A Skype-y Christmas

So the year is coming to a close...just like it does every year. These past 4 months have been pretty rough not being around our loved ones, especially during the holidays, but I must say that this Christmas was definitely something special.
N8 and I are very lucky to have made such good friends here in Gangneung, we had a huge Christmas eve dinner with friends who all brought something fun and hot to eat! One friend was even able to manage a turkey from a friend who is working for the US government. hooray! We stuffed our faces (I had 3 plates of food) and played dirty Santa and taboo. The next morning N8 and were so happy to sleep in and wake up to a tree full of presents underneath, thanks to the Riley family and my wonderful sisters jb and S! I got some great pj pants, socks, books, and cookie/brownie mix! N8 recieved a hat, gloves, and a scarf which were exactly what he needed. We both got some great books to keep us company too. So we were able to open our presents with my family over skype and wish each other a Merry Christmas.
Then we celebrated Christmas on the slopes of Korea with some friends that were first-timers. We rented our snowboarding equipment for under 30 dollars and lift tickets are also around 30 dollars! Its so much cheaper to snowboard here, which is great for us! We made sure to make it back to Gangneung for another Christmas dinner with the same crew from the Christmas eve dinner. It was another night of more food, fun and friends! N8 was finally able to talk to his family when we got back and the whole even came to a really wonderful close. Thanks to all for making us feel so loved during this holiday season!


Oh by the way! we also had a huge snow fall a few days before Christmas which really made it feel like home! The students had off from school but all the teachers were called in to help shovel! :)

Mix it up!

Hey all! we had a pretty nice weekend with friends. Its definitely the holiday season, so there are lots of parties going on. N8 and I went to Sokcho to celebrate a friend's birthday and also to have a gift exchange for Christmas. We also went through the fish market again to eat some more of that wonderful stuffed squid.



After the fish market, we took a 3 hour bus to Chuncheon for a goodbye party. The city of Chuncheon definitely brought the Christmas spirit into our hearts because it was the first time we've seen snow since we've been here. The next morning N8 and I woke up and were able to warm up with some Starbucks coffee (weehoo!), I was so happy because everyone here drinks instant 'coffee'. It doesnt taste like coffee at all. We also filled up on some dunkin donuts and headed to Emart, the big grocery store and found some mozzarela cheese which made us very happy! We took anoter 3 hour bus back to Gangneung and found that our city has also been touched by snow! Its exciting because now it feels like winter and like Christmas time.

When we got back to our city, I went out to get my hair cut. I'm not totally crazy about it, it feels alittle too flat and it kind of looks like a wig, but i'm happy to have a change. I now look more asian! My kids are going to go crazy tomorrow at school when they see me!

work, work and more work

Today was a great day because we just received ANOTHER care-package from the Riley family! Here goes a big fat shout out to YOU for sending us so many goodies. THANK YOU!
N8 and I were so impressed with the homemade story book with the pictures of the family! You really made us feel loved during this holiday season!
I may be getting the best care-package of all soon because a little birdy told me that S. is coming to visit for my birthday...that would be the ultimate birthday present.
Right now the school semester is coming to a close and the students are all pretty much burnt out from their final exams and they could care less about English right now. My classes are pretty relaxed now because its the end of the year and there is no more material to be taught so I just show a Simpson's episode or sing songs with them.
N8 and I both have to complete winter camps sometime during the break. It usually consists of one week (15-20 hours) for 20 students and also another week for teachers that want to learn English. As of right now, i only get Christmas day off, and then start my student winter camp on Jan 26 and finish on Jan 2nd. I will be doing Christmas carols with my students with another native speaker teacher, Jason, who also works at my school. Then I have to do a teacher workshop, also 20 hours, but in 3 days! It'll be a lot of work but I'm always happy to have eager students.
Right now we are relaxing and preparing for our winter camps, and also looking forward to all of the Christmas parties and New Year parties that are happening in korea with all of the foreigners.

Busy Saturday

We had a busy Saturday...

