Korean Soup for the Seoul

Lucky #13?

2012-02-18T01:54:00.002+09:00

Day 13- December 14, 2011

Today was in fact, a questionably "lucky" day. You be the judge.

We got up this morning around 9AM, I was happy we'd be leaving this hostel that just felt all the more creepy at the end. We did meet two guys who were training for the Berlin professional teams and they were very nice. Other than that, very strange men. One guy was always on his computer in the room. One guy fell asleep in his clothes on the bed below me, but managed to remove his pants. I had the severe misfourtune of turning around as he was removing his underwear...I quickly averted my eyes and left the room as fast as I could.

I bevcame quite frustrated by the end of this trip being a woman in this room. That's great that you feel comfortbale walking around shirtless, but this is not your house, have a little respect of the mixed company in this room. I know it's a hostel dorm, but there is still a level of respect that needs to be there. I mean, I guess I could walk around in my underwear since it's just as much my room as it is theirs, but yeah, that would not be a good idea, nor would I want to do that. So annoying.

Anyway, since our flight wasn't going to be intil 4:40, we were trying to figure out what to do with our day. We decuded to just go to a cafe downthe street for a bit to chat and enjoy some coffee and a bit of breakgfast. We headed back at about 1:15 to get our things. When we got there, the lady at the front desk said she was looking our flight information that I had emailed her to print off and said your flight is at 2:40. That was in a little over an hour! It takes about that long to get to the airport from our hostel so I thought for sure we were out of luck. She offered to call a cab which we accepted since a cab could probably get us there in half the time a train or bus could. Unfortunately, we have entered into the world where cab rides are expensive so we knew this was going to be a bummer, but sometimes that is just the price of traveling. German drivers, apparently, are not known for being speedy (I miss Korea!) but she did manage to get us to the airport in 20 minutes which was awesome, giving us 5 minutes before the check-in deadline. The lady at the counter pointed out the obviuous of telling us that we were late...thank you, I did need to be reminded of my chaotic past 30 minutes. Anyway, checked in, we of course, had to go the very last terminal which was down a windy labrynth of hallways which we ran down and arrived, sweaty and everyone was staring at the disheveled, sweaty people wearing giant backpacks. Cool. We made it, whatever. We even had 15 minutes to spare!

Lesson learned, triple-check the times and translate from military time to regular time...correvctly.

Getting off the plane into paris definitely had a differnt vibe than in Germany, a good one, I might add. So excited to be here! I have alwasy wated to visit since freshamn year uin high schooL! Our hostel was really cute and had a fun view, we were near the Montmarte area, which is very historic and pretty, but also a bit shady. And things are expensive here. ($1.35 for 15 minutes of internet, thus why I am finally gettting to writing this now!) We went to dinner where I was able to use my French! And was successful :) I could tell that the lady appreciated my effort, at least! They had a cute little cat of which I got distracted with while Brett finished all of the ice cream...

Getting ready to do this right!

View from our hostel!

WINE!

Amazing pizza

Delicious ice cream with Bailey's and whiskey

Add caption

CAT!

Berlin-a strange place, indeed

2012-02-18T01:16:00.005+09:00

Day 12- December 13, 2011
HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER ALI!

So yeah, Berlin is strange. There are just weird vibes about it. Maybe the fact that I feel like I'm in an all male dorm while the room next to us is mostly female. Or that the showers are shared, you have your own little room but showing up in the shower room where two guys are shaving and one guy is shirtless is just awkward and very uncomfortable. Or the fact that people just stare with no shame. I thought we were done with this? Brett and I were talking on the train on our way to our walking tour and this lady was just staring. Literally locked in to Brett and whatever he was saying. I stared at her too but she didn't turn away. I definitely feel uncomfortable here and besides the walking tour, this has been my least favorite stop. It doesn't help that our hostels have been decreasing in both fun and overall comfort and increasing in creepiness. Pretty sure the hostel in Cologne thought I was a guy (Danielle is totally a guy's name, right??).

Anyway, the walking tour is the main reason we came to Berlin, we have heard many good things about it so we were pretty excited. Well, true to our walking tours on this trip, it was raining and freezing. Regardless of the weather, the show must go on! The walking tour was very interesting, a lot of history here in this relatively "new" city. The Berlin wall didn't come down until 1990 so there is definitely still tension between the old west and old east, so it was fascinating seeing the difference in culture and architecture in the same city. Cool to see the Berlin Wall, I guess some people are surprised at how small it is, because it's not much over 6 feet tall, but I thought it was neat! There is still some of it standing and there is a memorial following the path of where the wall used to stand. Not sure how much you know about the Berlin wall but it separated families, and if you tried to go over, you would be shot. If you used to work in the other sector, you didn't any more. It was a little similar to the DMZ in North Korea in the sense of division and hardships for one side.

We saw the German and French churches. Those are their names, actually, German Church and French Church, and they looked exactly the same. We saw what is presumed to be where Hitler's bunker was, now under a parking lot. Parking lot so that there is not physical area to pay "respects" to Hitler because they just don't want to welcome in that kind of "crowd". Went to Humboldt University where we stopped inside quickly to warm up and learn that many Nobel Prize winners came out of here and other well-known fellows. You may know of Lenin, Karl Marx, and perhaps Albert Einstein, who was a professor there for 20 years. Humboldt is also home to the sit of a huge book burning. All books with Jewish authors, Jewish characters, Jewish anything, Communists, etc. were burned. There is a memorial for this that is underground with a glass top that looks into an empty library. This is also in the same area that had been known as an area of complete tolerance because across from the University, there is a Catholic Church and subsidized opera (normally only for the privileged). All of this was organized by an atheist ruler in a Protestant country. The irony of it all was the book burning, too bad.

Back to the Berlin Wall for a second. the removal of the wall was actually an accident! A reporter making a big announcement about the wall read something wrong or was given the wrong information and stated that the wall should be removed and taken in to affect now. As you can imagine, there was a mass exodus of people rushing from East Berlin to West Berlin and it was a miracle that no one was shot! And that was the end of the wall. Just because of the wrong paper in his pocket.

US Embassy, yes you can walk right up to it!
(All the important offices are
way in the back or underground)

This is the hotel Michael Jackson held his baby out of...

Parliament with the glass roof

buy me last pape?

Holocaust memorial

More of the memorial

Hitler's bunker, now parking lot

Berlin Wall

The brink represents where the wall used to be

German Church

French Church...see the difference? yeah, me either

Catholic Church in the "block of tolerance"

Woman and son, representing all war, pain and suffering

Book burning memorial

Beer tap on our table!

Humboldt University (sorry it's blurry!)

A building that architects called an abomination of architecture,
I thought it was cool?

Christmas Market

Our dorm...

The troubles of travel

2011-12-30T02:48:00.001+09:00

Day 11- December 12

One thing to know when you are traveling is that not everything is going to work out exactly as you planned. This sounds kind of like a "duh" statement but it's true and we all need reminders. We decided to walk to the cathedral this morning, with all of our stuff, to get one more look before we left for Berlin. The seeing the cathedral one more time was not an issue, it was the fact that we decided to walk with all of our stuff. Each of us were carrying about 25 pounds each, which doesn't seem like a lot but after walking for as much as we did, in the rain, and trying to eat breakfast on the go (I ordered a quiche that was much runnier than expected and no restaurants had plastic forks) it ended up being frustrating.

Once we got to the cathedral, of course, it was totally worth it. Seeing it during the day and comparing that to seeing it at night was really cool. Both were amazing, but we were able to see the stained glass a little clearer and see the details of the architecture outside. The stained glass was really interesting, it wasn't all religious themed as it normally is. There was a mosaic of a bunch of squares that didn't make a picture, just a bunch of rainbow squares, totally not typical of a Catholic Cathedral. And even the colors of some of the others were different that what I have seen before, reds and ivory was really pretty, but again, not typical.

The train ride to the airport was quick and easy. Unfortunately we had to pay for our bags, that's why some of those airlines are so "cheap" is because they charge you for everything else. Oh well, it wasn't the end of the world. We both had good books so we were entertained. Flying over the German countryside was really beautiful and green. I love seeing all the house.

Arriving in Berlin did not give off the best vibes. I felt like we were animals in a zoo with how many people kept staring at us. It was like Korea all over again! I mean, these people were staring at our reflection through the glass, I was totally creeped out and a little nervous. There was one guy that sat across from us on the train and just stared. Brett nodded and smiled and he just stared, unfazed. Man, what is up with this place?

Getting from our flight to our hostel was also really frustrating. The train system in Berlin was one of the more complicated ones. We couldn't find our train, for example which always makes where you're trying to go more challenging. We finally just hopped on a train that went in a direction kind of near where we could transfer. Then we got three different directions from people who worked at the train station and they were all wrong. So we just did our own thing and found our way. It was so weird.

We got to our hostel, which was a hike from the station, not mentioned in the directions, of course. And when we got the door, it was like, this is it? It smelled like smoke, there was a coffee can outside the door full of cigarette butts and it looked like the back entrance to a laundry mat. Once we got inside, it was better but the lady didn't really even say hello. When we walked in to the main office we told her our names and she was like "25 euro, sign here, do you want me to tell you about Berlin?" No, I don't want you to tell me about Berlin. I just walked about 10 miles today, I would like to take these 2 huge bags off my body before you start blabbing at me, thanks. Seriously. There was also this girl running around with two policemen standing in the lobby. We found out later that she had had her iphone stolen. I feel bad, but she held it up for the guy to see! Never do that, use your watch our just read it really fast, don't ever hold it up like bait. Silly.

Anyway, once we got off our feet for a bit, unloaded our things, freshened up, we were ready to "hear about Berlin". We had a nice German dinner of wiener schnitzel and sausages and I had an Austrian beer called "Samichlaus" or Santa Claus, which, I found out by reading in French! I also saw that it was 14% alcohol and just had to try it. It was pretty good, surprisingly sweet. Towards the end I could taste more of the alcohol. We made ourselves eat slowly at dinner and really dine rather than jump up to do the next thing.

In conclusion, I am hoping Berlin is less bizarre tomorrow.

Cologne

2011-12-25T06:41:00.002+09:00

Day 9- December 10, 2011

Today we had our flight to Cologne at 9 AM. There were a couple stressful things along the way such as: the guy at the front desk thought we were going to a different airport and told us it was going to be $50 to just get to the airport which was 2 hours away, no bueno. We tried to see if it would be cheaper to change our flight, no, and the train wasn't any good either. Anyway, got that sorted out, figured out we were actually at a different airport. Then, we realized our ipod was broken so no alarm. We asked the guy in the bunk next to us if he would be able to wake us up when he was on his way out. Totally awkward. Luckily it worked out though and he did wake us up.

Our flight was nice and easy and we literally checked into our hostel and just uploaded pictures and blogged for hours. It was really nice. We had some yummy quiche for lunch and dinner we had street food which was a fried fish sandwich, so, so good. We walked around a couple Christmas Markets and called it a night!

Day 10- December 11, 2011

We decided that our hostel was very conducive to relaxing so we continued to do so. We had a nice late breakfast/lunch and went back for naps.We wanted to make sure we would get to church in the Cathedral but not until 6. Honestly, there weren't a tone of things we wanted to see in Cologne other than the Cathedral so spending hours just walking around did not sound as appealing as a nap.

We headed to town around 3 and meandered through the various Christmas markets on the way and went down to the river. We contemplated going to the Chocolate museum but it was like $10 a person just to go through. We opted for the chocolate covered strawberries and bananas on the street for $5 total. We got the to the church by 6 but it was Vespers and Mass wouldn't be until 7. We went to a little pub across the street to try a Cologne favorite Kolsh style beer. It was so disgusting. It felt like someone used a can of bud light as an ash tray. Yeah, I didn't finish it. We did have a yard of meat (see below). It was cooked over a fire of live coals and it's literally 3 feet of beef and they stick it in a bun and it's like $5. It was sooo good. We are finding that the food is our favorite part of the Christmas markets.

Mass was beautiful. The air still smelled faintly of incense from Vepsers which made it that much more special and spiritual. The Cologne Cathedral is one of the most grandiose cathedrals in the world. It is absolutely stunning, so I was very happy to be able to go to Mass here.

