This last week...

Our good friend, Jana, just got to South Korea!  She is going to be teaching in a town about three hours south of us.  We were able to pick her up from the airport and hang out with her for a day, show her around, and teach her some Korean words.

We played Rook.

We also went to our favorite sushi place again!  It's hard for us to put into words how great this sushi truly is.

Dragon Roll.

Spider Roll.

I, (Katie), am having a hard time understanding our washer and dryer contraption.  Everything on the machine is in Korean.  First you press a couple buttons to get it to wash.   The door locks and an hour later it is finished and the machine even sings a little tune to let us know it is finished.  Then we have to push a couple more buttons to make the machine dry the clothes.  Once that happens, the machine remains locked and starts the two hour drying process.  There is no way to stop the machine once it has started.

Our clothes usually have to dry over night, even after they have been in the dryer for two hours.

So, here is my trouble.  I wash the clothes for an hour, no problem.  Then it comes time to press all the buttons to dry the clothes, and I usually end up washing them again for another hour.  When I actually get the machine to dry, I still mess it up and here is why:  our washing machine is under our stove.  I usually make dinner while I'm washing the clothes.  I tend to lean against the washer/drying while I'm cooking, which means I'm pressing buttons with my hips and making the machine start over with the whole two hour drying process.

Honorable Mentions

Sitting at a coffee shop between playing card games.  Ryan lost.

Katie lost

There are a few things that have happened over the past week that deserve a mention on our blog:


1. A few days ago while we were on the subway playing cards, a Korean man struck up a conversation with us in English, (broken English).  After a few minutes of our conversation he asked Ryan if he was Korean.

"Um, me?  No, I'm not Korean.  This is Spanish," Ryan said pointing to his skin.
"OOOOOOOOO, whaaaaaa?  I thought you were Korean man who met American woman," the man said flamboyantly.

A little later in the conversation.....
"Are you dating?"
"Oh, no, we're married," we said, showing him our rings.
"OOOOOOOOO, WHAAAAA? But you guys are having fun together!  Usually when people get married, they just sit and don't talk, but you guys aren't."

Hong was his name.


2. Just last week, Ryan bought his fourth pair of shoes since we have been here.
Ryan: 4, Katie: 0.


3. Yesterday we went exploring in the city and we found a bowling alley, so on a whim we went in.  I'm not a huge fan of bowling unless I play "horse" bowling.  The game is whoever goes first gets to make up a style to bowl the ball, and the second person has to do it too.  Then the second person gets to go first and pick a new style. Whoever gets the highest score wins.  Let's just say, we got a lot of dirty looks.

This one was backwards and between the legs

The guy next to me was probably one of our enemies we made that day.

Though we made a lot of enemies at the bowling alley, we also made some friends.  We saw a couple walk into the bowling alley who looked like they spoke English.  Desperate for friends, Ryan and I went  over to them and introduced ourselves.  They were from Ireland and had been here for four months.  They were so kind as to take us for a little tour of the area and show us were some good places where to sing karaoke, go dancing, and get some good food.  We exchanged Facebook information so it means it's official; we have friends.




4.  I find my husband sexiest when he looks like this:

mmmmmm hmmmm

Currently listening to:

OK Go

Back from our trip

We had the most amazing vacation to Busan, South Korea.  Busan is on the southern shore of South Korea, and it is said to be the San Diego of Korea.  We left with the conclusion that Busan is now in our top 5 favorite cities that we have ever been to.

Day 1:
We took a 3 hour train ride across the entire country and arrived in Busan.

On the train to Busan.  We watched Lord of the Rings, (it was Katie's first time seeing it.)

By the grace of God, we found our motel without much of a problem.

This was our bathroom.  The toilet is in the shower.

We unloaded our bags and went straight to Starbucks.

They had espresso shot cake!  Dump a shot into the middle of a chocolate cake.  I'm not sure if they have this in the states or not, but they should.

We took the subway to Haeundae beach and went to the aquarium.

Snake Neck Turtle.

Jelly fish.  It was whimsical.

The cutest penguins ever.

It's a shame this is their name.

Frightening face.

As I was talking to Ryan, one snuck up right behind me and I let out a loud squeal, causing a scene.

A head bubble in the middle of a fish tank.  Brilliant.

A car turned into a fish tank.  If you look close, you'll see some sting rays.

After the aquarium we went to the beach for a few hours.

Then we found heaven...a mexican restaurant!  We ate the most glorious burritos.

Then we hung around the city a little longer, went back to our motel, watched a movie and went to sleep.

Right near our motel there was a water and light show every night.  It was similar to the Bellagio show.

Day 2:
Woke up and went to Starbucks, (it's fine, we hadn't been to Starbucks since we have been in Korea.)
We took the subway back to Haeundae Beach and rented bikes for three hours.  We spent the entire time riding up and down the coast.

Try to picture this without that ugly truck in the middle.  

We rode to the edge of a peak with a light house.

We rode to the top of a hill with a great view of the ocean and city.

We took a break from our ride to get some smoothies!

We walked around the city for a while and went to a few different markets along the back allies of the busy streets.

We then went back for more burritos!

And then went to our hotel, watched a scary/weird movie, (Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind), and then got some rest in order to wake up at 5:30 to catch the train back to Seoul.

It was our favorite vacation together!

Field Trip!

