Happy Birthday to me!

Last week I mentioned to my boss that we had the same birthday (Monday), although his lunar birthday (which is often the one that is celebrated) was on Saturday, while mine was on Sunday. Anyway, I already told you about my weekend celebrations, but not included was my concern of what to get him as a gift. Birthdays aren't always a big deal here, but I figured he's my boss and he knows I know it's his birthday, so I should get him something. My Korean friend suggested "perfume" (meaning cologne) but the foreigners were like "no way". Then Liezle suggested chocolates, which was ok, except not Feraro Roche because those apparently signify love. I decided on a roll cake from Paris Baguette and some rice cakes.

Google wished me a happy birthday

When I gave him the gift, I think he felt guilty because he said he hadn't prepared anything for me. I told him that was perfectly fine and not to worry about it. Randomly throughout the day kids came over and told me happy birthday. Then, towards the end of the day, Woods asked me to come help him with something. The something turned out to be a class singing Happy Birthday and writing messages on the board. It was very sweet.

Me with So min, Min yeung and Won he (not sure if I spelled any of their names correctly)

After that some of the younger kids would come up to me and say "Happy Birthday Ryan teacher" then when I said "thank you" run to the other kids and tell them they said "Happy birthday". It was very cute. Two girls made me cards and wanted to know what my favorite foods were so they could draw appropriate pictures.

I have boob arms

I think she captured my general stance - I often stand with my hands in my sleeves.

As I was getting ready to leave, Woods asked me where I was going to meet my friends. I told him the p-dong area (which is about 3-4 bus stops away). He got this look on his face and was like, "you have to go home first, I think something might be there." I said, "okay" and then he told me to go home. When I walked in the door, a cake, a card and a bottle of wine were waiting for me. So I messaged him "thank you" and he said, "sorry for going into your apartment, but I didn't want to leave it outside." I didn't really care, except that this is what my apartment looked like:

Unmade bed, check. Clothes (bra included) on chair, check. Suitcase (aka underwear drawer) in the middle of the room, check. Sadly, it's usually worse and was "clean" because Liezle was here this weekend.

My cake - it's cream and maybe strawberry

Wine and a washcloth

Poppers that come with birthday cakes - you pull those strings, it makes a loud pop and confetti shoots out.

After reading the card and putting the cake in the fridge, I went down the street to meet Ilani and Corrine for dinner. First we went in the glasses store and looked for new ones for Ilani (although I might get some red game day glasses since they are $20 total - including lenses and an eye exam). We went to the dak galbi place and had rice with double cheese as well. Then we went to Baskin Robbins and had ice cream with candles in it. It was very sweet of them. We chatted for a long time, then went home. I got some cards from family and friends as well and it ended up being a great day.

Blowing out candles on my ice cream

Very Korean card from Liezle

On Tuesday, one of my coworkers gave me chocolate since he didn't know it was my birthday. I told him he didn't have to get me anything, but he gave them to me anyway. Then Kyeong He came by my work and dropped off a beautiful scarf. I didn't see her come in because I was in class, but she sent a text that said, "it's not a fancy one, but full of love and respect" so how could I not like it!? I also got more cards today, so it's like I get a continued birthday and that's always fun :)

Card from Woods - yea I don't get it either

Pre-birthday weekend

This was super busy weekend, so enjoy reading!

I haven't seen Liezle in awhile, so she decided to come to town to visit me and some other people. I went home after work on Friday and cleaned for an hour - dishes, bed, general organizing, bathroom and sweeping. I need people to come over more often because that's really the only reason why I clean. I went to Friday night prayer service, then met Kyeong He and Krista for dinner. There was some confusion and I ended up wandering a bookstore for a few minutes before I got a message they were someone else. Oh well. Liezle came in late Friday night and met us at the gamjatang (beef spine soup that's really good) place. She had already eaten, so didn't eat too much there. Then we debated on what we should do. Krista really wanted to sing, since she used to live in Japan and hadn't been to a norebang yet in Korea. So first we went to get take-out coffees at Angel-in-Us. Then we walked around looking for a place to sing. There are dozens advertised in the area near us, but it turned out that they were all business rooms. The funniest part of the evening was explaining to Kyeong He (the Korean with us) what business rooms were. She didn't really believe us and actually talked to a group of men who were outside one and asked them some basic questions. Then we tried to go into another place (that didn't say it was a business room) and got immediately escorted out of it. Then we passed a strange looking building with Greek statues outside. Liezle asked what it was and Kyeong He goes "I think a prostitute house...yes, it's definitely a prostitute house." The 3 non-Koreans laughed hysterically at her nonchalance about it.

