Lunar New Year break

Monday was the Lunar New Year so I had Monday and Tuesday off. We had a little party at school last Thursday which meant the teachers got to wear the traditional Korean hanbok! I was so excited! We played a traditional game called Yut, made traditional candy, and learned to bow. It was fun.

Friday after work I went out to dinner with Abby, Kristina, and Michael at VIPS. It was very good. After that we went to rhythm and booze for a while. Saturday we decided to go to Myeong Dong cause there's a Forever 21 there. So that was the 4 of us plus Kristina's mom and brother. We shopped and went to a really good italian place for lunch. We got to see some really pretty lights...and some turtles:)

Sunday was church, snow angels, then more shopping at Bupyeong station. That was just me, abby, and michael cause Kristina had korean family stuff. Dont make fun of my snow angel, k?

We went to Outback for dinner...always yummy. Monday I went to lunch with my boss's family. They invited me, Michael, and Natalia cause they felt bad that we had no family to celebrate the holiday with, but Natalia was sick. We went to a really nice hotel in Incheon. The food was really good. After that I went to Itaewon with Kristina, Abby, and this guy Nick that we met a while back. Quiznos for dinner (thats a given) and a few other places. Tuesday we decided to go to a palace--Changdeokgung Palace. We thought there would be some sort of New Year festivities or something, but there werent. It was still cool though even if all the buildings kinda looked the same after a while. There was supposed to be a secret garden that is one of the "most enchanting places in Korea," but I'm thinking maybe that's only in the spring cause I didnt see anything like that even though I spent the majority of the day searching for it.

We decided to continue with our Koreaness and go to a Korean barbeque place for dinner with Kristina's mom and brother. It was a lot like the sam gyup sal place, but they had more kinds of meat to choose from. Same cook it on the table in front of you kind of deal though. It was very good.

I got home pretty early, but my sleep schedule might be a little off cause I didnt sleep great and I was really tired today. I'm happy though cause I keep thinking its monday and then its not! Its Wednesday! I mean the week is already halfway over! K, that's all for now. Comment people! It makes me sad to write these blogs and not get any comments:(

Sinchon

Guess what guys! I'm taking Korean class now. I've only had one class and its like super hard. We're just learning to read right now. Its at my church. Kristina and I had decided a while back we were gonna do this. I told Michael about it and he wanted to come too. I'm gonna be fluent pretty soon guys;) haha. It is fun though to try to read Korean signs when I'm walking around. Anyway, after class the 3 of us went and got Abby and headed to Sinchon. There was lots of shopping there plus a Quiznos and an On The Border, which is where we ate lunch and dinner.

Soooooooo good! It snowed Friday and there was still some on the ground so we played in that a little bit. Not the best idea if you arent wearing gloves, but it was fun.

It was my birthday at On The Border so they sang to me and brought us all sombreros and me a poncho.

Trip to Hongdae

Last week was such a long week. I was so glad when Friday finally got here. I literally went home right after work and did absolutely nothing. I think I watched one of the movies I got for Christmas. I made plans with Kristina to go to Hongdae Saturday night. We went to a place called Bar Sensation cause a guy from church was gonna be performing there. Even though we had directions it was interesting trying to find it. We ran into a few other people along the way trying to find the same place. We did eventually find it, but we never saw those people so I think they gave up. There were soooo many foreigners there. You could easily forget you were in Korea. It was kinda like Itaewon with all the foreigners, but I think Hongdae had more to do and it seemed less dirty. There's like an art university there that I guess is pretty big. Anyway, I think we left Bar Sensation around 2 and after walking around for a few minutes trying to figure out where we were, we finally found the 7-11 that had been in our directions for getting there. we stopped in there for a snack. we stood by the window eating our food and waving at the people walking by. that was fun:) we got a ride home from some friends so we didn't have to pay for a cab, so that was nice. it was like 4 something when i got home so i went straight to bed. sunday i went to church. We found out the pastor would be leaving soon so that's a little sad. Hopefully they will find someone to replace him. After church I went with Kristina and her mom to their apartment for dinner. On the way there I saw a korean girl wearing a Carolina blue sweatshirt that said Charlotte on it. Wish I had gotten a picture:( Anyway, Kristina's mom made fettucine alfrado with breaded chicken. It was really good! I came back home and went to bed early, but it's monday and I'm tired anyway:( It's really cold too. I think the high today is like 20 degrees. sooooo ready for spring!
In other news, I am now 24 years old. In Korea you are considered one year old when you are born and you turn another year older every Jan. 1st instead of on your birthday. So a baby born in december would already be 2 years old! So I have aged 3 years in the past 6 months! I turned 22 in August, 23 when I came here in October, and now that it's January I'm 24.

