80%

I read an article (or something) that said about 80% of women in Korea have or will have some sort of plastic surgery. It's common for younger girls to get some sort of facial surgery as a high school graduation present. Double eyelid surgery is very common, as are nose jobs (to get a higher bridge) and facial shaving (to get a narrower jaw line).

I bring this up because tonight, as I was sitting at my desk grading some papers, 2 girls were doing this weird thing with their arms. I asked them what they were doing and they answered, "penguin" because you move your hands in and out and flap your arms a little like a penguin. When I asked why they were doing it, they (along with one of my co-teachers) explained that the day after they finish taking mid-term exams, they have a "body check". They have their height, weight, bust size and a few other areas measured. That part I kind of understand - we had things like that in school as well. The part that made me sad is that the results are then posted in a chart for the entire school to see. Even though most schools are separated by gender, having all of your measurements posted for your classmates to see is awful to me. They also don't test fitness in terms of exercises or flexibility or endurance - only size. So these (what to us would be 9th grade) girls (one is slender, then other is slightly chubby but in a totally normal range) were doing arm exercises to lose weight.

With humiliating practices like this, it's no wonder the rate is at 80%. Frankly I'm surprised it's not higher.

Happy Birthday J!

Monday was basically the usual. I had dance class with Krista, then went home and got ready for a lesson I teach. The lesson was cancelled at the last minute because my student was sick, so I took a nap. I met Jayden and Dallas for a quick salad for dinner and then went back to school. Korean class that night was only 2 students because one is rehearsing for a play and the other was sick.

On Tuesday I had Bible study. I think I mentioned it before, but this book (Hebrews) is very difficult. I had planned on maybe meeting some friends down by the river, but by the time class ended, I didn't really feel like it so I went home and took another nap.

Common sight in Korea - 2 ladies holding hands in hiking clothes walking down the street.

Spring flowers near my house

Wednesday was Jayden's birthday so I took him to lunch. We went to an Italian place and ate a ton of food. We split a pizza (Gorgonzola with honey dipping sauce) and pasta carbonara. Then we got a free salad with tofu and strawberries and rolls with blueberry jam and some sort of ricotta/cottage cheese like substance. They also gave us coffee at the end. It was funny because he is Korean and here, the birthday person pays for the meal. But I was like, no, that's not how it works and you're with me so I'll pay. So he goes, ok I'll buy you lunch tomorrow. I just laughed at that point. I have enjoyed spending time with Jayden and getting to know him better and he and I have very similar personalities.

Service (free) salad and rolls

Lunch - they split our pasta in two bowls for us and put the pizza over a candle to keep in warm.

Later that night, after work, I met up with him and Dallas again and we went to dinner at a samgupsal (bbq) place. This place had a lot of sides and was really good. We split a bottle of soju and toasted to his birthday. After dinner we went to a coffee shop and had cake, and embarrassed Jayden when we sang to him.

Cheers!

Bean sprouts, kimchi, seaweed, potatoes, mushrooms, spam, pork and beef, plus bowls of soup and nu roong ji (burnt rice soup).

Then fried rice, complete with egg

Happy Birthday candles!

On Thursday Jayden and I went to lunch again. We had Korean pork soup which tastes similar to solantang but with pork instead of beef. We talked a lot about plans for the future (and my lack thereof) and things I should do in Korea - he's making me a list! He also guessed my blood type (A) because I am indecisive, especially when it comes to making decisions about restaurants. This was funny to me, but most Korean kids know their blood types from an early age because they place a lot of importance on it and your personality. He gave me advice over coffee to try and be firm when there is something that I actually want to do. He also recommended some Korean dramas to help improve my pronunciation. After coffee I went to work where we are in test-prep mode for middle school and high schoolers. This means that I don't have as many classes as usual so my boss wants me to give extra lessons to a few of the people who don't have to take school exams (mainly elementary school kids and adults). He also wants me to practice my Korean more. This is both good and bad. I feel like there is so much more I need to say, but they are all little details and I forget them! I need to try and remember to write down little tid bits while I'm thinking about them instead of hoping to write them here and then forgetting.

Busan Weekend

On Friday I had to go near city hall (which is a 15-20 minute bus ride from my house) and drop off some cookies that Dallas made for a bake sale on Saturday. I ended up spending about 30 minutes talking to my friend as well, so I didn't have time to go downtown and look for shoes, which was original plan. Oh well, it's always good to catch up with people you haven't seen for awhile. The only bad part was that I forgot my headphones, so I couldn't listen to music during the bus trips. I did, however, get to see a bunch of old ladies planting flowers. When I walked over to take a picture of a tulip, I heard them talking about me and understood a little bit of it, so that was fun.

