Oh They Were Happy Holidays!!

Hello all!! Good to be back to the blogging world. It's been a while, I know, but I've been quite busy these last few weeks. The holidays were great and winter vacation in Seoul was awesome! We had lots of fun in Seoul and I took tons of pictures. For the sake of your eyes and my sanity, I'm only posting a few picture on here. If you want to see more, just go to my photo site. Here are the past couple weeks in a recap!

We had Christmas parties all day at school on Christmas Eve so it was quite fun!! The kids had lots of fun I think! Here is one of the cutest kids ever...his name is Ryan and I just think he is precious! Oh, and all the kids think they can't take a picture without doing the peace sign...don't ask me.

After work, our foreign teacher group got together for a Christmas party! It was so much fun. We watched Scrooged (which is a great movie, by the way) and played Chinese Christmas. We enjoyed hanging out and celebrating the holidays! Here is a picture of me and Steve...my Canadian co-worker!
On Christmas day, Kami and I journeyed to Asan to have Christmas with our fellow Texan, Amy. Amy's cousin came in from Seoul, and we enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by Amy and had lots of just hanging out. The next morning, we made our Christmas calls home and then headed to Seoul for the week! After checking into our hotel, we hit the town. Our first touristy thing was a tour of a palace that was near our hotel. It was a guided tour and it was quite cold out. It was really beautiful and amazing to think of the history there.
The thing that most people know about Seoul is that it was the home of the 1988 Olympics. Because of this, I was excited to see Olympic Park. It was much bigger than the one in Atlanta since most of the events were actually held in the vicinity (Atlanta's is more of a park to remember the Olympics). It was just crazy to think of the tons of people that were there in 1988...I can only imagine the chaos.

While we were in Seoul, I was feeling a little under the weather. Since Amy is amazing at speaking Korean, she went to the pharmacy with me to get me some meds. The pharmacist gave me some interesting things to take and Kami was there to capture it on camera. It was some grainy thing with pills and I had to wash it down with a ginseng drink...gross!!

Being in Seoul gave us the opprotunity to take the subway...many times! I love subways...so many people and so much people-watching to be done. Kami, Amy and I had a grand time on the subway!

Kami's uncle is friends with a bishop here at the largest Methodist church in Seoul. We went to the service and then had an amazing lunch with him. It was really great. I felt like we were dining with royalty. He was such a kind man and had so many amazing stories to share.

One of the highlights of the trip was to Lotte World...the Disney World of Seoul. It was sooo much fun. We had a day to release our inner child and we had lots of fun doing it! Half of the amusement park is inside and half is outside. We rode lots of rides and watched a parade and a show. We had so much fun!!

One of my new favorite things to do while traveling is to see the tv tower. I've done this in three capital cities now...Vilnius, Prague and Seoul. It was definitely at the top of the things I wanted to do in Seoul, so I was way excited when Kami and I went. The tower is on a hill, so after a 10-minute walk up a hill, we then took a cable car to the base of the tower and then rode the elevator to the top. It was a fun journey. I really enjoyed the view from the top...Seoul is much bigger when you're looking at it from the sky.

We rounded out our trip to Seoul with by ringing in 2009! Most of the foreign teachers from our town were also in Seoul, so it was great getting to hang out with them and celebrating the new year with our friends.

So the holidays were a success! It was nice to get away for a week and I came back feeling refreshed and happy! And of course I love being a tourist so I was very happy!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed whatever break you had from work. Have a great week! :)