After walking in a giant circle for 20 minutes or so, we ended up at Pop-Junko, which is located directly above the restaurant where we had dinner. I've been there before last year and it's a really nice place, but can be a little pricey. It was also strange because neither I nor Liezle had ever gone singing stone cold sober before, and we weren't planning on drinking, so it was going to be a totally different experience for us. So we rented the room, they brought us food (it's required that you buy something) and sang for 2 hours. Krista is a high soprano and has a lovely voice. She sang quite a few Japanese songs too. So we were very multicultural. Your voice sounds slightly better when you haven't been drinking, but your enthusiasm for the song is definitely lower. It was still fun though! We left around 2, then Liezle and I stayed up talking until just after 4.

What the screen looks like - they play random movie or TV clips behind your songs that don't match at all.

Selfie in the mirror/wall at the norebang

On Saturday we got up and started to get ready around 10. We went downtown to Waining coffee. I hadn't been there since I've been back to Korea and was excited because they have a good chai tea latte...or at least they used to. Ordering was interesting because when I asked for the latte, they said "no, now we have milk tea" so I was like fine, can I have a large and the lady said, "no large size". It ended up ok, but it wasn't what I wanted. Liezle's friend Nick was going to meet us there, but while we were waiting for our drinks, I saw Josh walking past, so I ran outside to meet him. He was taking a box to the post office. So I told him to come back over if he wanted to and meet Liezle and Nick. The post office was closed, but he came back and stayed with us for most of the rest of the day. We stayed at the coffee place for close to 2 hours, when we finally decided to go to lunch. We went to a chicken place that I'd been to before with Josh - it's a great place though.

After lunch we were trying to decide what to do, so we walked around downtown for a little while, went shopping in a few stores, laughed at horrible Konglish shirts and walked around some more. It is still quite cold here and were trying to come up with something else to do, so we decided to go to another coffee shop. The first one we tried was full, so we ended up going back to back to Waining. This time I got a chocolate mint smoothie and Josh got something called "Choco mountain" because he wanted to see what it was - it was frozen yogurt with chocolate syrup and chocolate cereal on it.

After coffee, Josh ended up going to Emart then going home. The three of us decided to go bowling and called Kyeong He to meet us there. We bowled one game without her (I bowled a 140), then 2 more games with her (I did not do well on the second 2 games). The last game was fun though because we decided to play teams - me and Liezle v. Nick and Kyeong He. The winner had to buy drinks. We lost horribly because both Liezle and I did poorly.

Nice form for Kyeong He!

After bowling, we went back to the same norebang. We decided to just do dinner there since they make you buy food anyway. We ordered what is labeled "Cajun chicken salad" but is not cajun by any means. It had lettuce, Korean pear slices, hard-boiled eggs and chicken with a sweetish, honey-type glaze. It's very good, but not cajun. We sang for another 2 hours and this time we decided to try out songs we would usually not sing with our friends as practice. There were a couple that ended up ok - "breathless" by the Corrs was a good one. And some that were awful - Kelly Clarkson is not in my range! Turns out I'm more like my sister than I thought and tend to sound better when I stick to songs sung by dudes. Unless I go super high - the middle is my downfall. After singing, we called it a night (it was a little before midnight) and went home. We stayed up talking again for another couple of hours and it just made me realize how much I miss talking to Liezle.

The "free" food they give you. The top left is japchae (glass noodles and veggies), the top right is papbingsu (shaved ice, sweet cream, red beans and cereal), center is egg rolls (scrambled eggs rolled up with spicy peppers), the bottom left is edemame and the bottom right is caramelized/burnt rice (sweet but super hard/crunchy)

Sunday morning we got up and started getting ready at 10 again. We back back to Waining and met Nick for coffee a little before noon. I had to leave for church at 1, so we said goodbye and Liezle gave me a birthday present of lotion and coffee with a cute mug. It was very sweet.

