It's Spring!!

Hello on a wonderful Sunday night. This weekend has been quite eventful and I enjoyed it all.

Saturday, Kami and I headed to a nearby island...Hansan-do...off the coast of Tongyeong. It's only about a 30-minute ferry ride from our terminal here, so Saturday morning we set off for an adventure. Oh, and was it an adventure! On our way to the island, an older man started talking to Kami and me. It turned out that he was the leader of this group that was on the ferry and headed to the island. After talking to him for most of the way there, we learned all kinds of interesting things. The group he was the leader of was a group of Vietnam vets that had been affected in some way by Agent Orange. (Kami had to educate me on what that was.) When we arrived at the island, he invited us to join his group's picnic. We dined with them (Kami and I stuck to the rice) and then went to tour the island on our own. We met back up with Mr. Lee and his crew and headed home after a bit. It was a really nice day and we enjoyed meeting new people.

Here's a picture of the view from Hansan Island. It was beautiful.

A temple on the island. From what I could tell, a major battle took place between Japan and Korea near this island. Admiral Yi, a Korean hero, was remembered throughout the island.

Spring!!!

Our ferry for the ride home

Today was a good day too! Kami, Amie and I joined some of our Korean friends for a hike of a popular mountain in Tonyeong...Mount Mireuksan. I was really apprehensive going into it, but it proved to be wonderful. We took an easier course and I was very thankful since it was my first time on this mountain.

Here are a couple of views from the mountain.

These are a few of the lovely people we hiked with!There is a cable car that takes you up and down the mountain. We hiked up and then took the cable car down. There were tons of tourists...this is a popular place!

So that was my weekend! I'm so excited it's Spring and we can do more things! I think next weekend we're going to Busan...I'm looking forward to that! Talk soon!

Cherry Blossom Trees!

This post is about a week late, but better late than never I suppose! Last Saturday, Kami, Amie (our new co-worker), and I headed to the Tongyeong Cherry Blossom Festival! It wasn't nearly as big as the one in Jinhae, but it was still a good time! The cherry blossoms are so beautiful and I'm really gonna miss them when they're gone.

Here are some of the pretty trees!

The festival also included a variety of things, including an orchestra:

and little kids drawing pictures of cherry blossom trees:

and little tae-kwon-do (I think) kids:

and even men dressed as women:

and Amie even found some new friends:

All in all, it was a great day! Tongyeong is beautiful! Until next time!

Good-bye March

Hello from beautiful Tongyeong! This past month has been pretty quiet...hence the lack of posts...but I thought I'd show you a little of what's been going on.

I can't remember if I've blogged about noraebongs but if I haven't...these are kind of like small karaoke rooms for your friends to have loads of fun! When one of the Koreans we know was having a birthday a few weeks ago, so we celebrated with a night at the noraebong. The particular one we went to had fun masks and such so Kami and I took full opportunity of these! It was lots of fun!

This night we laughed harder than we've laughed in a loooong time. One of the guys we went with, Sam, put on this mask and sang his song. It was sooo funny!!

The final Friday of March was a big day at our school called the Dollar Festival. This is a reward/fun day for the students and they love it. It was our first since we've been here (I think there are 3 annually) and it was an interesting day. One of my jobs for the day was drawing on some of the children's faces. It was quite fun! Here are a few of my fun faces I got on camera!

Last weekend, Kami, Amie (our new co-worker from NZ), and I headed to Jinhae for the cherry blossom festival. We didn't get to stay long but it was fun to get to see some pretty trees while we were there. Kami found some Dr. Pepper there, so she was a happy camper. I love the cherry blossoms!!

Ok that wraps up the highlights from March. With the weather getting warmer, there should be more to do! I'll try to keep you updated!

To: Me.....From: Me :)

Hello and HAPPY day from Tongyeong!!

I'm super excited today because I bought myself a little treat!! I decided it was time to get an iPod Touch, so today, Kami and I went on the hunt for one! After looking in all (the ones we know anyways) electronic stores in Tongyeong, we took a 30 minute bus ride to a nearby island to hunt there. Geoje Island is the second largest island off of Korea and thankful for us, there is a bridge from Tongyeong to Geoje! The town there is slightly larger than Tongyeong, so they have better shopping selection. There was a big shopping mall and Home Plus within walking distance of the bus station, so it was fantastic! Here are some pics of the view between the bus station and the shopping center!

There was somewhat of a 'flags of the countries' walkway, so we had fun looking at all the different flags.

Here's the US flag...represent!!

And here is the information about the US...look closely...just a few typos. ha.

At first I was so excited because I thought they had a Texas flag, but then I remember ours has more blue. Who knew that Chile's flag was like this?!? Not me!

Anywho, after looking at an electronics store, we headed to HomePlus to check out their selection. They ended up having what I wanted, so I bought my new iPod there! Afterwards, we headed to the local Starbucks (all in the same building!!!) to celebrate!

I also picked up some groceries that we don't have available here in Tongyeong and then we ate at Pizza Hut! Yummy!! Geoje was great for the couple of hours we were there. We're looking forward to going back when we have more time and when it's a little warmer out.

That's all for today...just had to share my exciting news! I hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all! :)

And a little reminder: I am now only 14 hours ahead of Texas time since SoKor doesn't participate in Daylight Savings Time. So if you wanna call, just remember I'm now 14 hours ahead!

I bowed to an American yesterday.

It's true. This culture is starting to grow on me. Yesterday Kami and I went to Masan (a town about an hour away) for a short day trip and we met a guy from California that is a teacher there. I was on the phone when Kami started talking to him, so when she was like "Sara, this is Keith," I totally bowed as I said hello. I didn't even think about it...I'm just so used to bowing all the time. It's the Korean way. Ha. Waving is for Westerners...so bowing it is!

This bowing incident has led me to think about sharing some cultural differences that we've learned to get used to in our time here. In just a couple of days, it's been four months since we left the land of familiar and entered the land of mystery. I feel like every day I'm still learning some sort of difference between America and South Korea, and I love it. That's what it's all about!

The first thing I think about when I think about getting used to a cultural difference is the showers....or lack there of. I had heard about this before I came here (thanks Jocelyn) but I had no idea until I really experienced it. As you can see from the picture below, the 'shower' consists of just a shower hose in the open bathroom. So essentially your bathroom becomes your shower. You have to kind of watch out for things like toilet paper...don't wanna get that wet. Anyways, after a few times, it is easy now, but it did take a little getting used to. (Note: If you're coming to SoKor, some of the new apartments have 'real showers', but in my experience, those are not available in studio apartments.)

Besides the shower, the most obvious difference is the language thing. Not just learning a new language, but also learning a new alphabet. I think I have the alphabet down, now it's just about knowing what I'm reading. Kami and I have been working on learning some Korean, more than just hello and thank you. It's quite fun and the people are so nice to teach us!

Another thing is getting used to taking your shoes off before you enter homes, some resturants, and some stores. It's really not a big deal to take them off, but I haven't quite mastered putting tennis shoes on without sitting down to untie and tie. If I know I'm going out to eat at a traditional place, I wear slip-ons so I can avoid the 'tennis shoe problem'.

Ok, those are just a few...the main ones anyways. I'll think of more to share with you soon! Hope everyone is well. Happy March! :)