Difficult Decision, Muuido, & Ho Bar

Sorry it's been awhile since we've last posted.  For the past month Kyle and I had been debating switching to another school.  This involved a ridiculous process of us needing to leave the country so that we could cancel our current visa and get a new visa attached to a different school.  There were a lot of uncertainties that went along with this, such as possibly having to work on a tourists visa (which we did not want to have to do because if we were caught it could result in getting a hefty fine, jail time, and deportation).  While being able to say that we've done time in a Korean jail would make a very unique story for us, with the worrying of parents we decided it wasn't an adventure we really wanted to have, and even though I welcomed the idea of being deported, we found out that they don't pay for our flight home.  After much thought and consideration, we have (unfortunately) decided to remain at the schools we're at.  The risk of ending up with another director that could be just as bad as the one we have now was too high (as my Dad put it, "Better the devil you know"), and having to stay until August of next year instead of March was too long.  Kyle really loves his school and he's actually at a very good school, it's mostly me who is unhappy, but I'm trying to make the most of it.  (Think of all the patience I'll have when I get home).  While Korea is an exciting place, it has it's pros and cons like everywhere else.  Somedays the cons are much higher than the pros and I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to going home.  (257 days).  I have a countdown if that helps explain how I feel about Korea.  It's cool being able to say that we lived here for a year, but it is VERY different than home.  Society just doesn't function the same way as what we're used to and this can cause a lot of unnecessary frustration. 


However, we are making the best of everything, and even though it's 257 days until we move back to the "real" world we are going to make sure that we leave no areas of Korea undiscovered.  Our goal is to plan fun things to do every weekend, which will not only keep me from losing my mind but give us something to blog about since we've been lacking in that department recently.  We did go to an island yesterday, Muuido Island.

It did not live up to Western expectations of what an island should be though.  We were planning on just enjoying the sun and the sand and listening to the ocean.  We arrived at the island in flip-flops, unprepared for the amount of walking we would be doing for the day.  After hiking over rocks for an hour to find the "good beach" the tide had gone out and left nearly a mile of muddy sand to cross just to get near the water.  Most of the island's beaches were also not made up of sand, which is usually the substance I expect to find on a beach.  Instead it was mostly oyster shell covered beaches, which didn't sound/feel to comfortable to lay on.  We were also hungry and the only places to eat were traditional Korean seafood, which I'm still not ready for.  I love fish, but in Korea, they serve you the fish with all of the bones in it and the head still attached.  I think I can wait 9 months to eat fish again.  After telling my students today that we went to Muuido they told me that, "Koreans don't like that island.  Not a good island Teacher Monica.  Go to Jeju."


On a happier note we have booked our summer vacation, which is the end of July!  Hooray!  We are off to Guam and Saipan for a week.  We also have a 9 hour layover in Nagoya, Japan, so we will be leaving the airport to do a whirlwind tour of the area.  We're very excited.  Definitely something wonderful to look forward to.  We'll be able to relax on the beach, maybe tan...maybe...probably not, go snorkeling (I even brought my snorkel gear with me, everything but the fins)!, and "boonie stomping" ("The 'boonies' are large areas of undeveloped jungle and secret beaches that cover a large part of the island.  'Boonie stomping' is hiking through these natural wonders").  We can't wait.  


It was Ivan's birthday a few weeks ago, and we went on a Ho Bar (bar chain) pub crawl.  Apparently you can get custom made shirts here for pretty cheap, and unlike at home, you don't have to order 50+ of them for them to be inexpensive.  We were originally going to do this and have t-shirts made for the event.  Somehow it feel through, but yours truly was able to use her stenciling skills and save the day.  With the help of a little spray paint, we had t-shirts to go in 20 minutes.    

