The big 2-8....Ajumma style!

Gosh, what a great birthday! Since this birthday was one that only got me another year older, and since I'm a bit older than most of my friends here, my birthday party was an "Ajumma" theme. When us foreigners think of ajummas here in Korea we picture women over the age of 50, who have permed hair, wear very colorful clothes, and get great enjoyment from taking the advantages of being older. These things include cutting in lines, yelling at whomever, and pushing all hours of the day....Now normally these are married women, but obviously, I am not! -----------

For my birthday we just enjoyed the wonderful brightly colored clothes on a night out in Busan!

We left for Busan in the afternoon and went to the hostel that we thought that we had booked. Unfortunately, when we got to this hostel they didn't have our names so we were in the search of a new place for the 12 of us to stay! They weren't very helpful to us as we tried to find a new place... We ended up going to place that was full of love motels (one stop from the University area) and tried to find accommodation..

It ended up being our lucky day because we found a love motel, "Z Motel" who was willing to let 12 foreigners sleep in one room. The room was large enough for all of us to fit and they gave us extra bedding and pillows so everyone was comfortable. There was a nice shower and a huge bath. All of this for 15,000 won each!

This place ended up being better than the hostel we were going to stay in! Everyone was able to get dressed and ready in the same place and we had tons of laughs throughout that process.

Many of us hadn't gotten our wonderful ajumma clothes before Busan and since my bestie from America, Sarah had just gotten in to the country 12 hours before...we went shopping for our bright colors. This was an interesting process and I'm sure we got several looks as we tried on the tops...

I think that Ben ended up with the best jacket. He rocked that black and white jacket like a movie star! I actually think it looked good on him....Maybe not the pants though...





Since we had to change locations of our accomodation, this meant that we also got to ride on the metro while wearing our attire. That was an interesting experience as well. I can only imagine how many quick photos were taken of the waygooks dressed so ridiculous. Some people even had us stop to take pictures with them...

I hope people realized that we were only having fun and not making fun of anyone...

 Another great part of the night was going to this kimchi pancake place. Now, my cousin Kristen had RAVED about this place during the Halloween weekend, but since I wasn't much of a fan of kimchi... I quickly dismissed it. Well not anymore!

I don't even like kimchi and it was sooooooo amazing. Could have been the pound of cheese in the middle of it, but either way, I have found a new obsession in Busan! I will be going to this place every time I am in Busan! hahah

Ready for our kimchi pancake! Photo cred: Sarah Leming

 We quickly enjoyed some kimchi pancakes and mokkali. At one point everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" and all of the fellow Koreans in the place joined in along. I was even given a yellow rose from a random Korean woman. It was really funny....and embarrassing!
As we were leaving, Sarah drew on the wall to remember the occasion. How fun!

Photo cred: Sarah Leming

We spent the rest of the night going to different bars in the University area. We spent a lot of the time in Eva's ticket. Emily's family was here from New Zealand, so we got to meet them and her dad a tab open at the bar, so that was nice!

It was a really fun night spent with some awesome friends!

I wish I could put a camera on Ben on a night out. He is so funny! Every time we find ourselves outside he manages to find some food to eat. He disappears for a few minutes, and shows back up finishing the last few nibbles of some kind of food item. Pretty sure on this night he had multiple kababs, kimbap, waters, chips, and who know what else.... :)

Happy Easter...

I knew that Easter was going to be a little different here in Korea, but I also didn't want it to not exist! On Saturday we went to an Egg Eggstravaganza in downtown Daegu. It was a egg scavenger hunt that took us all around the downtown area to different businesses. At one point we were all running. Other times we were standing scratching our heads at a loss. I didn't think it was going to be as hard as it was, but it was pretty hard! We actually stopped on the 7th clue (out of 10 clues)  because we were stuck on it, and tried out a new Nitrogen Ice Cream place that we had walked by many times during the day! So basically we won...

The ice cream at this place wasn't anything special, but I will say that the presentation was super cute! We all tried different kinds. I tried the marshmallow flavor, but all of the flavors, Ben's strawberry ice cream was the best! 

On Sunday, I invited some friends to my house. My house is quite small, but I rearranged by furniture to make room for people. I wish I could have invited more people...

For the dinner I made: breaded chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, deviled eggs, and a cheesecake. I also made some ranch dressing which was such a great treat since I haven't had it in 8 months! Other people brought food items like chips and dips, veggies, chicken, and even a strawberry pie! All of it was amazingly wonderful! I even had some great things to add to the dinner that were sent from my awesome family back home!

While I was cooking some of the food, Ben skyped his parents and hid Easter eggs around my apartment. People were excited to find all of them, but then it went out of our minds and people left so we didn't get to do it! I guess I will be finding Easter eggs in the days to come...At least they aren't hard boiled eggs...

Monday morning I skyped my family before their Easter egg hunt. I was jealous of the food that they were going to eat, but thankful for my friends here in Korea that could celebrate with me so I wasn't lonely. Plus, we really did get some great food as well!

Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

 

 

Korea in the spring is full of so much color! I got the opportunity to travel to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival with many friends on Saturday for a day trip. It was a 2 hour trip to this festival in Jinhae and our bus was full of other EPIK teachers from my intake. The city in Southern Korea is known for their cherry blossoms and this festival. I hardly saw any trees in the entire town that were not cherry blossoms.

It was absolutely beautiful!

On of my favorite parts of the city was the little water path they had that was lined with blooming trees. It was really great with the bridges. Even when it started to rain for 30 minutes or so, it was beautiful! The rain caused the petals to fall from the trees, and it looked like it was snowing! :)

Ben and I spent most of the day walking around trying to find the best sights for the cherry blossoms. It ended up being a lot of walking, and a lot of Koreans, but well worth it! It was pretty romantical at times...

We walked to the part of Jinhae that the train tracks are lined with cherry blossoms. There we were surrounded by hundreds of Koreans also wanting to see this sight. It would have been just magical if there were no other people, but since there were tons of people it knocked it down to just being beautiful.... ;)
We took some "Korean couple" pics. Ben and I even made a heart with our hands, but the high school girls that we asked to take our picture said that our heart didn't look like a heart.... Maybe with some practice our "cutsie" photos will improve. We also got some cotton candy to enjoy. Notice how it is the same color as the trees...Yeah...that was planned by someone somewhere. Why else sell it? ahah
The train did go by a couple of times. I think they were offering rides through the cherry blossoms, but to be realistic, the people riding the trains could mostly see people instead of the trees. Also it was fun watching the Koreans take selfies on the train tracks with the train in the background! Some were so close to the train they were getting whistled at to get off the tracks! Good thing the train was going very slow...
After the train tracks we headed back to the bus. Unfortunately everyone was leaving the festival at the same time and we spent over an hour just trying to get out of the city. Oh well. It was a beautiful sight!

Spring has Sprung! :)