Sunday Funday

I slept in on Sunday morning and it was really nice not worrying about being late for anything. Dallas and I went to brunch at Sommertisch and I changed it up by ordering pancakes. They were good, but I miss the thin-style ones we make in the US.

This is a Kia Sky. There are a few similar cars here too. I hate them because they look like boxes on wheels. So Dallas and I have added them to the traditional "punchbuggy" game. I asked if this one counts as two hits since it's multicolored.

Brunch plate. They didn't give me syrup so I had to use Dallas's. The potatoes were the best part.

After eating we walked to get coffee. I wore my new cute summer shoes and made the dumb mistake of not pre-bandaiding my heels. Thus, by the end of the morning I already had blisters forming. Still, they are cute.

D liked this picture better than the one I took of just my toes because you can see the bottoms and my tattoos. You can also see my cankles which is why I like the other one better, but oh well.

As we were walking to get coffee, we passed an ally that had an arbor with this roses on it. They looked fake they were so pretty (and I've seen fake ones before here too), but they were real.

After coffee, we made a pit stop at Dallas's apartment for some band-aids and his Bible, then went to church. We had a guest speaker that day, Pastor Tim Dillmuth, who was there to talk about Seoul USA. It's a ministry that helps spread the Gospel into North Korea and offers support to defectors. They also have an underground university, where they teach people, mainly North Koreans, how to disciple. Often these people go back into North Korea to help. His message was pretty eye-opening. He talked about how even though we (general people) feel "free" compared to North Koreans, our freedom is really about comfort and stuff, whereas they are "free in Christ" in that they have complete faith. So we really don't need to be praying for them, we should be acting as they do. It was a very informative and interesting perspective.

After church, I had a planning team meeting. On the way to Brandon and Jamie's, Olivia fell and scraped her knee. It was the first time she had done something like that, so she was surprised and cried, especially when Jamie had to clean them. She relaxed though and spent most of the rest of the meeting playing with me and Jungwha reading books and jumping on us. Two-year olds are fun but energetic!

After the meeting, I met up with Dallas, who was riding his bike. I changed shoes and then we went to dinner at Papiati - our new favorite place. We got a free salad and split a radicchio pizza - it was good, but I prefer the other 2 I've had there. They have a new waitress for the summer. I forgot her name, but she's studying pharmacy at Toledo University in Ohio and her English is really good. She's on summer break now and we told her we'd see her again.

It also had mushrooms, bacon and black olives (which I promptly removed - blech).

After dinner, we walked down to the river because we saw signs saying something about lanterns for that evening at 7. Buddha's birthday is this upcoming Friday, so we assumed it had something to do with that. We walked around for a bit and got Popsicles, but couldn't find it. Dallas asked someone who said there would be a parade and that it would pass Emart, so we went there and bought a deck of cards. We waited for a bit, then I called a friend who said that it was really a small thing, but that it was at the sports stadium. So we took a bus over to the stadium and looked in. There were a bunch of speeches (since it started at 7 and it was now almost 8:30), ladies in traditional clothes and monks. There were a couple of trucks with lanterns on the back of them and some lanterns with candles in them.

Lantern fest lanterns waiting for October

Kids preparing for the "parade"

A huge group of women wearing hanbok. Not sure what they did since we didn't watch the speeches.

Lantern on the back of a flatbed truck

Lanterns with candles. I wanted to see if I could get one, but I couldn't figure out where/how.

We waited for about 10-15 minutes, but nothing was happening, so we decided to go get coffee and sit on the porch at the coffee shop and play rummy. Dallas won :( I like Sunday night walks better than playing cards, but his ankle was hurting a bit and I still had a good time. Then I went home and played two games of Catan with my brother - I lost one and won one. Then I finished my weekly Bible reading for 180 and went to bed. It was a relaxing and fun weekend!

Everyone's getting hitched

Saturday was my boss's wedding. My brother and sister called me in the morning to chat, but I couldn't talk to them for long because I had to get ready. For the last few weeks I'd been talking to co-workers and some Korean friends about "rules" for Korean weddings, as I had never been to one. It's ok to go "casual" especially for foreigners, but I decided to wear a dress and ended up borrowing some black shoes from Liezle. Dallas went with me and our other friend Danny (who is also a good friend of my boss's) met us there.

This is a drawing one of our students did on the board in the school's entryway.

Korean weddings are a little different than traditional American ones. First of all, text invitations are common now. I got a kakao talk message with my invite! Older people and "important" people get paper ones, but any young person will get a text. Also, they don't really have RSVP or head counts. Sometimes people call if they aren't going, especially close friends, but basically anyone can kind of show up if they want to, or not.