After church, we prayed and said goodbye to a lady named Joanna who leaves tomorrow for Canada. She's been in Jinju for close to 2 1/2 years and was a regular member of IEC. Then we had a town hall meeting. They do this twice a year to get feedback from everyone, tell the plans for the upcoming months and give a budget report. I will be hosting monthly game/social nights starting next month, so I had to deliver a little announcement about that. They had pizza, but I don't think they anticipated that many people, so I got 1 slice. After the announcement other people mentioned they were still hungry, so we decided to go to Han's Deli. I was meeting Josh later, so I had a couple of chicken tenders. Corinne often gets this rice dish that has fish flakes on it. The best part is that the flakes move and look kind of like worms when the dish first comes out due to the heat from the rice. This video isn't great, but you can kind of see it, plus the background commentary is kind of funny.

This picture is actually from LeeAnna's cake last week, but was too funny not to share with you. Oh Konglish, how I love you.

I then met Josh for what could be our last dinner. He's still waiting to get paid for his last month of teaching and to get confirmation of his plane tickets/job etc. from Africa. So he could leave anytime from Wednesday - Saturday of this week. The 2 of us went to the meat place and tried some new kinds of meat, but didn't actually eat very much (which is a good thing). We stayed for awhile after eating, just talking like we always do. He was telling me a lot about his time in HR and some of the cool things he did. I'll see him again before he goes, but it might only be for a short minute, so tonight was kind of bittersweet. Then I came home and skyped with one of my cousins for a little while, updated pictures and wrote this! I'm pretty tired now, so I'm off to bed!

This week in dinners...

On Monday I had dinner with Josh. Our usual day is Wednesday, but he had a life crisis (i.e. a big fight with a friend) and needed to talk about it. So we met after I finished school at the kimbap place and he basically watched me eat dinner since he was stressed. We talked for awhile, and while nothing changed in terms of how he was feeling or the status of the relationship, I know just being able to vocalize helps him work out his feelings.

On Tuesday I got a text with lots of exclamation points from Josh asking if we could meet again. That's my "late" date since I have my adult class, but I didn't mind. I actually guessed his surprise, but it was still awesome to hear him tell me about it in person. He had applied for a really cool job a few months ago, had an interview, then got a rejection letter. Apparently either the letter was sent by accident, or the other person canceled, because he was offered the job! It's awesome for him - his position and all the details (including person home security guard) are incredible. I am really excited for him. But I'm a little sad for me - the job is in Nairobi, Kenya. That's Africa for those of you who are really bad at geography. That's like 3 whole continents away. Luckily, I know that we'll be able to stay in touch through email, facebook and skype because both of us are "good" at staying in touch that way. I will miss our coffee dates something awful though. We're still not sure when he's leaving, but I'll keep you posted.

On Wednesday I met up with a whole group of girls. Corinne and I are still on "camp" schedule and get out earlier than usual and some of the other teachers are on vacation, so we decided to meet up before we're all back on "normal" schedules when it's difficult to meet during the week. So Corinne, Ilani, Leeanna (she lived under me last year), Eugene (a Korean from church - not sure if I've talk about her before, but she's super sweet) and Jungwha all met and decided to go to Dal Oasis again, since only Corinne and I had been there and we both liked it. The lady who owns the place is super sweet, and actually went to high school with Eugene! We all basically ordered the same thing, or a variety of it: a chicken wrap. I think I mentioned before that the menu had it labeled as chicken "lap", but at some point in the last week they fixed it to "wrap". I got the wrap and salad and Leeanna and I split some fries.

Chicken wrap and side salad

Our drink cups with cute fruit straws. Our water glasses were cuter and next time I will have to remember to take a picture.

It happened to be Leeanna birthday and Corinne was sweet enough to buy her a cake. It was an awesome one too. Some cakes are either cheesecakes (which are tasty, but not the dense, NY style I prefer) or super fruity. Most of the cakes taste ok, but are often texturally wrong for me. This one was delicious. The six of us stayed for close to 3 hours, just talking and comparing stories in Korean. It's really interesting and special to have Korean friends because you get a whole different outlook on some cultural things that don't always make sense. Plus these 2 girls are awesome anyway! On our walk home, Ilani got hit on by some high school boys, which was a little funny.