That's pretty much it.  Our school has some workshop event this weekend that we have to attend.  Of course Kyle's school told him a month ago when it was originally planned, and my school decided to tell me today.  :[  Kyle also has to prepare something to do at this event; as expected no one at my school could tell me if I needed to prepare anything or not.  And we wonder why I'm frustrated?  I wonder if all Koreans are as unorganized and the ones I work with/for....  We went out to dinner with the teacher's from Kyle's school the other night.  Tim quit last week so they wanted his version of the story since our director has been telling everyone he was fired.  We have heard that Taco Bell has opened in Seoul.  My goal for this weekend is to find it.  Needless to say there is a major lack of Mexican food in my diet these days.  How I miss my SW roots!  What I would do for some of my mother's tacos.  Mmmmmm....  I would make them myself, but meat is so expensive here.  :(  So to Taco Bell we will journey.  Hopefully they haven't Korean-ified it too much.


We want to wish Noni (Kyle's Grandmother) a Happy Belated 80th Birthday!!!  We wish we could have been there to celebrate it with you and be a part of the surprise, but we know you enjoyed getting to see Sarah & Justin.


We also want to wish our Dads a big Happy Father's Day!  Thank you for all of your love and support.  We miss you both and hope that you had a relaxing and wonderful day.  Even though we live half way around the world we always enjoy our video chats with you and I don't know what we would have done without all of your guidance when we were trying to make our decision about switching schools, even though you may have said some things we didn't particularly enjoy hearing.  :]  We love you and miss you both.


We hope all is well with you.  Many of you are on summer vacation now, so enjoy and be safe.  We miss you all.  Love from Korea,  K & M

Kyle's Birthday, Holidays, and Field Trips

Sorry we haven’t updated in awhile, life has been a little crazy and until this past week we really haven’t done anything too exciting.

2 weeks ago, I decided to explore Seoul’s Forever 21 and H&M.  Unfortunately their clothes here are not as great a buy as they are at home, which made me sad, but I have found super cheap shirts and skirts at other random stores, such as stores in the bigger subway stations.

Last week was Kyle’s birthday and we were fortunate enough to not have school the day after because of Children’s Day.  Yay!  We had a good time going out with Tim & Ivan and just stayed in our area for the night; lots of craziness ensued.

This Wednesday, Kyle’s and my school got to go on a field trip to Paju, where there is an English Village.  Paju is one of the closet cities to North Korea, we could actually see North Korea from the bus on the drive to the English Village.  < http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=paju+on+a+map+of+south+korea&ie=UTF8&hq=paju&hnear=South+Korea&ll=38.000491,126.639404&spn=2.151223,4.943848&z=8&iwloc=A >  North Korea was not only identifiable because of all of the barbed wire fences we drove by, and the military shacks stationed every mile or so, but the South Korean side was green and luscious, and North Korea looked brown, bare, and desolate.  We’ve heard that the English Village’s initial goal was to have English speaking foreigners move here and actually create a village.  It also has dormitories so that it could function as a type of summer camp for kids to learn English.  In reality, it’s a cheesy place to go where a 5x larger than life model of Stonehenge looms over the front entrance, which turns out to be airport security.

It was pretty dead when we went and nothing was open, but I imagine it’s supposed to be a lame educational park.  There was a large amphitheater area where both schools sat, and the kids got to run around for 3 hours.  Lunch was interesting since they hadn’t told us to bring anything to eat with us; the teachers pretty much mooched off of the kids’ lunches.  At first we felt bad, but then we saw that their lunches were huge, so we all shared.  Here are some great pictures from the field trip:

One of Kyle's students, Aiden, blowing a dandelion

Tim being chased by a band of students

One of Kyle's students, Kevin, playing in the fountain

One of my favorite students, Lucy

One of Kyle's students, Leo

The most adorable little boy in the world, Danny, from Kyle's school.  Can I keep him?

Our kids then had a puppet show on Thursday, apparently this month is the month of field trips. (Why waste all of your field trips in 1 month,?!  I don’t know because I would much rather have them spread out over the year, but wait…remember where we are….Korea.  Yeah.  Common sense doesn’t really exist here, especially when it comes to our director and knowing how to run a school).  Anyway, our director didn’t want to pay for us to go to the puppet show, so we got a 2.5 hour lunch which was pretty sweet.  No complaint on our end.