New Years and more fun times from my week off

ugh i'm back at work again:( I was enjoying sleeping late and doing what I wanted, but I guess this is life.
So anyway, for New Years eve Abby and I did the Seoul city bus tour during the day. Well, we only actually got off at Seoul Tower and Insadong. Seoul Tower was cool. There was an observatory room that had windows all the way around so we had a really good view of Seoul from there.

We had to hike up a little hill from the bus stop to get there. We didn't completely understand what times the bus came (although later we found them written out by the bus stop) so we walked back down the hill just in time to wave goodbye to the bus:( We had to wait a while in the freezing cold for the next one. Our next stop was Insadong. That was a lot of shopping. It was mostly Korean souvenier type things. Bought a few things, but even though I intended to mail stuff home, it never happened... After that we went to subway for dinner:) I wish there were a Subway or Quiznos in Bucheon! We were trying to ask the people at Subway where we were supposed to go for the New Years eve celebration. They finally understood "fireworks, boom, boom, boom" and we were told that we were pretty much already there:) We easily found the big crowd of people with lots of police officers standing around. It was a little scary.

We soon found out there was a protest going on against the south korean president. they gave us lots of buttons:) we kinda tried to stay out of the middle of all the protestors. they were everywhere though. it was crazy. there was music and people dancing so that was fun to watch. we couldn't see much of what was going on on stage because of the police standing right in front of us. This little old man kept trying to break through. They didn't do much except push him back. It was soooo cold! I was relieved when they finally did the countdown (in Korean). After that there were a few tiny fireworks and they sent these fire lanterns off into the sky. We went to leave and so did everybody else. We were nearly crushed to death in the crowd of people. Everybody was pushing and no one was moving. It was very painful and scary! Other than that, the protest, and the cold, the night was fun though.

I had told Abby there was a Build a Bear at the place I went on tuesday with the underground shopping so she wanted to go there, so thats where we went Thursday. I wanted to make a Hello Kitty, but it was really expensive so I chose a koala for about half the price. I wanted it to be a boy and I was gonna name him Mr. Kimchi, but they put bows on boy's tails and girl's ears and my koala didn't have a tail...so they told me she had to be a girl... so Mr. Kimchi became just Kimchi. I could just take off the bows and call her a boy, but she has a birth certificate and even though its in korean, i'm pretty sure there's something on there about her being female. Abby made a bear and named her Kimbap. Both are really cute:

After that we did some shopping. I bought some boots, earrings, a watch (cause mine has been in a dying process since the plane ride here), and a purse. Then we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Korean Pizza Huts do not have pizza anything like American Pizza Huts. I guess they're changing the name to Pasta Hut too? Is that everywhere or just Korea? Anyway, we had a potato pizza

I thought it wasn't bad, just different.
I was pretty lazy Friday morning. Later I went to Abby's. She made spaghetti (which was delicious) and we attempted to watch a movie on her temperamental dvd player.
Saturday I met Abby to go to Yongsan cause she needed to buy a computer. I think she got one for a pretty good deal so that was good. We went back to her apt to attempt another movie until Kristina got back that night. We chatted for a while, but we were all pretty tired.
Sunday after church Abby, Kristina, and I went to a sam gyup sal place for dinner and then we went to see Yes Man. It was really funny. I recommend it.
Anyway, it was a fun week. And now I'm just back at work. Not much exciting to tell there. For more pictures and videos, check out facebook!