Visiting Gyeongju...

In Korea, all EPIK teachers have a wonderful little loop hole in our contracts that give us the 1st of May off of school. This happened to be when Sarah was here, so it was even better for me!
We left after school and went downtown for a while, checked out some of the shops there, and then boarded a train to Gyeongju. The train was only and hour and half or so, but put us in a weird part of the city. It was dark by then. We got a taxi to the other train station because I had read that there were a ton of love motels across from the station. After getting to the other station and checking out a few very low level/ smelly motels, we realized this may not be the place the person online was talking about. I figured out it must have been from across the bus station!
We were close to a few of the sights we wanted to see in the dark to take night photos anyways, so we sucked it up and carried our bags for a while, knowing that we would eventually find a love motel!
We checked out Anapji Pond, which was really beautiful at night. I'm guessing that this is the way to see it at all. I think a lot of the magical-ness of it is lost in the daylight. We walked around the pond hoping to find a spot that we could see all three of the buildings. Visibility was a challenge because of an island in the middle of the pond.  Below was the best I could do with capturing all three...

 

 After that we walked to the Cheomseongdae Ovservatory, which was an old tower? At night it looked like a lit up old tower?

To get there we walked through a field of flowers, but we could see them because of the darkness. It was a nice night though. Also we saw some burial mounds that were lit up, but because we were still carrying our stuff and hadn't found a love motel to sleep in yet, we opted out of spending too much more time there. I figured I could check it out at a later date! :)
We headed to the bus station, and the posts I had read were right! There were tons of love motels! We picked one based on how cheesy the name was and realized that we got a pretty nice room.
Afterwards, we hadn't eaten and the closest thing that was still open was McDonalds. I have prided myself on my lack of eating McDonalds in Korea, but my hunger made me cave and I'm glad I did. I'm pretty sure this was the best McDonald's I have ever had in my whole life! The sweet chili dipping sauce was better than anything they serve in America. Sarah tried the bulgogi burger, since it is the specialty of Korea...

There was a bit of a funny situation that happened with the bidet toilet in our love motel. I encouraged Sarah to use it because it is a little different than most of the toilets in the America. You know, another thing to check off the Korean Bucket list....Anyways, I was lounging in the room and all of a sudden I hear some yelping and then the sound of water hitting the door and the ceiling! What on Earth could be happening- I thought...
Well, turns out, Sarah was getting sprayed in the face with the bidet. She thought that it was finished...but she had pushed so many buttons that it stopped for a second and then continued! hahah! How funny!
Water did in fact spray up to the ceiling and the door. I guess they are pretty powerful and I will keep that in mind in the future! She was traumatized... ahahah

Our main project for the next day was seeing Bulguksa Temple. This temple is one of the most desired for visitors to see. Because of Buddha's birthday on the following Tuesday, lanterns were hung in the air. I was nervous that since Korea is in mourning for the Sewol ferry tragedy, that the festive weekend would also be canceled. 
This temple was really beautiful. The paint on it was more worn than I am used to seeing, but that actually added a bit of a charm to it.
We couldn't have asked for better weather on this day. It was warm and sunny, but not even slightly hot! So nice!
The best part was that even though it was a national holiday in Korea, schools and most businesses were still in session, so there were less people there than on a weekend. I even got some pictures without any people!!!

 After visiting the temple we took a bus up the hill to the Grotto. Apparently there is a "hike" (2 km of stairs) that you can take to this location, but since we were tight on time, and not really wanting to be sore for the next few days of travel, we opted out on this hike. The bus was 30 minutes or so and took us up a winding mountain road to the top. There we found a bell to ring! (with a mandatory donation of 1,000 won of course)
Once you got to the top of the hill, you paid more money and could make the walk to "Grotto". This was a giant Buddha that was built into the mountain. I was excited to see it, but when we got close we realized that this was definitely under construction! They had built a building around it, and you had to file in a small hallway just to keep a distant glimpse of it. Plus, they didn't allow you take photos. I'm guessing to make sure that the line of people kept moving. This was also confirmed by the message found outside the structure, "Please don't explain inside."
After seeing this bit of a disappointment statue, we took a taxi to the bus terminal. This was to save time and it wasn't too expensive! We picked up out bags from the women we had paid at the convience store part of the bus terminal and boarded our bus back to Daegu. I really enjoyed Gyeongju and plan on going back in the future and checking out more of the sights. It really is a beautiful, historical city and I recommend it to everyone! :)

Birthday on the Day...

What a "coinkidink" that on the day that my birthday fell on, I was suppose to teach a lesson called "When is your birthday?"...

How perfect! It was a lesson for 5th grade, and even some of my favorite students in these classes. I decided that I wanted to do something cultural as well. Since the kids in Korea don't really celebrate their actual birth days, I wanted to show them what the kids in America do at school for their birthdays. Of course, I also had to teach English during my lesson as well.

 I started out with reviewing key phrases and what not. Then we did a survey where the kids had to go around and ask other students the key phase..

 Q:   "When is your birthday?"

 A:   "It's on ______________."

