Cheousok

On Sept. 12 it was Korea's Thanksgiving holiday, it is called Cheousok.  It is a day to give thanks to their ancestors for helping them grow good crops.  Families gather together they give thanks, and then have a big meal together.  Since most people go to the country Seoul is pretty deserted.

On Monday I went with my friend to have lunch with his family.  They live in Suwon, I had take the subway down there myself.  I'm really glad I have an app for it on my iPad or I would have got lost. 

 Here is a picture of Suwon in the afternoon, I was surprised how few people where there.  As I was walking around I found this tank.  I couldn't believe how many crabs they fit in it.

 My friends family worried about me being able to eat Korean food so we had lunch at a buffet that served Western food.  It was a really good restaurant and I was excited because they had strawberry lemonade.   Here is a picture of me with my friends mom and sister.

 After lunch my friend and I went to a no ray bang (it's what the Koreans call karaoke).  It was a lot of fun and I was excited because it had a lot of English songs that I could sing.

Overall it was a fun holiday.

School Day by the Han River

I was excited to find out that on Friday Sept. 9th my school had a "field trip" to the Han River.  It was suppose to be a day for each of the classes to take their class picture and to write poems.  When we got to the meeting place all the girls were excited to take their pictures, I think they were excited because they had permission to wear make-up.  It is against school rules to wear make-up to school.  It was raining when we got there and we where all trying to stay dry.

 The girls are so cute as they pose for their pictures.

 Since it was raining so much and the girls wouldn't be able to write their poems so we were able to leave and have an early start to our long weekend.  Sept. 12 is the Korean Thanksgiving, it is called Cheousok (I'll write more about that in the next post).  The girls where told the theme for the day and told to write their poems over the holiday weekend.  Everyone was so excited because we got to leave around 10 o'clock.  Even in the rain the Han River is still so beautiful.

Since I had some free time I decided to go and do something fun.  I went shopping in a local department store.  It was funny because some of the girls from my school where there too and they followed me around saying hi to me.  It was a great start to my holiday weekend.

My Birthday!

 My birthday was on Sept. 3rd so I didn't have a lot of time to make friends before my birthday so I was expecting to just have it go by quietly here.  On Friday the day before my birthday I was so surprised when I was at work and had a cake and flowers delivered to me.  It made all the teachers around me come and look and ask who sent it.  I was so excited when I saw the note and found out one of my awesome Korean pen pals sent it to me.  She wanted to make sure that I didn't have a lonely birthday.  Both the cake and flowers where so beautiful and they made my day!

 Then on Saturday my actual birthday another one of my Korean pen pals brought me another cake.  It was such a cute cake too!  If you know me then you know that I love to make my birthdays last as long as I can.  It was a fun day, I spent the morning studying Korean and that night I went with my friend and had some really yummy food. 

Then on Sunday I was able to talk to my family using my iPad and some free wifi that I found on the street.  It wasn't a great signal but I got to see my family and they sang Happy Birthday to me.  They where all together because it was the same weekend that my new nephew was getting blessed so they where all in Arizona together.  

Between all the fun I had here and all the birthday wishes I got on Facebook it made turning another year older easier.  I'm grateful for all my friends that I have!

The Park

One thing that I have loved about living in Seoul are all parks they have here.  I love going to the park and walking around and watching the people in the park.  Here are some pictures from a park close to my house.

 I'm not sure what this is, but it is really cool at night because it lights up.

 I loved the purple color of these flowers

 Everything is so cute here!

  I didn't get a very good picture but there is exercise equipment in the park that anyone can use.  It is great you can see people using them a lot.  

This park is by the SBS building.  SBS is one of the broadcasting companies in Korea.  I love to watch a lot of their shows, so I was really excited to find this building.

 
I hope to find more parks to visit.

My Apartment

I have had many people ask to see pictures of my apartment. It is a small one room studio apartment (or an officetel as they call it here).

My apartment building.



My front door.



Looking into my apartment. You can see almost everything in this shot.


My bedroom/kitchen part 1




My kitchen part 2/laundry room.




My entertainment center/desk/bookshelf.



