Happy Birthday Jared!

Last week, we celebrated Jared's birthday with a bunch of friends. His birthday fell on a Wednesday night, and the climbing guys insisted we celebrate that night. We started with dinner at a meat restaurant, followed by hitting some balls at the bating cages conveniently located across the street from where we were eating. Then we continued on to a makalie house (rice wine), then to a hof, which is a place that usually has closed off booths and serves alcohol, but you are supposed to order food too...mostly snacks. They gave us "service" (free) sausages, fruit, and chips. It was nice of them, and we never did order food. Overall, a fun night. Jared had many friends come support him!

While spending too much money recently, we have gone to a baseball game in Busan, the beach a few times, saw Inception (loved it!), keeping up with karate 3-4 times a week, and have been eating many social bbq dinners with friends. I have been pushing my running time up and last week did 80 minutes one night. I have been running with a good friend, Ann, who is training for a full marathon, and running with someone else is so much more enjoyable than running alone.

School is going well. Our morning classes (5, 6, and 7 yr olds) are now practicing for open house, which they do in about 3 weeks. They spend a full month practicing the same thing every day-a couple songs, a poem, and a skit. Then they perform it all for their parents. We have been and will continue doing this in the mornings, pretty much until we leave, which for me makes the day much less stressful. We don't have to try to teach them phonics, or get them sitting down..it's much more fun.

So after open house in 3.5 weeks, we are pretty much out of here. Down to 28 days here, but only 20 days teaching. Wow, getting nervous about what to do at home and putting many thoughts that direction now.

My mom asked me to think about the first home cooked meal she would make us when we get home. I know I want fresh bread and corn on the cob, but I'm still developing the main meal. It makes my mouth water to think that we will be able to eat cilantro, pesto, black olives, feta cheese, and fresh bread and pizza in just about a month!

I miss Thailand!

Last week, we went to Thailand, and I wanna go back! The food, beaches, massages, and shopping are stuck in my mind.

We arrived in Bangkok on a Sunday night. After taking a taxi to KhaoSan Road, the foreigner block, it was after midnight, but we were so excited to be there. We walked around a bit..the night was going strong-people all over the streets, food and clothes being sold, and everyone seemed to be happy. We found a quieter side road, had a beer, then found a room for the night.

The next day we took a 6 hour bus south east to a small, sleepy town called Trat. We found a room, then walked around this tiny town. We had the most amazing green curry and chicken pad thai at a cute place called Cool Corner. We then went to check out the night market, but it started downpouring, so most things closed up. Instead, we found a indoor jungle-type place, and had a few drinks..

The next morning, we took a ferry to Koh Chang, the second largest island in Thailand. We walked down a long shopping strip, spent hours looking at endless amounts of clothing and doo-dads before stopping for some delicious naan at an Indian Restaurant. After that, we deciced to take a taxi further down the coast to a less touristy strip for the beach. Our co-workers had recommended staying at some beach huts, so we went to check them out. We ended up getting our own bungolow literally on the beach for $20 a night, which is a lot of money to spend on a room in Thailand, but we kinda splurged..We rented a scooter and rode down the coast further, checked out some other beaches, and took pictures of elepahants. When we got back, we had dinner at a Thai place, run by an ex-Jamaican seeming guy. We had wonderful Curry and Pad Thai, and spent a long time hanging around there. The man was the cook, his wife preped the food, and their 7 year old (maybe) son served the tables. They were pretty busy, and it was fun to watch the boy. He even poured people shots, and delivered beers...I guess Thailand doesn't have an age restriction for serving alcohol!

We spent the next day on Koh Chang, taking a mini hike to check out a waterfall, swimming, eating delicious food, and getting amazing Thai massages on the beach. It was also a wonderful sunset that night, so we walked the beach and took tons of pictures, and collected shells.

The next morning, we took a scary 2 hr. boat ride (quite big waves-had a family of 5 with us on the boat, and the twin 3 year olds were crying and throwing up the whole time!) to a very small island called Ko Maak. We heard that most things would be closed since it was the rainy season, but we found a place to stay at Monkey Island Resort, a cool place on the beach run by a bunch of dread heads. Again, we had a bungolow on the beach, but only paid about $12 for the night. We spent the day walking on the beach, getting massages again, and checking out the tiny town strip, made up of 4 buildings. The beach wasn't as nice at Koh Chang because it was the time of year when the currents bring trash up, and only the resorts that were open cared to clean. But it was nice to walk the beach and not see anyone else for a long time. We collected lots of cool shells!