The cake on the right (chocolate) is the one we had. The other is from her school. The top of the cake had white chocolate pieces, truffles and cookies on it too!

Tonight (Thursday), I went to Brandon and Jamie's to do some prayer with Ilani and Elizabeth. First we had dinner - flautas (or something similar to Aunt Nan's chicken roll-ups). They were excellent. I am always impressed with Jamie's ability to cook here. After dinner we started to read Romans, and read through chapter 9 before we needed a break. Jamie made these wonder-bar brownie things with coconut that ended up getting slightly toasted in the oven - they were excellent. We decided to call it a night at that point because it was after 10 and we were getting sleepy. It was still a really great night in study, because along with reading, Brandon answered lots of questions (especially from me and Ilani!) and we had a couple of discussions related to it. These smaller prayer studies/groups are how I get the most out of reading the Bible and I'm grateful to have people who enjoy reading and participating with me and don't mind that I ask so many questions!

This weekend should be interesting (hopefully). Liezle is coming to town tomorrow (I think) and I've got a couple of other things on the burner too. So we'll see.

Okpo with Corinne

On Wednesday, I had dinner with my friend Corinne at a newish place in P-dong. We ended up talking for like 4 hours and really catching up. At dinner we decided to take a trip to Geoje together on Saturday. She's been meaning to go, but things kept popping up and she was never able to.

We met at the bus stop and quickly hopped on the bus (I was almost late, but luckily made it with 2 minutes to spare!) to Geoje. The ride is a little over an hour so by the time we got off and assessed our surroundings, we decided it was lunch time. One of the reasons we chose Geoje is because their is a Mexican place there and both of us like Mexican. Corinne is a vegetarian (although she eats seafood and doesn't freak if meat touches her food) and is also trying to remove gluten from her diet and this place has corn shells. I am not either of those things, so I had a steak burrito and it was yummy!

The guac was good, but the black beans were a little sweet for me. I ate them anyway though :)

We chatted for awhile after lunch, then decided to walk around the harbor. I had done this before with Liezle, but this time we went further. To get to the path, you have to walk through some boat docks. They were lined with fish hung up to dry. One section was hilarious because it was a line an had both fish and drying laundry on it.

Sea-air dried fish. Apparently this is a delicacy.

Next, you walk along a wooden path along the shoreline. This path goes on for a little while, then dead ends into a ladder. Last time, this is where we called it quits and turned around.

The harbor looking out to the sea. I know it looks almost like sunset here, but it was around 3, so my camera just made it look like that.

Looking back into the cove. This picture was taken after the one above.

This time I climbed the steel ladder (which I didn't care for, but was able to do by looking straight ahead and seeing dirt) and then we walked for another little while until we came to a really steep section and decided that's where we should turn around. The path leads from one small city to another, but we needed to start and finish at the same city. We took a different route on the way back and ended up going down a super steep section. Luckily it was dry and not muddy or we might have had bruised butts.

Looking toward the other city from the top of the ladder

Me in the woods :)

Corinne posing on a newly built rest area pavilion.

After the hike, we went to what we thought was a coffee shop, but was really a restaurant. It was a super cute place, although you had to go outside and into a separate building to use the bathroom. I had a strawberry smoothie and it was really good. They also gave us some honey bread, which was really just phylo dough with butter on it and a side dish of dipping honey. It was still good.

The interior was super cutesy.

After snack, we did the second thing on Corinne's list - the foreign market. Apparently there are 2 of them in Geoje, but we only went to one of them. It's just a small store, but it has foods from America and India and probably some other places. I think most of it comes from Costco and somehow gets routed there too. I bought some chick peas, coconut milk (for stir fry) and oatmeal. She got some cheese, beans and some ginger candy.

I asked the check out lady where we needed to go to get a bus back to Jinju, except her to tell me the name of the bus terminal. She said to walk one store over and that was the side-street bus terminal. We walked in and the lady there wasn't super helpful, but a guy behind us in line was nice. Our timing was perfect and a bus for Jinju came after about 2 minutes. When we got on, the driver looked at our tickets, told us to get off and get on the next one. So we waited another 2 minutes and got on another bus! We talked the whole way home and both of us were tired, so we went home. I got in pjs, watched Paranorman and updated my blog. It was a great day and I'm really glad I decided to go with her!