After Mass we realized that this was probably the most global Advent we will ever have; 1st Sunday in Korea, 2nd in Prague, 3rd in Cologne, 4th will be in Paris and Christmas in Kalispell! Pretty cool! Off to Berlin tomorrow!

Dachau

2011-12-25T06:32:00.000+09:00

Day 8- December 9, 2011

Today we decided to visit Dachau, the only concentration camp that stood throughout the entirety of the war. Like any other stories of the Holocaust, this one is just as bad as any. Unfortunately, our tour guide did not seem to have one ounce of sensitivity toward the subject and treated this tour very coldly. She had a lot of good information but as with any lecture, one can only take so much information spewed at them throughout the course of 3 plus hours. I was disappointed we weren't able to really read any of the information throughout the museum part of the memorial and she rarely gave us time to reflect before finishing what she had to say and moving on to the next part. She was also very opinionated which is good sometimes, usually not for tour guides, however and she made some interesting choices with what she decided to share with the group. For example, there is a monument that states the words "Never Again" in 5 languages. Her question to us? "A lot of us tour guides don't like this monument. Why do you think we don't like this?" Um... please enlighten me. "Well, because there's genocide still today (gives examples as if we weren't aware) so it's like, not true. You can't just give people false hope." Wait. Wait, what? That is so not what I got out this at all. Sure, there's still similar things going on but the monument isn't giving false hope, it's giving us a goal! Brett and I thought it was just about not letting humanity ever get to the point of total hatred for our own kind and just how awful it really was in the concentration camps. By the way, her examples were half right and more for shock value rather than an informed support to her reasoning.

Another piece of art displayed the different colors of triangles the prisoners were supposed to wear. red- person of political power, brown- gypsies, purple- Jehovah's witnesses, yellow- Jewish (it was always paired with another color because you couldn't just be Jewish) pink (not displayed)- homosexuals, green(not displayed)-criminals and two others but I can't remember them. The four colors not displayed was brought up by our tour guide with another strongly opinionated question. "Do you think those colors should have been left out of this piece?" Well, not sure, I mean I'm sure the artist had his reasoning..."Well, in my opinion, the Catholics, look (points down to the other end of the memorial) have the biggest monument in the whole place because they had the most survivors, did this. Because, if you're Catholic, you can't be gay and Catholic." Again, what? First of all, lets take a step back and listen to yourself. You have just been talking to us about how it's so terrible to profiling people for their beliefs or race...if I'm not mistake, you are doing that right now. Blame the Catholics because they can't be gay? Seriously? Pretty sure Catholics aren't the only religion who technically don't accept gay marriages and whatnot but please, profile away. Even if I wasn't Catholic, this is a pretty serious accusation especially because the homosexuals were not the only group left off the monument. Brett confronted her politely asking her to clarify, maybe what her source was for that information but no, it's only her opinion. She also asked if she offended us. Well, if you have to ask, it sounds like you are trying to spread rumors and your "opinions" on purpose. How dare you. She also made a few comments about how she was so cold or didn't want to go in certain buildings because she felt uncomfortable. Oh, sorry this is so hard for you.

Regardless of what she was saying, the fact that many Catholics survived was really interesting, along with other groups. When I think about the Holocaust, I think of the Jewish persecution, but forget that so many other people in other groups were affected as well. I decided to do some of my own thinking and kind of hung back from the group for the rest of the tour, doing my own thing. I am glad I went. I have been to Dachau before but it's always good to see things again from a different perspective of even with a couple years of growing and understanding under my belt. And this time we saw the gas chambers and the crematorium. Just awful. It was chilling, really.

Catholic Memorial

Jewish Memorial

bunks

A cell

Crematorium

Munich

2011-12-19T15:57:00.001+09:00

Day 7-Munich

We arrived in Munich at about 11 PM so it was hard to get a good idea of the city or even where we were but it was definitely a different feel from Prague. Our hostel was buzzing with Wednesday night drink specials and one girl yelling over and over, "I just had 5 Jagerbombs!" Welcome to Germany, I guess. Our dorm is ok, pretty small, but still comfy and we do have curtains over the bottom bunks for a bit more privacy.

We went on a walking tour this morning which was very informative and we saw quite a bit of the city center which was cool. The Christmas Markets are really nice and much more homemade like we expected. On the tour, we went to St. Peter's church that was shot with a cannonball but did not explode for whatever reason. Munich was also Gestapo headquarters and everything that Hitler initiated started here. Creepy. It was weird being in places where he spoke or where people would walk so as to avoid the Nazi police. We saw a church where legend has it that the devil helped build it. Apparently he liked that it was so dark and thought it would become a place where people would worship him but that didn't happen and when he came back after it was finished he saw all the windows and was very upset since he didn't think there were windows when he first arrived. He stomped his foot and left back to hell and his footprint is still inside.

Also, it's apparently a tradition to steal the Maypole and they are not supposed to call the police when their maypole is missing. Rather there is a ransom that has to be paid and that's the only way to get it back. Usually the ransom involves beer or food. There was also an opera house where a monastery used to be and is thought to have some bad luck because of this particular location. It burned down during its first construction so they built a water system inside that would collect water from outside to extinguish any future fires. Kind of like a sprinkler system. Another fire did happen and when they went to start the system, they found that all the water had froze, it being January and all. So what liquid doesn't freeze that Germans have an abundance of? Beer. So they made a chain from the Hofbrauhaus and put the fire out using beer.

We did go to the Hofbrauhaus and to be honest, it's a lot of hype for what it is. Huge beers, yes, but rude waitresses and you just get crammed in wherever you can find a seat. So I guess I can see the fun in that if you are looking for a super social night. It was a fun experience nonetheless.

A pretzel for Bretzel

Old Town Hall in Marienplatz

cannonball in top right of the window

Dodger's Alley-to avoid the Gestapo

Michael Jackson memorial under Orlando di Lasso's statue, kinda weird

On the Road Again

2011-12-16T19:01:00.000+09:00

Day 6- December 7, 2011

Today is our last day in Prague but luckily we have until about 5 to have one last exploration of the city before we head off to Munich. We had a nice relaxing breakfast with the people from our dorm. We really lucked out that everyone was so nice and polite for the most part. Ther was one weird couple that none of us could figure out. They were college students from Oregon and just something about them was off. For example, when they were getting ready to leave last night, the girl took literally 20 minutes to put on her boots before taking them off to change into different shoes. When they came back, they were as quiet as people who go out drinking can be, but the weird thing was the girl didn't take the stuff off her bed before climbing in. The reason I know this is because she ,oved at one point and knocked a bunch of stuff off, including a ceramic mug that shattered right above my face. Luckily it was wrapped up in paper but still, it was a surprise to wake up to in the wee hours of the morning.

Today we went to the Infant of Prague Church which was beautiful. They change the clothes everyday and we were able to see some exquisite clothing dating back to the 1700s. It was really interesting. There was also a little museum with Infants from all over the world and that was really cool. We also saw the Lennon Wall which was cool. We tried to take a jumping picture but we were terribly uncoordinated. And it didn't work out so well.

Then we had to decide between the Jewish Quarter or a brewery which has been brewing the same beer since 1499. We decided on the Brewerey. It was amazing. Best beer we've had probably ever. Too bad they too only sell the beer here. The servers carry trays of the stuff around the tables so they can essentially refill your empty hands as fast as you can drink. We didn't have a ton of time here so we only had 2 but it was still delicious!

Welp, off to catch a 5 hour bus to Munich!

My Chilling?

2011-12-16T18:26:00.000+09:00

Day 5-December 6, 2011

I love British music. It was so refreshing coming down to breakfast and hearing Lily Allens entire CD as well as Florence and the Machine. It's nice to hear music that isn't pop, a ballad or a pop ballad. Seriously.

Anyway, today I had a mission to get some "new clothes" since finding pants in Korea was a nightmare and the pants that I bought on ebay had already gotten a bit too big. Tired of looking like a hobo in baggy clothes, I wanted to get a new pair of jeans that fit better and where better to go than a thrift store! They didn't have these in Korea. I found a pair of pants and a jacket that I wasn't looking for but it was so inexpensive and still looked relatively new despite it was missing a button. Nothing my little sewing kit couldn't fix!

After shopping, we headed to an old monestary that was also part brewery. They only sell the beer they make at their restaurant and we were intrigued. We went on the short little tour and saw a man carefully pouring the beer by hand through a tube into the bottles using a candle to show the level of the liquid. It was fun even though the area was about 100 square feet.

We were obviously taking today esy and went back to our hostel to just chill and lay low. Interestingly, some of the other people in our dorm had the same idea and they happened to be from UW and Whitman, both schools from Washington state. How random?! We had a nice time talking to them and it was fun talking to college kids. It was both refreshing and nice to see how much we've grown.

Countryside Adventure

2011-12-15T06:27:00.002+09:00

Day 4-December 5, 2011

(Let ,e just sqy thqt getting used to nez keyboqrds is getting qnnoying;;;)

Anyway, day 4... my foot was still bugging me today so we had to be a bit creative since you pretty much walk everywhere in Europe. We had a leisurely breakfast and lounged around the hostel for a while which was nice. We are getting used to relaxing! I also managed to sleep for about 11 hours so that was helpful.

So there is a Catholic Church outside of Prague known as the Ossuary or the Bones Church. Intriguing! We bought two tickets for the train and headed out on our way. Being on the train was super fun and it was cute how excited Brett was... he probably won't like that I'm writing this...Seeing some of the countryside was really beautiful. It was partly cloudy with big, beautiful, puffy clouds that threatened snow but instead brought rain. Also, the sun doesn't rise to it's highest point ever and feels like sunrise for half the day and then sunset at like 4. It feels like I'm in the Arctic.

We got to Kutna Hora and made our short trek to the church. We turned one street too early and ended up climbing over the graveyard wall...oops. It was a beautiful cemetary and we couldn't wait to get inside to see what this was all about. From the outside, the church looked like a typical gothci church but in a much smaller scale. Inside, we were greeted by a large chandelier made entirely of human bones. It was so fascinating. We paused on the steps and read so,e info about the church before we walked around. The church was built in 1400s and when 30,000 people died as a result of the plague, their bodies were initially piled into pyramids outside but then transferred inside. Some others from later decorate the church as well as some soldier skulls that were on display and 15 corpses from wealthy people were buried in the crypt. This might have been the most interesting Catholic Church I have ever seen.

Do all the Things!

2011-12-11T16:13:00.001+09:00

Day 3- December 4, 2011

Yesterday we did too much. Plain and simple. We honestly were just so excited about being here that we couldn't stop seeing and eating and drinking everything. Turns out that part of why we are spending so long in Prague is so we can relax! Oops...After we went to the Christmas markets, and eating a slap of pork meat roasted over a spit, we went to a bar called The Iron Curtain. It was pretty cool and drinks were cheap. The ride home was only about 15 minutes instead of the usual hour that we were used to in Seoul.

Today I am still tired. Still not sleeping as well and my stomach is adjusting to the rich, delicious, more adverse foods. We got to mass this morning, which was nice and right near St. Nicholas Church. Even though this was technically a chapel, it was just as beautiful as any big church we've seen. It was cold though, I could see my breath and wore my gloves the whole time except for during peace.

We moved out of our private room to a 12 bed dorm today so we'll see how that goes. So far it is empty, but there are a fair amount of students studying abroad on a weekend holiday or finished with class and traveling a bit before they go home.

Unfortunately, since we did so much walking and I don't have the greatest shoes and the streets are mostly cobblestone, I hurt my foot. No idea what happened, maybe a pulled muscle or something, but it's super painful. I definitely look super cool hobbling down the street and I'm especially mad since you do a ton of walking in Europe and this is slowing me down a ton. I don't like slowing down...

We had been thinking of going to the Karlstejn castle a little outside Prague but it was closed for the season. Too bad since it's not too cold at this point, oh well. Guess we'll just spend more time shopping! Actually, besides the food, the Christmas markets have only been ok. It's nice to see the festive decorations, but what they are selling just isn't that interesting. Maybe it just isn't what I expected. I though there would be more handcrafted items and less souvenir-y things. But like I said, the food is amazing, fried cheese sandwiches, sausages in a baguette, chicken skewers, this bread thing that is kind of like a doughnut, and so many more things. They also sell hot wine, or mulled wine, which has a cidery taste to it. It's pretty good and definitely warms you up!