Today (Saturday) is Teacher’s Day, so some of the kids brought in gifts for the teachers on Friday.  I got some special Korean soap, 2 free movie passes, and some Dior face lotion.  Kyle got some body wash, sunscreen, flowers, and a starbucks gift card.  Tim and I picked up soju for all of the Korean teacher’s at our school.  They all laughed and thought it was pretty funny since soju as a gift for Koreans is apparently some sort of a joke.  Friday was a good day though.

This weekend is the Lotus and Lantern Festival in Seoul.  Should be exciting!   We get a 3 day weekend next week because Friday is Buddha’s birthday, so we are off to Busan.  More adventures to come!

Hope this finds you all well.  We miss you!  Love from Korea, M & K

Market, Mountain Hiking, Crazy Koreans, Monica and Kyles' bad karma

Sorry for the late post, it has been a busy two weeks and we find that our afternoons disappear and we don't know where they went.

Two Saturdays ago we went to the Namdaemun Shijang, the oldest market in Seoul, which means "The Great South Gate Market" (thanks Frommer's), the motto of the market is "If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist." Our paychecks were burning holes in our pockets and Monica was eager to buy some fun fancy new clothes and I was hunting for my new camera. We hopped on the subway and navigated our way to the market with some ease, (we are getting better at finding our way around Seoul). The market was BUSTLING. People shouting to advertise their stores, narrow streets with no room to walk, thousands of knock-off brand items, and no rhyme or reason to any of it. Monica was interested in finding a nice purse and some clothes and I was just following until we found a camera shop. We went into a purse shop and Monica looked around while we were followed by a Korean gentleman who was waiting to rip us off any way he could. She didn't find anything so we left with some ideas. We did the same in the next store, and the next, then we found the underground market which was as big as the above ground market. Three hours later Monica and I were both empty handed and hungry. I think the market was just to overwhelming or what we were looking for didn't actually exist. We left Namdaemun to go to Dongdaemun Shijang "The Great East Gate Market." This market is primarily based on fashion and is larger than Namdaemun. Our first thought was to find food before we went shopping. So we wandered down every street we could find for an hour and didn't find any food. A mall then appeared out of nowhere and it thankfully had a food court. Monica looked around the mall, but it became clear that it catered to a higher class of Korean society than we could afford. So our second market adventure wasn't a great success but we are hopeful and we'll try again when it gets warmer. I ended up finding the camera I wanted at the electronics store around the corner from our apartment and instead of going for the brand new, high tech, only available in Korea model, I got a tried and true Canon Eos 450D (Rebel Xsi) DSLR. It takes great pictures and if you have been on my FACEBOOK PAGE you can see some pictures I took of my kids.

This weekend we went out Friday night. We went to a techno club and had a good time until I went to the bathroom and when I came back Monica was dancing with some random Korean guy. (M: We were at least 2 feet apart, so don't be getting any ideas now). I thought it was kind of funny so I sat back and laughed for a minute until I realized the rest of our group was gone. So I grabbed her away and we found our group who went to our regular bar upstairs. The Korean guy then followed us. We were friendly and I made sure to convey the fact that Monica was my girlfriend which he seemed to understand but he still followed. We went into the club and he wouldn't go away. I don't know what his deal was, but it got to the point where he was following us a bit too closely and we needed to shake him. We found our friends and they helped us out some how, but we both learned a valuable lesson, Monica is not allowed to dance with Koreans she doesn't know, and I am not allowed to let her do it. (M: Maybe Kyle shouldn't have to pee every 10 minutes).

On Sunday we decided to find our first temple. We got on the subway and about 4 stops from the mountain we heard a Korean man shouting furiously as he walked through our train car. He then stopped right next to us and threw a gnarly temper tantrum. He was throwing a stack of paper around, he kicked the train door, then he jumped and double kicked the door (which my coworker tells me is a tae kwon do move), then he fell to his knees, gathered his papers, cried a little until the doors opened and ran out screaming and yelling again. Koreans can be a bit scary sometimes, but from what we hear these are somewhat rare events.