After the survey then we got to play one of my favorite games that we played on basically every classmates birthday for at least the 6 years of elementary school- Head's up 7 up!
I explained the game, but of course I had to add our English into the lesson, so the "pickers" who push the thumbs down held key phrases that the students who later guessed would use to pick who touched their thumb.
The game was a hit and all of the students really liked playing! "Teacha- one more time!"
After the game, I cave the student mini little cupcakes because in America this is what I brought for my birthday every year. They were completely thrilled about this. Many of the students made me birthday cards which was really cute as well!

My co-teachers surprised me with a really yummy cake as well after one of my classes. The day was full of cake! It was fun because Sarah was at school that day to help me celebrate!


My co-teacher Hyuni, made a joke that was really cute...

        " Marie, have a cup cake..."

Get it? Because we were eating cake out of a cup...
Of course, we ate the cake with chopsticks... My chopsticks skills are getting incredibly good! I didn't even think twice about eating cake with chopsticks!
While we were eating cake, the kids realized what was happening and there were dozens of them squishing up to the window to get a view of what was going on inside the office. They were going crazy- waving and hitting the window. So how do my co-teacher deal with it?? That is the best part- they just taped a piece of paper over the window... So then the kids were jumping up to see over the paper. So what did my co-teachers do? They taped a second piece of paper on the window! It was hilarious! :)

That evening, my friends accompanied me to my favorite restaurant that I can found here in Korea...and yes it does serve Korean food. It is ALL Korean food, actually! The part that I like, is that the quality of meat is good, and when I am eating there, I am not eating 50% fat like most Korean BBQ places...
Afterwards, there was yet another birthday cake! So much cake! :) This one was a chocolate cake sent from America, and homemade chocolate icing. Delicious!!! My friends really took care of me! I have so many great friends all over the world, that I am so thankful for!
I am one of the older ones in my friend group at 28 years young. They make me feel young to be honest. I don't feel 28! I guess that is a good thing!
Following the feast, we ended up at a Noraebang practice room. I guess these places used to be extremely popular. We found this one in an arcade filled with the male species. We paid 1000 won thinking we were going to get one song and we would go! When we put in our 1000 won we got 10 songs!!! That means each song was basically 10 cents for all of you Americans! With that kind of bargain we could sing any song we wanted and not feel bad about it! We were there for quite a while. I got to see Incubus, and Sarah got her rap jams in... Best part- she found a rap partner in my friend Erin! They are from the same era, what can I say?

It was a great memorable birthday put into effect by so many! I love you all! Next year, I turn Korean 30, so that means I will actually turn 30 twice in my life- yay........
That might actually require some counseling... :)

Birthday weekend in Busan...

I just wanted to say.... Happy Birthday to me.... :)

My birthday weekend was quite eventful. Lots of fun times and great memories created. To top of the list of awesome things that happened this weekend, my best friend from back home flew in on the Friday night. Well actually it was more like Saturday morning when she arrived to Daegu.

We had a funny mishap actually because our kakoa app. wasn't working together, and not sending out messages. Long story short, she showed up at my apartment as Ben and I arrived at the bus station to pick her up! Keep in mind this was also at 2:00 in the morning as well.

On Saturday morning we made our way to Busan for the weekend. We got train tickets all together and it was fun to turn our seats and sit together. During part of the trip, it felt like someone was breathing down my neck... I wonder why... ;)

  

When we got to the hostel we reserved in Busan, we had some issues. They said that we hadn't confirmed our hostel even though they had tried to contact us multiple different ways, so they gave away our beds. This was rather annoying because we were then trying to find a place for 12 people to stay. Not an easy job to do on the fly. 

But first we needed to eat some chicken galbi....

 

We ended up finding the perfect place to stay. It was one stop from the University area, and it was a love motel room that would sleep all of us. It had a great bathroom and a couple beds. They gave us enough bedding for everyone else to sleep on the floor. It actually was more perfect than the hostel ever would have been. 

So the theme of the night was an ajumma party, so we needed some special clothes to wear for the occasion. Most of us didn't have our purchased, so we explored the area around the love motel and found our attire for the night. It was a lot of fun trying to find the brightest, colorful, floral, and most hideous thing to possibly wear. We did get some interesting looks that night...

After we made it to the KSU area in our outfits, we split up to eat. A lot of us went to a kimchi pancake place that my cousin Kristen could not stop talking about... 

 It was A-mazing! There was so much cheese... I don't even like kimchi and I helped everyone devour it! At one point the whole restaurant started singing "Happy Birthday" and a women even gave me a silk yellow rose. It was sweet!

 

The next morning before heading out to see some of the sights of Busan this happened....

and this...

I'm going to say that Ben was having to prove himself to Sarah... I actually have no idea what was really going on to be honest. It was amusing though... :)

We found a Vietnamese place to eat Pho... It wasn't very good unfortunately...

 

We stopped to play one of the push games...

 

 
We checked out Gwangali beach. The weather was a bit cloudy, but cool and nice to walk around in.

Sarah was such a trooper on limited sleep! She got to try one of the vanilla milk shakes in a bag that you can get an every convenience store.

All the others headed back to Daegu, but Sarah and I went and checked out Haeundae Beach as well. It was a great weekend to start Sarah's time in Korea! I looked forward to more adventures while she was here!

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.... :)