Ray of Sunlight.

This has been a really tough week for Joseph and I here in Korea. Things just have not been going our way. For starters last Tuesday night the huge pipe that brings the majority of water into the Island broke and so many Islanders were without water for several days... Joseph and myself included. I broke down two days in and borrowed a shower from my good friend Dani. And I also broke down and bought water so we could flush the toilet.

Not only was our water out for three days but we were lucky enough for our internet to fail that same day as well. We made the best of it watching some rented movies and playing solitaire but other than that, we were off to the PC Bang ALL weekend. Grace called a repair man, but he got delayed monday because of the rain.... Yeah did I mention the fact that it is Monsoon season and has been rainy and gross for the entire weekend. I am so not a happy camper when I have to walk everywhere in the rain.

Thankfully though, the water came on friday night and I took the best shower of my life, and today the internet man came and fixed us up... (apparently the internet cable went bad, and he also had to climb up a huge pole and check some wire outside our window. Poor guy) And today, for a while the rain has lifted which allowed us to walk down to the bakery and get cream puffs for a well deserved breakfast of champions!!!!

So now it is off to work in a steamy 73 degrees. ( I will thank the monsoon for getting rid of crazy hot summer days) We also went and got gas for our ailing motorcycle which is now running okay... so things are really looking up.

I am excited for Market Day at the end of this week, so hopefully I will have a cool blog with some more pictures of the kids!

Here is to a week that without a doubt will be significantly better than last week!

Dinner is dangerous.

Check out the fantastic burn I gave myself while eating dinner out a few nights ago. We were eating budae jigae, and I was reaching for the serving spoon and managed to burn my wrist on the hot pot handles... ouch.... cooking your food is fun, buring the crap out of your arm is not... I guess I will have to be more careful next time...

Hangman can reveal alot about a student.

*Actual conversation during a game of hangman

the board looked like this:

_aterme_on

Students: Teacher, Hint please!

Me: Ok, here is the hint : "This fruit tastes sweet"

Ria: DETERGENT

Me: Please don't tell me you eat detergent.

Ria: yes, one time teacher.

Me: Ok .... OK guys, pick another letter.

Ria: "D"

Me: No it isn't detergent!!!!

Random student:' WATERMELON"

Me: Yes, good job

Ria: OHHHHHHH, much better than detergent. Good word teacher.

Me: Thank you Ria.

Students

I had my camera at school on Joseph's birthday and the kids told me to take their picture! Here is my America 3:30 class, Anna, Sky, Emily, Iris and Tina. They are so smart and cute!

I was going to take another picture and Sky jumped out in front of me, while simultaneously hurting his neck. He was okay but I was able to snap the exact moment he hurt himself. It was pretty funny!


They crack me up.

Joseph's Birthday

Joseph celebrated his birthday shortly after me, but unfortunately he was not lucky enough to share his birthday with the Buddha, so he had to work on his regular old tuesday birthday... but with that in mind, I tried to make it as special a day as possible. It is hard for us on holidays and birthdays to be away from our families, but we ended up having a good time.

We started the day with a sub sandwich, since both of us had been missing subway like crazy recently!

We actually found turkey for the first time in our stay here so we grabbed it up. It was about four dollars for this package, but it was so worth it just for the one big sandwich we made with it.

Here is the finished product, I could so be a sandwich artist.

A picture of the birthday boy on his birthday!

When we got to school we were surprised by the other Korean teacher with cake and ice cream. You can see Grace's arm, Next Cindy, Crystal, and May. Jenny somehow managed to sneak away from my camera.

The cakes are so pretty, this one had fruit and nuts. Very interesting combo.

And May teacher took a pciture of us together! Awwwwww.

Joseph with his presents, he got a new shirt and flowers, which are now sitting between our desks!

After school was over we quickly headed over to the new McDonalds and grabbed a quick bite to eat so we would be able to catch the movie at 8:50 for the Ghostwriter, a thriller mystery movie. It turned out pretty awesome.

After our dinner and a movie we headed home for a small birthday party I planned with the help of a certain box from a certain mother from home.

Since the box came after my birthday and before Joseph's we decided to wait and open the presents inside together on Joseph's birthday.

I also used some of the decorations as best as I could. I managed to get glitter all over the apartment, so you know we had fun!

The finished product of our Pirate party (since we live on the Island!!!!)I also bought a chocolate cake at the Paris baguette since we wanted to have a good desert at home. (two cakes in one day, what a lucky boy!)

Joseph and his eye patch blowing out the candles.

I totally burned my finger lighting all those candles. I am not skilled at all with lighters. That or there were too many candles on the cake.

We also had made a stop the day before at Baskin Robbins to pick up some delicious ice cream to go with our delicious cake.

Joseph cut the cake himself!

After cake and Ice cream, it was time for PRESENTS!!!! Joseph went first....

He got a really nice white shirt.

Then I opened some headbands. Thank goodness, I have managed to break the other ones I brought.

And then I opened a necklace because Joseph wanted to open the last present too. Thank you Mrs. Kelly for the lovely gifts.

"A TOTE BAG?!?!".... was all joseph said when he opened the gift.... "Why did my mom get me a tote bag?"

It was about ten minutes later he happened to look inside the bag and found the cool handmade cupon telling his real gift. After that the confusion left and the excitement started!