A couple of side notes: I'm now on the short side of people, Europeans are ridiculously tall. It's nice understanding some of the conversations around us, public transportation is pretty easy, it's nice to go into stores where I can find clothes and shoes that will fit me.

We just finished our lunch of beef goulash and stuffed eggplant piled high with cheese, glorious cheese and are about to head out for some more sightseeing!

our dorm room, super comfy beds and pillows :)

St. Thomas Chapel

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Goulash and Dumplings, Brett's usual meal

My favorite meal to date, spinach stuffed porkloin in a cream sauce.

Prague Castle

More of the Prague Castle

Prague Castle

View of the city

Nashledanou!

Jetlagged

2011-12-10T21:34:00.001+09:00

Day 2-December 3, 2011

So we are really tired. It's 4:25 PM here in Prague and about 12:25 AM in Seoul. We are also having a really hard time just sitting still and relaxing since all we have been doing is go go go for the last...forever. We got up this morning at 4:45 AM and couldn't go back to sleep so we ended up getting out of bed at what we thought was 6:30 but turned out to be 5:30. Oh well, guess I didn't fall back asleep.

Anyway, Prague is beautiful. Since we woke up early, we decided to go to the Charles Bridge to see the sunrise. It was a 30 minute walk which was amazing and well worth it. Just walking through the sleepy city as everyone starts to wake up was really nice. Also, the air here was noticeably cleaner, besides the occasionally waft of cigarette smoke, it's very pollution and dust free. A-ma-zing. I can breathe again!

We walked around for about 3 hours and were starving. It was still relatively early as things were just barely opening up but we found a little place in the Old Town square that had sausages wrapped ina baguette and the most incredible muffin thing I have ever eaten. If you know me well, you know I love fruit, like a lot. This muffin had blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and a big hunk of plum and it was just delicious.

The night before, when we got in, we dropped our stuff off and headed to the bar for a drink and hopefully to just force our selves to stay up in order to get used to the time change. The fist beer I had was a Kozel which is a dark beer and one of my absolute favorite beers. It was so good. It might be that I just spent a year with Korean beer so who knows, but I'm pretty sure it was delicious all the same.

We were also upgraded since they were doing some construction so not only did we have our own room, we had our own bathroom. really nice for two nights so we could adjust at our own speed and do our own thing and relax! Well, we tried to relax anyway, but definitely had the mentality of "we're in Europe! Do all the things! Mulled wine, yes! Sausages, yes! Beer, yes! Christmas markets, yes!" Yeah, all in one day, not like we have 4 more days left...we were just excited.

Some of the little things I noticed in Europe in comparison with Korea: There are trash cans a-plenty and you rarely see trash on the ground. People aren't constantly plugged in to their phones, ipods, computers, etc. They are chatting with friends or just enjoying their commute. Granted the commute in Seoul is much longer in general, but people actually talk on the subways and buses here. It's nice. I do also like that there are Christmas decorations so it feels like Christmas! Can't wait to keep exploring!

The Dancing House

Gambrinus and Kozel

The muffin!

Sunrise over the Charles Bridge

Care for some roast pig? We did...

Christmas markets in Old Town

Nasheldanou!

Day 1-Leaving Korea

2011-12-10T20:44:00.001+09:00

Hi everyone! I finally have a cghance to update our blog and I know many of you are eager to hear of our travels. Well let me just preface my many entries to come by saying, we are having an amazing time. It took a little while to get over our jetlag, but we are happy campers :). I have been witing in a journal in lieu of the internet so I will enter what I have written there to here.

Day 1-December 2, 2011
I tried writing yesterday but was so exhausted from all the travel and preparations that I couldn't even read my own writing. So, let me fill you in on what happened in the last 24 hours. We packed up the last of our things and helped the mover move some of our furniture to be out of our place as soon as we could. We got outr by 11 which I was pleased with. But let me just tell you about the condition of our apartment...it was so dusty, I mean dust bunnies for days, disgusting. No wonder we were so sick for so long! We had a few things to take care of at BIS which turned out to take much longer than expected. Reason being, the person that was supposed to take my place decided not to take the job, the day before she was supposed to start. Classy. So, I had to train a new guy right then and there. I bet the person who didn't show didn't think she put that on my shoulders right as I was about to leave the country. But to be honest, I had so much nervous energy, I really didn't mind and a good thing too because, if anyone you were reading my posts on facebook, we had been waiting for a camera we ordered from America that Brett's mom so graciously sent out to us but hadn't arrived. If we had left 15 minutes earlier, we would not have had our camera. Amazing. Oh, and the exchange rates were down about 13 points that day which means we saved about $500. Yeah, we had someone looking out for us.

Leaving BIS

Once we closed our bank accounts and shipped the last few things home, we got a Pizza School Pizza and hopped on the 102 to the 8100 which was fitting since those were probably the first buses we used in Korea as well as used the most and would also be the last. It took us three hours to get to our hostel which was fine, we have gotten very patient with the amount of time it takes to get anywhere in Korea. We tried finding the place on our own but since it was dark and the directions weren't super helpful, we got lost and had to be picked up at a convenience mart. Oops. The guy was super nice and helpful. The hostel was cozy and only one other guy was there. He was visiting from England on his way to New Zealand and was spending a few days in Seoul. We invited him to dinner and we totally lucked out (again) and had maybe the best barbecue we have had in Korea. What a nice way to end, with some good food :)

Seoul

Free wine!

Meanwhile, somewhere over China...

I was pretty nervous and anxious about the trip so I didn't sleep well and woke up early. That gave me some time to just relax on the internet and have some time to myself before the trip. Getting to the airport and all that stuff was super easy. The plane was comfy, fleece blankets were amazing, free wine (!), watching Home Alone 2-it was like Christmas on the plane! We flew over the Gobi Desert which was cool, parts of Kazakstan, maybe? I did not like the Russian airport. We walked across the tarmac which had a small layer of snow and it was cold, but pretty. What I didn't like was the lady at the passport check was very sterotypical. When she saw my passport she just slapped it down angrily in front of me. Ok cool, thanks. We also wanted to change our won to Russian money but couldn't fine where to do so and all we wanted was a bottle of water. People are allowed to smoke in the airport so it was pretty miserable. Luckily we were only here for a short layover. Next stop, Prague!

And then there were two...days left...

2011-11-30T16:46:00.001+09:00

Today is just about over and it is our last day of teaching in Korea. Definitely a bittersweet/stressful time. Our going away "party" has lasted about a week, as any good party should. We have really lucked out with amazing friends and students who really have appreciated both of us as teachers. We know that our bosses have appreciated us too since we have done a lot for them at BIS. It was sad saying good bye to all of our students and I still have a few more to say good byes before we go home. Saying good bye to friends was also not an easy task, they have really made our time in Korea that much more enjoyable. I am sorry to be leaving at such a festive time since I would love to continue singing Christmas songs in the subway or crossing the street. There are many adventures of Korea that we are going to miss and are thankful that we really did get the most out of living here.

I am looking forward to everything that is ahead as well. We have a lot to look forward to and a lot of people to be thankful of for all of their support while we have been here. It takes some special people to watch their children/grandchildren get married and then ship them overseas to Korea for a year, I mean who does that? Our amazing families, that's who!

As many of you know, we have had our share of struggles and difficulties along the way, but we have taken them all as a growing process and we probably wouldn't be the same people without those trials. Nobody said live would be easy but it definitely makes it easier having a buddy through it all. I am so grateful for Brett because without him, I wouldn't be here. And I think he could say the same for me. We have really supported each other throughout this year and are so blessed to have each other. We know that it is time for the next step and we are both looking forward with positive thinking and excitement for what the future will bring. Hey, maybe we'll end up back here? Or somewhere else? One never knows! God knows we never thought we'd end up in Korea!

Our last and final day in Korea in Friday and we will hop on our plane at 12:40 and zip off to Europe, first stop Prague! We are SO excited and kind of nervous since things have been so busy here, we almost haven't been able to be excited! We will stay in Prague 5 days, go to 3 cities in Germany-Munich, Cologne and Berlin and then spend 5 days in Paris. Our motto for traveling is "adventure, food, relax" and we are so ready for all three especially the relaxing bit. After Europe we will spend about 10 days in Kalispell, MT with my family for Christmas. Can't wait. There better be so much snow or Mother Nature and I will exchange some harsh words. Then down to Jackson, WY to visit with my grandparents. Also, snow? Yeah, there better be a lot. After Jackson, we head to Boise, ID for a few days to (hopefully) sign a lease and get our cell phones figured out (yay!). Fly down to San Diego for a week or so to visit with Brett's family, drive to Las Vegas to get all our stuff then drive back to Boise and move in to our new place!

So yeah. That being said. Anyone is welcome to visit us at ANY time. Whether it is in Boise, Jackson, Montana, San Diego, whatever.

Well, anyway, love to you all and stay tuned!
Danielle

Winter is coming

2011-11-18T21:14:00.001+09:00

Near our house

Halloween!

Pig Roast!

Fall

Yeah, I'm posting again...I feel like I might be doing it a bit more as we get closer to our departure day. We told our students today that we were leaving and got some interesting reactions. The kids were really sad but didn't want to show they were sad or also didn't know how to show their emotions in general so we got some, "yay!"s. I don't think any of these kids are happy to see us go. Not to sound conceited, it probably just sounds strange and out of nowhere, "why is my teacher leaving?"

I had one student who looked like he was going to cry, one student who pretended to cry (why was super cute, it was in a joking way, hard to understand but I knew he was being genuine), one class was really bummed but then I told them I will write them letters (they have been writing back and forth to my brother and sister so they were really excited about that idea), another class could care less except for one girl who is newer and really likes my class so I think she is bummed, and one other class that was pretty sad and asked if I could bring my family to Korea.

All of these reactions made me feeling like I didn't know what to do with my emotions. Me. Not knowing what emotion to show. That just goes to show this has been a really interesting year. I really like these kids and I hate to leave them because some of my classes are just so great and they are so adorable, and when it comes down to it, they do love me as a teacher too. They all know there's a fun teacher inside of sick, stressed Ms. Danielle that has been trying to make a comeback and makes appearances from time to time and they have really been patient with me even though I am not always with them.

It is totally going to be sad when we leave. It doesn't seem real yet even though we are sending stuff home and everything is lined up for our trip to Europe and back home. It's hard to just pick up and leave some place you've called your home for a year. This is the first place either of us have stayed in one place for an extended amount of time since high school. This literally was our first "home" after college. Weird.

Yeah it's been really rough and work was much more stressful and frustrating than we thought and were lead to believe but that happens. We've really grown alot. I know I keep saying that but it's true! What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger can totally be used for this year and man, this pollution and cigarette smoke and stress from school is certainly playing it's part to get me down, but you can't stop me! By George, if I have a fever, I'm teaching these kids anyway! (I have done that oh, about 5 times or so this year?) You want me at school? I'll be at school. I won't do a good job, but I'll be there and do my best.

This is totally a thought and emotion provoked blog, just letting you know my thoughts as we get closer to leaving. I just didn't think my telling these kids would affect me in such a way that it did today. I was looking through old pictures of when we first starting teaching and how far we've come! From three students to 10 separate classes! We've done a good job and have stuck with it despite many things that could have pushed us away. I feel almost like I am letting these kids down by leaving! I think I might be in a little bit of shock about all of this. I feel like we spent so much time building what this school should be, we finally made it and now we are leaving. I don't think it has totally sunk in with me yet that we are really leaving in two weeks from today. Right now, in two weeks, we will be in an airplane. Leaving Korea for good. Just like that. I mean a year ago, we were panicking about whether or not we'd have a job in Korea and at this point it was more stressful than exciting and we just wanted to get there. Interesting that we are kind of experiencing similar feelings of just wanting to get out but at the same time, there's a lot of uncertainty ahead. There's a lot of stress that's going to be happening in the next couple of weeks and instead of making our announcement at Thanksgiving dinner that we are going to Korea, we are going to be in Korea saying farewell. These could all only mean one thing: Winter is coming.

