Happy...

New Year's Eve!!!!! more coming soon....

Merry Christmas!

Yay! Presents! Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!

Bill & Jude Go It Alone

A festive fountain
The scene from above
The garden still
A roman type structure? But the lights are decked out for the holiday.
Our lunching spot
The gravel road less traveled
Driving back to Jinju. . .
driving. . .
a small town. . .
driving. . .
over the roof of the car. . .
still beautiful sights. . .
a little side street to follow the highway. . .
look out lady we can't read the signs. . .
a house with a shiny blue roof. . .
almost back, don't sweat it. . .
someone burning something. . .
ships in the ship builders harbor. . .
an interesting building in a parking lot. . .

the everyday surrounded by the grandeur.

Hello from sunny (well, not today) South Korea!

Bill and I have been requested to make a blog entry, so here goes. . .

Ana and Mike planned a weekend getaway, 2 days in Gyeongju with them, then off for two days on the island of Geoje by ourselves. And here is how it went ~

After the weekend, when we were supposed to drive from Gyeongju to Geoje, we chickened out and drove Ana and Mike back to Jinju. With a little more encouragement from them, I suspect they needed a break, understandable, we headed southwest for an overnight stay. Traveling is not bad when you're in a car driving on numbered highways, no problem, we're pros! We were so proud, we got to the island, and, as suggested, were going to take a boat ride to the the island of Oedo (pronounced Way-doe). Park the car, find a launch, find the ticket counter, 2 tickets at 16:10 purchased. Now to wait for 3 hours until departure, look for a restaurant, feed ourselves, but, as we walked away from the ticket booth I say to Bill, the man at the counter kept saying this is a ticket to Busan, we don't want to go to Busan. Off to the car, forget food for now, check the map, we're not anywhere near close to where we were headed. Back to the ticket booth, show the attendants the map, where we are, where we want to go, they indicate not from where we are, I remember Ana's words from the night before and say, chang-ee, the man says chang-ee, takes the purchased pair of tickets, returns a credit in a flash. Chang-ee, good word to know.

Off again, beautiful drive down a winding coast, green water, mountains on the coast and rising from the water. We arrive in Haegeumgang (we can't pronounce it either) and now need accommodations, check in rather uneventfully, go for a walk. We've recovered from our earlier debacle, and are again more confident about surviving South Korea on our own, yay!

Alas, our feeling of accomplishment is soon shattered as we realize we need to eat. Ah, to be less picky, I'm trying, but to no avail, I'm struggling to find food that I'll put in my mouth, and Bill's not faring much better since Koreans like their food Spi-i-cy. The hotel has a restaurant, we walk in, and, as prepped, ask for, in Hangul no less, vegetables and rice, but I'm defeated since the cook still doesn't understand what we want, do you think it's my Hangul? But, as the Koreans are ever friendly, and oh so helpful, she leads us to the check-in desk where one of the young ladies on duty finally tells us they serve, remember we're on an island, Fresh Fish. I then take out my handy dandy little English/Korean for dummies dictionary and show them vegetables, which is not getting us very far, when suddenly, the same fluently english speaking young clerk says, EGGS, we smile and nod, follow the cook back into the restaurant, and are served one fried egg each, a bowl of salad vegetables, a basket of red leaf lettuce, a plate of another type of lettuce, a side of spinach, a plate of little salted, dried fish, and a salad dressing of mayonnaise and ketchup. Go us, thank you nice people, not full, but at least fed.

We finish our evening in our room with a bottle of beer for Bill and a glass of wine for Jude, arise early the next morning, miss the first ferry to Oedo, wait forty minutes for the next one, packed, and I mean packed, with 100s of middle schoolers, oh, to be multi-lingual, a little late now, but a nice thought anyway.

Oedo was beautiful, we did not miss our ferry back to the island and the security of our rental car, although I thought we had and got quite upset, but calmed down within a minute when we figured out that we had not missed the boat, no pun intended, and landed safely back at the hotel. We ate the rest of the food packed by Ana, still hungry since she had packed a lunch and snack for one day and we were now on our third meal with what we had, and headed back to Jinju. I'll let Bill tell you about the ride back when he does his post.

Off to continue my education in "How not to travel" an unknown land, but here are some pics for your viewing pleasure.

Annyonghi kyeseyo,

Jude

Gyeong-ju and Geoje-do and Jude and Bill

Turtle at Bulguksa

Turtles outside the museum

Rock towers

Ta-Da!