This is my e-vite. Cute idea though I would want an RSVP.

The next big difference is that the majority take place in a wedding hall. They are large, multi-storied buildings. Usually multiple weddings a day are held in the hall so they sort of have it down to a science. Woods's wedding was first at noon (followed by a wedding at 1, 2 and 5). When you walk in, there are people from the hall at a counter of sorts where you give them your card with money in it. They don't get gifts generally and don't do registries - it's all cash. I also found out that you should give an odd amount of money in an odd amount of bills. After you had the man your card/envelope, they give you lunch tickets. According to one of my friends, you can get $10 instead of lunch, but we didn't do that.

Our group in the wedding hall before the groom and bride came out.

At this wedding hall, the weddings themselves take place on the second floor. It's basically decorated the same for all the weddings and I think you can pay extra to change it up, but it's probably not worth it. Tons of people came and lots (including me) had to stand. You just walk into the room and if there is a seat, sit there. The parents of the couple getting married get two fancy loveseats up at the front. The mothers of the couple were already standing at the front of the aisle, followed by 2 workers from the wedding hall in white skirt suits. Then Woods stood behind them and finally Ki-seong stood directly behind Woods with her father. They had them walking down the aisle to different songs though.

They also spotlight the groom and bride and blind unsuspecting attendees.

Up at the alter (?) That's the furthest away the camera lady was. Usually she was about a foot away from their faces.

One of our students (a third grader) watching the wedding

Also, people talked throughout the entire thing. The ceremony started exactly at 12 because they had an hour to do the whole thing. It was all in Korean, so I didn't know exactly what happened, but they both bowed to their parents, they had a cute little song where they had to kiss, Woods danced  with some back-up dancers to a meadly of songs, then it was done. They took some family pictures, then a picture with friends. Apparently at some weddings, the bride and groom then go into another room, usually with a couch, and people can go in and take their picture with the couple. I didn't see one of those at this wedding. Another difference is that they choose who will get the bouquet before the wedding. The bride still tosses the bouquet and her friend (who is off to the side) catches it. Ki-seong (the bride) chose one of her best friends from high school. This girl has gotten 3 other bouquets in the last couple of months.

Bowing to the bride's parents

Shadow during the "kiss kiss" song

Walking back down the aisle. They shot off a confetti cannon and scared the crap out of me.

Both sides of the family

Then the bride and groom go to another room with their immediate families and do some traditional stuff that I didn't get to see. I actually didn't see either of them before we decided to leave. After the pictures, we went upstairs to the third floor for a buffet style lunch. There was actually a lot of food and most of it was pretty good. I ate a ton of pineapple. Ki-seong told me that she was disappointed with the buffet though. We stayed for a little less than an hour I think. Lots of my students went to the wedding too and some of them didn't recognize me because I had contacts, make-up and a dress. It was kind of funny. Today a bunch of them told me that I looked beautiful and I said, "thanks, you all looked nice too" and one of the girls goes, "I know!" After the wedding, Dallas rode around the block on Danny's motorcycle because he had never been on one before.

Even though there was no assigned seating, we ended up at the kids' table

Then Danny left and we walked by the river because it was a beautiful day. I finally took pictures of the weird tiki totem poles near the river. We debated about going back to the amphitheater because it sounded like a performance of some sort was taking place, but Dallas didn't want to walk back through the crowd and we were sort of late for another event.

Me and some pretty flowers along the river path

Totem poles

D, me and totem

Me and this guy. I almost knocked him over because they are not planted that firmly in the ground.

We walked to a bus, then went to Dallas's boxing gym because they were holding an in-house competition and his trainer wanted him to watch part of it. It was actually really fun - the best were the two little kids who went all out. Other boxers and his trainer and random ladies kept bringing Dallas and I drinks and snacks. We eventually just left the plate on Dallas's lap so they would see we were still stocked.

Dallas holding our second plate of snacks (I put the first bunch, which were packaged snack cakes, in my purse). This one included fish crackers, peach icing cookies and some crackers that looked salty, but were actually sweet.

After the boxing thing, we went home and changed and relaxed for about an hour. My friend Ines called and asked if she could "borrow" my shower because they were doing construction near her house and cut her water off without any sort of notice. It was no problem and I watched CNN while she was getting ready. As I was walking to meet back up with Dallas, a random lady started talking to me in English (this was a little odd because I had headphones in, but stuff like this happens a lot). Turns out she is an old co-worker of Kyeong-He's so that was sort of funny. Dallas and I then went to Emart to buy snacks for church game night.

