Get It Right Korea!

slam time:

I'm loving my time here with my love, new friends, new environment, food and people. My time here has been spent well and I can't believe time has flown by so quickly. One year sounded so long, but its hard to believe we only have 4 more months left! 

On the other hand, we are very excited to get home.  We will finally be able to communicate with people around us. We won't feel as invisible and/or at the same time feel like we're being gawked at. When I ask for something, I'll know I'm getting what I asked for, oh yeah... and people will have washed their hands regularly throughout the day.

For example: My co teacher complained about how sick she was feeling. She had a fever the night before, a terrible cough and was losing her voice. She looked pretty bad, so she had decided to leave school early to take a rest. As she was describing her symptoms and coughing in her hand, she proceeded to stick her hands in my trail mix bag and dig around for ALL OF MY BANANA CHIPS. 

First of all, the banana chips are the best part. Secondly, I have never seen her wash her hands. Ever. So needless to say, I threw away my bag of trail mix and went on my day very hungry. 

Miscommunication is very common here in Korea. People tend to freak out if you try to speak English to them. Granted, I know that many people here do not speak English, which is fine! But if they would just get over the initial shock of not understanding and just look at me we could work things out. Body language and konglish (the mix of Korean and English) can go so far! 

For example : I went to go get my hair permed. I know I know. I couldn't help but hear my mother's voice saying: "Stephanie, you should really appreciate your natural hair. A lot of people pay good money for your curls!"

Well I had to perm my hair so it could grow out normally, and I showed the hair dresser what I wanted my hair to look like. 4 hours later, I came out looking like a hybrid between a cracked out poodle and a back-up dancer for a Madonna video. Needless to say I cried on my way home and just pinned it back . 

Please don't get me wrong, this trip has been great! It has helped me grow as an individual and also with my relationship with N8, but I cannot wait to get back to Pittsburgh! 

The Hills Are Alive

As the sun comes out, so do the people....

This weekend was a beautiful one! On Saturday I decided to ride over to the stadium with a few friends to see a Gangwon-do (provincial) soccer game. There was a good crowd in the stadium all chanting encouraging things to our team. The Gangwon-do soccer team color is bright orange which was quite a sight at the stadium. 

 

Afterwards I had to literally kick start the motorbike (which we have to do everytime, because we're that classy) to go meet Nate at the beach because he had gone for a long run as to prepare for a half marathon that he is running in the end of April. We were planning on staying at the beach for a while to read but it became very chilly so we headed home.

On Sunday we had our first Gangneung Sports Day! Quite a few people came out to Kwon Dong University to play kickball, Frisbee, catch and just to lounge around in the grass under the warm sky.  It was a nice change of pace! Later we all moved to the beach for a warm coffee.

 

Later that night we met up with some Korean friends and had a delicious oyster dinner.

First we ate some potato pancake with green onions, shrimp and fried oysters then shared some oyster dishes with rice and kimchi.  It was all so good. 

 

Spring has Sprung!

April has proven to be a good start on good weather and good moods! 

April Fools Day was a bust: I had planned to wake up late at night and paint N8's nails fire engine red and then sneak off to school early and take the nail polish remover with me...but my alarm clock failed me and it was a big flop. But I like pranks, so I just might keep my nail polish handy.

We celebrated Hai's birthday this weekend in Seoul. We went out for a performance called Nanta.  It is a non verbal, musical performance. It is very similar to STOMP and it is a family friendly show.  We enjoyed ourselves much more than we thought we would. Afterwards we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant, then to an underground Hukkha bar, then sang our little hearts out at noribong, AND THEN to an after hours night club. Most of our group, by this point, had disintegrated and we were left with 5 people in the group.  We entered the club around 3AM. I have never been in a place so crowded in my life. People were shoulder to

shoulder and jam packed near the DJ. The funny thing about Korea is that people here love pop music, but no one ever dances. Everyone 

was just bobbing up and down to the music and pushing their way through to go to the bathroom or to the bar. Our little group managed to shove our way to the upstairs where we'd hope there was more room, but we found ourselves stuck in the midst of a sea of people. I broke out into hysterical dance movements a

s to scare off people around me and make some room... surprisingly it worked! I kept flailing my arms and legs around to make sure people wouldn't want to get near me and we ended up with enough space to actually do some dancing. N8 and I had to finally call a quits around 5AM and headed back to our hostel. We were very happy to have all day sunday to relax and recharge for Monday's classes. 

As for Mondays...The cherry blossoms

are finally blooming and the city is looking very nice! N8 and I had a scheduled date after school to ride down to the lake, which is right next to the ocean, to take a stroll and check out the cherry blossoms. I can't help but think of my Dad and how much he likes to see these flowers.