work. love it. (sometimes)

There are times (few and far inbetween) when I do enjoy working where I do; at Yeollim Language School. Yesterday my boss told me that becuase the Elementary students have a big test they are studying for, that I don't work till 7 and will finish at 10. I am only teaching 1 class- a middle school class and studying with one of the other teachers. So, only going to work 3 hours, absolutely love it. Spent the day listening to Christmas music, hanging out at a coffee shop, spending time with God and some of my favorite girls, and loving life in Korea!

mmmmmm.so good

Yesterday after church, my friends and I decided to go to a restaurant and have a little taste of home. It was called California burger. It was so good, just like In n Out. I mean probably not, but not having a burger for 3 months it tasted pretty darn good. There was American "hip-hop" playing with pictures of American related things all on the walls. Many of the pictures were of the best baseball team-the Yankees, with a few posters of the Boston Red Sox back in the corner (where they belong-right Dad? ahaha). But the burger was so good to my soul, with french fries and real ketchup. Couldn't have asked for a better meal on a freezing cold, rainy day in South Korea.

Top of the Mountain

One weekend, the weather was beautiful so we decided to go to one of the larger mountains in Korea, Bukhan mountain. It was gorgeous, and the Koreans thought so too because there were hundreds of people on the trails. Come to find out, Korean people are adamant bout their hiking. They are rather intense about it to, its quite funny. So all of us split up and thought we were all going the same direction. Leave it to me to get lost on a mountain. Me and one of my dearly beloveds, kept going all the way to the top (the others stayed behind). It was beautiful and what better way to celebate being at the top than with coffee, kimbop and machali. Charissa and I reached the top and we were the only foreigners up there- everyone was shocked. Their reactions were quite funny, so we had peope giving us stuff left and right (such as the coffee and machali-a rice wine drink) and wanting to take pictures with us.It was a victorious day-making it to the top and getting treated like royalty for no apparent reason. Loved it, love Korea.

Korean Folk Village

What else to do but to go to a local Korean Folk Village. Why not? So, thats exactly what we did. My friends, Kelly, Tayla, Mindy, Kels decided one Friday monring to go visit this cherished place. It was quite interesting. The colors were absolutely beautiful, we picked the best weekend to go. It was gettin coler so the colors were perfect-yes just perfect. We walked around, enjoyed the lovely buildings, colors, random statues, signs in English spelled wrong-absolutely loved it! We then went and saw a performance done by the Korean nationals. It was petty cool. They are rather talented little fellows. Then this older guy did his own little gig on a tightrope. We were all rather impressed! All in all, it was a good day at the village.

Happy Suwon

So despite not being too fond of where I live, becuase it is quite far from my oh so lovely other 7 beings, I live in a quite beautiful little place.

I live in Suwon, on the outskirts. Its on the border of Suwon and Ui Wang. Yep, try pronouncing them. ahhaha.

My scooter is also named "Happy Suwon" to be reminded that I am happy to live in Suwon. Enjoy.

Halloween

So, a little behind, but better late than never right? As they say!

So, the 8 of us girls (the typical group) decided to go and visit our friends in Taebek for Halloween. Taebek is about 2 hours away Southeast of us. We rented a van and had our fellow friend, Rueben be in charge and started out trek. It was an uneventfu trek, praise God, but my was it beautiful. The colors were out of control beautiful. We got to the little town of Taebak, and low and behold it was just like a Grass Valley, but a little Korean style. Our friends had rented a condo on top of hte mountain that overlooked the town and it was absolutely beautiful. It was quite cold, but so worth it! So, we celebrated Halloween in that small town with a few good amigos, some good music, good food and drinks. It was a good Halloween. The next morning we woke up, had amazing apple dumplings made by our very own Simon. We went for a small hike, bout 3 miles, so worth it, quite cold but we survived. (it ended up snowing later that day). But it was such a good weekend, to enjoy with the best people here and away from the city. Loved it.

started coughing, better go to the hospital

I was teaching one of my classes today when the principal walked in and said that Dave (my boss) was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. I thought I had done something wrong, but he informed me that because I was coughing that I need to stop teaching and go to the hospital. Becuase of the seriousness of swine flu these days, he wanted to make sure that I wasn't a carrier of it. I told him that I felt fine and that I had a cough because my throat was scratched. (Truthfully I feel fine and I've been coughing because my throat is scratched because I've been yelling at the students all day...)So I go to the hospital (who know taught the rest of my classes?), but got to the hopsital and the doctor said 'Well, you look fine, just a small sore throat.' And I said to myself, yep thats exactly what I said in the first place.

My boss then went on to tell me that I need to take a rest tomorrow and not come into work. He said swine flu origninated from a group of foreigners and that many parents specifically dont send their children to insitutues with foreign teachers becuase foreign people are more likely to attract swine flu. So, that if the students see me coughing they will tell their parents and their parents might remove them from the insitute. Interesting.