We found the Umyeonsan Mt. which is located behind the Seoul Performing Arts Center and has a temple.

We found a trail head and decided to follow it assuming that the temple would be easy to find and a sign had seemed to suggest that we were going in the right direction, but signs don't mean much in Korea. We walked up, took some pictures of the first flowers that were beginning to bloom. The Koreans do a wonderful job of maintaining their trails and they installed exercise stops at random locations along the path all the way to the top, who needs a gym membership? As we walked we realized that we must have gone up the wrong trail and missed the temple because we didn't find it. We made it to the top of the mountain and rewarded ourselves with delicious frozen treats sold by a man who hiked up the mountain with a refrigerator on his back. Monica got a melon pop, I took the "red one" which ended up being a red bean pop. They love red bean, it actually tastes like bad chocolate.

We switched and Monica ended up liking the red bean so much that she kept it, I was so proud, she's getting more adventurous (live octopus here we come!!!).

We found our way down and toured the performing arts plaza for a while and we were treated with a beautiful musical fountain that danced to Bach, Chopin, Mozart etc. We then made our way home and fell asleep from exhaustion.

Monica and I have had some bad luck this week. My misfortune started on Sunday with some ear pain which ended up being an ear infection. I felt terrible on Monday and I thought I had the flu. We were given the location of a Dr. who seems to specialize in foreigners and he gave me an antibiotic prescription and a magical shot that made me feel better within 10 minutes, and an hour later I was running for the subway. I am feeling better now and my hearing is returning. Monica recieved some unfortunate news today. On tuesdays and thursdays she has a class with no curriculum so they watch Disney movies. Well, our director who has been the cause of most of our issues living here decided that Monica's time would be better spent as her private English tutor. I think this may work out to our benefit of being paid on time (M: I'm not so sure about this...), but I understand Monica's distress and we are going to be contacting the recruiter.

On the upside we just got our internet connection hooked up so we can skype whenever there's time.

Love M & K

Cherry blossom buds, new friends, eating bugs, karaoke, and drinking and driving

This weekend our recruiters planned a trip to Jinhae, which is on the southern tip of SK near Busan. The trip was centered around a cherry blossom festival in a town known for them. Monica and I turned down our invitations to the bars Friday night and opted for an early bed time in order to wake up at 4:30am to catch the first train to Seoul which was a 71 minute ride to get to our destination, the Seoul National University of Education, where the recruiter was picking us up. We got to the bus at the requested departure time and waited for the last stragglers to arrive. We met our recruiters who were very friendly, got in our seats, and promptly fell asleep. After our first rest stop, we played a game which had the same rules as speed dating only it was so we could meet the rest of the people on the bus. We were given kimbap, basically a Korean California roll, for breakfast. Koreans don't really understand breakfast food and they eat anything they want for any meal of the day. We then sat and road the bus for the next 3 hrs reading our American literature (The Great Gatsby for me and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest for Monica).

We arrived at a naval academy for our first stop. We took pictures on the water front, but if we turned our camera toward some of the large "battle ships" an officer would step in to the frame and tell us no. I guess they are paranoid that NK will find out. The best part about the academy was the turtle ship. The turtle ship wasn't built for long range combat it was built to ram into Japanese ships and crush them, sort of like the monster truck of the sea. The top of the ship is covered with spikes, should any Japanese men fall from above and land on top of the ship. Admiral Yi Sun-sin invented the ship, which helped Korea defeat the invading Japanese during the 15th century and he is one of the most honored men in Korea to this day. (They really don't like the Japanese). We took a tour of the boat and then saw a few long-range guns and monuments honoring the Korean navy. The most confusing thing at the academy was a small sailboat from LA. Apparently, a Korean student sailed from LA to Busan in the 90s and because he was the first one to make this kind of journey, they show off his boat, like the Amelia Earhart of SK.

