


on the top of a hill on the edge of town there is a ceramics museum which was quite enjoyable. and, the outside of the museum has a big plaza with crazy random ceramic statues and such. fun times.

Hannah and Hannah's oma and I then went down into the town, did a little shopping and a ate some gelato in a cafe that did not feel like it belonged in korea. i got mint and mocha gelato. hannah got pumpkin and tiramisu.

we then headed off to "E-Mart" which is a big Target-esque store. there were a thousand people there, and a thousand samples to taste. fun times.

and, as the highlight of day, i found Chocolate Chip bagels for sale in the bakery there.
i love chocolate chip bagels almost more than life itself.

and then we went home.

it was a good day.

gorgeous

it's always in the midst of the mundane that the i am most awestruck by a phenomenal sunset. this was on thursday night, on the grocery store's parking lot. gorgeous.

raw meat flashback

this photo is from a few months back, i just had it sent me. yes, i'm holding raw meat. i'm with my new friend abigail and chris.

seoul with the posse (posse reunited)

A day with my posse. A day in Seoul. A very, very lengthy day.

Saturday began at 7am with esther and eunice picked me up and the 3 of us headed into seoul to watch a cheap early movie. we saw "Wanted" (with angelina jolie), a 8:20 am showing. and, like usual, the movie was sold out and people were eating popcorn just like it was evening. the movie was good, we were finished by 10:30 am when we met up with katie and headed to the Insadong area.
we ate some Tak-gal-bee for lunch which has become (i think) my favorite of all my favorite korean foods. it's a big chicken and ricecake stirfry (sort of) and it's quite delicious.

this is dak-kal-bee
it came with a sweet fried chicken too.
and a cool overhead lamp too.
then we headed off to Ankuk where we drank some coffee and ate what seems to be the most common asian form of ice cream. you are served a bowl with shaved ice and a pile of various fruits and red beans (which seems to the favorite food of all koreans...).
i took them to the Coffee Factory, where i had been a few weeks earlier with my friend so young.
by the way...i'm getting used to being the seoul guide for my korean friends. i seem to know seoul better than they do. i find it quite ironic.

this is the shaved ice dessert that koreans call ice cream. it's good, but it certainly does not serve as an ice cream equivalent. i would eat mint chocolate chip over this any day.


while eating the shaved ice we (rather spontaneously) decided to go to Lotte World for the day. here katie and i are in the taxi that we took from the cafe to our car . Lotte World is a big amusement park in Seoul that is half indoors/half outdoors. the inside also has an ice rink, shopping, a movie theater, muliple restaurants and such. and a hotel. really, once you're inside, you never have to leave.
so, only a few hours after lunch and coffee and ice cream we decided to eat dinner before heading inside the amusement park. it was around 3:30pm. i'm thinking sandwich. my posse was thinking buffet. koreans love buffets. so, we did a buffet. for anyone who's been to chicago, this place reminded me a lot of "Food Life" inside Water Tower Place. except, you could eat everything. we consumed an embarrassingly large amount of food.

something i love about koreans is how communal their eating is. most americans fill their plates at a buffet with what they want and eat their plate by themselves. koreans head out, fill plates of all the same thing and put the food in the center of table with everyone eating everything. brilliant.
here's restaurant with the beloved buffet.
after the buffet, the heavier version of ourselves met up with hannah, the last missing piece to make the posse complete. and we set out to experience Lotte World.


Lotte World was fun. i was, however, unbearably tired. it was horribly humid and, in the inside part of the park, it was super hot. and, the lines were annoyingly long. the rides were fun, but not amazing so they would be worth waiting 30 minutes in line, not the 70-80 minutes that we waited. so unfortunately, being hot and tired and waiting over an hour per ride only made me more tired. it was pretty bad (not to mention that my day had started before 7am). but, it was fun.
that's me :) do i like hot and tired and partially delusional?
disney world? this is the entrance to the "outside" part of the park, though we didn't spend very much time out here. it was raining a little and it was unbelievably hot.

hannah.

Lotte World is pretty quite nice inside at night with its lights and such. there is a "hot air balloon" that loops around the park on the high ceiling so, we ended our time there with that ride.


ah yes. "mad cow" continues to be the most talked about issue these days. even though american beef is now available here and, despite protesters and obsession, it is selling like mad.