My closet and entry way. Behind the closet is an awesome shoe closet. I don't have enough shoes to fill it yet so am storing extra towels and food there.



My bathroom. To use the shower I have to turn on the sink and turn the knob on the shower. I learned the hard way to always check that I turned off the shower. I have turned on the water to wash my hands and got sprayed by the water from the shower.



My apartment Isn't big as you can see, but it's amazing how much stuff you can fit into the small space.

Orientation at Kyung Hee University

Let's just say I'm glad I went to orientation, but at the same time it was long and at times boring. Our schedule was very full, we had classes all day, and then after dinner we had Korean language classes. I was excited because I was put in the intermediate Korean class. Here is our class picture that our teacher Ji Eun took of us.


It was such a fun class, plus I learned some good phrases I can use now at work and when shopping.

I didn't take many picture of orientation but I'll put up the ones I did take.




This is a Korean drum group from a High school school in Seoul. They www a lot of fun to watch.




Kyung Hee's beautiful campus. We found a lot of hiking trails around the campus.




This is Kenny my awesome roommate Amanda's boyfriend. Doesn't he look just like the statue.




I found a turtle to sit on, isn't he so cute.




The entrance to the university.





On Sunday August 21st we went on a field trip to a Korean Folk Village. Here are a few of the busses we took.




Our fearless leader leading us around.




You write your wish on a paper and attach it and your wish will come true.




The cut out is the cast from one of the Korean dramas that is popular.




An awesome drum band that not only plays drums but also dances and does barrel rolls while they play. Oh and they also twirl the ribbon with their head. It was quite amazing!




A tight rope walker who never fell, and I thought he would for sure.




My roommate Amanda making her design on her pot. Mine was so bad I didn't want picture proof of it.




Roommates! She was the coolest roommate, I'm glad she and Kenny put up with me following them everywhere!




Making rice cakes. It was great to beat the my frustration out on the dough.




Amanda found her new favorite ride.




Kenny enjoying his melon ice cream that we found to beat the heat.

I am glad I had such a good group of people to go through orientation with. I am also very glad to be done with it, because most of the time I felt like I was in a bubble and not Korea.

My Flight to Korea

I have been in Korea for 2 weeks now and I can't believe how fast time is going. When I first landed here I was so tired after sitting on the plane for 12 hours. I didn't sleep the night before I left for many reasons, mostly it was because I was scared of what was going to happen in the next few hours. Luckily I found out another girl was flying on the same two flights I was so that made me feel better.

When I got to the airport I was so relieved to find out that both of my bags weighed exactly 50 lbs, the max they could weigh. I also found out that I didn't have to pay for my bags even though the email said I would have to pay.

The flight to San Francisco was only 2hours and it went pretty fast, and my layover there was only 2 hours. During that 2 hours I had to walk to the other side of the airport exit the secure area to go through security again. I was worried I would miss my flight, but luckily I got there with 20 minutes to spare.

My flight to Korea was long but at least I had my iPad and a tv screen on the seat in front of me that had a bunch of movies and tv shows on demand. I tried watching some movies I hadn't seen before but finally stopped because I kept falling asleep during them. I think I remember about 20 minutes of Rio. The worst part of the flight was that I was sitting in-between two guys, so it was awkward because they both used the arm rest on either side of me, so I didn't have much room.

When I got to Korea the first thing I noticed was how humid it is. The last time I felt this kind of humidity was when I was in New York City. I had to go through a lot of checkpoints to finally get to my luggage. Luck for me in Korea the luggage carts are free because I had 3 bags plus my laptop bag to take with me.

When I collected all my stuff I went to go find where all the English teachers had to meet. I was excited because when I got out to where people meet the passengers my friend Seong Woo was there to greet me. He was so nice he helped me find an ATM so I could get some money and get my cart to meet up with all the other EPIK (English Program In Korea) teachers. I checked in and then waited for my bus to load. Seong Woo helped me get my stuff to the bus and then I was off to my week of orientation at Kyung Hee University.

Here is a picture Seong Woo took of us at the airport. I was so tired and hot, can't you tell.


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