We then left the academy to go to the festival. Unfortunately, it has been too cold in Korea and few trees have started blossoming, but the few that had were very pretty. The festival was really about the market though. Three streets were closed off and tented where every bauble and knickknack you could think of could be found. I was very happy to find a bright orange Yankees cap for $5. Since we haven't been paid yet we weren't really able to shop, but hopefully we will find other festivals to go on treasure hunts at. We found some traditional eastern medicine vendors who specialized in centipedes; alive, dead, in jars, and flasks. I wanted to buy one, but Monica reminded me I couldn't afford it... yet. The food at the market was, for lack of a better word, interesting. There were full pigs turning on spits, various sea creatures hanging from tents, various live sea creatures in tanks, unrecognizable jelly stuff that had no flavor, fried street vendor options that Monica refused to eat, and the Korean treat, boiled silkworm husks. A few of the other foreigners actually bought a dixie cup full of the bugs, but Monica and I didn't really feel like throwing up so we decided not to partake. Maybe after a few bottles of Soju... (Monica: NOTHING could make me want to eat them, especially since the smell alone makes you want to gag, whether the less actually eat a bug. Gross!)! We did however find some delicious snack that you are supposed to eat with tea. Through a very cool process of pulling honey and cornstarch until it becomes thinner than hair, filling it with peanuts and almonds, and Mmmm… is it scrumptious. We have a video of it being made, but the file is too big so we'll post it on youtube later.

The recruiter had planed for us to go

walk on a romantic street lined with

hundreds of cherry blossom trees. Since there weren't any cherry blossoms we went to the beach instead, or at least a place where there was water because I wouldn't really call it a beach. There were people digging for snails or some other shelled creature along the shore, though after seeing the tons of garbage and glass I don't think I'll be eating whatever they were digging up. The beach was really a little walkway to a large rock with a boardwalk around it. We explored the island and I risked a climb down to the water to get my

picture on a small rock surrounded by water. We walked on top of the island and got a good view, but I was eager to see what I could find on the beach. We noticed a family crouching around a rock and laughing at something so we went to check it out. There were small sea anemones clinging to a rock in shallow water. The funny thing about these creatures is that they would squirt a thin stream of water when they were poked. So of course Monica and I found something with which to poke them and made a video.

We then piled back on the bus for the 5hr drive home. We decided to divide and conquer to make more friends on the drive home, and I really didn't care to talk about where to buy the best shoes. I mentioned a while ago that Korea doesn't really have traffic laws. That holds true inside vehicles as well. Our recruiter brought a case full of small bottles of Soju, which were generously handed out for everyone to be merry while we were stuck on the bus. Once we had loosened up a bit the recruiter started noraebong, Korean karaoke. A few bottles of Soju later, Monica and I were rocking “Hey Jude,” which was the best duet of the night, I might add. 3.5hrs of noraebong later we arrived in Seoul, said our goodbyes, and took our 71 minute train ride back home.

Sunday we rested. Not much happened this week while teaching. The owner of our schools is showing her true colors and was a week late in paying the Korean teachers. Monica and I set up bank accounts this morning and we are awaiting our first payment, which will hopefully be today. I am very excited to get my new camera and cell phone and Monica has already planned a shopping weekend in Seoul’s market district. We’ll keep you updated on that!

Love, M & K

School Address

Here is Kyle's school address below.  Feel free to send packages to this address, as for letters and regular sized mail those can get sent to our apartment, but we still need to transfer that address onto the computer.  :(  We think having the Korean address versus the translated one is better so that the Korean mailman knows where to send our stuff.  From what I've read online, as long as it says South Korea on the package in English it should be fine to leave the US, but we'll post the translation so you can use both.  