On Friday night, I met Dallas and Jayden at Cafe Bene for coffee and we taught Jayden how to play Catan. We didn't really get to finish the game because the cafe closed while Jayden and I were tied at 9 points and Dallas was at 7. Hopefully we will get to play again before Jayden has to go back to school. On Saturday, our original plan was to go to Busan and watch a baseball game - it's on both mine and Dallas's list of things to do. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain. We decided to go to Busan anyway and just kind of wing it. I like spending time with these 2, but I don't like aimless weekends unless I know that's the point. So when we got there we found a hotel and dropped our stuff off. The lady wouldn't let us check in until later, but she held a room for us, and let us put our bags in the office. She also yelled at me for wearing flip flops because it's too cold for them. We had lunch at Lotte department store - Jayden and I had pho and Dallas ate salad and something else that I can't remember. Jayden is a bottomless pit and can eat constantly, so the question "are you hungry" came up about a million times during the weekend.

 After lunch we went shopping and to a bookstore. Dallas got kind of mad at us because he thought we were acting sulky about going shopping etc. so we all sat down in a coffee shop and talked about what we were going to do for the rest of the day. I said I wasn't mad, but I needed a plan of some sort - even if that plan was taking naps or whatever. We decided to look for a game cafe. Jayden found one online that was close to us and we decided to start walking there. On the way, we saw this thing called Disco PangPang. It's a ride that's a big circle (no handles or seat belts) with a circular bench around it. You sit on the bench and they spin it around and also bounce it up and down. People fall off the bench and roll around in the middle. Dallas and I talked Jayden into going on it - he said it was really for kids (middle school and high school students were the only other people). The worker who ran the ride asked us lots of questions through Jayden and then made fun of us - but he made fun of everyone. It was really fun, but I got a blood blister on the inside of my hand from holding on to the rail so tightly. At one point we popped up so high that my shirt flew up. After that one of the middle school girls brought over her little blanket so I could cover up. It was both sweet and embarrassing.

Us on the ride before it started.

After that, we found where the game cafe used to be, but it was no longer there. That happens all the time in Korea - a store you like is one day there, the next day gone. Next we saw an arcade and went in there for a bit. They didn't have a lot of fun games, but we played some air hockey. Jayden had never played before. Dallas and I both beat him.

Boys playing air hockey

Then we found a cat cafe and went in and played with cats for about an hour. We tried to find a puppy cafe, but the one listed was really far away and didn't have a phone number to call. The cats were fun, but none of the them were super cute or nice, except one who fell asleep on Dallas's coat. It's a money maker though because you pay $7 to go in and hang out with the cats. Included in the price is a drink (we all got peach iced teas), but there were tons of people in there so I think he makes a pretty decent profit.

This grey one didn't move from this post the entire time we were there. He was really soft though.

The rules - the pictures are awesome.

Sleepy cat - lots of them were asleep since we went late afternoon. I'm guessing they are more animated earlier in the day.

This is the one who sat on Dallas's coat and purred with me. He reminded me of our old cat Taylor.

Dallas became friends with this one, who reminded me of our old cat Bart. The markings were very similar.

Then we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant. We all sort of split dinners - Jayden got a pizza, Dallas and I got curry (his was veggie, mine was beef). Ours tasted very similar except mine had more cinnamon. The place was really nice and also gave us free lassis which had maybe a coconut/yogurt flavor. After dinner we went to another coffee shop and played card games. We taught Jayden Go Fish, Egyptian Rat Screw and BS. Then we walked in circles for a little bit trying to find Thursday Party, which we had seen earlier. We played beer pong - Jayden and I lost to Dallas by one cup - again! But then I won 2 games of darts, so that was fine. We stayed there and chatted for a little bit, then went back to the hotel. They watched some Transformers while I talked to my cousin for about 30 minutes. Then we went to sleep.

Pizza and lassi

Curry

Naan. The bread tasted very similar to the pizza crust. Luckily I liked both of them.

