Birthdays, Bits and Pieces!

I always feel like I have so much to update, and I can never get around to doing it, so I have many mini blogs about lots of things going on.

But first and most importantly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA KELLY!!! ( My grandma, not Joseph's grandma, though that is quite confusing since his last name is Kelly and mine is Parks.... ) Hope you have a wonderful day, and I miss you!

Next up, Joseph has started a cool new project for his teen times class, they are now penpals with his little sister Caroline back in Raleigh... This is the picture they sent to her... Love the peace signs...very typical of a Korean photo.... they always say Kimchi instead of Cheese when there is a picture being taken... it works though!

Speaking of Cheese, I have been working very hard lately to make healthy meals... here youc an see a salad I made with cucumbers, lettuce, tomato, and yes...cheese. we used the low fat italian dressing though... Along with the salad, I made my own version of the KFC famous bowl. Joseph and I used to get them all the time back home, but the KFC here has no mashed potatoes... yeah, for real, no potatoes, gravy or good biscuits.... what is the world coming too... they are really missing out.

I was so proud of myself, I even made "gravy" from scratch... it was not that great but it did the job. Add in some corn, and you got a great dinner.

Joseph also told me I looked pretty when I cooked ( I think that is his way of making me do it more, but I thankfully actually enjoy it!) But he took a picture, since the sun was out I was having a relatively good hair day!

Yeah for good hair!


I also tried my hand at making stuffed peppers, and they turned out great as well, I didn't have onion like the recipe called for but it still turned out great in my toaster oven. And just because I wanted to add it to the post, we found the coolest but most high cholesterol Hagwon in Korea... "Butter English"...


This is one of the top five so far! Right up there with Pass off English.

And because this was the highlight of my week, we finally managed to do the grow a dinosaur that Joseph's mom sent in our easter package! It was really cute to see the thing come to life.

Day 1, Evening.

Day 2, morning

Day 2, night.

Day three, (I think joseph helped him out of his shell)

Day three! SO CUTE!

Well that is all for now, we took a great trip to Okpo, but it is time for Bed!

pictures and funnies.

Short post, but a post all the same. Here is a great shot of a boat under a bridge in Tong Yeong. We went hiking around there a few weekend ago, and I captured this pic right before we spotted....

This old almost burnt to the ground house on the other side of the bridge wer were standing on. It was cool to wonder how long it had been there, what happened to it, and where the person who used to live in it is now? So many questions. It looked like someone had gone through and raided the place, so we just took a few pictures and used our imaginations.

It must have been a really traditional home, and I think it is so sad how Korea has really become an apartment society when they have such beautiful architecture.


Also, a few nights ago Joseph and I stumbled across a website run by a guy named Luke Martin, who does really great comics showing what life in Korea is like for us.... if we can find the humor in it we will be alright at the end of the day. Here is a taste of a few of our favorite posts.

EVERY DAY.

And this one is perfect because we had been keeping a tally of which weird combo items Korea could sell us next.

Enjoy

Who needs Jinhae.

I may have missed the cherry blossom season, but not the cherry blossoms, all I had to do was go out on my street and I was able to capture them.

The cars were covered in the tiny pink petals, it is so pretty.

They make the walk to Home Plus much more enjoyable.

Blossoms.

And just to prove that we don't starve, I took pictures of my awesome BLT's and soup we had for dinner a few nights ago. (the bacon here is really weird, but still pretty good, Bacon is always good!)

Funny to me.

Walking around town in Okpo a few weekends ago, I happen to have my camera on me, and as we were walking we noticed more Hagwons with some great names. I will keep a running log of some of the best names for English Schools in South Korea.

The first one is Insentive English... no no no not incentive English, that would be correctly spelled. (Why do they not let us spell check things before they turn them into signs?.... my school sent out a promotional flyer saying I graduated from Appalacheain University, instead of APPALACHIAN University...sheesh, I would have noticed that guys!)