1. Ice-skating with friends
2. Traditional Korean dance performance featuring one of my students. Awesome. We went with our Korean teacher, Daram.
3. Dinner with friends. We ate a dish called 샤바샤바 (shyaba shyaba). It consists of very thinly sliced beef which you dip into an extremely hot red, vegetable soup. The soup is so hot that the meat cooks within a minute. You then take it out and dip it into a firey mixture of wasabe and soy sauce. You eat the vegetables in the soup with your beef. After the beef is gone, you add noodles, egg, and some spices to the broth and you have the 2nd course. Finally, you finish off the remaining broth (there's a lot of broth) with fried rice. It was FAAANTASTIC. Muffy, myself, and our friend Eric shocked our Korean friends by cleaning off any scraps of food remaining on the table.
4. Bowling with some other friends. I beat Steph both times, muahahha. However, she had me weeping in the first game until about the 8th frame...I was shaking in my boots. She did make two strikes look like child's play, way to go honey!
5. We capped the night off with some pool and beer at our favorite dive bar, The Warehouse. You can count on seeing the same 30 people at this bar on any given night. They play western music and serve cheap beer. It's not swanky, but it always provides some good laughs and a nice way to end a long day of activities.

Below you'll find some pictures and videos from our Saturday:

Muffy is the ice goddess.


N8 and Muffy



Eric pulling a bunch of little girls that were drawn to our handsome western jaws.


Unlike with Eric, the little girls could handle my bitchingly fast skating technique, and they wiped out on the corner. I crushed one, and now she's crippled.






Muffy with our Korean teacher Daram! Daram is awesome.



Muffy bowling another strike


If you look closely, you'll notice my name on the little whiteboard. I'm paired up with Syren, who is a badass on the pool table. (I was lucky to have her as a partner)

Muffy realized that the movements required to skate backwards are uncanny in their similarity to my mother's dance moves.


Eric Richter is clincally insane. That's why we like him. When people see us, they think "Wow, those two people are really great for taking that young man to the ice rink for his big day out!"

Winter Festival

Hey gang,

I just got the video from my school of our recent performance at the Winter Festival. This is a huge deal. In fact, past festivals have even been broadcasted on television (cable television)! Muffy and I, along with two of our friends that are also English teachers in Gangneung, danced and sang to a mix of songs by various artists:

Bon Jovi - Livin on a Prayer (N8)
Village People - YMCA (Kasia)
Bob Marley - One Love (Marta)
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin Somethin (Muffy)
Wondergirls - Nobody (everybody)

The last sogn, Nobody, is a song by the Korean pop group the Wondergirls. It's almost entirely in Korean except for parts of the refrain. the Wondergirls are the Korean equivalent of the Spice Girls, so the room went nuts.

A little over a month ago, Muffy and I helped Kasia and Marta with a similar performance for their school. So...I bugged them into returning the favor at my school.

Anyways...here's a video of the whole performance! Enjoy.

By the way, if you click on the little button at the bottom of the video window to make it full screen it will be much better.

Media from N8

Korean Kavity

My life is over. My wonderful clean streak of never having a cavity has come to a crash...I now have two. I went to the dentist today after school because I thought I had only one cavity, but no..I have two. So I had one filled today and the other will have to wait until tomorrow. The good thing is that my filling only cost about $5 dollars for each tooth. nice huh?

I honestly think I got the cavities because of the diet, there is a lot of vinegar and acid and the meals here. Plus I brush my teeth during school hours too. Just call me Gummy McGee.

Pishyy...no, F-F-Fish..Pishyyyyyy

Hey all! We have been having some technical difficulties at home recently so its been hard keeping up with the blog. My laptop finally sang its swan song and its been hard to keep in touch with family and friends, and N8's laptop cannot connect to the internet at home. As you can assume our life has been 'same-same-but-different." Two weekends ago N8 and I went up to Sokcho (1hour North) to visit our friends Dana and Deanna along with other friends from other parts to climb Mt. Seoraksan. We were planning a 6-8 hour hike for Saturday but the weekend weather report did not look promising. Thankfully everyone was able to come in on Friday and we all met up in a local downtown bar which we totally took over...10 forgeiners in the bar drinking and singing whatever English songs were on...it was quite a scene. It was nice to catch up with our friends over the evening. We all checked into a cheap love motel near the bus station and woke up the next day to a rain storm, so we had to cancel our hiking trip. We ended up taking the morning easy by visiting a new cafe in town that serves GREAT coffee (which is hard to come by) AND waffles!

