Only 5 Days Until Halloween!!

If you know anything about my family, you know that we go big at Halloween. I mean, we love Halloween! So I am so excited that it is only five days away! Halloween isn't celebrated in South Korea (really the US is the only place it's a big deal) so it is sad that there's no pumpkin patches or decorations anywhere, but I'm spreading the Halloween spirit the best I can! I decorated my desk at work with things I got in a care package (only desk decorated btw) and I've been handing out Halloween stickers and giving the kids Halloween worksheets since October 1st! Needless to say, the kids are really excited about the Halloween party at school next Monday, and so am I. I'll have to post pictures of it next week!
Even though there aren't Halloween decorations anywhere here, it still feels festive because all the trees are bright red, orange, and yellow- it is so beautiful! My apartment overlooks a park so the view is just incredible. And the weather- I know I talk about it every post but it's because I can't get over how amazing it is! Normally in Texas we have one day of perfect fall weather- sunny but crisp and chilly, perfect jean and jacket weather but still feels good enough to spend time outside. That is how almost everyday of fall has been here. This is definitely the time to visit Korea!
So enough about the weather, let me tell you what's been going on since the last post!

Last Friday night, one of the teachers at school had a house warming party at her apartment! It was really fun, tons of food, wine, and beer (and I mean TONS) and we had fun just hanging out outside of school. Robin, who's apartment it was, confessed that sometimes she likes to watch the people in the apartments across the way so we were making fun of her for being a peeping tom in the picture below!

Afterwards Cassy, Sam, Ben, and I walked around and explored Songdo a bit on our way home. We were looking for new bars and restaurants to hang out at and we came across a giant boat! Never seen it before, but apparently normally it's a fountain but it's drained for winter so Cassy used it as a photo op:

On Saturday, Cassy and I went into Seoul! First stop: the Hello Kitty cafe in Hongdae to get some warm drinks! Here are the cup cups they give you water in:

The whipped cream on top the hot chocolate had a Hello Kitty face!

Then of course they have tons of souvenirs you can buy, even Hello Kitty dressed in a traditional Korean Hanbok!

Korea is really big about putting fake food on display to show what's on their menu, I mean nearly every restaurant or cafe you go to will have the fake food on display, and the Hello Kitty Cafe was no different! So I took a picture of it, all the food in the case is fake but it looks pretty good!

Then as we were walking around Hongdae we came across a Charlie Brown Cafe! So of course I had to have my picture taken with Charlie Brown:

We'll have to go there next time! Then we went over to Myeong-dong for some brief shopping, then headed over to Itaewon. In Itaewon they have a very large english book store, so cassy stocked up. They even have brand new magazines you can buy, but they're about $10 each, so I passed. We wandered around looking for Halloween flyers for this Saturday. Some of the pubs even had some Halloween decorations up! So that's the plan for Saturday night: dress up in Halloween costumes and go out in Seoul! While in Itaewon, I came across this sign and had to take a pic for my sister:

Then our last stop was the foreign food black market, where I FINALLY found some oatmeal!!! I have gone to 4 different grocery stores looking for it everywhere, so I was so happy I finally found some! I got the big one, and hopefully it will last me awhile! Also got some tomato soup because they don't sell that in normal grocery stores here and some diet coke because that's another thing that's really hard to find!

I made myself an egg sandwich and tomato soup for dinner- the perfect winter comfort food! Oh and I have no idea what was going on Saturday, but the subway was crazy packed! Never seen so many people on it before, complete madness. Like literally didn't even have to walk down the stairs to the tracks, because the shoulder to shoulder crowd could have just carried me down! The older generation here are always soooo nice to us, I was not expecting that! For example, on the subway ride home it was really packed still, and Cassy and I had to stand and normally would hold our heavy bags for an hour and a half, but this nice older women who was sitting down grabbed our bags and held them for us instead! They also always make sure we get their seats when they stand up to get off the subway (it's a mad scramble for seats), they're just always very kind to me.
One last thing before I have to go back to work (I'm on lunch break!) Sam, Cassy, and I booked our New Year's Eve trip Monday night finally! It's been a difficult process, we found out you can't use any American credit cards in Singapore or for any companies that use Singapore banking, so we couldn't book our flights through the airline because of that! So because of that we have instead booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for the holidays instead! I know it sounds completely random, but that was actually our next choice after Hong Kong fell through. Anyways, it's their capital city, looks like fun, it's cheap, and Sam has two friends living there that will be able to help us get around while we're there! I am really excited about it, never thought when I was coming to Korea that Malaysia would be one of the places I would visit! So now the flight is booked, what a relief, and we've found a nice place to stay with a private 3 bed room for $9 a night. $9!!!!
Ok that's it for now, must get back to molding minds and all that!