South Korea  경기도  고양시  일산서구  대화동  868-1  번지  대화이튼키즈학교  Kyle Benson

South Korea  Gyeonggi-do  Goyang-si  Ilsandong-gu  Daehwadong  868-1  Beonji  Daehwa  Eton  Kids  School  Kyle Benson


Quick update about our weekend:  We went into Seoul on Saturday and wandered around Hongik University where a bunch of college art students set up a market to sell their crafts.  We found some pretty sweet items and will definitely be returning after receiving our first pay check.  :)  We then walked from that market to the electronic goods market which was a few miles over and were overwhelmed by the 200 different stores selling electronics.  We then wandered around some more and ended up at I'Park Mall (so big it has it's own metro line inside the mall).  Since the mall is so massive I couldn't take a picture of the whole thing, and there don't seem to be any good bird's eye view of it, so this is the best I can do.

We wandered around the mall, found a late lunch, and then headed back home around 5:30 since we were exhausted.  We are finally all caught up on Lost (for Lost fans reading this).  Last 2 episodes, so good!  We spent Sunday cleaning, doing laundry, and just relaxing.  Overall, good weekend.  


Next weekend we are going to Jinhae (South East) near Busan with our recruiter for the cherry blossom festival.  Hopefully the cherry trees have started to blossom since it's still pretty cold up here and nothing has started to bloom yet.  :(  Pollution is still making us feel crappy and I'll be happy when I finally have my voice back to normal (I either don't have a voice or I sound like a 12 year old boy.  I just can't win!)  :(  We get our registration cards on Tuesday and then have to set up a bank account, and THEN we get our cell phones and internet.  We'll definitely let you know when we have reliable internet.  It's bed time now since we have to be up early.  


Miss you and love you all!  K & M

Seoul, Pollution, and I don’t want your Jesus

This past week, Monica and I have been a little under the weather. Originally, we thought we had caught a cold or something from the people on the flight over or the kids. We later learned that our symptoms were from something more sinister and harder to cure than just taking some Nyquil and Advil. Korea has just gotten on the “Go Green” bandwagon. As far as we can tell, all green means is sorting your garbage into a white or green bag depending on its organic qualities. That being said, there is a pre-existing pollution issue in and around the Seoul area similar to the smog in NYC. The worst of it comes from our happy neighbors to the North East, China. Due to massive deforestation and regulation free factories they have caused an air pollution crisis that effects the entire world, you may recall the issues of the 2008 summer Beijing olympics related to the air quality of China. During the windy season of Korea, which is right now, China’s pollution gets blown our way. The foreigners call it “Yellow Dust” which is pretty much what it is. The yellow dust is a sand storm created by deforestation mixed with air pollution. Monica was complaining about a constant runny nose, sore throat, and cough to her coworkers and they informed her that those are the symptoms from the pollution. This did answer one of our questions about Asian people, “why are they always wearing face masks?” Well, it’s not to imitate Michael Jackson. They sell a variety of different masks to safeguard against inhaling to much of the bad air. I was also hit with this pollution disease and I was left without a voice for 3 days. Most of my kids don’t understand me when I talk normally, and I’m pretty sure I made my 2 year old class cry with my raspy rendition of Itsy Bitsy Spider. We are recovering now and getting used to the air, but until we do, we bought some sporty face masks to get us through the worst of it which has yet to come, we’ll show you pictures of the yellow sky when we get them.

We recently made some new friends and went into Seoul with them for a little R&R. We took a 20 minute taxi into the city, which beats a 45 minute subway ride, and arrived in Hyundai. This is a small area with a great nightlife and lots of restaurants, clubs, and bars. We found a pub and got some drinks and food. I never thought I would eat cheese fries with chopsticks. They also ordered a “Soju Cocktail” which is probably the most dangerous drink in the world. It was absolutely delicious, but combined with Soju’s ability to sneak up on you it could be disastrous in large quantities, we only got 1 pitcher for 8 people so we were safe. We got our groove on and found some good bars. Eventually we made it back to Ilsan and spent the rest of the night at BarBoom, which is where one of our friends works and got us VIP access. Our first night of Korean partying was a great success and we are looking forward to more in the future.

