Here you go Abby. These are some pictures from Kristina's birthday dinner:





Ok, be proud of me. You guys didnt even have to wait a week! This weekend was fun. Went too fast as always... oh well. I went to a temple with Abby on Saturday. No Korean class cause we had it Thursday night instead. The temple was pretty cool. Kinda looked like the palace except there was a lot of bowing and a few cats.

After that we went to Coex Mall. We walked around there for a while. Quiznos for lunch which we were a little disappointed we ate when we found an On the Border after eating. The mall also had a Sbarro. No mall in the US is complete without one, but this was the first one we've spotted in Korea. Coex Mall also has an aquarium and a kimchi museum. The kimchi museum was closed:( We didnt go to the aquarium either.
Sunday after church I went with Kristina, her mom and brother, and Abby to Apgujeong, which was supposed to be like the Beverly Hills of Korea. It did have a lot of the expensive stores, but we weren't overly impressed. We did go to this really nice italian place for dinner. The food was really good:)
And now we're back to monday... Not a whole lot of exciting news about monday. Pre-k kids pulling my hair, one punched me in the face (pretty hard i might add), you know, just an average monday.

Ok I know, I know its been a while.
Last week was not a bad week, but for being only 3 days it really seemed to drag by. I was very happy for the weekend to get here. Saturday I had Korean class. The new teacher was so much better. She called me and Kristina geniuses and she gave us stickers! Yay! We did a little shopping after class and then went home to rest before going to Hongdae to celebrate Kristina's birthday. A group of 7 of us ended up going. We had fun.

Sunday Abby and I joined Kristina's family for her birthday dinner. We went to this nice buffet place. There was so much food...and it was all really good! Natalia's birthday was Monday so after work we went to TGI Fridays. Yum! All the people who worked there were wearing fun hats. We bought one of the waiter's hats:)

And this week has pretty much just been a normal week... Nothing too exciting. It is spring now in Korea! It hasn't been quite as cold this week. Its gotten up to like the 40's. haha I remember when that was bad. Anyway, thats really about all I have for now. I'll try not to take so long to write my next post.

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!

ok lets see if i can remember everything from last week.
Tuesday I got to go on another field trip:) We went to the "Funny Museum"...yeah thats what it was called. It was fun. There was a lot for the kids to do. One of my favorite parts was when they let the kids stand in this circle and they lifted a ring up around them putting them inside a giant bubble!

Wednesday, we had a Christmas party at school. We don't have the same kids all day. They rotate out, so we had 3 potluck parties=lots of food. I made cooked apples. I was very proud of myself:) My apt still smelled like cinnamon when I got home too. But anyway, with the younger kids, we made santa hats and each kid got to decorate their own cake...pretty cool!
This is Betty. She dressed up as a princess for Christmas. Apparently, even though she was the only kid in a costume, it isn't unusual to do this in Korea.

I made my own cake too and took it home. It was digusting. The icing was kinda like marshmellowy whipped cream. Oh well, it was fun:) The older kids had a "spelling bee competition." It wasn't really a spelling bee. It was other questions too and the winners got prizes. So we had to do that twice.
That night after work I went to Kristina's. Abby came too and the 3 of us had a slumber party. We watched Christmas movies, fell asleep kinda early, and exchanged gifts Christmas morning. It was weird to not be with family, but it was nice to not wake up alone on Christmas morning and we had fun! Kristina had to pack for Hawaii, but Abby and I went to a brunch at another Christina's house. There were a lot of people there from church. It was really good. We had french toast, bacon, eggs, ham, etc. Later that night after Kristina left, Abby and I went to Outback for Christmas dinner. It was very yummy:) We also made a friend at the Korean market:

Friday I had to work:( The day went a lot faster than Wednesday though. We had a Christmas dinner with school that night. We went to this nice buffet place. This was the whole school this time. Not just the English department. I had my first experience with Korean karoke. No, I didn't sing in case you were wondering. They tried their best to make me.
Saturday, Abby and I wanted to go hiking on this mountain (forget the name) to see a waterfall. We finally got there to find that the waterfall was turned off for the winter:( We thought the mountain was closed at first and we werent all that disappointed about that cause it was really cold and neither of us wanted to go hiking if we couldn't see a waterfall.
We later found the mountain wasn't closed, but we decided to pretend it was and we went to Children's Grand Park instead. I don't know if it was because it was winter or late or what, but there wasnt a whole lot to the park. a lot seemed to be closed. we did get to see some animals including horses, goats, and lions! We decided to head to Costco for pizza and chicken bakes after that. Yay for Costco!
Sunday I was supposed to meet Mark at the subway station and we were going to go to church together, but he just moved to a different army base and he underestimated how long it would take him to get there...by about 2 hours! so we missed church. Abby came to meet us at the subway station after church and the 3 of us went to Itaewon. Itaewon is like where all the tourists go. There were soooo many foreigners there. They had lots of souvenier shops so I did a little Christmas shopping. They also had a Quiznos! So guess where we ate...


Do we look Korean?

Monday was the beginning of my week off...so what exciting fun things did I do? I did absolutely nothing! I did a little cleaning actually, but other than that I was pretty lazy all day:) Then today I went shopping. I went to this underground market place. It was huge! It was mostly clothes, shoes, purses. It went on forever. After that I went to COEX Mall, which is a really huge mall. I didn't buy a thing, but I enjoyed walking around. Oh, and random thing that happened on the subway. There was this guy in a motorized wheelchair with toothbrushes and papers he was handing out. Well, he rode his wheelchair up and down the subway giving them to random people. He skipped me:( I guess he figured I couldn't read his Korean paper. Anyway, a few minutes later he comes back and takes them away again...both the toothbrushes and the papers. I dunno what that was all about.
So, yeah that was pretty much my week. Tomorrow I'm gonna go to Seoul with Abby. Should be fun...will post about it later:) Happy New Year to all my readers!