It's Been Awhile...

So I realized this morning that it's been over a week (almost 2!) since I updated my blog! Whoops! This month seems to be going by so quickly, and there hasn't been any big trips so I haven't taken many pictures. But I will try to fill yall in on whats been happening best I can.

Two weekends ago (Oct 8th) one of my Korean co-workers got married! Everyone was invited, so we decided to go and check out what a real Korean wedding was like. It is definitely different from an American wedding in many ways!
First you must know that in Korea, your life from a young age is staged in pictures. They are crazy about taking photos of everything, so posing and stopping in the middle of things is completely normal. That was one thing that was different about the wedding, the photographers were everywhere, making them stop a lot during the ceremony to take pictures, and being all in there face about it. In our weddings, the photographers try their best to stay out of sight for the most part.
The second big difference was that people talked CONSTANTLY throughout the entire ceremony! They were talking to each other, on phones, playing games on their iPads with the volume up, I mean no one seemed to pay attention to the ceremony!
The last big difference was where the wedding was held and the reception. In Korea, they have special buildings just for weddings and the reception, so when you get there it's room after room just for weddings. They have 30 minutes for their wedding; literally it's a wedding factory. They are cleaning up and setting up for the next wedding before you even get out of there! And then for the reception, it's in the same building and you get a ticket for it when you give your wedding gift (just money, to cover food, but no other presents like back home). So you take your ticket to a big hall and give it at the door, because there are actually tons of people from all the weddings eating in the same room as you. It's just a huge buffet and you have to find your seating, and then you eat and leave! There aren't toasts or dancing because you're in there with a bunch of strangers from other weddings!
Alright I took a few pictures and videos to try to show yall what it was really like. It was a nice place (part of the Ritz Carlton chain) and the bride's dress was really beautiful!
First the mother of the bride and mother of the groom walked down in the traditional Korean dress called a Hanbok:

And then here's the groom waiting for the bride:

Then the bride and the groom, her dress was really pretty!

I took two videos, and you can hear how noisy it really was during the ceremony!

So that was my Korean wedding experience! It was definitely interesting!

Let's see, what else has been going on.... Oh I've been helping Bora (my boss) plan the Halloween party we're going to have at school! We were throwing around ideas at work yesterday about what we could do with the kids that day, and she said if we had enough stuff than we wouldn't have classes that day but just the party! So I told her all the things we used to do during the Halloween parties at our house when we were young, like bobbing for apples, the toilet paper mummy wrap game, trying to eat donuts hung from the ceiling by a string with no hands, a fortune teller, trying to guess the number of candy corn, the game where you put different foods in boxes and label it 'eyeballs' and stuff, and of course a costume contest! If I'm missing any good ones, let me know!
I've also gotten a lot of presents from students these past few weeks: really nice facial soaps from Guam, a bag of orange chocolates from Jeju Island, a box of hard candies from Japan, a bag of raw sweet potatoes, and a little box of thick rice cakes. I literally have a drawer full of food at work because I am given so much stuff! I've already used the soaps too, they are so nice!
The weather right now is so beautiful, all sunny and clear, but pretty cold! It gets down to 0 or 1 degrees Celsius at night (which is about 30 degrees Fahrenheit), but it's supposed to warm up a little bit this week and be in the 50s at night, 60s during the day. Here in Songdo, the warmest part of the day is in the morning, and then by about 2:30 pm it starts getting really cold again and cloudy. Because of the crisp wind here, the temperature always feels a lot colder! I had to return a jacket I bought because the pockets were fake (a girl needs real pockets!) so I'm hoping I can survive on my cardigans until this weekend when Cassy, Sam, and I are going back to Seoul. Then I'll myself a warm jacket to wear!
We're also in the midst of planning a trip for New Years, we only get Thursday and Friday off (Dec 29 & 30) so we don't have too long to travel, only four days, but we do want to try to go out of the country. We were planning to go to Hong Kong, but flight prices all of a sudden shot up and are now $1,000 so instead we're trying to go to Singapore! We're going to book our flight today, they are really good prices so hopefully that will work out! And it would be a nice break from Korea by that time because it will be soooo cold here and Singapore is tropical year round!
Anyways, that's it for now, I need to start carrying my camera around with me so I can update on the little things more!