Outta*Sync

2011-11-14T20:18:00.001+09:00

So November has been an interesting month. I lost our ipod (big bummer), our camera broke out of nowhere (another bummer) and we have been experiencing strange things from Koreans that we haven’t in the last 11 months of being here. For example, at the marathon, Carrie and I were harshly stopped by a police man who said, “Stop! No cross. Maraton!” Dude, duh. I see all the people running and I am coming to watch. Shortly after that, I saw some other people walking aimlessly across the crosswalk who really didn’t seem to be aware of the continuous stream of runners slowing by. My bad. I thought you thought I was dumb. After the marathon, we hailed a cab after about a zillion passed by and the guy didn’t want to take us back home and was going to charge an extra ₩10,000 to do so. Well forget that, we’ll find someone else, not like my husband is clearly in pain from just finishing a huge race…Going to dinner the other night, Brett, Brent and I got shushed on the bus. We weren’t even talking very loud! He shushed us and made a driving motion as if he needed silence to drive. It was the 102, the rebel of the buses, after all. But still, I do not like being shushed. Yesterday, Brett and I were walking around Namdemun and decided to stop for street food, chicken on a stick and kimbab, he got a beer as well. When we were finished, the friendly lady came over and told us ₩25,000. What? ₩25,000 for this? It was chicken on a stick and kimbap! Fuming, we handed over the cash for the most expensive street food experience ever, we totally felt migooked. (a phrase coined for people from America (mi-guks) getting ripped off because we are American). We decided later that it must have been a delicacy and she just couldn’t explain it to us because she was talking about it in broken English, “baby chicken” “Chicken skin” things like that. If it wasn’t, I don’t want to know because I don’t want to think about paying 10 bucks for chicken on a stick.

You might be wondering, “Danielle, seriously, enough with the negativity.” But I have a point, I promise, and it is not “I hate Korea”. It is to answer this question, “Are you excited to leave Korea?” We have heard this several times and I never know how to answer it and I think I have figured out that “excited” is not quite the right word for leaving Korea. I think I am ready to leave Korea and that is the better answer. Excited implies that I can’t wait to get the heck out of here and while that may be true for my school, I like Korea. Despite the difficulties and frustrating instances that seemed to happen all at once in a span of one week. That’s just part of living in a city and I have mentioned a bit before, I think I did a pretty darn good job figuring out life in a city. Seoul metropolitan has 24 million people (it's the second largest city in the world!), Kalispell has 19 thousand. Yeah. So there’s that. I have also been dealing with the fact that I have been sick since September. I think I was healthy for a whole week a while back, but I have been blowing my nose constantly or sneezing or have had plugged ears and have taught with a fever on several occasions. Both of my ears have been drained (easy, painless) and I feel a TON better. I can hear when people talk to me. I know how loud I am talking and my sinuses are clearing up, finally. I think part of why I have been sick so long is the moist cold that is here paired with sick kids washing their hands with cold water (bathrooms here don’t have hot water, soap or paper towels, sometimes they don’t even have toilet paper and you are expected to have your own) as well as new mold growing in our apartment and you would be amazed at how dusty our place can get overnight. It’s nuts. Today was a brisk, fall day and it felt fresh. I felt like I was breathing normal air and not polluted, cigarette smoke-filled exhaust air. It was nice.

Brett and I have also just been out of sync in general. He’s sick, then I’m sick, or he’s hurt from running or tired from training, and I’m sick, then he’s sick, then I’m stressed about packing, and then he’s stressed about packing, then I’m having a great day, and then he has a great day the next day. None of these have been matching up. It’s like we have been on opposite biorhythms for a month and we are finally aligning again. Now that we have been packing up our place slowly but surely, I have been getting better, he has been healing from the run, school hasn’t been too bad and we have had our monthly finance talk, we’re getting back in line again. It’s nice. I like Brett, I don’t like arguments and disagreements and being irritable. I can’t believe we have 16 days left in Korea. And the end is coming fast. I’m going to miss these little mischievous, rambunctious rascals I call my crazy monkeys.

Here are some interesting/weird signs and things from around Korea:

New bathrooms in the new subway station.
Orange: Women squatting, Blue: Men standing...

Plastic surgery advertisement.
Top: eyes-from narrow to wide, nose-from wide to narrow
Middle: breast implants, jaw bone shaping
Bottom: from no waist to waist (don't know how they do that),
from "chubby" facial features to "all cleaned up"
Pretty sad, no?

Snake cream,
just what you need to keep your face looking tight and young!

Pig feet anyone?

A Marathon Story

2011-11-07T15:52:00.006+09:00

Sipping on an Americano, listening to some good music, with a medal dangling from my neck is much easier than scouring runnersworld.com forums looking for advice and worrying about a marathon. Here’s how I got here.

A Friday afternoon (14 weeks and one day ago), I decided to do a marathon. It was hot, sticky, I ran in my 5 fingers, went too fast and didn’t have any water on my first 10 mile run. Ouch. From there things got a little easier. I learned the importance of hydration, focused on going slower, and as my mileage built, so did my appetite. I quickly found myself running 30 miles a week (a big jump from my 0-20 miles a week previously) and eating two instant oatmeals with a scoop of peanut butter, a sliced up banana or apple, a nutrigrain bar and tons of water for breakfast.

I enjoyed the training session of my marathon quite a bit. I needed the extra challenge as work was getting a little boring and I needed something to throw myself into. I had been running fairly consistently since 7^th grade (running from 0-25 miles a week since then) and always thought of myself as a bit of a runner-- but not anything crazy. I don’t know why exactly I decided to run a marathon, I guess I mostly just wanted the challenge. I occasionally thought it would be fun to fit the category of “someone who ran a marathon,” but mostly I just wanted to see if I could do it.

Injuries: I started running in my Nike Free 7.0’s and Vibram 5-Fingers exclusively. That was not a good idea. I have fairly high arches and a heavy forefoot strike. While a forefront strike is great (it’s the day after the marathon and my feet feel awesome!), you need to have the right shoes or a ton of built up muscle in order to prevent plantar fasciitis (PF). Week three I got that in my right foot and barely finished my run. I got a pair of Asics for about $70 and that problem slowly went away. It was painful, but nothing too bad. Week 7 I had an “explosion of sickness” as my training log states. I had spent the weekend hiking in the rain and staying in a less-than-great hotel in the mountains (which was SUPER fun but not smart marathon-wise). As the long weekend ended, I got a solid upper-respitory infection. That took me out a week. On week 8 I developed some IT band issues (explained later) that caused me to miss a run, but they were light and got better quickly. Once I got back to it, I did some of my best training and logged a great 21-miler and had an awesome time. My second 20 mile run did not go as planned. It rained a ton and I developed an IT band issues (FORESHADOWING!). The IT Band is a notoriously weak muscle in our body that often gets strained from running or overuse. It typically is a pain on the outside of your knee or up the side of your leg to your hip. Stretching, massage, and rest tend to take care of this. Preventative measures include stretching and cross training (things I had a particularly hard time with). During my second 20 miler, my IT band acted up and with a mix of the rain it turned into a mental game. Oh, and I got lost. That didn’t help either. I finished my run, but to make matters worse, I got bronchitis two days later. This again knocked me out of training schedule, this time for about 2 weeks. Not fun. The bronchitis got 90% better and then I developed a cold. It’s the day after the marathon now, and I still have a little cough and a sniffle. After writing this paragraph, I’m amazed I have a medal to show for it.

Training for a marathon requires anywhere from 14-18 weeks, if not a lifetime. Typically they say someone should be running around 15 miles a week (or be very active) before even starting to train, and then they need 14 weeks, at least. Well…I was a mix of active and probably averaged somewhere around 10-15 miles a week for the past couple years. Unfortunately, with the added struggles from training injuries, I cut down a 400 mile training plan that lasted 14 weeks, to a 340 mile plan that involved 2.5 weeks of missed runs via recovery. I think my injuries were very typical of a self-coached first time marathoner. However, the amount of times I got sick is largely in part to the fact that I teach Kindergarten and Elementary school in a foreign country that sends kids to school no matter what, fewer people wash their hands, and I have 0 sick days allotted to me in my contract. Like I said, I can’t believe I finished this marathon. If anyone’s interested, I did Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 plan and modified it to last 14 weeks by cutting out the first few weeks. It’s here: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/novice2.htm

Ok, now it’s time to get into the race. I was already coming to the race with a little bit of a cough and a runny nose. I had plenty of sleep the week before, carbo-loaded all week and was well hydrated. I was running in through the heart of Seoul with 20,000 other people in the JoongAng Ilbo (a newspaper) International Marathon. You can see more here: http://marathon.joins.com/english/. 8,000 people were running the 10k and I was going to do the full 42.1Km marathon (26.2 miles). I would start in the heart of Seoul, run through the countryside for a little, and finish in the stadium that held the 1988 Olympic Marathon. I was stoked for the marathon. Due to the struggles I had while training, I had the unusual advantage of being able to throw time out the window. I was thinking I’d run anywhere from 3:45-4:45 because I felt awesome. The marathon states that you have to finish in 5 hours (this is important to my story) as opposed to the standard 6 hours in America. I think it has something to do with the extra strain on traffic.

Danielle brought me to the race (we took a bus and a subway, leaving the house at 6:00am) and had a very smooth morning. I didn’t feel too nervous and was just plain excited. I kept thinking of it as a long hike, but I’d be running instead of going up hill… and there would be 20,000 people doing it with me…and it was in a city. I made a point of going to the back of the pack, thinking that would force me to go slow. I had read that the biggest mistake people have on their first marathon is they start out too fast. It was about 57 degrees, there was beautiful fall foliage everywhere, and it was overcast. Randomly, before the race started the announcer yelled something in Korean and everyone started giving each other massages. I chuckled and rubbed the shoulders of the people around me. It was a nice, awkward, “Lost in Translation” moment, but I thoroughly appreciated it.

Bang! The gun went off and I had the wonderful opportunity of waiting 10 minutes as the thousands in front of me crossed the starting line. Like I said, I was stoked. I crossed the starting line and did my thing.

I started of slow, sticking with the 5 hour pace group. One of the first things I remember, was being so surprised at how fast you have to run to finish in 5 hours. I thought it would have been almost a walk. I did a great job of going slow and just enjoying the scenery. Then the rains came. It absolutely poured. I was soaked by the 5k point. My shoes were heavier, my hat was protecting me but quickly became as wet as the rest of me, and my shorts stuck everywhere. Surprisingly, and throughout the race, this had no affect on my chaffing. That was a blessing. Anyway, running through the rain made the marathon feel like that much more of a battle. I had recently finished a book on the Korean War and thoughts of that kept creeping through my mind. I was loving it.

I saw Danielle at the 10k marker (which was the BEST, it’s so much fun to have people cheering you on) with another foreign teacher from America, Jason. They cheered me on, took a couple pictures and I was off again. I thought to myself, I’ve had enough of this 5 hour pace group. I’m going to pick it up just a little. The next 9 kilometers were a blast. I jumped over puddles, chatted with people, was never out of breath and just enjoyed the challenge. Well, at the 19k marker, I began to struggle. I felt pretty much 100%, but that IT band started flaring up. At first it was some loose feeling numbness, that developed quickly into some pain, and forced me to change my stride. The sorest part of my body today is my left hip (opposite side of my hurt IT band). I knew as soon as it started to hurt that this race had taken a drastic turn from a likely 4:30 finish to an “am I going to finish?”

Thoughts quickly jumped through my head about all of my training struggles, the rain, and everything else that goes with a marathon. AND I wasn’t even half way finished. I knew that IT band pain isn’t something that’s going to do long-term damage outside of extreme conditions (and I was right, today I feel surprisingly good) it was just another challenge in my race. The nice thing about a marathon is there’s almost always only one answer to a question: keep running. So that’s what I did. I walked or changed my stride when it hurt too much, I took it easy and kept on going.

From here the story gets a little hard to tell. Partly because saying it was hard isn’t enough, partly because writing about running is just like running: repetitive, and partly because it’s all a little bit of a blur. Running a marathon in itself is difficult, being undertrained, sick, in the rain and hurt only adds to the “discomfort” and “challenge.” I just kept running. There were times where I thought I might not make it, but I always thought that time hadn’t come yet. I kept thinking that if I were to drop out, it would come later. My bigger worry, was that the race stated you had to finish in 5 hours. By the 30 k mark I was back with the 5 hour pacer and keeping that faster than expected 5 hour pace suddenly became an enormous challenge. Sometimes, however, the strongest muscle in your body is your brain. I focused and just kept going.