Maybe they rule with an iron fist, and meant to say Insensitive English... I don't know.

But the one that tops them all, the best I have seen so far, would be Pass-Off English, Spelled correctly and right to the point! (they call it like they see it!)

I hope their slogan is, "We pass off like we can teach you English so you can Pass off that you know English...win win."

Who knows!!?!?!?

New Vice.

We have added a new stop to our list of favorite coffee shops. Since we went to Starbucks at least once a week in the winter, we have now found our new summer sit and chill place...Literally. In Okpo we found a cute little joint that just opened a month or two ago called the "Yoger Presso", I have never been to one in the states before but this could certainly catch on. It is your typical coffee shop but it offers a few slightly new takes on normal drinks as well as offers belgium waffles with an assortment of topping from chcolate (dark or milk) to fruit or just good old maple syrup.

We decided to be daring and try some of the Yopeccinos ( still unsure how to pronounce it, we usually just point) But we tried the Mint Choco Chip Yopeccino and the Cookies and Cream Yopeccino and were not dissappointed. They are more like soft serve ice-cream, but they mix in the toppings. So delicious.

They even have the cool straws with the spoons on the end so you can eat the whipped cream first!

This is going to be our new summer evening hang out spot to while away the time with talking, crossword puzzles and sodoku..... well as soon as the weather gets above 60 degrees.

Mini-vacation

We missed our group of friends that were going to the cherry blossom festival in Jinhae last saturday, so we decided to go to Busan instead for a bit of a mini-vacation break from school.

So we took the ferry to the port and began our own trip.

This is the Ferry Terminal in Busan

We had some time to explore and we saw this cool tunnel from the bus station that lead directly to a mall, which was really neat.
After exploring a bit we decided to pick a hotel for the night and then head out in search of food. We decided on the Zeus Motel, just because the name stuck out as funny.

It was actually not the ugliest hotel I have seen.

Embroidered robes.

...and so was the blanket.

After that we headed out to the beach, it was not really warm yet, but we still enjoyed feeling the sun on our faces.

We saw a cool boardwalk path going behind a hotel so we decided to follow it and came across a cool boardwalk like pathway... then we crossed over a suspension bridge.

Cool windblown tree we passed. It was not windy that day, but the tree looked like that as we passed.

Picture of Us.

Sneak peak through the trees. I love the rocky shore line.

It was a photo opportunity I didn't want to miss... so I took a picture of the photo.

And here is the real thing.

Light house at the end of the trail.

What. A. View. this picture does no justice.

The Apec center...George Bush was here!

It was really beautiful.

Bridge near sunset.

Me checking out the view.

Joseph checking out the view.

The rocky coast line. We must have stood in the exact same place for at least half an hour just watching the sun over the water, it was so nice.

We decided to take a tour or the Apec center and the first thing we saw was a Robot... Joseph said this is what Hagwons are going to replace real American teachers with in the future.

The board room where the Apec meetings were held.

I told you George was here.

More photos.

The forest outside was really pretty.

And the buildings across a small bay... it was really beautiful.
We got hungry so we decided to share a snack at the ice cream store....

and this was our view out the window the ENTIRE time... hehe, but they were cute.

A building in busan being built... it was really neat to walk through the construction site.

More buildings.

we had quite a while before dinner so we stopped at a local WA-Bar (western bar) for a pre dinner beer and cool rice crunchy things.

Trying the local brews. Hite and Cass...

Then for Dinner we had noodles, here is REAL pad thai, joseph ended up getting some pineapple shrimp rice meal. But both were delicious.

The next day we stopped off at Bookstore Alley to buy some National Geographic magazines before we took the ferry home, this is our favorite place in Busan.

This picture is crooked, but I tried to get a picture of the ceiling (which you could barely see!)

And we passed through a local outdoor restaurant. I don't think we will be eating here since we saw them washing dishes next to dogs, and on the ground.

We always see so many different things every time we go, each time is an adventure.