Hello my compatriots and kinfolk! Here’s the whirlwind of what I’ve been doing the last…2?...and a half?..no…for sanity’s sake, let’s say just 2 months. Ok. GG guys. High five.
My last blog was about Hiking Seoraksan in February, so I will continue from there, determined to continue writing until I’m all caught up! Is it possible?! Whether my fingers or your brain become too exhausted to go on, only time will tell. But I warn you, the length of this one is not for the faint of heart. On your mark, get set, Green! Gobbstoppers! (haha...a great way to trick those overzealous kids playing red light, green light, that’s a free tip, you’re welcome) GO!
Begin foot note/ My weekdays consist of…pretty much nothing (it’s true, they stink), so when I talk about all the things I’m doing, just assume it happened on a weekend. Also, when I say “we”, it’s always Holly and I…because we’re practically Siamese twins…in…Korea…do I smell some sort of parody? Eh? / End foot note.
March 6- Hey soccer and Riverdance! How are you doing?! One of my students decided that I would be joining him and his co-workers early one Saturday for a rousing, and surprisingly serious game of Soccer. Usually when my students invite me to things like this, I can say “sure,” but it doesn’t usually happen because if I wait long enough, they forget, or stop coming to class. Sun though, he’s a persistent one, and made me pick a date back in December. March 6th was the day and when it rolled around, he hadn’t forgotten, and was still in class. So he brought me a uniform (yeah, that’s what I said), and mens sized soccer cleats (see? Serious). He picked me up at the school, and we arrived at a turf field they rent every Saturday with other companies. I was on the Tenneco team, and they decided to put me in the right-back defensive position. Now…people, I like soccer, and I played…but it was 12 YEARS AGO. AND it was REC LEAGUE! A.k.a. like they taught us detailed rules and real positions! (They didn’t) So I pretty much didn’t know what I was doing. At one point Sun was talking to me about a rule where the defense has to stay behind the people who can score, or the goalie, or something. <---- Do you understand how I explained that? Good, because I don’t either. So I asked Sun, “Ok, so what do you need me to do?” and he said “Kaley, (Kelly, because it’s hard to say my name) you already do it! Good job!” So…maybe I looked like I kind of knew what I was doing? I can only hope. After 4 hours straight of playing soccer with a bunch of guys, we had a lunch of Kimchi pork and tofu. Not that bad actually. Sun and Danny told me: “you’re much better than we expected!” Oh good. It was fun. Right after I returned from the game, I showered, and we headed to Seoul for some RIVERDANCE with Sarah, David, and Jen. This was an original performance and it was absolutely spectacular! I loved it, and now want to go to Ireland even more. (Nicole)
March 13th- Birthday weekend! Holly’s birthday was on the 11th and Kelly’s was on the 15th, so we all decided to get tickets to the famous show called Nanta. This show involves percussion, martial arts, food and silliness. So like, Blue Man Group, Stomp, Jackie Chan, Julia Childs and the Three Stooges all rolled into one. How can THAT not be a fantastic mixture of things?! It can’t, so it goes without saying that the show was super fun. Especially with 3 other wonderful individuals *cough* Holly, Kelly, Pete. Basically, four chefs had a limited amount of time to make a wedding dinner. They had to overcome many problems; a novice chef, their overbearing manager, knives/plates/food/brooms/hats/pans/whatever you can think of being thrown, spilled food, someone getting stuck in a trash can (how does that happen…more than once?) someone forgetting to turn on the oven for the cake, crowd members with no shoes on (Kellyyyyy) and many other things, to make a perfect dinner. Of course, they made it on time, huzzah! Fun times!
March 27th- Suraksan/Bulamsan hiking. These mountains are on the outskirts of Seoul…unfortunately…they were the particular outskirts that are on the complete opposite side from where I live. Woe is me. ;) But as they were the hiking group’s mountains of choice for the weekend, Holly was working (sad), and it would be Pete and Kelly’s first hike with Warren’s group, I decided to brave the 50ish (preposterous!) subway stops to join them. It was a good time. I met another Holly from Minnesota, there was some slipping and sliding on leaves, reenactments of Avatar, sprinting up the mountain to test the theory “the faster you go, the longer you get to rest” (the jury's still out on that one), cute prickly seed pods that looked like baby hedgehogs who said “pet my belly!”, treacherous rock climbing, jumping pictures, gasping for air, gorilla pictures, and some getting lost. All in all, another successful Korea hiking group adventure, but not quite the same without the other Holly from Minnesota... ;)
April 3rd- Spring! Cherry Blossoms! Yaaayyyyy! Oh wait…it’s still Winter in Korea. The Cherry blossoms won’t bloom for another 3 WEEKS. Never mind. This weekend we were supposed to travel to Jinhae on the Southwestern tip of Korea for the biggest Cherry Blossom festival in Korea. Regrettably, as it had just snowed the week before, there were no (ok, maybe 2) Cherry blossoms in all the land. Also, part of the festival had been cancelled due to the recent sinking of a Naval ship on the North/South Korean maritime boarder. We luckily met Shaun, who knew a little Korean and was our tour guide for the next two days. We had a great time walking all over the city and talking with him. After Jinhae, we travelled to the second largest island (Jeju being the first) in Korea called Geojedo. We had the opportunity to hike but decided to follow Shaun around again. A few other people came with us but we split up after hanging out at the water for awhile and it ended up just being Shaun, Holly, Jay and I. Jay is from Korea, so we actually hopped on a bus to head to some sweet places. She was very feisty with Shaun because they know each other and it made me laugh. “Jay, ask him where the bus goes.” “No Shaun, you do it!” “You’re the Korean!” “Shaun, you can just get off the bus at the next stop. I’m serious.” Haha!! Since we were so far south, the weather was a bit warmer than Seoul, so we lounged near the water for awhile. It was great! We got home on Sunday around 11:00, a little late for my liking, but worth it.