So thanks to everyone who sent well wishes, we both felt very loved on our birthdays. And we both look foward to spending them at home next year!!!!

100th Post and Dinosaurs.

Our Adventure last Sunday began in Goesung. We traveled about an hour and a half to get there to the city that supposedly has the biggest and coolest Dinosaur Museum, and pretty much every foreigner has to make at least one trip to the spot... and we figured out why only once, It takes FOREVER to get from the Goesung bus station to the actual Dinosaur park. It was fun, but we surely won't be making a return journey.

This is a picture of the cool lion drinking fountain outside the Goesung Bus Terminal. It was not here the last time we came to Goesung. It is kinda neat to see the different colored cups people drink from but we bought bottles of water because it does seem a little unsanitary to drink after others from the same cup...

Also interesting that the Bus station advertises for the Dinosaur Museum but it is not actually in the city which we found out when we had to pay for yet another transfer bus to get to the location.

We got on the bus and not only were we the only foreigners we were also the only people under the age of about 70. It was really neat to see the elderly interacting together. One woman decided to move back to try to talk to us, but hadvery basic English skills, so to get my attention she started rubbing my arm hair... Koreans love to talk about appearance in front of you (sometimes not in a good way, but they are usually just curious) So she was commenting on how white I was, and pretty and soft... well thank you lady!

Joseph and I on the bus he jokingly said "is hopefully going to the Dinosaurs and not the Morgue."

We basically drove through fifty billion wheat fields and about a million rice paddys dropping off each old person at their front door...Good bus Service if you asked me.

After an hour and a half (another one!) we finally made it and took our pictures with as many dinos as possible.

Very violent statues they had, but we had a good time.

The place was in the middle of nowhere, this was the view from the walkway into the museum.

The Museum.

We could not take pictures in the place, so I had to wait until we were outside eating lunch to take my camera out. This is what we had for lunch, Black Bean ramyeon. Very delicious.

Next came the Dinosaurs in the walk through park. This was the most fun.

Joseph and his new friend.

He even found one to share his pepsi with!

It was not too busy that day, lots to see. If you notice in this picture the Koreans are very concerned with skin care so they will walk around with umbrellas and HUGE visors when it gets sunny. Especially the older Ajummas.

Joseph and a dino. It was cool to see the dinosaurs, but they had no signs in English or Korean to tell about the dinosaur you were looking at.

Some were more cute than realistic. They love cute stuff here.

They had this statue of a stegasaurus made out of pipes, it was really neat! Joseph wanted to climb it, but....

We saw the Danger "Do not rise" sign which I can only guess means do not go up or do not climb so he thought better of it.

The Observatory

View from the Observatory.

Next we finished the park part and it was time to see real evidence that Dinosaurs walked the earth, you could walk down to the beach area and see actual fossilized footprints on the ground.

When we arrived to the beach we found a warning sign telling us not to trash the area, dance, sing or perform any shamanistic practices or we could be fined or put in jail. No Problem!

Beautiful Stone Beach.

We also found a cave, and when I asked one of my students to translate the sign (which we assumed meant be careful, because we followed some Koreans into the cave) she informed me that it said not to enter the cave due to the fact it could collapse or have a rock slide...oops... we were living life on the ignorant edge.

The exit.

Joseph cave walking.

We finally got out of the caves and ended up on the beach area, all the rocks were shaped in perfect straight lines. We tried to find rocks that looked like lots of states.

Here is Oklahoma.

Colorado or Wyoming.... :-)

Joseph posing by the sea.

There were little pools of stagnant water that had coral and these cute little flower like animals that would retract if you touched them, but not if you took a picture. The flash reflected in the water, but you can still sort of see the creature.

Me and the cool rocks

The Boardwalk, you were supposed to stay on the walkway, but nobody did.

It was not too long so we walked the whole thing.

Actual Dino footprints in the rock!

At the end of the trail there was a rest stop that sold refreshments, tickets to the nearby camp area and Bonzai Trees, very cute.

We decided we had enough so we left and went to sit in a nearby enclosed bus stop. We knew the last bus away from the park back to Goesung left at 5 and it was already 4:30 so we waited for the bus to come....and it didn't. about 10 after we were finally rescued by a city bus who picked us up. We asked the bus driver if he was heading to the Goesung Bus Terminal, and he said yes, so we got on. About five minutes later we realize he is taking us in the complete wrong direction... not happy about that, and then in the middle of the highway he stopped and told us to get off, apparently he knew the bus schedule really well because not two seconds after we got off he flagged down another bus headed in the right direction to stop and let us on. He was actually going to the Goesung Bus Terminal so we were able to take a bus straight back to the bus station. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.

The bus ride back was long, as expected.

What was unexpected was that the chair in front of Joseph's legs was broken and the woman was leaning on his leg the entire hour and forty minutes home. I thought it was more funny than Joseph did.

We then decided to go out to a nice dinner, we were pooped and I didn't feel like cooking so we went to the Italian place called Pepe Violia and Joseph ordered the big plate of Salmon and mashed potatoes and was kind enough to share.

I had some pasta dish with chicken and broccoli which was divine, and shared with Joseph as well.

We had a long day of travel but the sights we saw were really quite amazing. It was a good trip overall.