I need to figure out a way to make it more appealing (I guess) because again only about 9 people showed up. I actually enjoy that because we get to play some better games (like Beyond Balderdash) but it sort of defeats the purpose of getting more people involved in the community. Oh well. At the end of the night, we showed Ines how to play Catan. We played the original version because her boyfriend, Kris, knew that one and we didn't want to teach multiple people. Brandon also coached her, so it was a decent game. On the way home, I realized that, not only did I not win any game, I came in dead last in all 3 games that I played! That usually doesn't happen to me - I might not win, but I usually end up in the middle somewhere. I still had a lot of fun though and that's what really matters.

I didn't forget

Don't worry people - I haven't forgotten about you. There just hasn't been anything of note in the last few days. Monday was a typical day - school, quick dinner with Dallas. Tuesday was Bible study, shopping at Emart and back to full time classes at school. Wednesday was a long day and I skipped dance class because I had a case of the Mondays (yes on Wednesday). Everything is fine, it was just one of those days where you don't feel like moving. Krista has shin splints, so she's not allowed to go dance for the next week or so, and because I knew she wasn't going, I didn't really have motivation to go. That night I went to Dallas's and we watched Smash. Thursday was fine - got breakfast sandwiches with Dallas then read a book and took a nap. So far today has been productive - I slept until close to my alarm (as opposed to the hour early I've been waking up recently), went to dance where the new dance isn't totally confusing, had a salad for lunch, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and timered my laundry for while I'm at work. So hopefully today at work goes well!

I should have some things to talk about over the weekend though! Hope you all have good ones :)

Bump, set, spike?

In my last post, I mentioned that we were practicing for a volleyball tournament on the weekend. One of the players wasn't able to come, so Dallas asked if I'd play. I checked with my other friend to make sure I wasn't bailing on her and decided to play. I woke up at 6am to get showered and meet Dallas. Then we met Emma and Johnny at the bus station and all rode the bus together to Busan. I asked if anyone could French braid and do my hair so it'd be out of my face during the games. Dallas tried for 10 seconds and gave up. Then Emma tried. Her attempt was ok and I just decided to leave it - also I ended up wearing Dallas's hat for most of the day anyway. Still it was fun having her do my hair on the bus.

Awful picture of me, but it captures her doing my hair pretty well.

We got to Busan then had to take the subway for about 45 minutes to the beach area. We got some snacks and waters and headed over to the tournament. 24 teams registered, so they had games staggered every 30 minutes in a double elimination pattern. Each match was best of 3 sets, each set was 15 points, or whoever had the highest score at the end of 30 minutes. Our first game was at 11:30, so we practiced for a little bit, then took a break. The first team we played was very nice, but not good at all and we beat them pretty easily. We had another 30 minute break before our next match, so we rested, chatted with some people and practiced for a little bit. Johnny started feeling feverish at that point, so he sat down while Emma, Dallas and I practiced. One of the event organizers is an English teacher at a university and he was giving extra credit to students who spoke to English people. So of course one girl requested that Dallas talk to her, so she sort of joined our group for a little while. Her name was Beth and she's majoring in English, but doesn't know what she wants to do yet.

Johnny and Emma after our first game. Emma is one of those annoying people who can't take a bad picture, but who's nice so you can't get mad at her about it.

Dallas and Emma practicing between games

After another mini practice, we lost the second match in the third set 17-15. It was a really good match, but still sort of depressing since it was so close. Then we won the next 2 matches against one decent team and one not so decent team. Liezle and her friend Mark showed up at that point and watched our last game - which we lost. That team had 1 bad player, but the other 3 were awesome. They ended up coming in second place in the entire tournament. Dallas was really nice during the competition and didn't yell at anyone and he seemed happy. I wish I was better, but at least I can serve ok.

When we got knocked out of the tournament, we decided to go to lunch because we were all starving. We cabbed over to another beach area and had lunch at a place called Sharky's. We ordered lots of food and beers and stayed there for around an hour or so. Cindy met us there and showed us some pictures of the fish market where she was earlier in the day.

Dallas and me at lunch

My lunch was a skillet with egg white, veggies, potatoes and avocado

Then we went to Cold Stone for ice cream and walked to the beach. We took "team pictures" there, then Dallas got really silly and wanted to swing people around. After that Emma said she had never made a human pyramid so we decided to do that because we had enough people. One thing I confirmed is that I make a decent human pyramid base.

Group high five

Team self portrait

Pyramid with Emma on top. She was really excited about it.

Dallas on top doing his victory dance.

First pyramid before we told Cindy to climb on top

Johnny tried to get up, but Cindy and Liezle couldn't hold it together

Dallas swinging Emma around

This is how that ended...eating sand.