April 10th- to Yeouido in Seoul…at another attempt to see cherry blossoms. Another failure. But we did get some yummy Kraze burger. Oh beef, how expensive you are, yet how completely delicious.
April 17th- Rock climbing! Holly went to Jeju Island this weekend with her cousin Curt. So…I went rock climbing. It was fantastic! I could make that a hobby when I get home. From what some of the other climbers told me, it was different than normal rock climbing…but I had never done it…so didn’t know any better. My favorite part was rappelling down the rock face. Super fun. I met two GREAT girls who were also there as singles. Angie, Connie and I became fast friends. People kept asking us, “ Do you guys all teach together?” “uh…no…we met on this trip.” “WHAT?! Really?!” haha. They’re great! I also met a few girls from South Africa who were fantastic. Marie and Naomi helped translate for the 3 other loud, funny, loud boys from South Africa. At one point, we were a bit further back than the rest of the group on a hiking trail, we came to a split in the road, and not knowing which way to go…decided to wait a few seconds. Why? Well...wait long enough, and you’ll inevitably hear Conrad’s laugh…and sure enough…it came from the right trail. Thanks Conrad. Haha! Turns out, their favorite word to say sounds the same in Afrikaans as it does in English…if spelled a little differently. I’ll just say it’s a four letter word and leave it at that.
April 24th- to Bucheon we go! It has the most delicious curry restaurant that we were introduced to by Carol and Vernon. They were back home in South Africa, getting married this weekend, so we traveled there in their honor to Celebrate. Yay and yum! On Sunday we met Sarah and David at a Science museum after Church…and can I just say…MADNESS! It was family day or something. I don’t even know…but there were kids everywhere! I also saw a storm trooper walking around with a Darth Vader mask on. How bizarre…
May 1st- Volleyball! Or so I thought. When I arrived to the volleyball courts to meet the people and finally play this wonderful game that I had so missed…I found that the courts were being de-sanded but a big backhoe for a reason that still eludes me. Thanks Korea. I was pretty disappointed. Luckily, we were meeting Pete and Kelly at a Doosan Bears baseball game not long after so I had something else to look forward to. This game was AMAZING! The fans get so excited about their baseball! We were in the general admission seats right on the first base foul ball line. Everyone had the thunder sticks that you bang together and cheered like CRAZY…even though the bears lost 11 to 1 to the Nexen Heroes. We’ll be going back to another game!
May 5th- Children’s day in Korea. An actual national holiday! Woo! Too bad it was in the middle of the week! This day is like Christmas for the kids. They get gifts and go to amusement parks with their family. It was the first holiday in the last two and a half months so EVERYONE was out. Holly and I decided to go to Olympic park. We passed the Seoul Grand Park subway stop on the way there and were completely flabbergasted by how many people were waiting for the train. Seoul grand park has an amusement park AND a zoo…therefore…it was where everyone was headed. Boy am I glad we weren’t headed there. Olympic park was pretty crowded as well, but it’s a really big area so it wasn’t bad. We were only “almost” run over by several people on bikes, my head was nearly taken off by a rogue kite flier, Holly saved a small child (but sadly, not his slushy) from a hole, tried to scale a log, sat on a wall for 30 minutes before we were yelled at to get off, listened to cheesy music being blared over the speakers, witnessed some boys sword fight with sticks on roller-blades (yes, someone ended up crying, of course) , and we watched a boy play baseball with a big water bottle as his bat. After that, we found a 30 minute shortcut by subway (huzzah!) and after looking for an On the Border, we stumbled instead, upon a Bennigans just before the lunch menu was over! SUCCESS!!!
May 8th- Caving. We did! We went caving! But first we rode a ferry for a couple hours… and experienced some lovely sun whilst doing this. The ferry ride was fairly long, but I didn’t mind, I had some wonderful company: Pete, Kelly, Holly, Erik, and Reuben. We ate lunch on the ferry too…well…some of us did, Reuben had a can of corn, yes, a can...of corn, you can imagine how much entertainment that gave us. Lol. In his defense, he's from Iowa....so...he likes his corn. After the ferry we went down into the cave, it’s so amazing that you can be that far underground, and then when you come out, it’s just a mountain, with no trace of what’s inside it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the first person to explore caves. I’d have to give myself a SERIOUS pep talk beforehand, that’s for sure.
OK! So…I’m up to speed I believe! I was a little impatient with the length there at the end…so maybe didn’t include all details and such but hey…you get the picture. ;) Love you guys!
P.S…I’m listening to itunes radio right now…who is this Justin Bieber kid and why does he sound 12 years old? Haha. Have a good week guys.