Fresh temple spring water

Giant fishies

Bulguksa

So photogenic we are!

Fam photo sans one

At the museum

Yay!

Christmas decorations:)

This weekend we rented a car and went to Gyeong-ju, known as a museum city without walls.  It's a very historical city because it was the capital of the Shilla Dynasty the first time that Korea was united as one nation, back in the 700s or some long time ago like that.  It's a really cool and interesting city we went to the national museum and the most famous temple, Bulguksa, and Anapji pond.  It was snowing/raining all day on Sunday so the road to another site, a cave, was closed.  It was cold and wet but well worth the journey.

We tried to send Bill and Jude off on their own from Gyeong-ju but they weren't ready just yet. So, we headed back to Jinju Sunday night and then Monday morning they headed off to Geoje-do alone!  They had an adventure that I'll let them tell you about.  

Merry Christmas Eve!!!!!

Yay!

Jude and Bill have arrived!!!!!

It's Been Awhile...

Yay snow in Seoul!

The big arrest (they just asked the cops for directions, then the cops gave them a ride, then they took a funny picture)

Yum...I will never starve!

From out hotel

Random snowboard show in the middle of Seoul

Let's get motivated people!

It's a lovely day for a Guinness

I know, a week, you miss us.  I came down with a pretty bad cold after galavanting about Seoul all last weekend and have been going to bed early every night and waking up late every morning.  I'm feeling better now so I have a few minutes to write.  First, we saw Cirque du Soliel and it was amazing, the things some people can do with their body, wow!  Second, we finally bought our tickets to Japan... Tokyo here we come, woohoo!!!!!

Let's backtrack, we arrived in Seoul around 1pm last Saturday. Our friend Dale had to go to the DMV to get a Korean drivers license because it would be faster than getting an international one from England.  Well, we arrived found the right subway stop and hopped in a cab, only to be told that the DMV closes at 1pm on Saturdays, it was about 130pm when we got in the cab.  Dale was not so happy.  Then we ventured on to Itaweon, the foreigner district of Seoul, where we happened into an English pub that had Guinness on tap and fish and chips for lunch.  We played some darts and some pool and waited for the rest of our party to arrive.  A group of 7 people is hard to get motivated to get up and go.  We knew we should leave an hour to get to the show and get there a few minutes early.  Well, that didn't happen, less than an hour before the show we were still checking into the hotel, it can be frustrating in a big group.  We rushed to the subway because the bellboy said subway would be faster than a taxi at that time.  We made the first train perfect, on to the second train. I was in the lead trying to get everyone to go faster, New Yorker Ana was kicking in, as I ran down the steps there was a subway pulling in, so obviously I got on....no one else did....I don't have a cellphone, everyone else that we were with does.  I made it to the final stop at just about 8pm when the show was about to start, and I waited and waited and waited and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  I asked a random man in the subway, in my extremely broken korean, to use his cellphone, no answer.  So,  I waited some more and then asked another guy to use his phone, he spoke really good English and was super nice.  He walked me out of the subway and waited with me until I could meet up with Mike.  When I called Mike to clarify something and Mike didn't answer he kept saying, "Why doesn't he answer, it's cold, where is he? Why doesn't he answer?"  I didn't have an answer for him.  Finally almost 45 min late I got into the show, I wasn't too happy about missing the beginning (the tix were expensive) but after seeing the show I was cheered up.  Back to the hotel, where I attempted my own version of Cirque du Soliel and everyone laughed at me, I could be in the show I swear!  

We ventured back out into Itaweon and found a bar with live music.  Some of our friends went to another club and some went to bed.  We ended up staying in the bar until almost 4am hanging out.  Mike and I were the last to go back to the hotel and they had kindly left the bed for us, oh yea, there were 7 of us in one hotel room, with one double bed and one single bed and a big floor.  Mike told the girls that they could have the bed, so three of us squeezed into a single bed.  In the middle of the night I tried to roll over and pushed my friend off the bed, it was quite hilarious, I decided to move to the floor after that because I felt bad.  

The next morning we had a traditional English breakfast back at the bar (this was about 1pm, breakfast is a loose term).  Then a few of us girls decided to go shopping (and spend too much money).  Mike and co. went to the bookstore, got arrested;) and went to the batting cages.  We met up later tired and hungry and got some Thai food.  We didn't leave Itaweon the whole weekend which I think means we miss home a bit.  

