Just thought you guys might like to see my mud rash. It's cleared up since these pictures were taken.

In other news, I got to see the solar eclipse today. The longest solar eclipse of this century. We all went outside to see it. Michael and Joe made some kind of contraption with cardboard boxes so you could see it. I forget what it was called, but it was really cool.

It's raining here, it's raining there, it's raining, raining everywhere! Make it stop please! I walked home from work the other day and when I got home, I was so wet you couldn't even tell I had been carrying an umbrella. On the way to work the wind blew my umbrella inside out:(
In happier news, my rash is a lot better. The cream the pharmacy gave me helped a lot, with the itching anyway. It doesn't really itch at all anymore. The red spots are slowly fading. I still look slightly diseased. I showed one class my feet and told them I got it from playing in the mud, and one boy, Matthew, says, "Teacher, that's so wonderful!" I'm not sure if he was referring to my rash or the fact that I played in the mud, but it made me laugh. Well, not much else exciting. I'm supposed to go out with work tonight, and I think we're going shopping for Bali this weekend...other than that, no real plans.

Boryeong Mud Festival

The mud festival was this weekend! It was so nice to get away from this area. This was my first real trip since I've been here. The festival was in Boryeong, which is like a 3 hour drive from Bucheon. A group of us from Rhythm and Booze took a big bus Friday night so we could be there all day Saturday and part of Sunday. The bus turned out to be a noraebus (like a noreabang, except on a bus), so no sleep for me! I think it was about 2am when we got there, but we wanted to go exploring and find the ocean right away, so after dropping our stuff off in the room, we were off. It was soooo nice to be on the beach! After walking around for a bit, we headed back to our room. They were having a bbq, so we hung out there for a little bit before going to bed, not that there were any actual beds. There were 7 of us sleeping on the floor in this room. The bathroom was a toilet, a shower faucet, and a bucket. There was no sink, no walls or doors of any kind seperating the shower. Just a drain in the middle of the floor, which doesnt work as well if you spray the water directly at the door and let the water run out and flood the room where people are trying to sleep. One of our roommates let some people shower in our bathroom and they decided to try that. Anyway, Saturday was mud day! We wanted to take some pictures, so we decided to go out and do that and then come back and drop off our cameras before playing in the mud. The people at mudfest don't like it if you're not muddy though. We were taking pictures at this mud pit thing, and these guys look at us and are like, "You're too clean!" and they throw mud on all of us while we are holding our cameras. That was when we decided it was time to take the cameras back. Luckily, none of them got messed up. There were mud slides, mud obstacle courses, mud wrestling, etc, but the lines were soooo long. We were gonna put off the slides until sunday, but it rained sunday so we went home early without even playing in the mud at all that day. So we just got in the mud bath and mud wrestling thing. There were so many people in there. It was kinda scary, but fun. There was a place on the beach too where you could paint yourself with mud, so we did that. It was a lot of fun:) We were completely covered in mud. I have a mud rash all over my legs and feet now. Its really itchy. Apparently a bunch of kids got it last week. I got some sort of cream from the pharmacy today, so hopefully that will help. I think it was worth it though. Despite the weather and the rash, we had a lot of fun. and not this weekend, but next weekend is when i'm going to bali!! i'm so excited!

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July:) It was a little weird to celebrate in Korea, but it was a fun day. Let me back up to Seoul Land cause I'm a slacker and still haven't posted about that. I went with Abby, her friend Esther, Katie and Kristina. We had soooooo much fun:) We got there around 1 I think and stayed til it closed at like 10. It was a really nice day. A little hot, but there were misting things everywhere, plus little kids running around with water guns. They seemed to have a "Shoot the Foreigner" game going on too. There was also this really cool thing called water wars, which is a thing set up for you to shoot water balloons at your friends with a giant slingshot. Fun! I didn't ride any roller coasters (unless you count the baby Christmas one). I almost got talked into riding one because they tried to tell me it didn't go upside down, but it was called double loop or something like that. I may be blonde, but I'm not a complete idiot! haha. I did end up riding an upside down ride (I knew it was gonna go upside down too). It wasn't that bad. You guys would be proud. The lines for the rides were surprisingly short. I don't know why. It was a really nice day.
Sunday, I went with Abby and Esther to see Seodaemun Prison, which was a prison the Japanese used when they invaded. It was quite disturbing. I have no desire to go back. After that, we headed to Myeong dong cause we wanted California Pizza Kitchen. Then we did a little shopping and headed home.
Reading these blogs I guess it does kinda just sound like I'm on a long vacation cause I guess I don't talk much about work. School's going pretty well. I have one class that kinda makes me want to scream. They're kindergarteners and most of them are on a really low level. There's 9 of them, which is the biggest class I have. Some of them are pretty good, but there are 2 boys that I just don't know what to do with. One seems to be off in lala land all the time. He sits there and makes weird noises, occassionally screaming (not angry screaming, he always looks happy), and he hardly responds at all when you speak to him. The other one has SOOO much energy. Getting him to stay in his chair for 2 seconds is a big accomplishment. Most of my other classes are going well. The kids are so cute and I really need to start writing down some of the stuff they say!
Saturday, as you know, was the 4th of July, so Friday after work I went to Costco with Kristina, Katie, and Abby to stock up on food. Kristina and I made the hamburgers so they would be ready to cook the next day. Making hamburgers is fun! I can't believe I've never done it before. We had the meat in frying pans sitting on Abby's floor. It was like playing with play-doh. I made a Hello Kitty, an angel (it was the only cookie cutter Abby had), and a firework. Kristina made some...interesting ones too. Saturday, a big group of us had a bbq in the park, which is apparently illegal. It was the 4 of us plus Joe, Michael, and a couple of Kristina's coworkers, Carissa and Sarah. After we started the grill, we had several Koreans come up to yell at us. Abby and Carissa, who were the ones cooking, somehow managed to make us all burgers though:) It was a really nice day, so after lunch we just relaxed in the park. Abby, Joe, and I went to rent this really cool bicycle-like thing. We took turns riding that around the park. It rained a little, but the sun was still shining and it was kind of refreshing. It felt like the 4th of July to me. That night, Katie, Kristina, Abby, and I went out for Korean bbq. Yum! Then we played with FIREWORKS! Yay! It was funny cause we got yelled at so much for cooking in the park, but not one person cared about our fireworks. Even the man I shot with a firework was laughing (it didn't hit him). We went to rhythm and booze for a little while, then more fireworks. Fun times:)
Sunday, wasn't a super-eventful day. I went to church, then we ended up at Kristina's to cook our leftover hamburgers and watch a movie. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the weekend. Not too much exciting happened today. Just another monday. This weekend I'm going to a mud festival thing, so that should be fun!
k, well this is getting kinda long and i'm out of stuff to write about so im gonna say goodnight!