So, I'm going to enjoy my day off tomorrow (even though it counts as one of my sick days-and I only have 3 total for the whole year, gotta use the rest sparingly I guess). I'm headed to Korean folk village to enjoy some traditonal Koreans!

safe up above.

Every morning around 10 o'clock there are jets that fly over my apartment. These jets are part of the Korean Military and I get scared every time, I'm not used to seeing/hearing these things fly over every day. But, what I have found out is that the Korean people feel safe knowing that these jets are flying over ahead. It is a sense of security for these people. Its quite interesting.

yes, i do love them

I am so blessed, I absolutely love these girls.
Whitney Aggasiz
Tayla Caple
Mindy Horr
Kelsey Phillips
Charissa Walton
Anna Vaughn
(Kelly Hogan)taking the picture
These girls are my life here in Korea, I am truly blessed. We are here to encourage one another, guide one another, challenge one another, laugh, cry, break bread and drink.
Yes, my life is so much better and more beatiful because these girls are in it!

STOP TALKIN!

If I had a penny every time I said "stop talking" I would be filthy rich, only after 2 months. But I was enlightened by another teacher at a different Hagwon a way to discipline the kids. So, I took it into consideration and tried it out on my class of 6 boys who are around the age of 12. After asking them to stop talking and moving kids around I told the class to lift their hands up over their heads. After about 5 minutes of having their hands up they got the message that this was not comfortable and to stop talking. So, a good 15 minutes later of having their arms up they did everything I told them and were silent. One of the kids said, "teacher Katie, my arms are hurting" I told him, well you will get some muscles. And he said, "But teacher Katie I don't want muscles." So, that is what I will be doing from now on, either the kids are going to catch on and stop talking or by the end of the year they all will be rather strong becuase their hands will be up during the entire class!

You NEVER know what you're gunna get...

Forest Gump was true in saying "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gunna get".

One of my best friends and I went out to lunch a few days ago to one of the restaurants down my street. It looked appealing from the outside so we decided to go in and try the local cuisine. As usual, we walked in took our shoes off and sat down at one of the tables. (and I truly mean sat down-sitting in tables is rare in Korea) We were given water and towels to wash off our hands, then a menu. As normal, we can't read the menu so we just pick out one of the meals that looks appealing. This has yet to be a bad idea, because all the other times prove to be yummy results. We were next handed about 10 side dishes (this is common), they are like appetizers that get refilled. Next we were brought our main course. It was a soup/rice dish with fish eggs, shrimp and octopus tentacles. The tentacles (thank the Lord) were not still alive, but rather big with the suction cups quite noticeable. My friend couldn't handle the octopus so she gave me her portion. I ate the octopus and it was surprisingly good. I mean, I would never go and cook octopus on my own, but I wasn't repelled by the taste.

All in all, the shrimp, octopus, fish egg soup/rice dish was not so bad, but I can say that I probably won't go back to that restaurant again!

I will...

1. Learn Korean
2. Learn to play the guitar
3. Learn how to crochet

I have big goals this year. Accomplish the three things above. We shall see how the year pans out and what actually gets done. But as of right now I am pretty stoked!

The House of Sharing

Pan Onglyeon Halmoni
Yi Okseon Halmoni




" WE MUST RECORD THESE THINGS THAT WERE FORCED UPON US".- Kim Hak Soon Halmoni

I had a unique opportunity this past weekend to visit The House of Sharing. The House of Sharing is both a museum and home to former "Comfort Women" - victims of sexual slavery at the hands of the Japanese military during World War II. The museum explained in grave detail what these women went through-absolutely horrific. These women (known as Halmoni-resepctful Korean term for grandmother) are women with a story. Being taken out of their homes between the age of 13-17, these women were forced into brothels all around Asia to "comfort" the men part of the Japanese military. These women had to service between 20-40 men a day. This went on for 3 years while the Japanese were trying to occupy different territories. These women lived in "stations" (which were areas that the Japanese military had occupied) and serviced the men in those areas. When the war ended many of the women did not know where they were, which language to speak or knew how to get home. Many of the women tried to form a life in the area where they were and fell into prostitution because that was all that they knew (being taken out of the home at such an early age). As of today, it is estimated that around 200,000 women were involved and about 250 women have come forth claiming that they were a victim. The Japanese government, to this day, denies that they had any involvement in trafficking women. Some of the victims that are still living and have spoken out have started demonstration and stand outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul every Wednesday. This started on January 8,1992 and people have joined amongst the victims to help have their voice heard.
The House of Sharing is also a place where currently 9 of the grandmothers live. They have learned to express their feelings in painting and gardening and love being aorund one another.