Weekend in Busan: Part 2

If you haven't read my previous post about Busan, read that one first! And then come to this one, because this is what happened next!

After a fun night out on Saturday, we woke up ready to explore some  more on Sunday. We moved hostels first, and this time we were nearly on the beach! We stayed in the Haeundae Beach area, and it was a great part of the city, filled with restaurants, a few shops, tons of bars, and of course it was right on the beach! We dropped our stuff off and then walked along the beach for awhile- it was just perfect weather and so beautiful and relaxing!

 Check out the two glittery office buildings! So cool!

So we walked the length of the beach and then followed a trail that lead us eventually to a lighthouse! It was so pretty- lots of stairs though!

 You can see the little wooden path in this one:

Near the lighthouse there was an observatory and a little temple:

After our nice hike there and back we were starving! We ended up going to Outback (ok I never eat outback at home, but I have now had it 3 times in the past 2 months, but it's because they have this amazing grilled chicken mango salad!!) and of course it was completely filled with U.S. Navy boys. The table next to us literally ordered one of everything off the menu, it was ridiculous. But I guess when you're stuck with whatever grub they serve on the ship for months at a time you indulge while on shore!

Next we explored the area a bit more, got some coffee, and then decided to go see one of the famous Buddhist temples in Busan. We were all somewhat tired at the point, but I'm so glad we decided to go to the temple because it was so pretty. Here are a few pics:

 By the way, that's not a Nazi Swastika above, it actually means "good fortune" and is a symbol for the Buddha's footprints and heart and is one a lot of Buddhist doorways, entrances, and buildings in Korea.

 Giant Buddha:

Anyways the temple was very beautiful and it was interesting to see it all. After we visited the temple we headed back to our hostel and all changed and got ready to go out!
We went to dinner at a good hamburger place called Breeze Burns and then it was still somewhat early so we though we'd have a beer at a chill irish pub called The Wolfhound. Buuuut we actually ended up staying there the whole night! When we first got there the place was still pretty quiet so we sat in a corner, ordered a pitcher of beer, and played some cards. By the end of our first pitcher we had already made some friends, this time not Navy sailors but fellow english teachers in Korea! Sam went to go get us another pitcher but forgot to say what size so came back with the grandfather of beer pitchers- but no worries, Sam and I managed to finish it off! Here's a few pics from the night:

 One of the guys we hung out with, he won that shirt in one of the carnival games on the street:

Sam planking (or at least attempting to) in our booth:

 Gunbae!

 Yep, taught more people how to play Indian Poker:

 Thumb-war to decide tie breaker: new poker rules?

 Sam's the winner!

 Playing darts in the bar! The dartboard was right in the middle of the room, it was actually very dangerous,  there were many close calls that night! Sam and Jimmy from Georgia:

Slightly nervous that I'm going to hit someone:

 So it was another great night, did some more dancing because they were playing great songs from the 90s!
The next morning we woke up fairly early and sat out on a coffee shop balcony that overlooked the beach and just relaxed and enjoyed the view! Then we went and ate a big american style breakfast (so good):

Then it was time to head to the train station to go home! While waiting for the train we took some more random pictures:

Haha so it was a really great weekend, sooo much fun, and we all definitely plan on going back to Busan soon! Probably when it gets warmer again because we want to enjoy the beach!
It's already thursday night here so I'm about to meet some of the other teachers for dinner and celebrate only one more day until the weekend! I'm going to the Korean wedding saturday so I'll have to post pics about that, and then we're heading into Seoul to do some shopping and look for our Halloween costumes!!! Oh another thing good about tomorrow: It's PAY DAY!!! YAY!

So my summary after being in Korea two months: Best decision ever!

Until later!