Travels and Change

Monday, December 31, 2012

Snow Snow Snow!!!

Out of my 4 winters in Korea, this one is by far the coldest. So far it has snowed at least once a week, EVERY week in December! The first week we only got a little, not enough to really stick around.

The first snow of Winter....In Daegu, Korea....this is the most that we normally see, but this was only the beginning!

The Next weekend it snowed and a little bit stayed on the ground, but by two days later, nearly all of the snow had melted.

Week 3: This time there was a pretty good amount of snow. Probably close to 2 inches....enough to make a small snowman or have a snowball fight! ^^

Week 4: Even with the snow still falling at the time of this shot, this poor lil car was already half buried. It proceeded to snow for 5 more hours AFTER I took this shot!

In downtown after the snow stopped some people had build snowmen....but this U+ phone shop decided to build an igloo large enough for 1 person to sit inside! lol! and if you are wondering what the cardboard says in Korean it just says "Y-Igloo"

4 days after the big snow a good inch of ice still covers nearly all of the side streets and sidewalks! Time to get out your ice skates!!!! :-)

Monday, December 17, 2012

Loneliness

Sometimes....Most of the time....living in a foreign country can make you feel lonely or disconnected. Even though u are surrounded by people all of the time, you often feel like u dont have anyone who is really close to you. I have been living in Korea for 3&1/2 years now. i know disconnection very well. Especially around the holidays like right now! Adding homesickness to the mix doesn't help much either! However, this year i have started to try some things differently: i have started talking to God more, praying, going to Bible study groups, retreats, and submersing myself into activities to keep me active and my mind busy. I also have acquired quite a wonderful group of friends through these activities. I truly didn't realize how important friends were until these years away from the ones I love most introduced me to that feeling. Thank the Lord for blessing me with such good friends in all parts of my life even when i'm thousands of miles away from everything that I knew before!!! God is good and he does provide you with what you NEED. Seek Him FIRST and His kingdom, THEN these things will be given unto you.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

TYPHOON!

Today a Typhoon hit Korea....but this was a very sad typhoon! I was ready for all the works, HARD RAIN, CRAZY HARSH WIND!....nope, just some rain throughout the day and a few moments of strong wind. I was kind of a little disappointed....UNTIL I was walking to work and saw this building! YEAH! "That's pretty cool that the storm did that to a building" I thought to myself. However, after I took the pic and continued my journey, I just figure that this building is another testament to the very low quality buildings that are put up all around me, all the time, here in Korea. I was always curious as to how strong those buildings could truly be if they were built in just a few weeks time...Now I know.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Times

times are changing so fast these days. I recently started my 3rd yrs contract here in korea. Why do i continue to stay in a foreign country? I ask myself this question all the time....
1st the income is good for a single person trying to pay off massive amounts of student loans.
2nd Having the opportunity to travel to multiple foreign countries that many ppl just dream of doing for very little money is such a great feeling....mark another country off that list
3rd a way to live a little differently than at home...whether that is just experiencing a different culture or u re-invent urself, its all different
4th after being here for two years korea has become my home! I feel comfortable. I have developed many relationships with the natives and dont want to separate that. All together, it is comfort.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Free Hugs ->

These months were kind of really really crazy! July was so jam packed with events and to top it all off I was also working extra classes. A Summer in Korea means that public schools have a month of vacation, while those of us who work in a Hogwon, after school academy, pick up the slack of the public schools and work our normal class schedule + morning classes. For the entire month I was completely exhausted, but that didn't stop me from participating in many of the wonderful events happening with friends around me. All of these events took place in my own city....(Except for one.)

My church put on a scavenger hunt where we broke up into teams of 4-5 people and ran a muck around the city taking lots and lots of pics with the unsuspecting victims on the streets of Daegu.

These were my team members for the Scavenger Hunt.....our team name was "The Winners"....and coincidentally, we WON!!!

on a very stormy and foggy day, Mary, Deborah, Jiyeon, & I all decided to go to Woobang Tower Land

We even rode horses!

We even ran into a Disney Princess and a Medieval Princa and Princess hanging around.

When the rain stopped, we got to ride some of the roller coasters

When we rode the roller coasters, we made certain not to take on any old and weak, the drunken, or the pregnant woman.

On July 4th, a bunch of English Teachers crowded together on the rooftop of our school building and had a cook out to celebrate. We had a big celebration with tons of food....Story telling...

Ribbon Dancing.....

And just good company!

The following weekend we had a girls weekend in Seoul!

time to break out the Little Black Dresses!!!

Ate an AWESOME breakfast for Dinner at Butterfinger's Breakfast Diner in Seoul...

Then ended our weekend with a whole day at Everland Theme Park....

this pic was taken from one of the highest points at Everland.....You can't see a lot of it, b/c of all of the nice folliage around it, but this park was pretty stinkin' BIG!!!

Pettin the baby giraffe!....

Taken the air lift to the lowest part of the Theme park to check out the Wooden roller coaste....but it figured that as we were standing in line to get on the ride next, it closed down b/c it started downpouring.

We had to get some awesome head bands to wear around the park!!!!

Took the safari trip through the lion's den....

visited with some hungry Giraffes...

tried not to wake the sleepy bears....

Shortly after we left the safari, we decided to go visit the monkeys....Just as we got there, it started to pour again, and this monkey was NOT happy!!!

The sute little Lemurs all huddled close together to stay dry...

The Orangutan Monkey sat in the window like she knew she was a STAR!!!

I don't know what kind of monkeys these were, but they were so cute and TINY!!! the baby one in the middle kept turning it's head to look at me....these are only hand sized monkeys.

the following weekend we all 'went down to the river to pray' as we welcomed two new sisters into Christ.

What a wonderful day filled with the Glory of God!

Also surrounded by God's amazing art work!

After church, we all headed out to the Suseong Lake to have some fun!

We all hopped in the duck boats...

and attempted to stear and race our way around the lake...

We finished just as the sun began to set...

When the sun was gone from the sky, lights from the lakes fountains filled the night...

This month was also filled with Baby Love!!!

The two Diaper cakes for Baby Cyrus.

You gotta have a mustache at a baby shower, it's just necessary!

One of the Critical Thinking Projects for class was to make a Valentine....But my students found that it was more fun to decorate themselves rather than the paper!