It was a fruitful time for me to go and expereince this. I am truly grateful for the many blessings in my life and can only pray that justice will be brought to those that comitted these awful things.

The website is www.houseofsharing.org
Plese refer to http://www.houseofsharing.org/meet.aspx to read the stories about the two ladies whose pictures are above!
It is incredible what has happened to these women and to know that they are now smiling amongst what happened!

Scootin' All over Korea!

I just purchased myself a lovely red old-school scooter. It will help me get to and from most everywhere I go on a day-to-day basis. I will be using it for going to school (once I find out how to get there) and to my friends' houses! I am quite excited. It is going to be an experience, I have had fun using it thus far. I will be posting pictures soon when I get my camera to start working!

ps. red lights are just a suggestion in Korea!

girls just wanna have fun

my favorite picture featuring a few of my favorite people doing what we do best. just being us!

photo taken by: whintey (chutney) agassiz

Beach. Bungalows. Beauty.

WELCOME TO MUIIDO!

For the Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) a bunch of my friends and I decided to take a nice relaxing weekend and go camp on a beach in bungalows. It was such a nice weekend of food, relaxing, reading good books, limin with good friends, enjoyin the nice beaches of the China Sea. It was absolutely beautiful and there were times that I forgot I was in Korea. There were a bunch of other foreigners there and hardy any Koreans. It was nice to be able to talk to anyone that walked by or have something in common with other people. I met a lot of other awesome people that are teachers as well. All around Korea, so now I will be able to go and visit all my new friends and experience different areas of Korea.
This weekend, we all had the privilege of eating live octopus tentacles. They were sliming and tasteless, but knowing that octopus was in my mouth was enough for me. It was a crazy feeling, and I definitely did it just to say that I have eaten live octopus. CHeck that one off the list of things to do in my life!
All in all, it was a weekend to remember and I will definitely be visiting Muiido soon!

not going to eat dog!

I had a once in a lifetime opportunity this past weekend. We spent a weekend in a small village in Korea and became Korean farmers for 2 days. We helped the local village farmers with their everyday lives and gave them a rest. We all did different types of farming, but mostly harvesting vegetables. Me and my group prunded tomatoe plants for about 7 hours and the next day I pruned cucumber plants. It was rather tiring, but we were exremely taken care of; offered food and drinks about every hour with random long break periods. Saturday night we all hung out and just ate amazing Korean food with the traditional homemade drink: machali. It is absolutly delicious. Its a rice milk alcohol drink, not sure how it is made, but its quite good! But one sad thing about farmin in this town was the dog farm that we stumbled across. There were tons of cages with dogs in them, just eatin waiting to get slaughtered. These dogs are only 7 months old, but are huge and will be slaughtered around 1 year old. IT is quite different than anything I have ever seen, but its the culture. But all in all, the farming experience was very good and I am so glad I got to experience it!

My Fortress!

I live in Suwon, which is located in the Gyeonggi-do province. It is about 30 minutes outside of Seoul in a quiet, green suburb. Surrounding my town is the Hwaseong Fortress. Hwaseong means "Brilliant Fortress" in Korean. It surrounds the city which is the capital of Gyenggi-do province.
There are 4 entrances, one from the north, the south, the east and the west. These main gates are encircled by minituare fortresses. It supposedly was built by King Jeongjo to honor and house his father who had been murdered by being locked alive inside a rice chest by his own father.

It is a beatiful fortress and at night it is all lit up, with large lights near each of the gates and smaller lights lining the wall connecting the gates. I presume I will be spending much time here in the year to come!

Tibetan and Nepalese Food

We decided to venture out to a part of Seoul and go to a restaraunt called Everest. It its a Tibetan and Nepalese Restaraunt and it is so good. There were about 12 of us that went, a bunch of friends crammed together in one little corner area, what more could you want! A few of the "regulars" of our group decided to order for all of us, for the rest of us had no idea what to expect. I wasn't sure what to expect either, but that has become a common thing for me these days. We first were given this orange colored soup that was the hottest thing I have ever tried, but it was absolutely amazing. It was too good not to eat, despite that we were all crying becuase it was extremey hot. Next we were brought our main course, massive pieces of bread with different curry dishes to dip the bread into. We had a chicken sauce curry, a spinach curry, and a few other types of curry that I cannot pronounce.It was so good, very filling. There were only about 7 bowls so we all had to share everything. Something that is very common in the Asian countries. The meal was so good and definetly a new experience. I'm going to try to be a regular at that place, soon they will know me!