Our team name was Vicious and Delicious, which was pointed out to us later that it shortened to VD - this is the lower case d.

Here's the version with the capital D.

After playing on the beach, Liezle and her friend went to meet up with another group of people for drinks and dinner. Emma and Johnny decided to go home because he wasn't feeling well. Dallas, Cindy and I walked around for awhile trying to find a decent (and decently priced) motel. Then we relaxed for a bit, showered and got dressed to go out. I had Cindy do my hair and it felt like playing beauty parlor in third grade. Still I like when other people fix my hair. We went to the KSU (university) area and had dinner at 700 beer, where we split 2 salads - a fruit salad that had a vanilla dressing on it and tasted a little like an orange julius and a spicy chicken salad. Then we went to Thursday party and played 3 rounds of darts - I won 2 and Dallas won 1.

How Cindy did my hair from the back. We practiced a couple of different ways, but I don't have enough hair to make most of them look good.

Liezle came and met us there and Dallas went home because he was exhausted. Liezle was pretty tipsy at that point. Cindy ordered a hazelnut beer, which is a regular draft beer that they add hazelnut syrup to and it ends up tasting similar to a cream soda. We played pick up sticks with some dried spaghetti sticks and then moved on to another bar called Evas. It was pretty boring there, but luckily I had Cindy to talk to and we caught up on some stuff. Then we went outside and got kebabs - I'm glad I did because I was starving and would have felt sick otherwise. After street kebabs, we went to a dance club called the Blue Monkey. I didn't really like the club because they pump smoke on the dance floor which annoys me. The music was ok and Cindy and I danced for awhile. Liezle would randomly join us, then another group of friends, then come back to us. We left and took a cab back home around 1:30 and I fell asleep immediately.

At Thursday party. This is probably the last picture the 3 of us will take together because Liezle leaves in 2 weeks and we aren't all getting together again before she leaves. Plus this is most likely the last year for me and Cindy as well.

When we woke up and got ready the next morning, we took our time. We watched parts of some movies and Cindy did my hair again - I told Dallas to watch so that he could do it later. We couldn't decide on a place, so we ended up going to a meat buffet called Self Bar. It's a chain and there is one in Jinju, but I haven't been to that one yet. The food was pretty good, but I actually like the random Army guy's place better. After lunch we went to H&M where Dallas and Cindy each bought some clothes. I try to help both of them not spend money so I had to watch each of them. The best part was when Dallas came out of the dressing room and he looked like George Michael from a Wham! video. It was awesome.

Then we went and got coffees, in part to use the bathroom and in part for the coffee. We crossed the street and went to American Apparel where everything is ridiculously priced. Cindy left at that point because she was taking a train home and needed to make sure she got a ticket. Dallas and I walked around for a little while longer and stopped to get his hair cut. Because he had it styled, I wore his hat. He took a picture and put it on instagram where one of his friends said I looked like a gangster, which made me laugh. Then we took a bus home and I was able to lay down along the whole back seat and on Dallas. I fell asleep for most of the trip and it was one of the best bus rides ever - I need to get the whole back more often!

A woman next to Dallas getting a perm from an octopus.

Standing on the street - one of the few pictures of us together where I like both of our faces

When we got back to Jinju, we made a quick eMart run and dropped off some stuff at my house, then went to Dallas's. He made us grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches. They were really good except that he couldn't remember how to properly cut an avocado, plus they had been refrigerated so they were hard. While we were eating, we skyped a friend of ours and talked for a bit. Then we had our Sunday night walk. Dallas went and got us coffees while I went home and took out my contacts. Then we went and returned a movie he had rented and walked home along the river. I really like those times with him - even if he runs and I walk and we only walk home together. It's very peaceful along the river at night and it's a good ending to the weekend.

Bridge near our houses that's strung up with lanterns for Buddha's birthday (which is in 2 weeks)

I had an incredible weekend. I'm so glad I got to hang out with Emma and Johnny, who I really like, and to see Liezle and Cindy. I like when I get to be with a group of my favorite people all at once, especially when we do something fun and have just about perfect weather. These weekends are why it's so hard to think about coming home.

Ouchie!

Monday morning I got up early to meet Kyeong He at Corinne's apartment to let the cleaner in. Then we walked to my dance class and she went to a sauna. The only other thing of interest on Monday was when I had my phonics class, we were talking about "my name is..." Two of the examples in the book were my siblings' names, which led to them asking me about my family. Then there was a picture of a teacher and they pointed and said that my family was in the book. So I said, "the teacher is me?" and they said no and then proceeded to explain that it was not me because my boobs are bigger by drawing a picture of me on the board and emphasizing them. Oh, then I had dinner with Dallas and some middle school girls took his picture, but they tried to pretend they weren't doing it, which made it funnier.