A few things kept me going 1.) Not to sound cheesy or gloomy (I did this during training too), I repeated “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys”. The repetitiveness and extra cheerleading that I imagined was very helpful. 2.) I wrote imaginary letters to people I cared about. If you're reading this, chances are I said something nice to you, you just didn’t hear it. 3.) I knew Danielle (and another foreign teacher-friend Carrie) were likely going to be waiting between 30-38 kilometers. 4.) I awkwardly pounded my chest, clapped, turned my hat backwards, thought “F*@% You” to the pacer guy with the big balloon (although I’m totally thankful he was there), and alternately cursed and blessed the Korean countryside around me. I guess anger is a good way to get through a race too, right?

I remember at some point joking around with the 5 hour pacer. He spoke a little English, but I don’t know if he understood what I was saying. I jokingly said he was going too fast to be the 5 hour pacer and asked if he was sure he didn’t get the wrong balloon stating his time. Even if the other person doesn’t get your joke, humor can be a good way to finish a marathon.

After seeing Danielle and Carrie at the 37k point, I knew I was going to finish. There were loads of people behind me and I knew the 5 hour deadline was an imaginary one. However, I did not let that apply to me. I was GOING to finish in under 5 hours. As I saw them, they ran with me for about 100-200m and asked if I needed anything. I remember saying something about my knee/IT band and that I was “destroyed” but somehow both of them said I seemed like I was in good spirits at that point after the race.

The Finish: We were on an overpass at the 38^th kilometer and I had had enough. Pain, fatigue, the rain, and the marathon were all good friends of mine by this point. Not friends by choice, but the kind of people you bond with just by being around them so long. In this case, too long. I did not have any affection for this damn 5 hour pacer though. He was a very nice man, but I decided that I was going to beat him. I ran roughly the last 6 kilometers in 27 minutes (a 6k is 3.7 miles/27 minutes is roughly a 7:15 mile). I don’t know how I finished that quickly, but I ran my @$$ off. Mathematically that must have meant the pacer was behind the 5 hour mark or was trying to make up time and was going faster. There’s something about passing people moaning, the adrenaline going through your body, the anger of being hurt and tired, the exhaustion of having run so far, frustration with being hurt and the straight up epic feeling of finishing a race in an Olympic stadium in a foreign country in the rain. I easily blew past 200 people in that last bit and to say the least, finished strong.

I’m not going to lie, finishing a marathon is emotional, struggling through one like that only adds to the tears. I’m pretty good at holding it together and I was able to. But few people would have missed the emotion on my face.

Post marathon I ate everything in sight. 1/2 a loaf of bread, 4 bottles of water, 3 gatorades, a nature valley bar, 4 bananas, a cheeseburger, a beer, french fries, Advil, a Danish, some things I probably don’t remember, and had a spaghetti and steak dinner. It was probably 3-4 hours after the 30k mark that I finally went to the bathroom again. I also took a nap.

The next day I wore my electric yellow, long sleeve technical New Balance shirt and medal around my neck (both from the race) to school. All my students loved seeing it. Many asked if I had placed 2^nd (because the medal is a metallic silver). Pretty much all of my legs are sore, but not that bad, my knee feels fine and my left hip hurts (from overcompensating). 4hours and 57 minutes was not the time I was looking for and part of me wants to be frustrated with that. Writing this blog post and reflecting on the things I struggled through, remind me that there’s a reason why everyone gets a medal at the end. I finished a marathon and it was very difficult. It’s good that the marathon was humbling without being humiliating. Everyone could use that sometimes. If I were to do it again (which may happen), I would train differently and make sure I wasn’t teaching Kindergarten. I’d also probably spend less time out late on town. All that said, I’m really glad I went through this experience. No matter how painful it was, despite the fatigue and frustration during training, it was absolutely worth it. If I ever do another one, I’ll have to forget how hard this one was first.

Crimson and Clover, October is Over

2011-10-31T21:14:00.002+09:00

Happy Halloween everyone! It is again the most wonderful time of the year J Costumes, candy, scary movies and Gonzaga basketball starting up again? Doesn’t really get much better than that. Ok, I take it back, Thanksgiving and Christmas are nice too but Halloween really kicks off the holiday season in my mind. This year was a little frustrating since thrift stores don’t exist and if they do, they don’t have silly things which is key for a Danielle costume. Luckily, Brett had thought of an idea months ago (a man after my own heart, right?) and it was conducive to turn into a couple’s costume. You will see pictures and probably be a little confused. He is a bus driver exhibiting the bus we frequently take around the area and I am a T-money card which is necessary to get on the bus or subway. It was a lot of fun creating these costumes and I did all the painting by hand. Really nice to be doing something creative that I have control over and that was definitely therapeutic. I used to draw and do artsy things all the time throughout high school which helped me relax so this brought me back to those days.

Things have been going pretty well, I can’t seem to shake the constant sickness since parents send their sick kids to school with strep throat and bronchitis, but I am trying not to let it get me down and really take care of myself. Can you believe we only have a month left? October seems to have flown by, it’s crazy. I was just thinking this morning while watching the Gonzaga game (!!) about how much I have grown and continue to grow while being out here. You all know the frustrations we have endured while being here and they don’t get any better, but there have been so many positives of being here that I don’t think we have emphasized enough.

Brett has commented a couple of times of how, when he first came out here, he hated getting in front of the kids to sing or dance and generally had a hard time adjusting to being a kindergarten teacher. He has done such a great job overcoming that and has found his right amount of goofy to let his inhibitions go. He does this thing in one of his classes where he has taught them how to “just chill”. It is really hilarious and it’s just one of those things where we have been so on-guard with this job for so long that we too need to just chill.

I think part of why we haven’t focused as much on the positives of being here is because I don’t want to sound like I am bragging. I hate that. I don’t want people to think I am writing this blog to say, “Hey look how cool we are, we’re in Korea”. I just wanted to fill people in on our experience and what we are doing along with the struggles and triumphs of it all. I have felt a little self-conscious that Brett and I do have the opportunity to be out here, but we worked hard for this and we continue to work hard. I also don’t want people to see that we are in Korea and we are complaining all the time. It’s a difficult thing to balance.

I have become more confident in my teaching as well. I remember being really nervous at the beginning being in front of a class by myself and now it’s not a big deal at all! One thing I am still working on is balancing serious time and non-serious time. The expectations for these kids are through the roof and I mean, having kindergarteners take notes is just cruel. Kids need more time to be creative and to laugh so I have been finding creative ways of having a good time while still learning. It keeps my job interesting as it is a challenge for me and I was definitely getting bored with the same ol’ same ol’.

Aside from school I have found other ways in which I have grown. We have been forced to eat differently which has been for the best in most cases. Sometimes it is hard to get any sort of protein that isn’t a burger or fried chicken but we’ve managed. And the amount of food we eat at meals has drastically decreased. Brett and I share meals most of the time and get disgusted at the amount of food we used to eat. The portions in Korea just make sense. Exercise has been a struggle. We didn’t join a gym because we got discouraged towards the beginning and just decided to buy a yoga mat and a basketball with every intention of using those. We have a few times until Brett decided to train for his marathon and I decided to try running. Running is not for me and I just can’t get into it. I was on a running plan that lasted about a month but I just had to revamp that plan since it was not doing it for me. I enjoyed my new plan which incorporated weights that we bought at E-mart, cardio and yoga, but since I got sicker in the past week, I haven’t been into it recently. Now, I am so excited to join a gym when we get back. Yes, me. Excited to join a gym. I just can’t wait to sweat and push myself and work hard. I have slowly been losing weight, although now it is getting colder so my natural instinct is to go into hibernation mode in which I usually gain a few pounds , but at this point, I am so motivated not to; something that hasn’t happened in a while.

We are definitely ready to leave but we are so going to miss our kids! I think I have already been seeing the effects of removing myself from being in Korea which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it makes the transition for an emotional person a bit easier. This really has been a good experience and I am so glad we did it! Brett and I have also gotten closer and continue to learn more about each other and yes, we still like each other and love spending all this time together after all this time! We are so excited for November. It’s going to be busy and crazy but it’s going to represent the end of this chapter in our lives and beginning the next. Cheeeeesyyyyy….But seriously, we are also so excited to be starting our lives in Boise and seeing all of our family beforehand. We are so lucky to have been able to do all of this traveling while we are so young. I don’t mean that when we come back we are settling down and that’s that, we are just ready to settle down for a while but I don’t think we will ever lose the travel bug.

Running with Brett

2011-10-12T17:45:00.000+09:00

As many of you know, Brett has been training for a marathon! We are both very excited but since Brett is doing most of the work, ok ALL of the work, he has more to be excited about. His attitude through the whole training has been great, a few tough days and hard to get going sometimes but he frequently comes back and says, hey that was easy! It's been interesting seeing someone train for something like this and it has encouraged me to keep exercising and stick with it. I tried running and managed for a month. Nothing close to the amount Brett is doing, baby steps. I decided that running is pretty boring if you just aren't into it so I revamped MY exercise plan and have been mixing it up. Much more conducive to my style and successful. Anyway, I just wanted to share some videos and pictures from his first big (19-21 miles) run. It was a beautiful day and I accompanied him while riding a friends bike. It was fun, but the seat hurt my but within the first mile. Not great if you have nearly 20 to go! I survived and had a water bottle, some snacks and Gatorade for him in my backpack and basket. It was also a beautiful day which made it that much more enjoyable. I am so proud of him and we are doing it again this weekend!

This was about 5 or 6 miles in.

We are on the Tancheon River near our house.

This was about 13 miles in, we are running through

Bundang Central Park in Jeongja!

Bundang Central Park

A Little Peace

2011-10-11T13:49:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to write a quick post to clarify a few things and redeem myself. I had a post a while back that was pretty harsh and I was not a happy camper at the time. I have deleted the post because I had some strong feelings that were actually inappropriate as an employee and I realize that they could come off pretty harsh. August was an extremely hard month and very difficult to be happy about my time in Korea. Our job is not ideal and that is hard when you travel 5,000 miles to work for a year. We have been cheated out of a few things and our bosses have not been very supportive or honest this whole time which has been a major challenge. That will cause anyone to be negative, to lose interest in their job, to get sick, to get burnt out and to want to come home.

I have always had a hard time filtering my emotions, I am very raw in the sense that I can sometimes come off as a bit of a pessimist. I want to be honest with everyone that our time here isn't all hunky dory but it's also not the worst thing ever. Some of the stuff that we complain about just has really gotten to us and part of the reason I have been posting it is in hope that we get some support that things will be ok and to know that we are doing a good job. Part of the reason why I posted the previous post was to give a realistic depiction of Korea. Both in a sense of honesty and as a way to communicate my time here to family back home. Your support means a lot to us.

We have worked through a lot together and we are so grateful for each other every day especially now that things have been getting better. Work is still very frustrating, this morning, the students were singing. Daniel clearly was singing the best, and did he get a coupon? No. But all the girls did, for no reason. And then when he was getting some things to give to his friends, he was reprimanded and was told to be nice to his friends. It's things like that that just make me want to scream. And it's things like that that I post to my blog and maybe should not as frequently. At the beginning, our blog was more of what we were doing and seeing and experiencing but now it has resorted to a place for me to release some stress and I need to separate the two. I just wanted people to really know how we are doing and really share the experience as if you were experiencing it with me. I, personally, like reading blogs that incorporate adventure as well as trial and triumph. After my ranting blog, I had several blogs that talked about the fun things we were doing and the new people we had met, so I hope you'll believe me when I say, we are doing fine. We LIKE Korea and the kids at our job, our new friends and the continuing experience of our adventure.

We are really looking forward to the rest of our time here. I can't wait to see Brett run in his first marathon!
Love, Brett and Danielle

300. THIS. IS. KOREA!

2011-09-27T16:59:00.001+09:00

Hi Everyone! Today marks our 300th day in Korea! Pretty crazy, right? If you have not seen the movie 300, that is what my title is referencing because in the movie they say "THIS IS SPARTA". I didn't get past the first 5 minutes...

The countdown...