Back at the bus station some more shopping, I was all shopped out and so Mike, Dale and I went to get our bus tickets.  Our tickets were for 830, only a 40 min wait, by the time the others got their tickets they had to wait until after 10 to get a bus back (it's a 4 hour bus ride).  Glad I was all shopped out and got home at a semi decent hour.

5 days until Jude and Bill come!!!!

Oh, and we took Samjin back to the vet with our Korean friend and the vet said he's fine...I sure hope so!

Botched ball job?

A slice of life

It can't be determined yet whether Samjin's "valve" is still just sore or officially botched from his recent Neutering, but I have noticed a speckled trail after he leaves some assailable curb or tree stem.  We'll wait this one out before bringing it up with our animal physician. 

Samjin gave this woman a good scare earlier tonight as she walked with her small child. He snuck up behind them and barked. (He always barks at small children). "Ohmagod!" The woman burst out in Konglish reflexively.  Her use of "Oh my God" surprised me a little. 

Here are some words that have been adopted from English and thoroughly Koreanized: 

Ba-na-na.       Com-pyu-ta.    Ah-ee-suu Kuu-deem (ice cream).     Takshi (taxi).   

Caem-eh-da (camera).  Kopee (coffee). Cheejuh (cheese). Peet-chja (pizza).

....Mostly these words  become so distorted you usually cannot make it out right away. 

There isn't a Z sound in Hanguel, so they replace it with "ㅈ" which sounds closer to a "J."

i.e. 치 즈 ----Cheejuh. (words cannot end on a consonant sound so  usually the adopted words end with the "ㅡ" (euh sound). 

The "ㄹ" is a cross between R/L but can also sound like a "D" in the right situation. For example : 나 라  the word for 'country'  sounds like "Nada."

Also there isn't a "V"  sound so that is replaced with the "B/P" sounding "ㅂ."

example: 바 나 나 ----Banana.  Nor is there an "F" sound,  so  "ㅍ" is used, which is a distinct and hard "P."as with Kopee --코 피. (coffee). 

Well that's the lesson for now. The Korean alphabet is extremely logical and can be learned by anyone in a matter of hours. 

 

A big Texan by the name of Oscar is back in Jinju after heading home for a few months over the summer. He's now living close by to our apartment in Pyeongadong. He's big and oiled like a professional wrestler and wears leather jackets. Some how its funny when he smokes his thin 'capri' cigarettes and flicks them off with cosmopolitan flair. I saw his leather figure walking all over the side walk the other day as I drove by in the back seat of a van packed with Korean mothers. 

That afternoon was my final day teaching a mothers english class that met twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Being very kind and warm of heart they had taken me out to lunch, on top of buying me a chocolate cake from Paris Baguette. It was an Italian restaurant (Korean-ized Italian, of course) offering nice views on top of the Sky Palace building. On the 6th floor is a church where Ana and I used to take Korean lessons. We never would have known about this nice Kor-Italian restaurant all the way up on the 15th floor if it wasn't for those sweet moms.

Well it was pleasant, they mostly chattered on and I smiled. 

  

Turkey, Puppies and Other

Poor little doggy

Turkey remains

Yum! (that's my pumpkin pie...it got a little burnt on one side but was still delicious) 

Turkeyed out!

A little wine to start the festivities

Anticipating our meal;)

Well, I must say my pies turned out delicious.  They were gobbled up but not entirely which I was happy about because I got to bring some home!  We had quite the spread...turkey, stuffing, gravy, mac and cheese, collard greens, pierogis, cranberry sauce, yams, apple crisp, apple pie, apple turnover, pumpkin pie and cake!  It was like a real Thanksgiving, there were about 20 people, a success.

On Monday I brought Samjin to the vet to get "fixed".  While I was there I witnessed a puppy being born. It was pretty cool I've never seen that before, the momma was going to have three puppies, one was born when she was brought in and there was another coming after the one I saw.  Anyway, Samjin looks hilarious with his little cone on his head.

Yesterday in my basic class I had a new student, a really cute little girl.  Before class even started she was crying, I didn't notice anyone making fun of her so I went and got the TA who came and stayed by her for a while.  She seemed to be doing better and then the TA left and a couple minutes later the girl was crying again.  So, I took her hand and brought her to the office.  There is speculation that she is afraid of me:( being so foreign and all. Well, I hope today she doesn't cry.

Oh yea and Yay for Christmas music!!!!