Since Catholicism was brought over by the missionaries it has slowly become the largest religion in Korea, followed by Buddhism. We all know the Jajova’s Witness and Mormon door to door peddling their religion. During our first weekend we were woken up by our doorbell at 8am. We have a security camera attached to our doorbell and I saw an old tiny Korean woman smiling at me. Thinking it might be the owner of the building or someone from the school I opened the door. They gibbered something in Korean, but I distinctly heard them say Jesus. Within the first week I had gotten the confused foreigner look down and I said “I don’t speak Korean, sorry,” and I went to close the door, but they were tricky. A younger woman who was there as well quickly responded with some broken English and told me about their church and that Jesus’ birthday was coming, and handed me a pamphlet, which was entirely in Korean. A few days later, Monica and I were walking through the subway when we walked through a crowd of well dressed business men with brief cases. They quickly surrounded us and we gave our best “I don’t understand look.” Once again they were tricky and one of them spoke some English. He said we looked very busy, but if we could wait a minute he would like to tell us all about an important man who came back to life and his name was Jesus. He handed us a pamphlet, which happened to be the same one I was given by the old lady, and the circle of business men parted and we hastily walked to the exit.

That's all our adventures this week. Thanks for reading and if you know how, please follow us on blogger.com so we know who is reading.

Miss you! Love, K and M

Disappointing Meals, Satisfying Meals, Making New Friends, Stumbling Upon Something Unplanned & Enjoying It Anyway, Baby-steps In Seoul

Since arriving in Korea we haven't had the best eating schedule, so when we go out for food we are so hungry that nothing looks good enough. Korean food typically doesn't smell or look good, except bakeries (we'll get to that later), but in Kyle's opinion, tastes great. Monica is too picky of an eater and even though she hasn't complained too much while eating, finding food is always an argument. One night, around 8:30 we decided to hunt for food near our apartment (since we had walked over 2.5 miles in search of food the night before) and Kyle found a place called "Miso Food." It looked okay to eat, but was less than satisfying, consisting of a mystery substance that looked like boiled dough on a stick and a very spicy red dish with small rice cakes that are very similar to gnocchi (M: But NOT nearly as good, please, the Italians know how to make a real meal). Monica was not happy and complained the whole meal while Kyle ate it because it was food and he was hungry. Needless to say we won't be going back….

The story about our 2.5 mile quest for food. Once again we waited until we were starving until we went out to hunt for our next meal. We found a place and said if we didn't find anything that looked better we would head back. We kept walking and found another place and said that if nothing else looked better we would head back. We walked some more and found another place and said if nothing looked better we would head back. Notice a pattern? Nothing looks good, but taste is another story and Monica just needs to suck it up and eat, but we'll save that argument for later. Eventually we made it to La Festa, which is a huge outdoor mall with lots of shopping, restaurants, street vendors, and bars. Monica insisted all the good food was on the second floor so that’s where we looked. We found out a few days later that all the good food is at one end of La Festa, and that we hadn’t walked far enough to get to it. Eventually we found a place that Monica said, "This place looks cute." So we went in. This was our first sit down meal without someone to translate for us. A lot of Korean sit down restaurants have a gas stove on the table where they bring you lots of side dishes and then your soup or meat is cooked in front of you. We said to the waiter "Beef, beef" and she pointed and said "Beef" and we replied "OK." We found out later that we had shabu shabu, which you can get at Japanese restaurants in the states. It’s basically a bowl of soup, which is boiling hot at your table and you put raw meat, vegetables, and noodles in the broth and it cooks in the soup. It was delicious! Monica even enjoyed the mild wasabi sauce that we were given to dip the meat into.
La Festa at Night:

The Scottish ladies who live on our floor invited us out to a bar and we decided we should expand our social network. We went to the bar and they weren't there, so we sadly walked back to our apartment in hopes something else would come up, chances were slim since we still don't have phones. Luck was on our side and as we got to our floor we ran into Jordan, who was going to a bar with Monica's coworker, Mike, and we were invited so we told him that we would accompany him there. The bar was in the cellar of an Italian restaurant and was called Sunny's , coincidentally the name of the guy who owned it. It was mostly a foreigner hang out and most of the patrons were so regular that they could just walk behind the bar to pour their own drinks. We chatted and had a good time but it was very clear that this was a crowd that was a bit older by 10-20 years. We heard the same foreigner banter that we’ve heard everywhere, which was mostly "What did your school do to screw you over this week?" We may meet up at Sunny's again, but I think we will try to find a younger crowd in the future.