Life in ROK - Part 1

A friend of mine sent me a facebook list about living in Korea. It is highly accurate and will share it with you in 2 parts. I'll share the list and also my personal experiences off the list.

Things that just don't seem strange anymore...

1 - Pedestrians share the sidewalk with automobiles and motorcycles...
This was almost hilarious because less than 30 minutes after reading this post, I almost got hit by a car. On the sidewalk. Not just on the curb, but halfway down a long sidewalk. This guy apparently needed to park directly in front of the hotdog restaurant. Avoiding crazy motorcycles is a daily  task. They run lights, swerve all over the place and hop on and off sidewalks whenever they feel like it.

2 - Restrooms don't have toilet paper or paper towels...
I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before. But it's kind of true. Most public bathrooms don't have toilet paper in the stalls, but rather on a huge roll near the entrance or the sinks (or not at all in some cases). You have to remember to get tp before you go into the stall, or you'll either have to go without, or stand in line again. Most girls figure this out by the second time they've had to shake (which isn't as easy for girls) and end up with emergency tp (in the form of a mini tissue pack) in their purses. When I went home for a few months, the habit of looking around for tp stayed with me for awhile.

3 - Every child you pass on the street will say 'hello' to you...
This is true. Especially if they're under 15. Then will then giggle and talk about you while you are still standing there if you respond. Some of the bolder ones will also ask your name or where you're from.

4 - Children love arm hair...
Crazy, but true. I don't have very thick or dark arm hair, but multiple students (again especially young ones) will pet it. Apparently it's more common with guys or girls with darker hair.

5 - Every city bus will have at least 2 teenage boys sitting in each others laps and playing with each others hair...
I know I've talked about the Korean familiarity and how it's "not gay". It's sometimes odd to be in such different cultural norms.

6 - People think you should board the train first before allowing people to get off...
True dat. Sometimes buses too. Usually though buses are set up so you get on in the front and off at the back.

7 - You leave the house almost every day with the hem of your pants soaking wet...
 Spring and fall aren't too bad, but summer you are always wet. Winter is hit or miss. This year my pants were usually wet because we had a lot of snow and ice.

8 - Cell phones are meant to always be turned on...
To use as mirrors, to text people in movie theaters or to watch tv on the bus.

9 - People love to know your blood type...
They have never expressly asked me, but I've heard they know your personality based on blood type. It is very common for kids to talk about it and even the little ones know their blood types.

10 - Growing a beard ages you by 20 years...
I have not experienced this, but some of my guy friends talk about how shocked kids are when they have changing facial hair.

11 - Kids and non-smokers are invincible to second-hand smoke...
Many people smoke here, but I have found that's it's really not that bad in most places. In general, you can't smoke in restaurants, coffee places have well ventilated smoking sections and it's not nearly as bad as I remember it in Europe. It's bad at bars though.

12 - Trash can fires are not just for the homeless anymore...
I haven't seen this, but I did see a guy just light a random wood pile on fire in the street when it snowed. Not sure if he was burning trash or trying to melt the snow.

13 - You are at risk of being hit by a car the second you walk out of your apartment...
 See number 1.

14 - There are more oscillating-fan-related deaths than shootings...
I'm sure I've talked about this before, but can't seem to find the post(s) I've mentioned it in, so read this instead.

15 - Other foreigners fascinate you...
Strangely true. And sometimes, especially when you go to a bigger city with more foreigners, you think there are too many of them and would rather go to a restaurant or bar that didn't have as many. Sometimes you also forget that speak English and tend to talk about them while they are standing directly next to you.

My week with Flat Stanley

One of my best friends from college asked if I would participate in her son's Flat Stanley project. For those of you not in the know, Flat Stanley is a book about geography for kids. Stanley gets flattened by a bulletin board and can now travel in envelopes. So the kids mail him to someone and they document what Stanley does with them for a week (pictures etc. included). He's then mailed (or emailed) back to the student and they talk about where he visited.

I've done this 2 times before - Stanley visited me in college and in DC. He got here last Monday and this was our week together:

He came to school with me everyday. He sat in on some of my classes and met some students. This class thought it was hilarious.