In the morning, we took an early boat back to mainland, then the 6 hr. bus back to Bangkok, getting us to the foreigneer street with enough time to drop off our bags, get a quick delicious dinner, then head off to a night market...where we shopped for a few hours. Everything is so cheap, it's hard not to buy it all!

After sleeping a few hours, we got up early and headed to the Weekend Market, which has between 9,000 and 15,000 stalls. We spent many, many hours walking around, shopping, until our feet were hurting and we could officially say we were tired of shopping. We headed to a large famous temple, the Wat Pho, and saw the big reclining Buddah, amoung a bunch of golden buildings. Afterwards, we headed down to the riverside, and had dinner cross river from the Wat Arun, another famous temple. The sun set behind it, while we were eating, and it was a lovely, romantic dinner. When we finished, we only ahd about 3 hours til the bus was coming to pick us up for our flight, so we quickly headed back to KhoaSan Road to do last minute street shopping. We shopped until the last possible minute, before heading to our room, quickly packing, then catching the bus to the airport. We left at 1am and got back to Kora, via Beijing, at 1135A Sunday. We had Sunday to nap, unpack, and mentally prepare for 7 more weeks of school.

It's been almost a week since we've been back now, and we are down to 6 weeks. We ahve sent home 4 big boxes of stuff, and have at least one or two more that we still need to pack up. We have spent today cleaning things out, and making piles of things we need to send back. I know we still ahve 6 weeks, but our weekends are packed, and I'm sure time will fly between now and leaving.

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

Temple Stay

Last weekend, Jared and I did a temple stay for 24 hours. We, and 16 others, left at 11am on Saturday, and took a bus to a beautiful temple in a lush, green forrested valley. It was a promotion to get foreigneers involved in temple stays, so it was free, but they had hired 3 camera men to follow us around all weekend and film our experiences. When we arrived, we got our temple clothes (monk pants and vests), got our rooms, and went to our first buddist service. It was really interesting. We did the bowing and chanting for awhile, then explored the temple grounds. After that, we made lotus flowers out of cups and crate paper. We explored the temple grounds a bit more, led by our monk, while he told us stories and we stopped to learned how to meditate a few times. For dinner, we learned how to eat like a monk. We were completely quiet and had 4 bowls, and everyone set up and served themselves exactly the same way. We each took a bite, then chewed it quietly until it was gone. Then another...and again, it was really interesting to see how they do it 3 times a day. The food was slightly hard to eat-kimchi, roots, potatoes, rice, and acorn jelly stuff. Not bad, but very strong flavors. Afterwards, we poured water in our bowls and drank the grey water. I didn't mind it, but some people were absolutely disgusted. After dinner, we had another Buddist service, and watched some cool drumming stuff done by the monks, then went to bed at 9pm.

The next morning, we woke up at 3am (ouch!), went to a Buddist service of more chanting and bows. After that, we practiced meditating again, which was incredibly hard to do with video cameras in your face. By the time I got out of my mind and away from thr cameras, we had finished. Then we had more free time to wander, but it was pouring outside, so after a quick and wet walk, I took a nap for a few hours. When I got up, we made necklaces with 108 beads....108 for the 108 sins that monks bow for, 108 times. After craft time, we observed, then had, a traditional tea service. It was beautifully presented, and we had tea and delicious rice balls filled with suggar. After that, we had a quick closing closing ceremony, then left on the bus back to Ulsan.

That was a really quick run-through. It was a good weekend, and we learned a lot. We had a monk with us for 24 hours and we able to ask him questions about Buddism.

We have one more week of school, with lots of fun activities (so not real, real work), then we are off to Thailand for a week. We can't wait!

Karate is still going well, although I don't really stop getting sore. And I'm still training for my half marathon. I finally hit an hour the other day...I was pretty proud of myself.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer. We are down to 8 teaching weeks..yay! See everyone soon!

So Sad!!

So in one night, the two teams we were rooting for in the World Cup got eliminated! We watched the Korean vs. Uruguay game at a bar with some friends...it was shown at 11pm! The energy accross the city was high, people are cheering and chanting all day up until the game. They ended up losing 2-1 and was a very good game, with Korea outplaying Uruguay most of the game. Too bad they lost, though, cuz I thought they deserved it, but that's just how it goes.