This week we went on a field trip with our school.  We went to visit the old palace of the old Prince.  We also went to a museum dedicated to the man who created the Korean alphabet as well as a man who led the Koreans in the war against Japan.

This is at the old palace.  We love our jobs.

The old palace is right in the middle of the city.

This is the statue of the man who created the Korean alphabet.

We leave early tomorrow to go to Busan, South Korea!  Busan is a beach town in the south part of South Korea.  We will be staying for two nights, and arrive back on Monday.  We get Monday through Thursday off because it is the Korean Thanksgiving holiday.  For the Korean Thanksgiving it is tradition to dress up in traditional Korean attire and go visit the graves of past ancestors to give thanks to them for all they did.

Ryan and I are very excited to have a few days to travel and explore, though we are a little nervous to try to figure things out without knowing the language in a city we have never been to.  We have been so lucky to have our advisor, (Mi-ye), translating everything for us since we have been in Seoul.  Too bad she isn't coming with us on our trip...

Lost in Translation 길을 잃어버렸어요

We tried to open a bank account the other day.  It wasn't as easy as we were hoping.  We wanted to open one account for the both of us to share.  When the kind Korean lady behind the counter at the bank tried to get us to open another account via speaking softly to us in Korean, we kept saying we only wanted 1.  "Uh, only one account, um, kay-sahn il?  One account."  She had no idea what we were saying.  So she called our advisor who speaks English.  Needless-to-say we thought we got it all resolved with one account and one password for the both of us.  But, we really ended up opening two accounts with one password.  I guess she thought we were saying/begging to share the same password.  We didn't realize this until an hour and a half later when we finally left the bank thinking we had communicated pretty decently.

We had an idea to bake some cookies for our neighbors so that we could have friends, and for our co-workers at school, but then we remembered we don't have an oven.  So then we thought about no-bake cookies, and fudge.  We went to the large market here, (which is like a Wal-mart for South Korea), to pick up vanilla, cocoa and oats.  Simple....not so much.  It takes at least 3 minutes of trying to communicate what we are looking for with the employees, and then 5 minutes for them to think they have found what we are saying, and then 30 seconds for us to discover that they probably don't sell what we are looking for after all.  All this to say, we still haven't made any sweets, which means we still don't really have friends.

We also bought masks today to walk to school in.  The pollution here is pretty bad, and we have a mile walk to school everyday.  As if we didn't already have enough people stopping to stare at us because I have blonde wavy hair, and Ryan is "tall", we now walk around the city in blue cloth masks.  It's fine.

We are so attracted to each other when we look like this.

One of our favorite things to do on the weekends is go to the bakery/coffee shop down the street from us to read, play cards and talk.  It's called Paris Baguette, but we call it Francois' House.

Sometimes they have a very interesting selection of baked goods.

This is grilled cheese and ham with pizza on top.

We are still having a blast.

Currently reading:

Ryan's book.

Katie's book.

What we do in stormy weather...

We went to Outback Steakhouse this weekend for Ryan's birthday.  The food was pretty much the same, except that the seasoning they added to the meat was very Korean.  None-the-less, ribs, salad, bread, drinks...amazing!

There was a Typhoon that passed through our part of the city.  It was so intense that they even cancelled school one day last week because the power went out and a window broke from the wind.  The storms here are intense and lovely.  Last night we sat at our window and watched a lightning storm for about a half hour.  One of the lightning bolts hit a few blocks from our apartment.

I, (Katie), decided that I want to work on a specific yoga pose each week to improve my practice, and I want to share it with all of you each time.  This week is side plank.

Katie's side plank.

Ryan's side plank.

Four New Additions to our Family

Korean Phrase of the week: Uri Pubu Imnida, (we are husband and wife)

We have been making an effort to eat fairly healthy and exercising regularly.  We bought some plants to release more oxygen in our apartment: Steve (because it's funny), Pubu (because it refers to husband and wife in Korean), Burrito (because it is our favorite food) and Island John (Inside joke).

from left to right: Steve, Pubu, Burrito, and Island John, which is Steve's twin.

Recently, our days have consisted of: wake up at 6am, talk to friends and family via skype, maybe go on a run, go to school and slowly become exhausted from keeping order in the classroom as well as try to translate broken english in order to complete our daily tasks, work on lesson plans, come home, make dinner, maybe go to the park to play badminton or do some yoga, give each other massages, and pass out by 9pm.

Playing badminton at the park

Luckily at our school we are fed lunch and snacks everyday!  These lunches aren't your typical school hot lunches with fake mashed potatoes and microwaved pigs-in-a-blanket.  We are fed a good amount of vegetables, soup and rice; all of which are delicious!  When we get home from school, we have been making healthy dinners which could include salad greens, eggs and toast.  Ryan has been saying that he feels like a vegetarian now, and needs more meat.

The beautiful dinner we made the other night.  It even had meat inside the noodles.  Most of our dinners include playing cards.

Ryan Turned 27!

For Ryan's birthday, we had to go to school all morning and work on lesson plans until about 2pm, then we had to go pick up our medical results at the hospital from the physicals we had to take, and then after that we had to wait in line at the immigration office for three hours in order to get our alien cards.  It wasn't an ideal Birthday.  So this weekend we are going to explore a little more.  We are going to take the subway to the famous river here in Seoul to play around, and then we are going to eat at...........OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE!  It is Ryan's birthday wish.