Saturday, we wanted to do some sightseeing, and with a suggestion from Tim, we found our destination to be Gyeonbokgung, about 16 subway stops away. When Tim mentioned this he thought it was a temple, but the subway stop read Gyeonbokgung Palace. After debating what direction we should head in after getting off of the subway, we eventually came across a very large stonewall. Upon finding the entrance, we were greeted with the sound of drumming and what seemed to be bagpipes from far away. We ran to the sound and found that it was a reenactment of the Changing of the Guard in the reconstructed palace. We wandered around the palace for a few hours and Kyle found every nook and cranny he could while Monica protested that we shouldn't be there. We both agreed that the palace ground would have been 20x better in the spring and summer when things are green and that we would go back then. Admission on the ground was only w3,000 (=$3) per person so it will be worth it to revisit.



After the temple we decided to find food. We found ourselves in a HUGE square with a giant gold statue of some ancient emperor pointing off into the distance. After some walking we sat down and Kyle came to the realization that we were indeed in Seoul. Upon realizing we were in one of the top 10 cities in the world we decided to wander around some more. We wandered the streets and poked our heads in and out of food eateries. Monica had a knack for finding the most expensive meals in the area. It seemed to be coffee time and everyone was in a cafe and the restaurants were barren. Kyle wanted to wait an hour, until 6, so the restaurants would open for business to get dinner. Monica decided that she needed to eat at 5:50. What did we eat? Not delicious Korean food from one of the hundreds of restaurants that we passed. We had pizza. Korean pizza isn't bad, it's not NYC pizza, but aside from the corn it's better than California pizza. However, if you are in one of the top 10 cities in the world for the first time and there are restaurants in every direction that offer delicious cuisine, as long as you are brave enough to point to a menu and pray it's not dog or cat, pizza shouldn't be on your mind. Alas, that is what we had, much to Kyle's disappointment; it was eaten on a crowded subway back home. (Note from the editor: We will undoubtedly return to Seoul several times throughout the next year and I’m sure we will find somewhere Korean to eat on one, if not all, of those journeys. Plus, it took the pizza man at least 20 minutes to make our pizza, so you can change that 5:50 to 5:30. =P ).

Quick update:
Kyle used google translate to write down "power converter for PS3." Let's hope this one doesn't blow up too. It's been holding up pretty well so far.

Korean kid's say the darndest things:
Every Monday at Kyle's school they have a little gathering of all the kids for some weekly announcements and a few kids write in English about their weekend and present it in front of everyone. One adorable boy, Leo, had his turn today. This is what he wrote and said to everyone "Dad had a baby throw up in his mouth, then a dog bit his penise." No that wasn't a typo that’s how he spelled it, but he said it clear enough. We found out after that he was talking about a Korean show similar to America's Funniest Home Videos. Thanks for sharing Leo.

Side Notes from the Editor (M):
I spent over an hour trying to decode what the options on our laundry machine translated to. I was successful, and no clothes were ruined in the washing process. Since we’re too cheap to buy a $40 drying rack, we put the railing on the loft to use, and let the heated floor dry socks and underwear (worked quite well actually).

After only a week of teaching I have already gotten sick. Boo! Yay snotty nosed kids who cough on you and touch you with their dirty hands. *Shudder* (I think I’m becoming a germ-a-phobe.
We should be going to the Immigration Office tomorrow, if Mrs. Kwon remembers, which means cell phones, bank accounts, and reliable internet are on their way. Yay!
Address still to come. Packages cannot be sent to our apartment (our mailbox isn’t big enough and it’s out in the open) so Kyle is going to ask his Director for his school’s address and packages can be mailed there.

Miss you all!

Love K & M