E4 class (all these kids are around 10 years old)

On Wednesday, we went to dinner and coffee with Josh and Jayden. It was a fun night but I had to cover his ears for most of our conversation since we talked a lot about grown-up things.

Coffee

Wall art I liked

On Thursday, we went to lunch with Kyeong Hee. He tried kimbap (which my mom wouldn't try), dduk boki and ramen noodles. I have to eat super quick now since I only have about 40 minutes for lunch. Lukcily this place is across the street from my school.

You can still see the snow out the window

All our food - we shared - very Korean

Friday we went to Brandon and Jamie's for dinner. Jamie made a chili-like soup and it was really good. Then we had prayer service at church and went back to their house to prayer extra. We have a new church member who is currently demon-possessed, so for the next 2-3 weeks, a lot of extra prayer will happen for her.

Saturday was really cold so we didn't do much (even though in my letter I said we visited Jinju castle - I had to throw in some culture!) I'm actually working my way through Oscar nominated movies and watched Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, and Silver Lining Playbook. All were very good movies so this year will be tough.

Psy socks

Today we went to church. After church we said goodbye to one of our members, Hannah. She just finished med school here and will be doing her residencey in another city (she's not sure where yet). It is very sad because I like her a lot. But I wish her all the best and hopefully she'll be able to come visit sometimes.

We went to a late lunch at Han's deli, which I like because they have a soda machine with get your own refills. I had an omrice, which is basically an omelet filled with rice. It's pretty good and this one had chicken so I liked it. After that, I went back to Brandon and Jamie's for extra prayer with the new church member. We read and prayed together then Jamie made brownies. It was a nice evening.

Last Weekend - food oriented, yet not

I had a fairly busy weekend, at least compared to some of the last few weekends I've been here. I'm now in "winter" hours, which should last the month of January, so I'm done a little earlier. On Friday, I was able to go to Friday night prayer meeting for the first time since being back. I missed being a part of that service. I think those meetings played a huge role in my being able to communicate with God. After the meeting, I went back to Brandon and Jamie's and we talked about a lot of things, especially baptism and what it means to me.

On Saturday, I slept in. I actually slept for about 10 hours straight without waking up, so I guess I needed the sleep. The switch in schedules had more of an effect on me than I'd realized. I met Krista and Kyeong Hee around 5 and we went to dinner at the dak galbi place I love in my old neighborhood. The guy was really nice (as usual) and we added ramen into the dinner, which was new for me.

After chicken, we went to a cute coffee shop Kyeong Hee went to earlier in the week. It's called something like "artist cafe and coffee shop". It has a little garden patio on the side (which we obviously didn't sit in since it's still negative degrees outside) and inside has lots of plants, cacti and bric a brac. The lady who runs it is really nice and brought us a steak salad for free (I think she was bored and wanted to cook something). I'm not sure if it's a new cafe or not, because it's somewhat common to give free dishes at new places as an advertising thing. We stayed there for about 2 hours, then went home.

The three of us before we left. We had asked them to take a picture of us earlier and they totally cut Krista out. So they felt bad and took another before we left.

Some of the plants and random junk

Steak salad! It was good.

Kyeong Hee added this on her camera. We were teaching her idioms and Krista taught her "all that" earlier in the week.

On Sunday, I went to church, which was interesting because we had a guest minister who is the son of the main church's pastor and also was a student of Brandon and Jamie's when they were youth ministers. His style is different than Brandon's, but he gave a good message. After we went to Han's deli for lunch. It's a misnomer to me, because even though it's called a deli, it has no sandwiches or anything similar to an American deli. I had a rice dish with cheese and bacon and corn. It was pretty good, but I think I will be more adventurous next time I go there.

After church, I had about an hour to kill, so I went to a coffee shop and had a latte and did a crossword puzzle on my Nook. Then I met a group of people and we headed towards another cafe for book club. This is the first book club meeting I've been too in a long time. We're reading "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. It's funny because I read an article that included an interview with the author shortly before this book was selected. I'm really enjoying the book so far. We met at a place called Table 9 and I really liked the place. The owners speak some English and have funny little Lego guys around. I will try and remember to take photos next time. I ate again there and had a chicken sandwich, salad and coffee. We talked for about 2 hours and it got very spirited. After I went to E-mart with 2 of the guys and got some yogurt and blueberries, which made me happy.

