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.

It is about time...

When I picked the title "Ali's Adventures" for my blog, I knew I would have many adventures over seas.... and the rice cooker was no exception. I was very hesitant to try using it due to the fact that it had no english directions with it, and usually I am pretty good at blowing things up.... but with a bit of convincing from Joseph, I decided to try my hand at making rice in the thing.

After 20 minutes we had perfect rice.... Delicious!

I found a recipe online for beans in a rice cooker, so since Joseph's mom sent us a supply of them I tried my best to make it work for them too. I think I put in too much water because it ended up cooking for an extremely long time. When it finally went "ding". I got up to check the progress of the beans, I only saw them for a split second, because apparently you should not have a rice cooker on that long, and it blew a fuse. So I literaly saw the beans for one second and the power went out ( am I good or what!)

Luckily Joseph knew where the switch box was and fixed the problem shortly, and we were able to see the cooker did a great job with the beans.

I am going to start trying more and more new recipies with my new cooker friend (and hopefully next time there will be less potential fire hazzards)

Spring is on it's way.

For those of you who talk to Joseph or I on a regular basis, you know the weather here has been pretty cold.... well as of April 1st it has FINALLY started warming up, so Joseph and I decided on saturday when it hit 55 degrees (which, yes was cause to jump for joy) we decided to take advantage of the weather on a saturday and walk around our fair Island once again. The winter kept us inside much of the time, but this will soon change in the coming months!

Here was part of our walk as we headed toward the stadium in Gohyeon. I love all the Mountains in the backgrounds, I guess I am still an Appalachian girl at heart.

Further down the path we came across some Apartment buildings far off the beaten trail, we headed up to explore and found a few cool restaurants that we may have to visit in the future.

The fence with the community farms (I think) there were many people out working them when we walked by that afternoon.

My new favorite flower... they have them everywhere, and they are the perfect shade of baby pink!


Also you can't mention flowers without saying something about the cherry Blossoms, this was the first of the start, now the entire street is lined with tiny pink buds, it is really beautiful on the walk to work,

And with any blog I try to include a fun story or tidbit, We came home from dinner out one night and stopped at the new 7-11 they just opened next to our apartment. We bought some water, pepsi, and a few various snacks to enjoy for the week ahead. We are walking back to our apartment and there is an odd glow coming from the car port area of our apartment, we continue to walk until we found there was a flaming bicycle....And no this is not some wacky drink or mis-translation, literaly there was a bike on fire. Being Foreigners we really had no idea what to do... And the odd part was NOBODY was there.... we were on our own with no phone, so we could not call the fire department, and no Korean skills so we really could not tell anybody. But this fire was big and getting bigger, it was melting the tires and smoke was filling the doorway to get into the building. So I went to knock on the Landlords door, Not home OF COURSE.... so I am all set to open the huge bottle of water we just bought and put out the fire. Joseph says " wait, lets get the trash can filled with water and take that out instead, that will have more water anyway" so we ran upstairs, and dumped all our trash on the ground and filled it up with the sink. We ran back downstairs and managed to put out the flames.

Now why is it that we have lived in that apartment for 6 months and NEVER once seen one of our neighbors, but the minute we are putting out a fire we didn't start with a trashcan full of water one of them happens to walk up and see us...

Nobody has said anything at work to us about it, so hopefully we are just some unseen heros.

Anyway, i got some pictures of the aftermath of the blaze the next day, I figured this would be a fun time to post it.

the remains of the seat.

Here you can see the burnt springs of where the bike seat used to be, that was the main casualty of the fire. The tire is burnt too... and the lock...

Enjoy, We just got back from a trip so I will try to update that this weekend.

April Fools

.....Unfortunately they have April Fools day in Korea.

My students got me good today,

Lucy"Ohhh Teacher, Ewww there is a Bug on your shoulder".....

Me:"Ewww where?"

Lucy and Grace: "April Fools.... Hahahaha"

But I got them back

Me: "Guess what students, NO HOMEWORK"

Students: "YEAH!!!!!!"

Me:"APRIL FOOLS" *insert evil laugh here.....

Roy:" Teacher, you bad."

Yeah.... it was an interesting day.

Music....

Right now C.N. Blue (or Code Name Blue) is a big hit in Korea, you hear this song everywhere, and it is so catchy! I love the video too, it shows you exactly what all the boy's in our classes haircuts look like!

Warning, you will have this song stuck in your head after listening! Beware!

Here is their hit, I'm a loner!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pUfHnWRsRA&feature=related

Six months

Today is the official six months here. And with that comes six months to go! This is our halfway point. The time is only getting shorter now. We had planned to accomplish so many things by now… many of which were travel plans…many of which had to be placed aside due to school, weather and sickness… but what better way to ensure a great last six months than to make a public promise about all the things that need to be accomplished and enjoyed.