The US game was set to start at 330am here, and we wanted to watch it. I ended up watching about 5 minutes before falling asleep. Jared watched most of it, and I heard the tragic news when I woke up..both my teams were finishie!!

Well, my brother lives in Germany now, so I guess I'm rooting for them. We are going to watch the game in a few minutes with some friends...hopefully a good one...although I was born in England and we are going with an English guy, so who knows...maybe I'll root for them. :)

Jeju Island

Last weekend, Jared and I took a much needed vacation from the city. We left school on Friday and took a bus to the airport to take an hour-long flight to Jeju-do, an island off of southern coast of Korea. This island is known to be the "Hawaii of Korea," with lots of Korean honeymooners going there. We arrived at 10 pm, and set out to find some food and snacks for the next day. We ended up getting some snacks and hanging out in the hotel, watching the US soccer game.

The next morning, we got up early and took a bus to Hallasan National Park, which has the tallet point in all of Korea (1950 meters). We hiked to the top in about 3 hours, had some lunch, then came down...it was super foggy, but once we got above the clouds, it was really beautiful and quite hot. After our hike, we went back into Jeju City to look for a scooter to rent and take around the island, but apparently you need a Korean liscense...too bad. Instead, we took a bus to a nearby beach town, got a hotel, and went out for a western dinner of burgers...I even treated myself to a tequila sunrise after a tough hike!

The next morning, we took the bus to a cool lava tunnel, then to a place called "Sunrise Peak," which supposedly has really great views, but it was too foggy to see anything. It was there that we loaded up on chocolate. Jeju makes their own chocolate, filled with different flavors like orange, pineapple, ginsing, green tea, cactus, and many more...even kimchi! Their pretty good, so we got a bunch to take back home when we leave. The next place we set off for was another beach town on the south coast of the island. We walked along the beach, collecting some fun shells, then decided to go back to the main city for a late dinner, and to watch more soccer. We found a good little Mexican place, and watched a game before getting a hotel. We had a 630am flight, getting back into Busan to take an hour long bus, getting us home with about a half an hour to spare before school started.

It was a great weekend, but I wish we would have been able to see more...less fog would have been nice. But it was still beautiful!

Dae-Han-Ming-Guk!

The last two weeks have been really fun here with the World Cup going on. Koreans are VERY proud of their country! They sell red, Korea shirts everywhere, and devil horns, stickers, and tatoos are now worn daily here. The first game was played at 830pm two Saturdays ago. We had a couple friends running in a half marathon starting at 4pm and we went to watch them start and finish, in a big park downtown...after they finished, we picked up dinner, then everyone set up blankets in the big field and they showed the game (vs. Greece) on a bunch of big screens...the energy was awesome, and we ended up winning 2-0. Good start for Korea!

The second game was last Thursday at 830p. Jared and I were wandering around looking for a bar to watch it in, but everywhere was full and turning people away. We finally found a place that had a few spots at a table in the back. We walked in, wearing our red shirts and accessories, and everyone started applauding. They were all impressed we were supporting Korea. We had some other foreign friends meet us up there, and we had a fun, exciting evening...although we ended up losing to Argentina 4-1...the energy was still pretty high.

The third game was this past Wednesday at 330am. We set our alarm and watched the second half of the game. Almost everyone of of my elementry kids also watched the game...their parents woke them up...some even took them to the World Cup Stadium here (from 2002 World Cup I think), where they were playing it on the big screen. I was amazed that so many kids woke up in the middle of the night for a soccer game. They ended up tying to Nigeria, which put them through to the next round. When Jared and I turned off our TV to go back to sleep at 530 in the morning, you could hear tons of people cheering and chanting throughout the city...

So we are down to 16. We play Uraguay tomorrow night, and if we beat them, we may play USA, depending on US beating Ghana...pretty exciting stuff here!

We have our red, devil horns, tatoos, bandanas, and good spirits ready to cheer on the Koreans in tomorrow night's game! Dae-Han-Ming-Guk!! (KOREA!!)

My Crayons Talk

Here are my babies (3-4 yr. olds) doing My Crayons Talk! They're so cute, although the back table isn't preforming very well! Hope this works for ya'll.