Then I went home, did some laundry and had Brain Pops on in the background because today's song was "Summer Nights" from Grease and it was awesome, in part because they sang "summer loving" instead of "summer lovin'" and were so proper about it.

Happy New Year!

This blog just went into it's 3rd calendar year!

** Again some picture and hopefully video are missing and will be added later **

I wasn't sure what I was going to do on New Year's Eve. Last year I went to Busan with Anna and Liezle, but this year New Year's day was on a Tuesday and I had to work on Monday, so going somewhere was really not an option. A few people posted random things on the Jinju facebook page, and one of them was that some sort of event would happen at Jinju castle from 11pm on.

I decided I would try that out and see what it was about. I didn't want to go alone, so I asked Kyeong Hee and Krista if they wanted to join me. I'm glad they did! They had the day off, so they met me after I finished at 9:30 at a coffee shop. We chatted and drank coffee (and I tasted a blueberry latte - better than you'd think, but not something I would order often) until just after 11. We caught a cab to the castle after walking for a bit. Kyeong Hee showed us how to pull each other over the ice on the sidewalk. Krista and I told her how that was hard for Americans because we can't squat the same way Koreans do.

Dragging people on the ice is "fun"

When we arrived at the castle it was very busy. There were lines all over the place. One line was for balloons. They are "hope" balloons and you are supposed to release it at midnight. The lines for balloons was really long, so we just borrowed some from a group of people to take a picture, then gave them back. They thought we were funny.

Me, Krista and strangers' balloons

Then we waited in a double line. The first part of the line was to fill out a wish slip. They handed you a thin strip of fabric and you wrote something on it with a marker. The second part of the line was for tea or coffee. After we got drinks, we took our slips over to a rope and tied them onto the rope.

Tying my wish on a rope

Then we walked over to the main area where they had some lantern type things set up. There was a make-shift stage with some dancers on it. Then they did a flash-mob dance to "Gangnam style" but changed it to Jinju style. It was very cute. We were toward the side of the stage and there were a fair amount of people, so we couldn't really see. Luckily, we were close to a big screen tv so we were able to watch everything that was happening. At that point we ran into some other foreigners. Then my camera died, so I asked them and Kyeong Hee to take pictures for me.

Me and Krista and a traditional outfit person (aka shell player - which made Kyeong Hee laugh when I called her that)

Some guy painted a wish for 2013 on a giant piece of paper with a mop, then the mayor of Jinju came out and signed it. Then they had a bunch of people dressed in traditional attire come out and they had a mock sword fight. Then the mayor said a few words and a count down started at 25. Everyone started counting at 10 and on 1 hundreds of balloons were released. As soon as the balloons were let go, they started ringing the giant bell. They rang it 33 times, which is apparently because of a sacrifice of people from years ago.

After the bell ringing, some really nice fireworks were set off. We watched those, then there was a mass exodus to surrounding areas. We didn't really know what was happening, so we went to the bell area to take pictures. Then a group of traditional people started dancing and playing instruments and Krista and I were dragged into the center. I got out quickly, but Krista got pulled back in by a lady and had to dance for like 5 minutes while Kyeong Hee and I laughed.

In front of the bell - the flash melted off my face :)

In the center of a crowd of dancing people

Then we went towards the tents where everyone had run to. One tent was handing out baked eggs, but they ran out before we got there. Another tent was handing out dduk guk (rice cake soup) which is the traditional food to eat on New Year's day. The line was crazy long (plus this version smelled kind of fishy) so we decided to skip it and eat it later during the day. The last line gave us rice cakes with red beans and peas in it. I don't really like it, but I got some and ate a few bites.

Dragon lantern thing - apparently a guardian of the 4 corners of the world. Not sure which direction this one is supposed to cover. Or if it's actually a dragon.

Phoenix. Another guardian. Or "giant chicken" as we called it.