Anyway, so yeah! 300 days! We are pretty excited about that in many, many ways. I am excited because that means that we are almost finished, but in a positive way. As in, we are actually doing this. We have almost accomplished what we came out here to do. Set out on an adventure, teach in a foreign country and travel the world! As most of you know, it has been a very rough year. Work has been anything but glamorous and it had definitely caused us to go out of our comfort zone many times but we are at the point where things like that are second nature. Taking the bus, for example. Easy. I have memorized so many buses and where they go that we can been pretty much anywhere in Seoul and I can find us a bus to get us home or read the names on the side to get us to another part of town. Now, for a country girl from Montana to be able to do that in a city of 25 million people, I think is pretty impressive. Just sayin'. We have also overcome many more things that just the bus, like our ridiculous bosses who are just not good at life. We have learned many lessons in tolerance. For example, we have people who ask us if we can use chopsticks or if we know what kimbap is. People. We have been here for 10 months, really? We eat kimbap almost every other day. Critical Thinking just isn't a strong suit here. We have coined a new phrase: "Yeah, cuz that makes sense." which applies to most things we see everyday. You should definitely pull in front of a buss full of children going the opposite direction, you should definitely keep your child up at 1 in the morning walking the streets of Seoul with you, definitely throw away my school slippers and not tell me, you get the idea. Still working on tolerance.

School has been fine. Looking back, as I said, it has been very difficult and not the ideal situation all around but we have stuck with it and I think that says a lot about our character. to be honest, I wanted to quit at 6 months and find another job but we are both stubborn and stayed. We really do love the kids. That's why we are here, not for crazy bosses or insane parents, it's for the kids and we've learned to just smile and nod when a parent complains or when our boss has a weird piece of criticism and do our own thing anyway. Not like we are insubordinate but when a parent wants their child to be called "Lion" and not "Ryan" I called him Ryan. When I was in the library getting books because all but two students came to class and we had a sporadic reading day and our boss says "I think it would be better if you had them get books before class." Things like that that are just like, really? Is that really something that you feel is important?

I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with one of my classes last week and they LOVED it. Literally, they were so well behaved and one kid said it was the best thing he had ever eaten in his life. It's things like that that really keep our spirits up when stupid stuff brings us down and helps us remember we are here for the kids.

The friends that we have met continue to be amazing. We really have a great connection with pretty much all of them which is SO great. We still love Jinjoo by the way! haha she has just been busy, she is in China for like a two week business trip and we still owe her a night of dancing before we leave Korea. The new people we have met work at a couple different schools so we see some more than others but it is going to be so great having these connections when we go home too. We met a girl who is from Logan, Utah, which is not that far from Boise! Our trip to Sokcho really solidified some long lasting friendships which we have talked about and future get togethers when are back in the States! It's funny, because I didn't think we had much more to do in Korea since we have seen so much but now that we have two months left, we really are taking advantage of our time left. My weekends are pretty much planned from now until we leave. It's definitely a good thing but I know I am going to be sad to leave all of these wonderful people and the place that I have called home for 10 months. If our job situation was better, we would have considered extending our contract for another 6 months but we don't want to stay at BIS and we really are looking forward to being home. I am just so tired of living somewhere, meeting great people and then leaving. It happens a lot and it really can be discouraging. Meeting friends is hard and to have to do it so much can be stressful. We are also looking forward to settling in the sense that we'll have a place that is our own and really our own. Don't worry, I don't mean we are going to go to Boise and never leave, I just mean we need some consistency in our lives! We will definitely continue to travel and always be looking for more adventures. Starting a family does not have to stop us from doing exciting things. Believe me, I will not let it happen.

Had to...

Friends for LIFE! :)

So all in all, I am very content right now and that is good. But really, things have not been easy and to finally feel like we are at a good place and on good terms with Korea is definitely a morale booster. I even found jeans! No, like, finding jeans in America is hard and I managed to find some that fit me here. Miracles do happen people! Anyway, we still have 65 days left so I will not give my final reflections on my time in Korea but just know that I am glad that I did this. It was hard but not so hard that it was impossible. I am a more confident person, with teaching, confidence in myself, and being myself around others. I never get tired of adventures, sometimes unexpected challenges can be difficult but I am getting much better at taking things with a grain of salt, and also knowing what that phrase means. ^^ If you are reading this, thank you for your support these past 300 days and even before that in our preparations to come out here. Looking forward to the next 65 in Korea and the traveling extravaganza to follow. Lot's of love to you all!-Danielle

I woke up this morning and ran. The trees were all starting to change colors. The sun was starting to shine through the mist over the river. Perfectly clear skies, 65 degrees, and I have to force myself to slow down. It might have been perfect running weather, but I’m not a perfect runner. As I strode along the trail, I realized that Korea hasn’t been flawless either… but damn, today it was nice.

Since I’ve been training for a marathon, my life has revolved around running. Since I moved, my life has revolved around Korea. How could I not relate the two in my mind?

I found myself sitting in class on a Friday afternoon in early August. I had just arrived back home from a glorious week in Thailand. Korea is a beautiful place, but there are few nations that can compare to Thailand. I thought to myself, “How could I possibly make the next 4 months of Kimchi and rice as exciting as the last week of chicken curry and sipping from a coconut?” I needed something to keep my mind off of Korea; Instead, I found something that helped me realize why this country is so great. Running.

I decided to run a marathon in November if the following two weeks went well. Just like coming to the ROK, running in Korea was very hard at the beginning. I found a helpful way of analyzing running conditions online: if the dew point plus temperature is greater than 140, then you can’t drink enough water and Gatorade. If it’s above 150 don’t run. Within hours of deciding to run a marathon, I found myself puffing along, no water, trying to nearly sprint 10 miles in 85 degree weather and probably an 80 degree dew point. What had I done to myself? Why am I in such a strange and uncomfortable situation? How the hell am I going to make it all the way? These questions aren’t just about running, I’ve grumbled them while thinking of Korea as well. (See, Korea and running go hand in hand!) Life here was especially hard this summer, when it rained nearly every day, there were massive amounts of flooding, and I didn’t stop sweating for about 3 months.

However, as I continued to run, I learned new skills, became familiar with the area, and learned of what I am capable. As I continued to work through the struggles of living abroad, I got much better at dealing with them. It’s no surprise that after 10 months in the country, I understand the bus system better (although thinking about the thousands of buses in Korea does seem daunting even now). Some things however, may seem easy, but were a lot harder than you might think. For example, I like to eat. Many Koreans like to eat too. We eat different things, (VERY) different amounts, different ways, and while doing different things. As I ran more and more, being able to easily carbo-load by eating my fill of rice was a nice addition. Finding protein, fruit and vegetables that I know how to cook (or want to eat regularly) was a lot harder. Even finding friends was a difficulty that I was able to overcome in time.

When I go running—now—I’m a stronger person, but it’s also simply getting easier. My legs have more strength to them, but it’s also not as hot outside. When I went running this morning the temperature was 65 degrees and the dew point was at 50 degrees. That 115 sum is much easier to run in. The same thing applies to Korea in general. I’ve grown a lot of the past few years, but it’s also a lot easier to live here now. I know my way around, I’ve got loads of friends to explore the country with, work is easier and I have become much more efficient at it, few things surprise and frustrate me like they used to, and I even know where to get a decent beer when I’m craving a tasty brew!

Before we left for Korea, Danielle and I were told “living in Korea might change your life!” by numerous friends, acquaintances and websites (apparently running a marathon can change your life too…or so I’ve read). I still can’t answer tell if Korea has changed my life. I don’t know what it means for “your life to change.” Isn’t it changing every day? A marathon—I think—isn’t going to change my life, either. Maybe the person I am, is going to find challenges and ways to grow no matter the situation I’m in. If I hadn’t gone to Korea, maybe I would have gone to teach English in Brazil. If I hadn’t gotten into running, maybe I would have 6-pack abs (Danielle’s still hoping for that one)? Maybe the things that “change your life” are merely expressions of things within you that were going to define your existence all along. -Brett

Dude...September has been sick!!

2011-09-23T14:19:00.001+09:00

Yes, you read my blog title correctly, I am getting in touch with my surfer roots...Ok not really. For my readers who are not clear on the slang use of "sick", let me explain. It also means "cool" or "awesome". So if I say, "Man, those mountains look sick" I do not mean they need to be taken to the hospital, but rather they look amazing. Anyway, I will explain my title. September has indeed been "sick", we have done some really fun things but we have also been pretty sick off and on throughout the month. It's really a bummer to be sick out here on many levels, mainly because there just isn't recovery time, you just teach anyway and the kids are sent to school to either a.) give you their illness or b.) receive yours. Everyone at BIS is or has been sick this month and it's pretty ridiculous. I went to the doctor 4 times this month. Yes, Korean health care is cheap, but it is not thorough in the slightest, thus the four visits. It has also been a bummer since the weather is FINALLY beautiful and normal. Crisp, fall air. Beautiful, blue, sunny skies. It really doesn't get any better and I am stuck inside teaching or rushing home to get into my sweat pants to snuggle on the couch and deal with my fever. I have also missed out on a whole week of my running schedule. Mine isn't nearly as intense as Brett's but I was pleased that I finally got myself on some sort of regiment annnnndddd now I'm sick. boo.

Enough with the sickness already. SO as I said earlier, we have done some pretty fun things in between illnesses. The first being a trip to the DMZ. I know. Awesome, right? And totally terrifying. I was nervous the whole time and couldn't stop clenching my shoulders. The drive up was really quite beautiful. We saw countryside pretty soon out of Seoul that reminds you that there is more to this area than just a huge city. Everyone on the bus was really excited and chatting the whole time so we didn't take too much notice of the landscape but it was there and it was pretty. I don't remember the day in much detail or really in order (I was still a little sick) I do know that we started off at a Tunnel that we were able to go down into. We had to wear hardhats since we were tall and probably would have hit the top of the ceiling which could have been a bit painful. The descent in to the tunnel was a super steep, straight-away that led us to the beginning. In the tunnel, we could see yellow marks that showed where some dynamite had been removed. At the end, there was a window with a light shining on to the North Korean side. My question to the tour guide, "who goes in there?" Her answer, laughs "nobody!". My thought, "Well then who changes the lightbulb if it burns out, who put it in there in the first place and there's a camera, who put that there?" ...logic. Anyway, we headed back up and went outside to take pictures in front of the DMZ sign.

Going down into the tunnel

Looking into North Korea

The photo line...we couldn't take pictures past that line

That's it!

inside the conference room

I am taking this picture from the North Korean side

Then we had a briefing about the DMZ which was really interesting. I learned some things I had never known before, like the axe murder incident, ever heard of it? Chop chop I hadn't either. We saw where the tree was cut down and that was kinda cool, I guess. After the briefing, we headed to another part of the DMZ. This whole time I wasn't quite clear on where we were, which is why I have a really hard time going on guided tours. Some times they assume I'm smart. I am smart, I just don't know where I am in relation to North Korea. We ended up at the conference room which is where the north and the south still have connections, super creepy. Also, the guide that gave us the briefing misspoke and some of us were confused with who was a North Korean soldier and who was South so I totally missed an opportunity to take picture of a group of North Korean soldiers because I thought they were from the South. Lame. I did take a picture of the guy looking at us through his binoculars. It was so surreal, it was like being at a really sad zoo where all the animals are hiding and you don't see any of them but they could come out at any moment. Overall, the trip was definitely very informative and I am so glad I was able to go! I stood on North Korean soil...inside the conference room of course, but still!

Propaganda Village...nobody lives here, shh...
don't let the North Koreans know we know!

Bridge of no return

Sokcho

Our next trip was to Sokcho! We went for the second time during our vacation for Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving. This time we went with friends which definitely made for a different type of trip. Good different! We do so many things that are just us or with one other person so it was nice to be with a group of fun, happy people. Even though the weather wasn't great, we went hiking anyway and it turned out to be pretty fun. We went to Seoraksan National Park again but took a different trail that wasn't nearly as hard as last time so that was nice. I just couldn't get over how nice it was to be in fresh air and in the mountains again. It's just so different than living in the city. Nothing too crazy happened and since we've been here before, you may have read our blog about our last visit. We did, however, find an all you can eat barbecue place for $10, which was the best. The owner even gave us free drinks because it was the holidays! Loved that place. I just love Sokcho in general. We also went to a temple that we didn't go to last time that was right on the coast which was beautiful! Even though the architecture and colors and designs are pretty much the same for every temple, this one was spread out in a way that made it seem that much more fascinating.

