Away From My Computer...

I had a lovely time in Korea, yes, my adventure there has ended... back in summer of 2011. I've since moved back to Minnesota, got married, purchased a home and been generally busy. 
I will forever love my time in Korea, the whole year abroad with language barriers, cultural barriers, and eye opening experiences! I am forever grateful in the new friends I've made, new extended family (I've met for the first time) and delicious food. I loved it, but I'm also happy to be home. 

*I have waayyy too many pictures I wanted to post, but ze blog says no, as it has crashed a few times...*  I digress. 
My NEW plan is to update this baby more often with new-ish information on my life. As my cat will allow, since she is now trying to attempt to take over my technology while waiting for food impatiently...

A "Few" memories from Korea.

Extended Family

Father-in-law, me, and husband

Grandmother-in-law, me, and husband

Me, husband, and Uncle-in-law

New Friends!

Katie and I; at the Cherry Blossom Festival

Sarah and I; picking green tea buds from the source!

Katie, Amy, Sarah, and me; at the Green Tea Festival

Me, Sarah, and Katie; outside our traditional pension sleeping quarters

Claire, Sarah, Michael, and I; at Lotte World (inside)

Me, Sarah, Michael, and Claire; at Lotte World (outside)

Sarah and I; at a Noribang

Co-Workers

Life Experiences

Making/pounding tteok

Making green tea soap

DMZ

Experiencing Low Tide on the coast of the Yellow Sea

I bought the soundtrack for Secret Garden, first love of kdrama

JYJ Concert

Outside my classroom, displaying student Jack-o-lantern contest I organized

Winter walk through the park near my school, yes they only get a little snow compared to home

Lotte World

Wave perm in process

Subway Station near my apartment

Lovely note on my milk from my co-teacher

Me, Claire, Sarah and Phill; at Everland

Me and Phill; waiting in line to take the T-Express wooden roller coaster

"Fish" cafe, little fish nibbling on your dead skin cells, I couldn't handle it for a minute, I'm too ticklish.

Mokpo

Sarah and I; being silly foreigners

Screen Golf

Sarah and I; at Coffee Prince, from the kdrama

My hand is the same size as T.O.P.'s from Big Bang

Katie, Sarah, and I; Buddha's Birthday at a Buddhist Temple

I wish I could share my ENTIRE photo album, but alas, ze blog says no. I had enough difficulty posting these few. Ugh, sometimes technology hates me.
So, there, I fast forwarded through my time in Korea. Next blog post will probably be another time warp, just not as extreme, maybe.... You'll have to wait and see.

Also, all of these photos were from Korea, duh, in different places, not just around Seoul, if you want to know more info please leave a comment, I just may response with a valid answer. :p

Happy Chusoek!

09.17-24.2010
So, I'm trying to fast-forward as much as possible, without forgetting any of the big festivities...
Chusoek is the Harvest Festival/Thanksgiving/Memorial of ancestors, so it's just sort of a big deal in S. Korea. In my pre-Chusoek festivities, I got pizza from the NEW neighborhood pizza joint, a whole Hawaiian pizza for 7,000won.


I did have to work for about half of the week for Chusoek, I know some schools allowed their English teachers for the whole week off, but I really didn't mind it too much, I just had to be there, since no classes were in session, it was my prep time.
During my holiday I went to a burger joint with Micheal in Suwon station, to prove to that my recruiter was incorrect, she sent me an email, recommending to me to go grocery shopping before Chusoek, since no restaurants would be open...
I had a chicken sandwich and Mountain Dew, a real treat for me.
Also, my school did generously give me a Chusoek gift, a year supply (for me) of laver.
Yay! I think its something I'll be sending home...

During the holiday, I did visit the Korean War Museum. It had a lot of interesting things to see. Here's a few photos:





After the war museum, we stopped off at Itaewon, a very popular area for foreigners in Seoul. In Yongsan-gu, off line 6, its a great place to find stuff you miss from back home, designers, food, clothes, English bookstores, etc... We had a nice dinner in an Irish pub. And we checked out the foreigners' market for those hard to find food items.
I had a nice time, made some new friends, and had a few drinks...

Typhoon

09.02.2010

I was released from the hospital on 8/31/10. Yay. Clean bill of health! On Wednesday I returned to work, as per usual, but everyone was anticipating the approaching typhoon. Needless to say, I was excited. My first typhoon! I’m actually going to experience what my BS Senior Research Paper was all about! Seriously, I can still be a weather nerd.


I was told that Typhoon Kompasu would make landfall early on Thursday morning. It was actually one of the few typhoons to reach the Seoul city limits. In open water, it reached a category 3 rating, but as we all know as soon as it made landfall the intensity and strength decreased. It was rated as a category 1 typhoon when it went through the Gyeonggi Province. I actually woke up in the middle of the night/early morning from the sounds of the strong winds and moderate rainfall. It was a fast moving typhoon, by morning, my daily walk to school was just rain with strong gusts of wind. To my surprise Typhoon Kompasu actually followed much of the DMZ as it went on land. Even a typhoon knows where the country borders are, lol. Unfortunately, there was extensive damage in both countries. My experienced entailed a lot of rain, high winds, and a ‘short’ power outage at work. Luckily, I still had everything working at my apartment. At school, the power didn’t come on until 11 am. So, I spent most of my morning drawing a ‘Thank you’ card for Aunt Yang Young-Rae.


It was a terrible example of my ability to blend colors with crayons. :/ Oils are much more forgiving! Anyways, there was extensive damage in Gyeonggi province. I have attached some links showing how much it affected not only Seoul, but the nation as well. http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2925479
These photos are a small example of the damage around my school and home.




Currently, there is a Korean cabbage shortage, because of the poor weather this summer and the typhoons. This is a major news story in Korea. The president has allowed an 'emergency cabbage' situation, in which Chinese cabbage will be imported without any extra customs fees. http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2010092871018