On Tuesday I went to Bible study and came home and took my Tuesday nap. I went to Dallas's house after work and watched "Despicable Me" because he didn't have to work on Wednesday because of a random holiday. Only some workers got the day off. Foreign public school teachers did, but Korean teachers didn't.

Spring flowers on my walk home from church

On Wednesday morning we got up and rode the bus to GNU to meet Emma and Johnny for volleyball practice. This upcoming weekend there is a tournament in Busan that Dallas wants us to play in. They played last year and did pretty well. He is very competitive and I have reservations about playing because I'm not super coordinated. So we practiced for over an hour and were about finished with a game of 2 on 2 when a ball went out of bounds. Dallas chased it, I yelled "bench" and then I saw him fall. At first I laughed because he sprawled over it, but then he didn't get up and I ran over. Apparently he slipped on a rock before the bench and twisted his ankle. When I got to him he said he couldn't feel his foot. We made him sit for a minute and he could feel it again and move it slightly, but couldn't put much weight on it at all. At that point I needed to start getting back to my side of town to get ready for work, so he leaned on me and we started walking to a spot where we could get a cab. Then, we alternated walk/lean with me giving him a piggyback ride across parts of campus until I got tired. Before we got the cab, we stopped off at the Bubble Tree tea place then decided he should go to a doctor, so I went with him to the ER and left when he was in X-ray. Apparently it wasn't broken, so they put him in a walking boot and some ace bandages. He hopes he can play on Saturday still, but we'll see. 

D's sad face and my in basically pjs

Piggyback ride. I requested that next time he injure himself to try and do it when I had semi-decent hair

I went to his house on Wednesday after work to make sure he was ok and to walk him to school on Thursday because he hadn't been down the hills on his crutches yet. We stopped off at Yummy House for coffee and all the ladies there made sad noises at him. Then I went to his first class with him, where I knew one of the students, and we watched part of a movie since he couldn't stand up for long.

Suit and boot. He was not happy that I took this picture but I think it's hilarious.

Sunny D (aka Sunday with Dallas)

Sunday was an almost perfect weekend day. I had slept really well on Saturday night and then I got up and met Dallas for Sunday brunch at the German place. We split a "New York Brunch" because they didn't have pancakes. Then we walked through a park-like path and met up with some people who had just finished running (5k, 10k and half marathon) who were on their way to lunch.

It was a beautiful day and there were lots of flowers all around. Dallas picked some and tried to put them in my hair, but they wouldn't really stay, so I just carried them. We walked for a long time then got coffee and Dallas walked me to church. It was a good sermon and then I stayed after for discussion group, which I really enjoy because it helps me focus on what we learned that day and also to connect to some of the other church members in way I don't usually get to do.

An arbor over some benches along the path. It was full of bees so Dallas ran away.

After church, they teased me about ditching them for dinner, but I had already told Dallas that I'd meet him and I was low on money. I walked to D's house and helped him rearrange furniture and throw out some old junk. After we cleaned up his place, we went to Corinne's apartment. She left for Canada that morning and I was setting up a house cleaning appointment for her the next day. She left some things for me and I switched out a duvet for one I had bought (Corinne took my old job, thus she had my old apartment). Then we went back to my apartment and dropped the stuff off.

After running those errands, we went to dinner at the Italian place near my house where I had lunch with Jayden. This time the male owner was there and he spoke a little bit of English. We ordered a chicken salad, which he said was "cajun" but I have no idea how he came up with that description, and a margarita pizza. Both were really good. Then they gave us a fruit plate free for dessert with oranges, grapes and strawberries.

After dinner we walked for a really long time by the river. It was a really nice night. Dallas had to go to the video store to get a movie for a class party the next day. Then we walked back toward our houses and got ice cream bars. While we were walking, we stopped at a playground and went on a see-saw. It was pretty fun, but at one point I came down wrong and rolled off the back. I didn't get hurt at all, but it was funny. Then I did hit the ground hard one other time and got a bruise on my butt! After the see-saw we went on a slide and the swings. It was really fun and we're planning on going back sometime. Maybe we'll even take pictures next time.

It was pretty late when I got home, but I caught up on facebook and some emails, then I went to bed. It was a really good day. Here are 2 extra pictures - the first is a picture I took after I got my haircut on Friday. The other is a picture someone sent the other day from the sea parting but I didn't feel like going back and adding it to that post.