So that about covers what we have been doing this September. This weekend we are going to a soccer game which I am pretty excited about. I haven't been to a sporting event in a long time and I just don't even know what to do with myself! It should be a good time, there was some good deal for foreigners so there will probably be a lot of expats all together in the Seoul World Cup Stadium. Our time here is getting shorter so we have been doing as much as we can before we leave. Until next time!

Always look on the bright side of life

2011-08-29T14:08:00.004+09:00

Sometimes I just need to get all my frustrations out in order to keep moving in a positive direction. I feel that at this point, I need to redeem myself and Korea from the last post. All it took, really, was a few friends with some encouraging words (thus the title of my blog, thanks Leman) and having a few things go right!

After my last post, I was still pretty annoyed with the things around me but then realized that I didn't want to let things get to me so much. I realized I just needed to refresh and start over as best I could because I knew that the job situation wasn't going to get better, I had to take it like it is and OWN it :) Or atleast do my best. I realized that alot of my frustrations about Korea stem from the unorganized mess that is my boss and I was taking it out on an entire nation; not fair for me to do so. Koreans are really nice and for the most part have always been so welcoming towards Brett and I. We have a few places that we go to eat where the owners are always so thrilled to see us, it's really cute and Fruit Guy who always has a big smile on his face when we stop by and even some of the bus drivers who smile and welcome you onto their bus. I was so preoccupied with everything going on at school that I just wasn't able to separate the two.

I am so grateful that a few friends were really supportive which really boosted my spirits in reminding me that people do care and are rooting for us out here on our Korean adventure! School has still been hard, but like I said, I am just trying to do what I can to make it enjoyable for me and the kids. Unfortunately, a lot of my students did terribly on their term tests so that was really disappointing mostly because we have been teaching most of these kids for 7-9 months now and they just still don't get it! It's like all of this stressing and making sure they have homework and making sure we cover this amount of stuff in class and having intensive study during summer was really for nothing...I mean, their scores were epically worse than last term and I made my tests easier and shorter. Ugh, what can I do? Just keep swimming.

I was pretty excited to celebrate Daniel's birthday last week. He is the cutest child ever. Seriously. This kid is always giving and always wants to include everyone which I think is a great trait to have at this age especially in such a competitive society.

We went to the National Museum of Korea with Jinjoo which was really fun. We needed that. We really needed to see some more Korean "stuff" and remember where we are. It's a beautiful, huge museum with really beautiful views surround by a really nice park. It was nice to have a little more explanation too since a lot of the blurbs just give a sentence in English with the title but all the explanation in Korea. So after we explored the musem (accidentally taking the tour backwards, bringing us from now to the Joseon period all the way to the Paleolithic period) we went out and grabbed a much needed snack. Our group is really good at go-go-go and then realizing too late that we are tired and hungry and need a break. "Luckily" Brett had ran 14 miles that morning (and yes, I am bragging for him because I think that is pretty amazing) so needless to say, his legs were tired. We walked around the park and it was so nice because it wasn't manicured like most areas you would see around a museum. I mean it wasn't like overgrown and ugly, but it had a little bit of a more "wild" feel that made it seem more natural and real, I guess. Cool parks, we found our favorite, park-gym equipment and immediately tried out the new machines we hadn't before. We even made a kung-fu video! haha...We saw some really neat spiders too!
(You can click on these to make them bigger!)

The crazy spider we saw

A famous Korean/Japanese War

The view from the museum

A map drawn by Korea

Wedding processional

A huge map...Jinjoo and Brett

Drawing of Korea throughout the years

Brett's favorite statue in Korea, the turtle with the tiger head

Don't insult my Kung-Fu...

After our excursion to the park we parted ways and Brett and I headed to Itaewon...in the wrong direction. Oops. Thank goodness our bus driver was so helpful, like he actually followed us a little bit and made sure we crossed to where we needed to go and told us the exact bus we should take to get there. Seriously, that's all it takes to my be good in my book, just going a little out of your way to help a sister out. Anyway, we were going to Itaewon to meet some friends for a birthday party so we were looking forward to that. We still hadn't decided if we were going to leave in order to take a bus or commit to staying out and taking a taxi home. We started off at a bar where the bartenders totally messed up everyone's orders. Well, mine was fine but Brett's Jack on the rocks was watery, a friend never got her food, someone's tonic was forgotten...it was just a disgrace for being a shwanky bar, but again, it was Itaewon...After that, we were happy atop a bar called Roofers...it's on the roof, in case you didn't catch that, so that was really cool. It was packed so it felt a lot like an outdoor college party! Met some nice, new people along with some friends and the birthday girls. We stayed here for a while and then decided that we were going to commit and stay out and dance! Yay!
(Some of these pictures are courtesy of Azzurra's camera...)

Brett with the happiest birthday girl ever!

We had a lot of fun but not without a lot of crazy. Soon after we left Roofers, Brett and Jason went to go get money and left us at a club we actually ended up not going to. Brett had my phone so I had no way of calling them so a friend called them and gave them directions. After a while of talking to some guy from Alaska outside the club for what seemed like forever, I decided to brave the streets of "Hooker Hill"-yeah, that's not scary at all. Azzurra lent me her phone (thank you!) and I called the boys several times and after a few laps up and down the hill, finally got a hold of them and found they were going the wrong direction. Yeah, it was a scary experience. Like the military guys that go out there have pretty much one thing on their minds and they are seriously like wolves on the prowl. Just not a good place to be when you are a girl and alone. Luckily I was fine and had the cell phone as "protection"? I don't know, atleast I could pretend I was occupied therefore not be bothered. Anyway, we got to the club, danced to like two songs and one girl in another group we joined up with dropped and broke her glass so we had to peace out. We found a country dance place which made the birthday girls so happy. We swing-danced (swung-danced?) for a bit and then decided to move on. By this point, I had finally convinced Azzurra to take my flip flops since her shoes were hurting her thus leaving me to walk around in barefeet for about an hour. (I was ok and only had a tiny piece of glass that barely penetrated...it's all those years of walking around barefoot in Montana, my feet are like leather) And we ended up right back at the same club we left a few hours before...That's what you get for not having a plan! Oh well, it was fun and we danced until we couldn't dance anymore (and the music started to be less fun and the people progressively more creepy.) By the way, Brett danced of his wedding ring...Not to be alarmed, he already lost his real ring in the ocean in Thailand, this was a stand-in, but still, how do you manage to lose two rings in the same month?? Anyway, we headed home at 4 AM...listening to Justin Bieber on an ipod the whole way...any other time, yes, but we had already crammed 5 people in the taxi and I felt totally bad for the driver. Anyway, overall, awesome time :) It was nice because it forced us to relax on Sunday which we needed. And I beat Brett playing poker in our apartment last night! (He also totally called out his cards after being distracted on the internet which hilarious, "Ok so 3,9...crap!")

So, in conclusion everybody, I like Korea, but like all good things, there are trials and turmoil and I like you all to know exactly what is going on as best as I can. We have three months left as today marks 9 months! We have alot of things to look forward to, DMZ this weekend (can't wait!) going to Sokcho (again!) for Chuseok, Brett's birthday in October, Halloween (Snow White this year? maybe?), Brett's marathon, Thanksgiving and then...that's it! School will be school and difficult, it's just hard when you want to try and fix something or atleast make it better and it is just so hard but we'll keep muscling through. In the meantime, I will leave Korea alone and not blame it for my difficulties because, to be honest, these frustrations happen no matter where you live and they can only make you stronger.

Happy Trails! Until next time...

This land is your land, this land is Thailand

2011-08-09T21:11:00.014+09:00

Hi everyone,

Sorry about the lack of updates. We have been busy with school, trip planning and life in general. But I can't wait to tell you all about our trip to Thailand! Let me just tell you, it was one of the best weeks of my life. We had so much fun, saw so many cool things, cool animals, amazing food and even lost precious valuables in the ocean!

I'm just going to jump right in and try not to elaborate too much because even though we were there for 7 days total including travel time, we fit in A LOT of stuff.

Day 1, Wednesday July 27, 2011:
We brought all of our stuff to school, our backpacking backpacks was actually all we brought which was nice because they weren't too heavy especially since pretty much all we were bringing were summer clothes, bathing suits and flip flops...We left right after school was out at 6:30 and headed to the bus stop across the street. Unfortunately, we weren't entirely sure when the next bus would get there so we took a bus to Ori, where I was pretty sure there was a more frequented bus stop but we couldn't find it. So we took a subway to Jeongja where we got the 7:35 Limousine bus to the airport. We got the airport at about 9:00. We hadn't had dinner yet but decided it would be better to check in before we had dinner. Well by the time we finished, pretty much everything was closed so we ended up having chips and a muffin for dinner...Our flight took off at 11:25 and was not the nice relaxing flight I was anticipating. There were announcements an hour into the flight and then periodically throughout. It was also ridiculously freezing cold and we had to buy blankets, pretty lame but much needed. So I think I got about 3-4 hours of sleep.

Flying into Thailand

mmm...beauty sleep?

Malaysian sunrise!

Day 2, Thursday July 28, 2011:
We arrived to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 5:30 AM and grabbed some delicious chicken bagel sandwiches. Already we could tell food was going to be better than Korea. Our next flight took off at 7 ish and arrived in Phuket around 8, we went an hour behind so it was actually a two hour flight. Anyway, we got some more sleep on this flight, luckily and it wasn't nearly as freezing as the first one. We got into the airport in Phuket without any issues and then went straight to change our money into Baht and find a ferry to Ao Nang. We had missed the morning ferry and the afternoon ferry wasn't for a while and we would miss the transfer so we decided to take a bus. It was actually pretty fun and we were able to doze off here too. We got in to Ao Nang quicker than expected by about 2 hours and were greeted by ladies coming on the bus selling mangoes and fried chicken. I groggily bought one of each not really knowing what was going on and almost not realizing that it was our stop. We hopped off and got into somebody's car, also known as a taxi? He drove us to Ao Nang but not directly to our hotel but to a friend of his who owns an adventure company where they rent out kayaks and take tours, stuff like that and were trying to convince us to go. We politely told them thank you but we were very tired and needed to go to our hotel.

Buri Tara, our hotel in Ao Nang

Our hotel was really nice and comfortable but we were hungry so we went and got some street food. Let me just tell you, not only was this food dirt cheap, it was amazingly delicious. Brett got a soup called "Tom Yum", a very flavorful, ingredient rich, spicy soup complete with shrimp and shredded coconut husk. I will remind you, this is street food. Like, they make this out of a small kitchen hooked up to their motorcycle and cost about $2. I wasn't as hungry since I had eaten some chicken, rice and mango getting off the bus and was just so excited for cheap (60 cent) fruit!

Fruit and 50 cent beers

Tom Yum

After we had some food, we headed off to the beach! The clouds were a little threatening but we jumped in anyway. Oh my gosh, the water was warm! Not quite bathtub temperature, but warm enough that we didn't have to adjust and jumped right in! We were forced to run out of the ocean when the storm decided to dump on us but we went and got massages a little ways of the beach. No joke, for each of us to get an hour long, full body massage and foot scrub, it was about $35. Total. Have I convinced you to go to Thailand yet, because this is only the beginning.
After massages, we had a nice relaxing evening, got some good food, again and drinks. I had a mai tai in a pineapple which was fun.