I woke up pretty early because it was loud outside and bright. I tried to go back to sleep and managed for little bits of time, but then just gave up and played on my phone until everyone woke up. We tried to get Korean porridge for breakfast, but the place was closed so we went back to Lotte department store. It was weird because hardly anyone was eating yet and most of the places were still setting up. I couldn't really decide what I wanted, so I ended up sharing random stuff with Dallas - we had salad (which had a semi rotten mango piece in it), a "pizza" chicken breast with shredded cabbage on it, a teriyaki chicken skewer and potato wedges inside half of an acorn squash. Nothing was really bad, but nothing was really good either. It also sparked a semi debate because Koreans called an acorn squash a sweet pumpkin, but Dallas wouldn't really believe me that we didn't also call it that.

After eating, we went to a coffee shop and played Uno for awhile and talked and tried to figure out how to spend the rest of the day. It wasn't raining, but it was a little bit chilly and it was almost noon by that time, so we didn't really want to get on a bus to another city because it would have just been a waste of time. We tried to find a puppy cafe, but the one close to where we were was closed for renovations. We ended up walking around a market area near Busan Tower. Parts of it were interesting and nice, other parts were just crowded. One lady got made at me because I picked up a hat to look at it and walked away when she told me the price. Jayden wanted a snack so we stopped in the middle of the market and he got dokbokki and Dallas got mandu and shoved one in my mouth because they don't understand that sometimes when I say I'm not hungry it's because I'm not hungry.

Statue separating the walking area from the road

One ally was full of food stalls like this - table after table of food and you sit on tiny plastic stools.

We walked around some more, then went to lunch - yes I realize this post is very food/coffee shop oriented, but that's basically what we did all weekend - at a tofu restaurant. When we walked in, we were the only people there. Then again it was like 4 so most lunch people were already gone and dinner people weren't there yet. The ladies were very nice. Jayden got beef tofu and Dallas and I split curry tofu. She brought tons of sides and had a lightly fried fresh tofu square that was delicious - I ate two. After lunch we walked around for about another 30 minutes, then got on the subway to go back to the bus station. We had the whole back row to ourselves and I was able to semi lay down and take a short nap. Then I took an actual nap when I got home for about an hour.

Sideways lunch. The bowl at the bottom is the tofu curry. The yellowish looking squares are the tofu.

To continue the routine, I met up with the boys and went walking with Jayden while Dallas ran next to the river. It was really cold and I actually had to wear a scarf. It was a good time being able to chat with Jayden who I found out knows a little ballroom dancing - I must make him dance with me someday. Then we went to a chicken soup place for a late dinner. I actually ate a ginseng root which tasted like a weird carrot. Then we walked to Emart and the boys got some groceries but I usually go on Tuesdays after Bible study, so I didn't get anything. On the walk home we passed a guy lying in the middle of the road. Two other men were close to him and asked to borrow our phone to call either an ambulance or the police - I'm not sure which. They pretty much told us that the mad was just drunk but that they didn't want to leave him in the middle of the street alone. On the walk home Dallas asked us if we would become vampires given the choice (this came after a series of questions over the weekend about nuclear bombs and whether or not vampires could withstand them) and that sparked some interesting debate.

A horrible picture of me and Jayden in front of the castle...and my finger.

Chicken soup (sam gae tang) - it's stuffed with rice, ginsing and jujubes.

The weekend was not what I had envisioned, but I still had fun hanging out with the guys and walking around. I just need to remember to make back-up plans in case of rain :)

Fainting, comics and Barbies...oh my!

On Monday I went with Krista to dance class as usual. After 10 minutes before the end, Krista looked at me slightly strangely and said she had to go to the bathroom. She didn't come back in, so I left and found her sitting on the floor. I asked if she was ok and she said no. She has some sort of nerve/blood vessel something or other condition where she occasionally faints. She's had it since she was 12. Luckily this time she felt some signs and sat down before she actually passed out. I walked her home to make sure she was ok and by the time we got there, she was basically fine. After that, I met with a friend of mine who told me a story of when she almost drowned because she panicked in the water and then she passed out. Luckily a man was close by and rescued her. Still, 2 fainting episodes in one day was enough for me!

Shot of trees and flowers near the river, courtesy of Corinne

On Tuesday Bible study I asked for a prayer request. I had been getting annoyed at some friends for being who they were and not who I wanted them to be. I asked for guidance not to get annoyed, but that even if I was, that I would direct it in a positive way to change me, instead of a negative way towards them. I mentioned it in a facebook post and a few of my friends messaged me to make sure I was ok. I was, but I loved that even though I'm thousands of miles away, these people were able to read through stuff to see that I was upset and to reach out to me. It made me feel loved.

