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Published: November 29th 2010
River
Checking out the RiverThis is me blogging. I can do it. I can do it because I promised myself that if I wrote a blog then I could watch an episode of The Office. So here I go.
I've had a number of different things in my head that I wanted to blog about:
The first was the worst. We got robbed again. I'm not sure which was worse, the first time or the second time. In my mind, they were both pretty terrible. The first time was the cash, sunglasses, and 2 cameras. This time, it was Vicki. Vicki the scooter. The scooter that I rode to hot yoga in the mornings, work in the afternoons, home from work in the evenings, to home plus EVERY time I needed something from the store, to downtown when I wanted good coffee, and the scooter where I sat on the back seat while Jake scooted me around Cheongju on romantic explorations. Okay, I'm taking it too far. Anyway, the scooter meant a lot to us. The scooter never had a single problem, and the scooter was a very cheap way of getting around. Taxi's are not. So for about a week I wanted
Bikes
Riding bikes downtown Cheongju to blog about how angry I was. How I viewed every Korean I saw as the possible thief of Vicki. How I got really angry at this whole country and culture for a couple of days. How I thought about prejudice and racism and how I was a victim of a hate crime. Am I taking this too far? Anyway, I wanted to blog about all that...but it's all in the past now. So I won't 😊 But let me just also mention that it happened at an interesting time. Jake had just finished this big book called "Koreans." It's a really interesting book and it's about who Korean people are, where they came from, and what they're headed for. It provides a lot of insight into their culture, beliefs, and customs. Jake finished it and proudly proclaimed: "I feel like I actually understand things now. I can be patient with this culture even when nothing makes sense because I understand it much better now, and I can appreciate Korea and the Korean people." Then we were robbed.
The weekend Vicki vanished we went to Seoul with the teachers at our school, all of our friends. It was the
first time all seven of us went to Seoul together. It was really fun and we're hoping to do it again soon. Korean class, that I go to on Saturday mornings, is ending this Saturday. We are singing silent night in Korean for the other classes and I volunteered to play the piano. After searching silent night music into google images, I printed a picture at school and now need to remember how to play it before Saturday. Ha ha. My Korean teacher told me to be sure to make at least 2 mistakes, because it won't be fun if it's perfect. No problem, I got that covered. During our ventures to downtown every week for Korean class, we have been trying to buy 17 drinks at Starbucks to get the free planner. Yes, 17 drinks to get a free planner. That means you must spend 85,000won before you can get the planner. So we put in a group effort and last Saturday I got the free planner! It's dark brown, full of pictures of Seattle and coffee, and comes with a super nice case! It's wonderful. And I'd like to thank Jen for giving me at least half of
RIP Vicki
last picture with Vicki the stickers 😊
We went on a hiking trip with the church a while back and saw the largest standing Buddha in the world. It cost $4million to build. The hike was beautiful. Korea is 75% mountains so the colors are unbelievable during fall. We went zip-lining in the mountains and that was awesome. We went to the DMZ finally, and got to go in two of the underground tunnels that the North has built so they can secretly attack the South. We bought loads of North Korean soju and beer for Christmas gifts and then found out that it's illegal to mail. So Dad, Thomas, Chris, Maggie & Reza, we're sorry. We thought it would have been a pretty awesome gift.
So we didn't let it go to waste. This last Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving. Only two days behind America, because we had to work. Imagine this: Thanksgiving dinner without a single countertop and without an oven. Somehow we managed to do it! And it was good and fun was had by all. We also opened the North Korean spirits. Duck was the main course. We ordered it from a restaurant and then picked it up. We
Fireworks
Jake teaching our neighbor about Fireworks also made mashed potatoes, stuffing, lots of vegetables, rolls, apple pies, spring rolls, caesar salad, broccoli soup, and a lot of other things I can't remember. I FOUND EGGNOG! Which has been my greatest accomplishment in Korea thus far. I've been looking for this stuff for about 8 months and a number of people told me it's impossible to find here. But I found some at Costco and had it delivered....for 15,000 a can. Ha ha! Oh well. It's not Christmas without eggnog.
Speaking of Christmas...Cassandra sent the most incredible package! I couldn't have imagined a better package! It was Christmas in a box. It was so exciting! Jake and I got it when we were at work so we opened it in front of our students and oohed and ahed for about 10 minutes. Advent calendars, stockings (STUFFED with treats), nutella, my favorite caramel cookie things from Holland, REAL candy canes, hot cocoa mix, a Christmas CD, amazing chocolate cookies with peppermint sprinkles on them....and the list goes on. It was SO thoughtful and sweet and we LOVED every single thing in it. Now we're just trying to make it last! After seeing this, my student replies "your
Hiking
At the top! family is RICH," in a perfectly blunt korean non-polite way. Ha ha
Before Christmas can happen, Jake and I have a trip to Thailand. Our 5 days off for the entire YEAR will be spent in Thailand. We are pretty excited about it even though booking it has been quite a hassle! It is kind of difficult to plan a trip to a country you have never been to via the internet. It seems that our biggest problem is the time. Five days isn't exactly ideal for exploring Thailand. So we're trying to sift through all of our options and decide what we really want to see. Along with that comes finding places to stay, transportation to and from the airport, and transportation to each place we want to go. That wouldn't be too hard if half the places we want to go didn't require ferries and boats. And you can't buy those tickets online. So I think a lot of this trip will be just showing up and hoping for the best! It has the potential to be pretty awesome!! ha ha. We have 8 days to finish planning and then we're on a plan heading south!
While we were trying to plan the trip last night I look out the window and see beautiful, fluffy, snowflakes falling! Our first snow of the season! It was pretty exciting and perfect timing. Eight more days in the cold and then we'll be playing at the beach!
I hope everyone had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving. Please don't take advantage of the joys of spending the Holidays with family and friends! It's definitely not easy being here during these times. We miss everyone! We miss the food, the music, the coffee, the eggnog, and the all around holiday cheer. Because it doesn't exist here. So ENJOY!!!! Love & Peace
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Jeanne
non-member comment
Oh, Bet! I love your blogs and I know they take so much time and effort!! But we all really appreciate them! I'm so excited about your upcoming trip and hope you have the most wonderful time! The Fall sounds like it's been a roller coaster of emotions but I'm so proud of the way y'all handle everything! I love you!! Jeanne