Korean Folk Village

Our Social committee put together a trip to the Korean Folk Village just in time for us to experience the blooming of the cherry and plumb trees.  It was a wonderful experience.

Hike to Happy Hour!

The people of the Woomi and Good Morning Apartments of which I am a part of, finally had our very first ever, happy hour in the neighborhood.  It was a major event for us tragically suburban dwellers to get a crew of people to come to our neighborhood to spend their Friday night.  I think the 2 hour hike from school to the bar was a major draw for at least 15 people and the others who showed up are just great spirits, ready to party in any "dong."  So here's some pics to commemorate the event. 

Strolling

This Saturday Loren and I took a leisurely stroll through our neighborhood and into another that many KIS teachers live in called Daedok.  I brought the camera to document to arrival of spring and to make sure when we move on to other countries, we don't forget the sights we used to see so often in Korea.  We walked along the bike path we ride to school some mornings and ended our tour in one of the many cafes in Daedok that us Woomians envy so much.

My home, Korea

I was looking through all my blog posts and noticed, not many focus on our host country.  So, here is a post dedicated to the wonderfulness that is Korea.  I will present to you this wonderfulness through some photos I've taken but not bothered to post. 

  This giant crab is a very important symbol for me and Loren.  On the way to our apartment the very first night we arrived in Korea,  our bus driver got lost and did a U turn in front of this crab at least 3 times.

  Ahh, the red express buses that shoot us into Seoul.  Our favorites are the 5500 and the 6900.  For a mere 1800w, ($1.50) we can go to Itaewon when we are craving some good non Korean food, Insadong for some art and culture, Myeongdong for the shopping, Yongson for our electronics and wii games, Sincheon for a great night out, Coex Mall for the mall experience...  If you can manage to get a seat, the ride to and from Seoul is quite enjoyable!

 

In its cute bearish bowels, this fancy looking building named Bear Castle houses our main supply of food; a store called Home Plus.   They used to have a pet store right outside the Home Plus.   I used to love to look at the hedgehogs, bunnies, and mice and dream of holding and loving them like I used to with my wonderful cats in Vegas.  Now they moved the pet store some where not quite as noticeable from the produce isles. 

Apparently you can get married in the Bear Castle.   It is a popular place for it.  I think there is something lost in translation here because this would not have been my first pick when Loren and I were planning our wedding, but maybe it makes sense for a building to have a name like Bear Castle that houses many different types of stores with one of them being a wedding parlor...  I still don't get it.

Around the corner from this building is also our favorite movie theater where we've seen many exciting English language movies on Sunday afternoons. 

 

Loren my have embraced Korean food, but he doesn't enjoy the pickled daicon root that is in almost all Kimbap, a kind of rice and seaweed roll that you can get everywhere.  

We chose this restaurant one Saturday afternoon because it looked like the easiest Korean restaurant to order from.  It had pictures on the walls of foods we recognized so we could point and grunt. 

This picture shows typical Korean living spaces in the Bundang area.  Apartments seem to be the only place to live and they all pretty much look the same.  They are tall, beige or gray with lots of little windows and with fancy names painted on the sides often in English such as Good Morning Hill, or Paragon or Houseville. The apartments are very different when you get inside though. 

The buildings struck me the most when I got to Korea.  They are so tall and every floor is festooned with advertising and blinking lights.  Many buildings have restaurants on the 3rd, or 4th and 5th floors or all the way up to the roof, which may not cap off the building after 20 floors!  Maybe on in-between floors there will be a screen golfing room, or a noribong, (karioke room), or a business.  Oh and the Hagwons are not to be forgotten.  In many building you can learn how to play the guitar, take jazz dance lessons, improve your English skills, learn algebra or get tutoring in any subject you are struggling in right upstairs from your favorite cafe or bar or who knows what. There doesn't seem to be any order to what they allow to occupy space in the same building.  It's kind of fun though because you are always surprised by what's just up stairs.

More Korea love to come.

Just waiting...

We are in an unsettling time of the school year when we still have a lot of days left of work, but the end is fast approaching.  This year it's not just the end of the school year, but the end of our time in Korea.  We're moving to Shanghai.  At this point we are starting to feel certain questions bubbling up to the surface.  Do we start to plan for the summer, the move to Shanghai, start packing?  Who knows what Shanghai will be like.  Will we like our new home, our new jobs, colleagues?  What will we have wished we had brought with us this time?  Hangers like when we got here to Korea?  What will we miss from Korea besides our wonderful group of friends? 
In the mean time, work continues.  We are still grading, creating new lessons, hopefully engaging our students.  Social life continues with hanging out with friends, planning out our weekends, training for a sprint triathlon in May.  Somehow it still feels like we are waiting. 

The future is more present at the moment then the here and now.