On Wednesday I met Jayden at a coffee shop and he corrected some of my Korean homework. Then we had lunch at the tofu soup place (with new sides, although this time I didn't take a picture because it was only kimchi pancakes that were added). We talked for awhile and then I had to go to work. I really like spending time with him and it stinks that he lives so far away (he's going to school in Australia).

Lovely shot of cherry blossoms because they are pretty

On Thursday I met Corinne in the morning and she took me to a coffee shop on the other side of town. It was filled with all sorts of Barbies and was awesome. It's also super cute because it has these little nooks where you sit with pillows and teddy bears. The lady running the shop was also really nice and speaks a decent amount of English. We were the only 2 people there and I will definetly go back - I just wish it were a bit closer.

Urinal - who doesn't want to pee on a panda?

Here is one of the booths with fringe curtains. We didn't sit in this one because we wanted an open window, but maybe next time I'll sit here so I can feel like a VIP.

Audrey Hepburn Barbies

Scarlett and Rhett

Wall o'Barbies

Lord of the Rings

Me and my coffee buddy

Me and my latte

After coffee we went to lunch and talked some more. I love talking to Corinne because we always end up getting into random discussions. Today we talked about body image, thighs and body hair amongst other things. We met really early since the cafe is on the other side of town, so we still had over an hour before school started.

It still drives me crazy that they upload here sideways. This is dolset (stone bowl) beef bibimbap.

She went home and I went to a coffee shop and studied for my Korean class. That night 2 students didn't show up and one other was late, so my teacher had me read some websites in Korean while we waited. Then we got a new book - a comic book from the 60s - to practice reading, pronunciation and to learn about Korean culture. We learned a jump rope song.

I know that's kind of an abrupt end, but it's late and I'm going away this weekend so I wanted to upload a post before I went to bed, so I'll add Friday into my weekend post, although nothing super special happened. Hope y'all have wonderful weekends!!

Easter Weekend

Again, I wrote this post on Sunday night, but was waiting for pictures. I give up waiting, so here you go:

I had a very busy weekend. On Friday I went to dance class without Krista because she was sick. Class included jumping that day so it was interesting to say the least. If you want to know, we're learning this song right now and actually do parts of the video - not all the floor work, but we do shoot "air" guns. After class I met up with Corinne and we went to the soup place and ordered a new kind of soup. Of course we had some new sides, including pancakes and green tea tofu.

The green tea tofu is top right in this picture and was actually pretty good

School on Friday was somewhat frustrating because I had one class that just drove me crazy. My boss talked to two of the girls who ended up crying and said the reason they were acting out is because they didn't understand what was going on - one girl I believe the other one, not so much. I also was slightly dressed up because there was a party later and I didn't want to change (no pre-outfit outfit for me!), so I had contacts and wide legged pants. One kid said "your face looks better with no glasses" and another said, "you have big pants. They are wonderful." So what I'm saying is Koreans are masters at backhanded compliments.

After school I went home to put on makeup and Dallas came and met me and we cabbed over to GNU for a party at G&U - one of the only "clubs" in Jinju. It was a Red & Black party which was another fund raiser for V-day. I had to work the door and collect money and stamp hands for an hour, but luckily that was during the hour that a friend of Jackie's (and a bunch of other people but I don't know him) played some of his own music. It was interesting, but not really dance music. Then they changed it back to dance music and we danced a bunch. I hadn't eaten since lunch and started drinking soju straight out of the bottle for some reason, so there are bits of the night that I don't really remember. I did get to see a bunch of people I hadn't seen since I've been back for various reasons and danced a bit, so it was fun. We left between 2 and 3 and on the way back to Dallas's apartment, I fell and busted my left knee pretty bad. He put peroxide on it and then the smallest band-aid in the world.

Jackie, Sarah and sporting red and black!

Group pic!

I was supposed to get up at 7, but when my alarm went off I fell back asleep for another hour. I messaged Kylie, the girl I was supposed to meet, and luckily she was still tired too and nobody else was there yet. I ran home, showered and got dressed and went to meet Kylie to prepare for the Easter egg dyeing and hunt. Most of the supplies were at her apartment and we packed up everything in a huge duffel and a couple of other bags and walked over to the Jinju castle museum. When we got to the museum we didn't really know where we were supposed to set up because Jackie was the person who had all the contact with the museum. She told us to go into the foyer area, so we did and just dropped our pile of crap. Then the museum people came out and sort of yelled at us. The one translator says, "He wants to know why you are here and what you are doing." So then we moved everything to a back corner and waited for further instructions. Jackie called and told us to meet her at the entrance to help carry tables, but when we got there, she told us to turn around because the van was just going straight to the museum. The van driver drove up on a cobblestone walkway and freaked out the museum people - in total about 7 of them came out and told him to move. It was kind of funny, but also awkward.

