Aniyo Food

Hello everyone! I am finally on vacation and very excited about it. Nate arrived safely in Seoul last Saturday, and we are heading to Thailand tomorrow morning. We did some sightseeing while he was here. On Monday night, we got to go to a wonderful concert with a professional male choir, orchestra and solo singers. The best part was that we got to go for free! We showed up about 10 minutes before the concert and they told us that it was sold out, and then it turned out someone else hadn't shown up, so we got to have their will call tickets for free. It was a great program with a lot of variety.

On Tuesday night we went to Seoul Tower and got to experience the day, sunset, and nighttime view of Seoul. It was really cool to see the city all lit up at night, and reminded me again of how massive Seoul is. (It is a city of 10 million people)

We also experienced some of the fine cuisines of Korea, and today got to go to Everland, which is a big amusement park in Korea. They have rides, a garden and a zoo all included in the price of admission. (Which is suprisingly very reasonably priced.) They had so many costumes at all the different rides (the workers) and several of them did little dances while the ride was going on. I also rode that which claims to be the world's steepest wooden rollercoaster, which was a lot of fun. The zoo had many more animals than I expected and was a lot of fun. There were several signs that said to not feed the monkeys, but people were doing it anyway, which we found to be a bit strange.

Overall, it has been a great time and I'm ecstatic to go to Thailand tomorrow! Happy Saturday, Western World.

Morgan's Visit and Mudfest

Greetings everyone! I know it has been awhile, but trust me, this blog was worth the wait. (At least I think so.)

Last week Morgan visited Seoul. We went on a few adventures while she was here. One of the cool things we did was go to the palace at Gwanghwamun. There are some pictures from that in the new photo album. It was a very large collection of different palace buildings and very cool to see. We also had several people to ask to take pictures of us and with us. We believe this is because we are white, and in Korea we are pretty foreign still (95% of the Korean population IS Korean). However, a couple of the people who did ask to take pictures with us were not Korean, some were Japanese. (I am guessing so anyway because they said "Thank you" in Japanese.) It was a very cool attraction to go see, and it was only about $2.50 USD. Anyplace like this in the US would cost so much more money to go see!

Another thing we did that is pretty unique to Korea is go to a cafe with Dr. Fish. This is where you stick your feet into a fish tank with small fish and they bite the dead skin off your feet. It felt pretty weird at first, but eventually we got over it. There are also some pictures of this in the album.

Then, this past weekend I went to the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. It is on the west coast in the middle of Korea. I went with a few of my coworkers and it was everything you would expect a mud festival to be. First we went to the mud beach where all the mud for the festival is brought in and played rugby, mud wrestling and chicken fighting. Then we went and enjoyed the festival which had many mud activities, a sand beach nearby and a lot of live music playing. It was a lot of fun and definitely a unique experience.

Nate is coming here this weekend, so I'm sure the next time I post I will have many Seoul adventures to write about and subsequently Thailand adventures! Happy Sunday, Western World!

Summer in SoKo

Hello everybody! That is my album of most recent pictures in Seoul. There are some pictures from mountain hiking a few weekends ago in a national park, some of my kids, some of the musical, and a few of me bungee jumping last weekend.

So last weekend I did indeed go bungee jumping. I was on a trip with the group Adventure Korea. We first went rafting in some very murky and sketchy water. (It smelled pretty bad.) The weather was rainy and a bit unpleasant, but the scenery was still very beautiful. It was also my first time rafting, and I had a lot of fun. I hope to do it again sometime. After that, we proceeded to a bridge above the same river to go bungee jumping. About 40 people on the trip decided to take the plunge. A few decided against it, but most who had signed up for it decided to do it. I wasn't scared at all, and just went the first time the worker counted down. It was very exciting and something I have been wanting to do for a long time.

Korea faced some disappointment last weekend, as their soccer team lost in the World Cup. It still amazed me to see how much national pride there was here for soccer. I can't imagine that in America every nearby bar and restaurant was packed with people watching the game, as well as with big screens outside of subway stations. We don't care that much about soccer in the US.

The monsoon season has officially started here. Yesterday we had downpouring rain and 96% humidity. While it hasn't rained yet today, the forecast says it might and there is 98% humidity. Needless to say it is very sticky and not the most fun to be outside at the moment. The yellow dust hasn't been too bad lately, although last week, it was at a very hazardous level one day, so I stayed inside.

Tonight I am going on a boat cruise on the Han River to celebrate the 4th of July. I am going with a bunch of people from the cast and a lot of other foreigners will be on board, so it should be fun.

I will leave you with some videos of my students. Happy 4th of July weekend, Western World!

My elementary students, very excited for the Korean soccer team. (This chant literally means "Go Korea!")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NsV0EkDB7A

One of my kindergarten students really likes to dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaVJMBR0dVw

My geography wiz in kindergarten sees something different when we are coloring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXmjGRjb1E