SO NASTY

So, being the polite girl I am I have a hard time saying no to things that are offered to me by others, especially those that I work with, especially someone with higher authority. I was about to sit down to lunch to enjoy my peanut butter and jelly sandwich (typical in South Korea, not) when Jenny, the teacher that I have been teaching English to came up to me and offered me some food. I looked into the container and it was a bunch of anchovies. I almost threw up when I looked at it. I couldn't say no, so she went and put some on a plate for me. And to add to that, she gave me some soup ( I didn't ask what was in it, for I was afraid) and come to find out it was some green plant with chunks of tofu. So along with my PBnJ I enjoyed some anchovies and tofu on the side. I had to gulp down water just to keep everything down.
On my way home from work I saw pigs legs (the calf and hoof and all) along with the bones and skeleton of the animals the beef came off of. MMMMMMMMMM so good.

to friends.

"Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.”

I have been blessed with such an amazing group of girls over here in South Korea. Truly, God is so good for giving me these friendships.
I know we will have hard times, fun times, times of laughter and times of tears, but I know that I can always count on these girls.

Thank you so much!

little piece of home

I was walking around my area in Suwon and happened to come across this quaint, cute coffee shop in a back alley. I am so very excited to go there often and become a regular! By the end of this year I want to be able to walk in and have them know what exactly I want! I can't wait. Its a little piece of home, to sit in a coffee shop and do some homework or read a good book. I'm excited for this little place that I can become so familiar with!

NORAYBONG!

The people are quite addicted to noraybong! Translated = kareoking! It is a lot of fun but quite different. There are "noraybonging" places all over. You get a group of friends together, and pay about 5 bucks a person and you get a room to yourselves. Endless amount of songs and an hours worth of great kareoking. You get 2 microphones, and other random instruments. It is so much fun, and a great way to sing your heart out!

Yoido Full Gospel Church

LARGEST CHURCH IN THE WORLD!

Yoido Full Gospel Church, Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea

This church is the biggest churc in the world, (I'm pretty sure). It has more than 800,000 members and translates the services into 8 different languages. I was quite excited to go and see what the biggest church is like. This church was started as a home church and grew over the past 60 years into the largest church. There are 7 services on Sunday, each one packed to the brim. They are very involoved with missions and are very passionate about spreading the Gospel. I was very impressed with the choir. There were a lot of members; they were extremely talented and sung many hymns that I was familiar with. The pastor was also very good. He quoted many scriptures and was reading out of the Bible constantly during the sermon. It was a little hard to pay attention becuase it was a male pastor but I was listenting to a woman translating the service. It was quite interesting. It was a good experience and it is encouraing to see so many people worship the same God!

BUTTERFINGERS!

Butterfingers, about to be a ritual every Satuday morning for breakfast. It is a well-known pancake house in Bundang.

The best pancake ever: mozzarella and cream cheese pancake.. mmmmmmm, delicous!

And more differences!

Just a few different things that I have come across that have rocked my world, but am slowly becoming accustomed to them!

-people have specific shoes they wear in their houses, then specific shoes that they wear into the bathroom. the school I work at uses this exact tradition. I wear "slippers" while working and have to put on other "slippers" to go into the bathroom. yes different. i think so
-the Korean people value fair skin. so different than the western way of things. good thing I don't gotta keep workin on gettin tan!
-people do not smile or acknowledge you when you walk by them. when you make eye contact with someone you just stare at them until you dont see them anymore. there have been countless number of times that I have seen people stare at me and I make eye contact with them, and they keep staring. I am slowly getting used to staring right back at them, no shame!
-at my school, if students are late they have to kneel on their knees in the hallway holding a sign above their head in Korean (I unfortunately can't read it) but I'm pretty sure this punishment doesn't work, but thats their way of doing things so I cant say anything.....
-people do not say any form of "bye" on the phone, they just say yes yes yes mmmmmmmm. pretty interesting, i'm gunna start to do that too!

Rule: have to eat in 1 bite!

So my friend Charissa, who has been in South Korea for a year enlightened the rest of us that this specific meal that she took us to, you have to eat the 'roll' in ONE BITE!

the roll consists of:

pork
lettuce
rice
any sides you want

(needless to say, its one big bite)
so here we all are, attempting to eat it in one bite, and we all won victorously!

Yes, crazy things already!

I got to South Korea just in time to experience my best friend (Tayla's) 22nd birthday, and what better way than to hop in taxi cab and go to a local park and go bungee jumping! Yep, thats just we did. It took us a little bit to get there, for our Korean is not very good (or existant) so that hindered us, but we did finally make it. The park is called Yuldong Park. The park has a lot to offer, bungee jumping, walking, hiking, various parks, etc. One part of the park was called the English Book Park and it had a bunch of particular pieces of art that were connected with childrens books (or so that is what I got out of it)! But we had time to spare so we walked around and enjoyed some of the art, some of it was weird, but still was interesting to see. And when we saw the place that you go bungee jumping, we thought 'oh this is nothing', for it didn't look that high. It was 150 feet, still pretty high when you got to the top and think am I really going to jump off this willingly? So that is exaclty what each of us did.
5....4.....3.....2..... BUNGEE!