It is very easy to get stuck in a rut, and do what is comfortable and easy… but that is also a good way to miss a lot of opportunities in a far away country that you will probably not get a chance to visit again. That being said here is a short check list of sorts to help remind us Why we came here and what we want to do!

1. Travel – that was the most basic and exciting reason we came to Korea, and we have not been nearly everywhere we wanted to go. We fully intend to see more of Korea, (Whitney I SWEAR we are going to make it to Deagu to visit you), as well as plan a big trip to China…we just found out that this summer we will get ten consecutive days off work, so there will be no better time to make a big “see Asia” trip than that. China is HUGE so we hope we can see a good chunk of it during that time… it will also be fun to plan what we want to do and see, so if anyone has any ideas let me know! We were thinking it would be cool to take a train to the Great Wall, and we know we want to visit some bigger cities too! It will be fun to document not only the trip but the process to get there as well!

2. School – Can’t deny that our school is the reason we are here. We have some schedule changes coming up and Grace has given us a real chance to do some creative teaching. We are coming up with a new curriculum for our advanced students to challenge them and also get them interested in things going on in our world today. Maybe we will even tackle trying to teach them about the American Health Changes about to take place, see what they think! I am really excited about this new lesson plan… it will be a lot of work, but we will get to have a real say in what we teach! Very cool! I will keep everyone updated as we try to find a Korean newspaper in English……

3. Try new foods. – Now this is not always an easy task, because half the time we go to a true hole in the wall Korean restaurant, we usually have no clue what to order or what they even sell. We stick to the main circuit of restaurants that we know we like or we pick out simple foods at the store that remind us of home that I can cook in a microwave oven (or on a burner) With summer coming up (soon hopefully) that will also change what foods I cook to a lighter cooler fare than what I usually make (hearty warm stuff since it has been so cold) Mexican night will still be a favorite in our books, but new menus can be refreshing. It is hard to find things you like and not eat them till you get sick of them (because I have not had rice in a week and it really has not been long enough!) So I vow to find at least one new restaurant to try each month!

4. Mindset – Things have been very hard at times…there have been times when both Joseph and I wanted to throw in the towel and hop a plane home…. (thankfully not at the same time or we may have actually done it) We have so many talks about how culture is really intrinsic to how you live daily life. It really becomes a part of you and to be out of your element for a long time really puts everything in perspective. Korea is not bad by any means, simply different from my own way. However, “different” can put you on edge and make things that normally would not bother you become a huge burden. And those burdens can weigh heavy on your heart and mind. We miss home a lot. We miss family a lot…. We miss friends a lot… we miss SOUR CREAM!!!!! But at the end of the day we usually end up talking about something funny that happened in class, or something cool coming up for the teachers and things in general that make everyday more interesting and unique than it would be in Raleigh. I am glad Joseph and I are not quitters, because in the end this ultimately will be a positive experience, and one I plan to look back on fondly. Nothing is perfect, but you can always make the best of things when you have a positive attitude. So I will promise to always look on the bright side.



And now for a Top ten list of things that have changed in six months….. (please bear in mind I am not David Letterman or his staff of writers so this may not be funny at all!)

1.) I now walk into a convenience store and the Korean for “Hello” and “Thank you” come naturally .

2.) Slowly we have picked up on more vocabulary and can tell when the kids are talking about us! HAHA score 1 for teacher!

3.) I was honked at by a car for being in his way on the sidewalk.

4.) I clean more often, because the smaller the place you live in, the harder it is to get away from the mess!

5. We only have 2 forks, but several sets of chopsticks.

6. I eat fermented cabbage with red pepper every week (almost every day)

7. We can walk anywhere in the city we want to go in about 30 minutes.

8. Quiznos has become “special dinner” food.

9. We get really excited when English movies come to the Island, and super bummed that they only stay for a week.

10. I find myself staring at White people, just because I don’t see them that often.


And a top ten list of things that are always the same no matter what country you live in…

1. The guy above you in the apartment will inevitably decided to do laundry at 2am on Wednesday night when you want to wake up and talk to your parents early on Thursday.

2. Kids think anyone over the age of 25 is old ( ohhh goodness when did that happen?) a seven year old actually gasped when I told her how old I was. (wait till may when I turn 26, Emily)

3. Teacher’s see students eating potato chips in class even though the kid thinks they are being super sneaky by putting one chip in at a time and sucking on it so it doesn’t crunch.

4. Chinese food is cheap and AWESOME!

5. People talk on cell phones all the time.

6. Everyone LOVES Friday!

7. They Show CSI on television daily (in no particular order though) I can thank Dani for letting me chill at her house once a week!

8.Grocery stores, Movie theatres, and restaurants are PACKED on weekends

9. Hamburgers are easily accessible.

10. Kids still say the “darndest” things. Especially when English is not their first language.

So on that note, happy six months to us, and we will see you all soon