It was just what we needed. It took about 2 hours to get everything and eat calmly together, it was lovely. Later we took a walk through town to the beach, which was beautiful. There was a small island off of the cost that looked so screne against the grey sky. On our way to the beach there were two girls that absolutely loved us, and followed us all the way to the beach. They were intrigued by our English and our goofy faces. We taught them the words for clam, sand and ocean. They were too cute for words and N8 was just having a blast with them. oh yeah, and they insisted on keeping those little rubber caps, that you turn inside out so that they pop up, stuck on their faces. weirdos.

During our walk we got a chance to stroll through the Sokcho fish market. We took a seat on the side of the outdoor market where people were cooking up some crazy looking foods. We had over-the-fire clams and stuffed squid. The clams tasted like it was meant for a kind and the squid was tastier than I couldhave ever imagined!

The squid was stuffed with rice, ground meat, and breadcrumbs, it was first roasted over the fire, deep fried, and then sliced into rings for easier consumption.

I couldn't help but think about the people we have taken to Mexico and walked through the market and how stunned they were with all of the sights and smells. Since I was used to that environment I always found that to be very funny and entertaining, but walking through the fish market was a whole new experience for me. There was fish on either side of the walkway and people coming from every direction.

Watever was everywhere, my pants were soaked, same with my shoes, and the fish were swimming everywhere. While I was being pushed and shoved I couldn't help but stand still and watch a woman prepare fresh fish for a buyer. It was the most intense thing I have ever witnessed. The little korean woman slapped a flailing fish down in front of her and took a huge knife and slammed it down on its head, not all the way through mind you..it took a few times. This is only a glimpse of what I witnessed, it was like a massacre of the sea! It was goofy to see a squid or fish escape here and there, but i was rooting for them..no matter how delicious they are. It has been a while since I have experienced such culture shock, thankfully I was able to get over it quickly, but I had to take a step back and breathe through the shock. Although the fish market was different, I still love fish. Later that night we had plans to have a big fish dinner, korean style, which is fresh sashimi (raw fish) eaten right off of the fish. The meat is white and so soft, its like butter melting in your mouth. I was very excited for this dinner but it all came to a crash when the woman brought out the VERY FRESH fish to our table with the fish still gasping for his breath, his tale flapping and his gills still opening and closing. It was pretty traumatic, yet the freshest fish I've ever had...imagine that.

Thriller Night

Halloween came and went but it definitely made for a wonderful weekend. On Friday, during school, I felt like I was a kid again in class just waiting for the bell to ring. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible to start the weekend. N8 and I had made plans to host a pre-going out Halloween party at our apartment. We spent the entire night before preparing decorations for the house. N8 bought black and orange paper and we cut out pumpkins, cats, witches, and bats (FREEHAND) and taped them up all over our apartment. After school on Friday, i ran over to DC Mart, where we usually make our cheap purchases of random stuff and I got a bucket for bobbing-for-apples, make-up essentials and snacks. I got home around 5:30 and started cleaning and moving furniture around to give optimal space for drinking games and mingling. Some of our closer friends starting coming in around 7pm but the fun really started around 9. We had about 20 people packed into our little apartment and had lots of fun seeing people's creative costumes. My good friend Erin and her boyfriend were very korean...Erin tied string across arms and hung fabric that looked like dried squid (which is what you see everywhere here!) and Mike, her boyfriend, had a piece of cloth with cut-outs of dried peppers all down his shirt (just like the picture i have on a previous blog. After a long night at the bar, we had about 8 people sleep at our house and people woke up to a pretty rough morning. After we got back on our feet we met up with some friends at a coffee shop by the beach and sipped on some tea, then we just lied on the chilly beach for a while until hunger took over. We decided to go out for Kamjatong, which is a spicy potato soup with pig spine, because it is known to be a hangover cure! and its delicious!!

After nursing our hangovers with soup we ended up going to Dr. Fish. It is a little cafe downtown that has a medium-sized tub of water with fish in it. First you must wash your feet, order something from the cafe, and place your feet into the water with the flesh eating fish. They attack your feet, eating all of the dead skin off of your feet, but it is absolute tickle torture! You do get used to it after a little while but it is the weirdest feeling at first. It was quite a funny site: 8 Americans crowded around this tub full of fish laughing our faces off!

