Halloween

I am not a lover of Halloween.

In fact, I hate pretty much everything about the holiday.

But, here in Seoul among the foreign teachers, I am the only one with such sentiments.  Thus, we had a Halloween party.

Actually, my friend Katie was the party instigator.  She insisted on having an American-style Halloween house party and I was employed as her right-man helper.

This is Katie on the right, in front of my panda husband.

Katie started with a pumpkin.  She carved her first pumpkin while I gave advice and painted my own little one.  She did pretty darn well.

This is my attempt at an artistic tree. Whatever....

On the day of the party I found myself baking up a storm.  I haven't had such a baking day in months, thus I found it to be a sweet reminder of the things I love about home.  I made all kinds of treats.

Most importantly, I made my first pumpkin pie from scratch!  Katie asked if I could make her a pie from her pumpkin, and of course I said, "Yes, of course I can!"  I had never tried before, but I never say no to a baking challenge.

Turns out, fresh pumpkin pie is AMAZING and pumpkin pie should never be made from a can again.  Wow.  It was easy, fun, and so incredibly delicious. 

 And then I fed my American-inspired creations to these crazy, sometimes creepy, teacher friends.

 And that was that.

Photographs for an Inquiring Sister

These are for you, Callee. 

Use them as you will.

 

Field Day with Yellow-Clad Cuties

Yesterday, on a chilly yet sunny Thursday morning, our school took all of our preschool and kindergarten kiddos to Olympic Park for the day.  Roughly translated, about 220 kids and at least 40 people (teachers and staff) took a walk through the park to a huge field.  The park is literally visible from our school across the street, but despite the convenience we still escorted our classes onto the buses to cross the street.  Safety first, of course.

Our Field Day consisted of games, snacks on the lawn, an insane amount of whistle blowing, and lots of laughter.  Despite the fact that I'm an indoor kind of girl who hardly relishes standing outside in the cold for several hours, I really enjoyed my day.  Perhaps it was because kids are so fun.  Or perhaps it was because of the many times my students attempted to feed me snacks and kimbop when I didn't bring my snack.  Or when my Korean Teacher gave me an iced coffee just because.

I think it's because I love my students.

 

I love being a teacher.

Redeeming Moments

Recently Alex and I took a mini vacation outside of Seoul.  For various reasons we chose to visit Gangwha Island, a little island off the coast of South Korea that is somewhat famous but not terribly full of tourists.  We usually like those kinds of places.

Unfortunately, we didn't.  After taking the subway, a bus, a taxi, a ferry, and another bus, we were abruptly dropped off in front of a pension in the middle of farm land far from anything and everything.  We laughed, but we were far from happy.

After deciding to cancel our overnight reservation with a woman who did not speak a word of English, we put our backpacks back on and stood in the middle of a restaurant/lobby where we attempted to communicate our need to leave.  Thankfully, as if heaven-sent, a man heard our feeble attempts at communication and grabbed his daughter to translate for us.  His daughter, Lina, is just a bit older than us and was able to get us out of our night stay in the middle of nowhere.

But then we were in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to walk and not a taxi or bus in sight.

Lina then insisted that she and her parents would take us to the temple on the island, the primary attraction we had planned on visiting.  We gratefully accepted and climbed into their van as her mom took the back.  Koreans really are a hospitable people.

Upon arriving in the tiny village-like area at the base of a huge hill, upon which the temple stood, we climbed out of the car and began our wandering.  Lina and her family decided it was time for lunch and ushered us into a little restaurant for bibimbap.  Our conversations were limited, but thanks to Lina we were able to avoid silence and laugh at our differences.  Her mom was even impressed with my chopstick skills!

Then we toured the temple.  Pictures communicate better than my words.

  By far, the temple and the wonderful Korean family were the highlights of our trip.  It would be all too easy for me to rant about the depressing moments that occurred after this sunny afternoon, so I will stop myself now.  All I can say is that sometimes traveling is wonderfully awful and awfully wonderful simultaneously.

Emotions

I am consistently filled with emotions.  I am happy, sad, tired, excited, frustrated, depressed, you name it.  My life in Seoul is the easiest life I've lead in years, yet I feel my waves of emotions have never been so severe.  

Today was one of those days when I just wanted to cry.  I don't know why.

Perhaps God is teaching me to feel.  Frankly, I could speculate the reason for my emotions until I'm old and grey.  However, I have noticed that within these days filled with frustration and tears I am brought all the more closer to Him.

I also listened to the new song by Mumford and Sons today, "Below my Feet."  Listen to it. 

It's beautiful.

And I read another intriguing blog by Richard Beck, one of only two bloggers whom I follow.  If you have a minute, I encourage you to pause and consider his thoughts.

There are days when you must be a tourist

This past week has been a week of touring around Seoul.  We have ended up in places that we loved and some we hated.  That's the way life goes.  But in the process I have been applying my photography lessons, courtesy of Elyse Canfield.  Here are the by-products of my wandering and artistic efforts.

From the Namhansan-seong Fortress

Alex & Sam, looking serious

Cosmos along our walk

Appreciate my talent :)

Alison's friend, Gnome, singing with the Koreans

Found in the village on top of the Fortress

Autumn is here - The first fall tree

The next day we traveled into the middle of Seoul for a climb up to Seoul Tower.

Seoul Tower, from the base of the hill

Gnomie conquered the Tower!

A small part of Seoul, visible along the trek up the hill

Hats off to me!

An awesome Peruvian singer rockin' out with Spanish and Portuguese tunes at the top of Seoul Tower with a Korean audience on the day of Chuseok.  What a cultural hodgepodge.

Alison buying an iced Americano very politely.

After our trek up Seoul Tower and our cable car ride down the base, we wandered to Insadong for lunch and the tail end of a Chuseok Festival Performance. Check out these moves!

And that is the end of my traveling tails for today.