Welcome Back to Korea

Our flight landed in the Incheon Airport outside of Seoul and we immediately knew where to go, approximately how long it would take to get through customs and how to get to the airport limousine bus that would take us to our apartment. We also knew that getting a taxi with all of our belongings from our little subway station near our apartment back to our neighborhood would be near impossible. We also knew a trick for that; just flash a "man-won" or 10,000w bill. What a contrast from last year when everything seemed completely overwhelming and scarily different.
It is wonderful to not be the new person anymore.
We've started this year off strong, enjoyed reconnecting with new friends and getting prepared for the beginning of the academic year. Here are some photo highlights.

I arranged a ladies night out. A group of 15 of us went into Seoul for some drinks then some Indian food. It was a great time of catching up and getting to know new people to KIS.






Loren plays on a Sunday soccer league with some hagwon teachers, (English as a second language teachers) and some Koreans. After the game my friend Sarah and I met up with them to celebrate their 1st win of the season and get some Mexican food.


These pics are from our first all staff happy hour of the year.


There is a large group that lives in our apartment complex. It's called Woomi Apatu. We call ourselves the Woomians. We decided to have a nice little pot lache picnic in the park behind our apartment. It was very hot and humid but worth it.


The Nies's brought their son's nerf guns and so a great game of hide and shoot ensued.
You can imagine, this little guy was good!
It's been a great start to the year. Here's to hoping that the fun continues!

Sarah's 30!

August 19th, 2009, I turned 30. In the days leading up to the big date, I kept waiting for the terrifying realization that I'm leaving my 20's and I'm moving on to undeniable adulthood to dawn on me, but when the day came, I felt fine. I'm in a great spot in my life; I have a wonderful husband, a great job and I'm living in a wonderful foreign country. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else at this age. Loren, on the other hand, spent the days before my birthday stressing, planning, working and plotting ways to make my 30th birthday party everything I could hope for. He printed tons of pictures of me from infancy to now and put them up on the walls, created a slide show with more embarrasing pictures of me where he included emails and well wishes from family and friends. He even made sure we had 3 stages of food to share with our guests representing the 3 decades of my life.
1st decade: PB&J sandwiches, Pringles and Twixes,
2nd decade: home made mac and cheese and nachos with guacamole,
3rd decade: cheese and spinach dip with sliced veggies, and baked tofu with peanut sauce.
He was a cooking, taping printing machine. He even created a committe called the SBPPC, (Sarah Birthday Party Planning Committee) to help make the party come together.

Here are some pics from the wonderful party. I wish you all could have been there. Thank you to those of you who sent in your heartfelt b-day messages. I felt so loved. And, yes, there were some tears shed. Especially when Loren read Maria's email, Nicole's anecdotes and the video b-day wishes from Stacy and Rick, Jon, and Michelle and Dustin. Never has a person felt so loved before!




The late night crew who held on until after the security guard came a knocking.
Haeyoung, Jen, Hugh, Loren, Me, Christine and in the back, Sarah and Derek.


We played games.

Crystal and Shua
Sarah and Derek
Singing Happy Birthday along with our friend the Jagermeister bottle. (It arrived late one night and just decided to stay.)
"Happy Birthday to meeeeee..... Happy Birthday to MEEEE!!!"


Loren was an excellent mixologist and host.

I'm wearing the finest example of Konglish I've ever seen. If you can read it in this photo, the shirt says, "Mamalady, Change horses in smiddle of stream." Yes, sage advice.
Christine, Crystal and Shua
There were spontaneous games of "Who can touch the balloon with their heads?" Maybe that is why the security came.
Not with your fist Sarah!!
Sarah, Derek, Rich, Aysem and Tim
I know it's blurry but I wanted people to get the feeling for the atmosphere. We had nice lighting.
Dan and Danielle
Haeyoung and Liz
Crystal, Sarah, Danielle, Grace and Me.

Oh the aftermath!

It was a great time! Thanks again to everyone who made it so special. I sure am glad to be 30.

Korean food WOW!

Loren and I just ate the most wonderful, ginormous meal we've ever had, EVER! It was so monumental, I think I would like to share it with you.
Here it is, broken down into the courses we were served:

1st course:
rice/seafood porridge
salad- iceberg and sweet dressing
sashimi (frozen tuna) on salad
sampler platter with figs, egg rolls, egg cake, sweet bread balls, fish cake
seaweed/sea algae salad with honey mustard dressing
fresh shrimp in shell, slices of octopus, squid, de-shelled shrimp

2nd course:
Sashimi platter-flat fish (looked like a flounder?) some de-shelled shrimp, served Korean style with wasabi, pepper sauce, raw garlic, and a red bean paste wrapped in either butter lettuce, romain lettuce or mint leaf. Also on the side were sweet green peppers that could be dipped in the sweet bean paste.

3rd course:
Iced platter of sea cucumber (sea penis) sea ginseng (sea pineapple), abalone, salmon, squid, shell fish, shellfish intestines.

4th course:
3 whole roe stuffed mackerel,
1 whole fish,
corn/mayo/cheese salad,
boiled out of shell salty egg dish,
shrimp cut in half and baked,
seaweed soup

5th course:
battered/fried fish fillet with sweet chili sauce, sesame seeds and onions on top

6th course:
Tempura shrimp and sweet potato

7th course:
sweet sushi

8th course:
we declined the soup at the end where they take all the pieces of fish we didn’t eat, (head, fins, bones etc.) and cook it up.

Drinks:
2 bottles of Korean sweet wine, and baeksoju, a sweet soju.


total price?
131,000w/4 people

Where's the kimchi you ask? There was none!