Beach in Ao Nang

Day 3, Friday July 29, 2011:
I woke up early since I was still kind of used to Korea time. We were only 2 hours behind which was nice and getting up at 6:30 isn't too bad. It actually worked out really well since we could get up, have some breakfast and see about a kayaking trip either in the morning or in the afternoon. After a nice, leisurly breakfast and some time on the internest, Brett checked on the kayaking trip to see if any went out from our hotel. Turned out one was leaving in 10 minutes! So we ran up to our room and threw on our swim suits and 5-fingers and were out the door with a minute to spare. We hopped on the bus that would take us to...well I don't actually know where we ended up going but it was somewhere in Krabi, I can tell you that! Anyway, there was a fun group of kids with their chaperones/parents for some sort of study abroad program. They were pretty young with the oldest about ready to start his freshman year in college, but it was refreshing to be with a bunch of kids who spoke fluent English! They were all very nice and the lady had been living in Chiang Mai for about 6 years, I think! She is a linguist so she is studying tribal languages and creates scripts for them. Awesome. We had a great time kayaking especially because Brett has been dying to see monkeys ever since he has come to Asia and has been disappointed that there are no monkeys in Korea. We definitely got our fill our monkeys and then some! Such a sight to see. We also saw three monitor lizards, one of which SOMEONE decided to get a little to close to and almost jumped into our boat! We also saw a viper whose bite is so deadly that if it bites you, you die within the hour. Apparently you feel sleepy and never wake up from your nap, that's what our guide told us. Super cool seeing the mangroves and heard some cool facts. When the tsunami hit a while back, areas like Railay and smaller, less popular area weren't hit as bad and the locals believe that the spirits of the mangroves protected them, whereas the places that "sold out", so to speak, and went all "resorty", got hit the hardest because they cut down all the mangroves therefore did not respect them. And of course scientists say that the roots of the trees slowed the waves causing less impact. Either way, kinda cool, right? Also, knowing us, we can't go one day without some sort of competition so we ended up racing a few of the high school boys on our kayaks, making sure to stay behind our guide who was also semi-racing us too, only he was paddling backwards and would win hands down any day.

Jungle

Water monitor

We kayaked through some caves, stopped on a little beach where a chair had been made for the Queen but she never visited (how sad!) and climbed on some vines. As we got back to hotel it started to rain which was perfect timing! Sometimes Brett and are so lucky with random stuff like that. So it was the perfect opportunity to have some lunch, watch some TV and relax before the rain stopped and we could go souvenir shopping. It was nice to see all the little shops. Ao Nang is pretty touristy and people don't necessarily go there for the beach, but it is still a beautiful place. We found a bar that was selling buy one get one free drinks all night so we settled down with some mojitos hoping more people would show up. We had the bar to ourselves for about 4 hours...it was pretty nice. The locals are very friendly and chatted with us a bit and Brett even joined in some of their "competitions".

Anyway, we got a little carried away that night as one might with 2-for-1 mojitos but actually we were totally fine the next morning, just a little sleepy.

Day 4 Saturday July 30, 2011:

Today we planned on going to Railay. We hadn't made any plans, reservations or anything and knew that we could hop on a longtail boat to get there. Unfortunately, it was super expensive because there is a set rate and if you don't have many people, it gets to be a little pricey. We waited around for an hour and then just decided to pay the price for traveling and hopped on the boat. The boat guy was not very helpful and didn't say anything the whole way or help us at all once we "docked". We knew we were at Railay but he didn't help with directions or anything so that was a frustrating couple of hours, but you really can't stay upset in paradise so we tried to not let it bother us especially when we happened upon a group of monkeys walking across to the other side of the peninsula, so that was fun. Still tired, and really hot, we didn't try and find the place I initially wanted to in, we just chose to stay at a little hotel that actually turned out to be a lot worse than the room she had shown us. Oh well, we needed somewhere to drop our stuff and rinse off and sleep at night. We headed back to the beach on the other side and walked around, took a dip in the ocean and drank a coconut.

Railay

We went back to the other side for lunch and then attempted to find Phra Nang beach which is supposed to be amazing. And, well it was stupid beautiful. We seriously had no words. Our camera did not do it justice.

After soaking in as much of this beach that we could, we decided to head back. By this point, we realized how long we had been in the sun and we were both quite sunburned... oops. Oh well, we went and had a fun little dinner in a side street restaurant and enjoyed fruit shakes at a little cafe on the water.

Day 5 Sunday July 31, 2011

Realizing how sunburned we were in the morning we picked up some aloe while waiting for breakfast and our boat to go to Koh Phi Phi. In the meantime, we were visited by a cat who was just chilling at our feet. There are tons of cats in Thailand, it's amazing. The server told me this cat had three kittens and showed them to me. I had no idea they were only 2 weeks old!! That was fun to see.

So that concluded our trip to Railay and we were on our way to Koh Phi Phi. We hopped on the ferry and settled in for a two hour boat ride to the island. When we got off we were bombarded with people trying to sell us things and bring us to their hotel. It was quite stressful so we had to stop and get some food and take it all in. One place was grilling chicken right there on the street and it looked delicious so we had some of that and it was indeed delicious. We also had a lunch buddy which was pretty fun...

I love that picture and think it is hilarious...I had given that cat some skin from the chicken and when I wouldn't feed her anymore, she snuck up on Brett. After lunch we decided to try and find somewhere to stay. Luckily a lady stopped us to ask if we needed a map or any help and told us that where we were going was about an hour walk and during low season, possibly closed. We ended up staying at the Viking Nature Resort which a friend of ours here in Korea had actually stayed in before so we were excited! We got there and it seriously looked like the Swiss Family Robinson! It was so cool. Our hut had a hammock on the porch and our bed was covered in a mosquito net and we knew we would be falling asleep to the sound of the waves since we were way secluded from any noisy town hub-bub and what not. Since we were pretty burned from the day before, we had some lunch in the restaurant which still opened up to the outside to give you a fresh ocean breeze and enjoyed the scenery. Later we went in to the water but it was low tide so it was quite rocky. So rocky, in fact, that when Brett grabbed on to a rock while a wave pushed him back, his wedding ring popped off...oops. We searched, with the help of a nice Austrian couple, for about 2 hours. The visibility was so bad and Brett got snapped at by an eel so we unfortunately had to stop our search. Frustrating for sure, but definitely not the end of the world. We ended up having a couple drinks with the Austrian couple, Chris and Connie, so that was fun. They were actually the exact same age which meant we had some things in common like finishing college, what to do next and wanting to travel as much as possible!

Day 6 Monday August 1, 2011:

We found out that we would be able to walk back to the main town of Koh Phi Phi so we packed up and headed out after a very nice, relaxing morning. By this point, we were realizing how much we really just needed to force ourselves to relax. We have a very hard time sitting still and just like to do as much as we can when we can however we can. The walk to town was pleasant as we walked part of the way in the ocean. We did a little more shopping and tried to find a replacement for Brett's ring. We didn't really find what he was looking for, but we found one that works for now. Today we were going to take the afternoon ferry to Phuket where we would spend the remainder of our stay. We got on the ferry at 2:30 and got in to Phuket at about 4:30 where we had to get in a van to drive us north to our hotel. Very interesting to see a bigger town and see more of how people, that aren't tourists, actually live. Our hotel was very nice. We "sprung" for a nice hotel for the last two nights. We found a deal on a 5 star hotel that cost $60 a night, pretty amazing. We settled in to our room and watched some TV, something we really don't get to do in Korea. Had some dinner and played some ping pong and pool and then went to bed.

Day 7 Tuesday August 2, 2011

We had been thinking about going elephant trekking today but decided we were pretty tired and it wouldn't hurt to stay in and relax. We were at a pretty nice hotel after all. We stayed at the pool all day with a trip to the beach to build sand castles and then back to the pool. It was so nice to just stay in one place all day and not worry about anything. So yeah, that's all we did. Oh, I did win a game of BINGO and won a free beer! But that was pretty much it.

Day 8 Wednesday August 3, 2011
Le sigh, last day, complete with 5:30 AM wake up call. Yuck. They did have breakfast waiting for us but it was covered in ants...the fruit and juice were salvageable but no such luck on the sandwiched. Turns out we were at the airport way too early as well. Oh well, now we know. Nothing too exciting here, just traveling all day. The interesting part wasn't until we ended our flight and arrived in Korea. Being in Thailand, we saw how relaxed and calm and happy people were. The food was great, weather was amazing and it was just an all around great place to be. Getting back to Korea was kind of surreal since it is the place we call home but still can't seem to quite fit in. We like the food alright, but the lifestyle is too fast pace and high-maintenance most days and our apartment just doesn't entirely feel like ours. We wanted to turn around and go right back but obviously that was not an option...Anyway, we are readjusting fine, we were just given some perspective on Korea as a country and as a people spending some time away for a while so that was interesting. So happy and thankful we were able to take this trip! It was just absolutely incredible and I hope that some of you are able to experience it for yourselves someday. Truly a unique experience!

Oh hey there July, nice to meet ya!

2011-07-05T16:33:00.000+09:00

Hi all!

So June right? Yeah, that was fun?! Can't believe, actually, how fast June went by and seems like forever ago since my last post. It was a month, but still...Anyway, as usual, quite a bit has happened when it also seems like nothing happened at all.

We had our first year anniversary, which was amazing :) Such a happy time to remind each other how much we still love and care about each other. We went to a fun little place in Jeongja and actually had 5,000 chopped off the bill because they didn't have change for a 10! It was a nice little present I suppose. Speaking of presents, I don't have a picture of Brett's present I made for him, but if I do say so myself, it was pretty awesome. You will see later when I put it up later. And he got me a nice, new watch that doesn't fall off at random times, especially while chasing after and banging on a bus trying to make them stop. Yeah, that happened.

After dinner, we took the bottle of wine I had in my purse and went to a little park around the corner and enjoyed our beverage from tiny sake glasses. After we finished Brett convinced me to get some sashimi (for dessert, of course! (?)) and sake from a cool sake bar, so that was fun. Nothing too crazy, but it was really nice to have a legit date night, even though we spend so much time together, this was nice and different.

So handsome :)

Sashimi, it was so delicious

Ooh! You can see the watch!

Us on the wine in the garden part of our date

The sake bar apparently was into action figures?

Before our anniversary, we also had some friends from Gonzaga who are teaching in Busan come up to Seoul and visit us. Ok, got it? Yeah, there are a lot of places going on in that sentence. But yes, Sarah and Melissa are teaching in Busan and they came up for a visit so that was fun to see some familiar faces from home!

We also met some fun new people, SUPER randomly and it couldn't have worked out better. We met a couple a few weeks ago, Laura and Connor (not Tom...) that we ran into a few times. Well, last Friday Brett and I were thinking we just needed to get out of Jukjeon and thought about going to Octoberfest for a beer or two and happened upon Laura and Connor. We stopped for a second to say hi and then all of a sudden there were like 10 people in this group talking about Canada Day and Traveler's Bar and hosers and beavers and we got caught up in this business that was fun foreigners and decided to tag along. Hey, $2 drinks 9-12 with music and dancing, sounds fun right? Well, turns out it was awesome. We had so much fun and met some really neat people. We drank and danced and laughed and talked and before we knew it, we were carrying a couch into the apartment at 2 in the morning...oops...

No, but really, it was so refreshing to find a group of people that was here to stay and not going to peace out the minute got their phone number. We were hesitant to get numbers from Laura and Connor because the last 3 couples that we got numbers from have disappeared, mysteriously, into the night, in a land far far away...you get the point. Needless to say, this group of hosers isn't going anywhere. And one of the best things is that we are all neighbors for the most part and they aren't crazy like many of the expats we have run into. Yay! Successful friend making in Korea!

We are really looking forward to these next 5 months. School has been quite stressful since, well I guess since the beginning. We just keep hoping it will get better and easier, and it does some days but those days are numbered and before we know it, we have a new schedule or a plethora of new kiddos. It can be so frustrating when it is SO obvious that the teachers' well-being is not at the forefront of concern with some of these people. I told one class that in America, we get three months of school off. His response: "AHHH why am I Korean? I hate this land!" Ok, a little extreme, I don't hate Korea by any means, I do think that this school is not doing itself a favor by giving us the bare minimum in time off and the maximum with time on.

Anyway, back to why we are excited for the rest of our time here: A.) We have new friends which is always a plus, B.) We are going to Thailand in three weeks, C.) We still have a lot of time to experience Korea D.) We have made our apartment even more comfortable with that couch we found, and E.) some of these kids really love us and do help make our job easier and more fun.

Well, that's all folks! We hope you are enjoying your summer! If any of you back home have our address, we would love to hear from you via letter or email or skype! bye bye!

Videos from Sokcho

2011-06-30T13:40:00.002+09:00

Hey all! Sorry no update yet, just been a bit preoccupied! Anyway, here are some videos from our trip to Sokcho last month. Just getting to them now, I know, but we are trying to free up space on our camera. Enjoy!

Biseondae Cave

The ocean from the bus!

Me trying to figure out where to stand for a picture...

Hiking up to Ulsan Bawi

A quick view of the crazy crowded stairs to Ulsan Bawi.

We made it to the top!