Then the museum people were really nice and helped us set up tables, brought out a huge electrical cord and let us borrow scissors and tape to hold newspapers down on the tables. We started with egg dyeing and set up bowls with different colors, dippers and stickers. We also had colored sand (which I thought was glitter when I bought it) and glue to decorate the eggs. We ordered baked eggs, which is typical for Korea instead of hard boiled ones (although they do hard boil eggs as well). Most eggs here are brown eggs, but luckily the dye still worked - you just had to concentrate it. Some people started to show up and luckily my friend Kyeong He came by and helped us translate for awhile, then some people from the YWCA took over for her. My job for most of the day was to dry the eggs with a hair dryer so that the kids could decorate them after they dyed them. It was actually a really good idea and kept me busy. Kylie and I also made origami cups (thanks Durham Children's museum for the idea) for the kids to carry the eggs home.

What a baked egg looks like - it tastes kind of similar to a hard-boiled egg but with a smoky flavor too

Brother and sister finish their eggs

Kylie making origami cups and kids looking on

This is Sol Ji. She's Kyeong He's friend's kid and I want to steal her. She hung out with us for a long time, made 2 eggs and gave Jackie and I pieces of her peanut butter sandwich. Plus, she's missing a tooth.

Kyeong He made a masterpiece egg as a tribute to her unrequited love for Dallas.

This is what my fingers looked like at the end of the day from picking up eggs out of dye bowls.

These 2 brothers are my students!

Castle cherry blossoms. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day.

Me with my weapon of choice - Kylie's hairdryer.

After dyeing eggs, we had an Easter egg hunt. In my opinion this didn't go as well. It's hard to explain something like this with a language barrier, plus there just weren't enough kids to cover the expense of what we hid. The kids who participated had fun and got a lot of goodies, but as a fund raiser I don't think it was worth it. Then we cleaned up and had the creepy van guy come pick up the tables and chairs.

Sketchy van! The best part was that the tables slightly stuck out so he closed the truck with our electrical cord.

Kylie and I took the rest of the stuff back to her apartment and then went to Kraze burger for dinner. I was really tired and had some sunburn, so after dinner (at 5) I went home and took a 2 hour nap while I ran the washing machine. Then I got up and made pasta salad for the church potluck. I was really happy when I found Italian dressing on Thursday, so the salad was pretty easy to make - veggies (scallions, cucumber, red pepper, tomatoes and celery) with tri-colored pasta and Italian dressing. Then I watched 2 episodes of White Collar and went back to bed.

While this isn't a great pic of me, it does highlight my sunburn pretty well.

On Sunday I woke up around 10ish and turned on the TV and "Top Gun" happened to be starting. So I watched that and ate a Cadbury egg that my sister had sent me. Then I got ready for church and walked to IEC.The service was very good and I had my first communion. After service we had a huge potluck. This time Jamie organized it a bit differently and had people sign up for what they would bring. Of course we still ended up with kimbap and kimchi, but overall the meal was more cohesieve than previous attempts.

Dessert table - those are home-made peanut butter eggs, banana bread and almond pound cake that you see.

My plate, complete with potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs and kimbap

Left over pasta salad that I ate for the next 2 days.

After lunch, I went with Ilani and a girl named Ashely to a coffee shop. The 3 of us are all doing 180 days reading and Ashely was slightly behind, so Ilani and I offered to read with her for awhile. I read 1 days worth of reading, then wrote some sentences for my Korean homework. I enjoyed spending time with the girls and we talked about some spiritual issues and some personal ones. After coffee I went home, put on some pants (I wore a skirt to church - I know gasp! right?) and went on a walk down by the river. I walked for about an hour and for half the time I listened to music, and the other half was a paragraph in Korean that I was supposed to practice.

Cherry blossom at night lit by a streetlamp.

I had a very fun-filled, busy weekend. I got to celebrate Easter with my church family and introduce Koreans to a Western tradition. Even though I was slightly stressed out ahead of time, these are the kinds of weekend I love!