Afterwards we had our friends come back to our apartment where we pigged out on pizza and snacks and just talked and had a relaxed evening. Some people slept at our that night and everyone left on Sunday morning and N8 and I were left to finish cleaning up and then we went to have lunch with one of his Korean co-workers, Mr. Lee. The Lee family was so nice and welcoming and made a killer lunch with mushroom soup, meat, salad, and fruit. Mr. Lee's son is only 9 years old and has perfect English and attends a Chinese elementary school. After lunch, Mr. Lee wanted to take us up to Odesan mountain to see the autumn scenery, after the hour car ride we got to the top and Mr. Lee realized he had forgotten his wallet, so we got right back into the car and rode another hour back home.

It was such a wonderful weekend full of fun, friends and food! I can only hope I have more weekends like that in the future.

Randomness...

Our friend had a birthday dinner with pumpkin duck! it was so delicious...but i kind of tasted like ham..either way, it was the best ham-tasting-duck baked in a pumpkin i've ever had!!

N8 was the only blond on the subway!

Hey all! Sorr for being so lazy about the blog...but we finally have something to talk about.

We have had our ups and downs this weekend. First off we have some bad news, after coming home from school on friday afternoon N8 and I realized that our motorbike was gone! A few days before we realized that the door to the battery box on the motorbike was tampered with which was a clear sign that someone was trying to hotwire it. So with the help of a young high school student, we called the police and made a report. We are both really bummed about our loss, but its not the end of the world. I dont think that it will be returned because its probably already been sold to someone else. oh well...it was fun while it lasted.

Even though that was a major downer for our Friday night, we were busy getting ready to go out to Seoul on Saturday for our friend's birthday party. A bus to Seoul only takes 3 hours from Gangneung and we arrived at our hostel at 6pm. We brought our friend Marta a small cake and sang happy birthday and started getting ready for the evening. We went out to Itewon, which is the forgeiner hotspot because it has lots of shopping, a forgein food market, and forgein food restaurants. We ended up going to a Thai restaurant which was amazing! It took me back to my time spent in Chaingmai, and it reminded me how easy it was to gain 20 lbs in 4 months. Delicious! Afterwards we walked over to a hukabar called Bricx and it was pretty nice. The small dance floor was totally dark with little streams of green and red lights that would put small dots on everyone in the room. We met up with quite of few people there and we also had some korean friends with us, which made things seem more normal. We had more cake and drank, danced and smoked huka. Afterwards we walked over to a 'noribong' which is a karaoke room. Yes, just ONE room where you go with your friends and sing to one another. Everyone was pretty drunk at this point so we were singing some MJ, Abba, Madonna, and such. We were kicked out after an hour, because thats all we paid for, and we ended up in another bar called Bungalow and created the best dance party ever. Most of us just ended up on the smal sand dancefloor and started movin' and groovin' and had the whole place dancing in like 30 mins! it was very fun.

The next day we were dying for some hangover food and landed this AWESOME burger place. This was the first time in a long time that we have been able to have a big hunk of juicy meat on our plates! The burgers were 100% australian beef, which smelled amazing, and they had all different kinds of burgers. I've been dying for cheese lately so I ordered the Cheesy Cheese Burger, our friend Brett ordered the Ambulance ( Hashbrown, burger, bacon and a sunny side up egg) and Nathan got the Islander that came with a thick slice of pineapple. We also splurged on some chilli cheese fries.. I WAS IN HEAVEN!

You know you eat too much when it hurts to breathe..and believe I was in pain, there was no more room for my lungs to expand. The meal was pretty amazing and much needed. We walked around Itewon looking at shops and small vendor stands and finally made our way to the forgein market and What The Book. The forgein market is comparable to the mexican markets in Pittsburgh, where it's a small store with maybe 3 or 4 isles of random food and treats. I got a small glass bottle of maple syrup for a friend, because she has been wanting pancakes so badly, and it cost $9! For ourselves, we bought some cilantro and 4lbs of cheese! I've been so happy with the cheese lately. We made some quesadillas with flour tortillas that someone gave me and i've been making cheese sandwiches and everything. Next we'll have to make some cheesey spaghetti. I also made a killer veggi soup with a hot pepper and dumplings. It had the perfect punch to it!

So now we are back to the grind and enjoying working at school. Now we have Halloween to look forward to because we are hosting a pregame- halloween party. FUN!