Then we walked home in the cold. I am very glad that I decided to go to this event inside of staying inside. It was very neat to experience the traditional Korean events for 1-1 (even though they really celebrate lunar New year). I'm also glad I asked Kyeong Hee and Krista to go with me and I have a feeling I will be seeing much more of them in 2013. I hope all of you had wonderful New Year's (New Years'?) and that 2013 brings you every happiness.

Saturday part 2: Thai food and Christmas Tree Festival

First, read part 1.

So the 13 of us went to a Thai place called Arun Thai. The wait staff there was incredibly nice and sat us in a room off to the side. Conrad and his mom left before we ordered food because they were super tired. The whole restaurant was nice, from the decor, to the menu and food, to the staff.

Snowman near the door inviting everyone to enjoy wine (some of our group took his advice)

Table decorations. We think the squares are made from coconut but we aren't sure.

Place setting

I ordered a thai milk tea to start and it was awesome. It's cold and a combination of coconut milk and chai tea (I think). Then our food started arriving. I ordered pad thai and it was amazing - some of the best I've had. The funniest part was that the people who ordered curry got sides of rice in the shape of teddy bears!

Thai milk tea - you mix it up before you drink it

Pad thai. It was great. The little spice things to the right are ground up peanut, salt and something super spicy (from top to bottom).

After dinner, they brought everyone plum juice and tiny peanut butter and chocolate chip muffins. The juice was great. I will definitely go back there if I'm in that area again.

Elephant coaster that came with the plum juice

Rabbit coaster that came with my milk tea. I told you this place had cute decor.

After dinner, we went outside for the main reason I decided to go - the Christmas tree festival. Another group of 4 decided to call it a night and left at that point as well, so we were back to 7. A couple of streets were all decked out in lights (aka festival). They had lights hanging from in between buildings, random light structures set up and a variety of trees lined up along the road.

One street off of the main square

Another street off of the main square. Another tree had the same trees, but they were red

A group of trees with lights. They also had some pine trees set up with decorations.

The main square had a huge tree with a net or lights coming out from the point. In the center of the tree was a nativity scene. There was also a performance by a Korean rock band while we were there. We listened for a little bit, then kept on walking.

Center tree with net lights. Again, a camera can't capture how pretty it was.

Me and a white tree. I also saw a pink and a blue one.

Me and this guy.

Jackie had one more surprise for us in a different area of town so we hopped on the subway and then into 2 cabs. We had a bit of an adventure trying to follow the directions she was given, but eventually found the place. While we were walking, she gave us a brief description of it. All she would tell us was that it was a refurbished bunker from the war. When we got there, we thought it was this big shack thing because the sign was on top. But it was padlocked shut. Then we found the door and went inside. Unfortunately, they had closed 5 minutes before we got there. The lady wouldn't let us in even though we told her we just wanted to look and not eat or drink. Then she gave us all business cards so we could come back at a different time. Jackie was disappointed, but most of us said we'd come back to really see inside.

We all walked back to the subway and that's where 2 other girls split with the group because they were staying in Busan for the rest of the weekend, while we were going home. By that time, we had missed all the regular buses back to Jinju. Luckily there is a night bus. It's supposed to come on the hour and half hour from 10-12. We got there a few minutes before 11 so we thought we had perfect timing. That's when it started to rain/sleet. That's also when a probably mentally unstable and definitely drunk guy started to harass us. We dealt with it for a bit, then went inside a coffee shop for the last ten minutes of our wait to avoid him.

When the bus finally came, it was 11:30 - but it was the 11pm bus. It was also completely full. We decided to get on anyway. The 5 of us (me, Meg, Amanda, Todd and Jackie) were the last 5 on the bus. Jackie and Todd were able to sit on the steps and Amanda and Meg sat in the aisle. I knew my legs would fall asleep if I tried to sit, so I stood (along with a dozen or so Koreans) the hour and a bit back to Jinju. That was another first to cross off my list of Korean adventures. We said goodbye to Todd and Jackie at the GNU bus stop, then Meg got into a cab to head one way and Amanda and I split a cab back to our houses.

Meg, Amanda and Todd sitting in the aisle. You can't see Jackie because she is on the steps!

I had a wonderful day seeing new things, eating excellent food, hanging out with old friends and meeting some new ones. I am so glad Jackie organized our "field trip" and I'm just as glad I decided to go. It's days like this one that made me want to come back to Korea.