Monthly Photo Recap: June 2014

Feeling bleh this weekend = finishing and scheduling a ton of backlogged posts. Lots and lots of (sometimes really old) posts will be going up soon, so check back! I think I'm going to even throw a bunch of photos up on Facebook since I haven't uploaded any pictures in about a year... So it'll be a massive best-of type album, I think. My time in Korea is officially winding down, which is totally nuts. I can't believe I'm leaving at the end of November. That's still quite a ways off, but when I sit and count the weekends I have left, it's only 18! I have so many things left to accomplish! My Korea Bucket List is getting a serious overhaul/update this weekend too -- I need to strategize a game plan so I can get all this stuff done.

But anyway, here's photos from June, which was a pretty relaxed month.

This summer hasn't been as hot or as rainy as I remember from previous years. Though we're all worrying that this means the rainy season will just come super late and drag on into August. Fingers crossed. The humidity is pretty obnoxious.

Finally finished a doodle that I'd started a while back. Definitely feeling like drawing more lately.

Mr. Cat.

My Master Lit class is HUGE this term and I have so many essays to grade... AND I LOVE IT. No, really. Grading papers is seriously one of my favorite things, as weird as that sounds.

I was given a "Yellow Card" by some of my elementary kids because I was eating chips during breaktime. We have snack rules at my school -- they kids can't eat dry ramen, chips, candy, cookies, etc. Basically anything that's unhealthy isn't allowed. But, even though I had retreated to an empty classroom to get some peace and quiet during the break, they walked by and noticed me eating chips. Feeling like this was deeply unfair, I allowed them to give me a Yellow Card, which I then taped to the wall behind my desk so I can proudly display it. The bottom part is my favorite -- they initially wrote in the reason as "eat swing chip (very many)" but then added "obyte no problem" -- meaning that if I vomited up the chips, I wouldn't get in trouble. It was hilarious.

Delicious, delicious food.

Fancy architecture in Songdo. So many of the buildings are really cool looking over there.

More cat.

So, this is a mangosteen. It's one of the weirdest fruits I've ever eaten and it's delicious. You have to cut through the thick rind first, then the inside looks weirdly like garlic but doesn't taste like it at all. It's really soft -- trying to pull out one of the segments makes it bruise and ooze juice. But it's so, so good.

One of my middle schoolers made me some friendship bracelets a while back and it got me on an insane kick of making tons and tons of them. I used to make these all the time during the summer when I was a kid, so it's been a lot of fun to rekindle that hobby. And! The internet has so many amazing patterns and tutorials! I'm really jealous of kids today because their friendship bracelet options are so much greater than mine were back in the pre-internet days. This is just a handful of what I've made... I might be out of control. 

Pretty lilies on my walk one day.

And last, the greatest article of clothing I currently own: a shirt covered in dogs. Oh, and my bangs are almost grown out to a good length and it's still weird. I constantly fight the urge to chop them back to straight-across. 

Monthly Photo Recap: May 2014, aka Emma's Visit

SO LATE with this recap. However, I was computerless for a couple weeks, so that seriously bungled my blogging aspirations. Also I'm lazy.

But! My computer is back and good as new, so it's time to play catch up.

May was a fun month, largely because Emma was visiting for two weeks of it. Having a visitor is always a nice distraction from everything else. And while it was bittersweet (because saying goodbye was basically a knife to the heart), it was really, really awesome to get to show her Korea and have some busy weekends of running around and sightseeing.

So, without apology, here's photos from May that are absolutely 90% related to Emma's visit.

Beginning with a picture of the cat! Not Emma.

We took an airport arrival picture, but we both look rough -- her because she'd just stepped off a plane and me because I was an emotional wreck that had been crying in anticipation of her arrival. So here was our first good seester picture of her trip. 

Rainy day on Wolmido, with cool clouds.

Lotteria, kind of like Korea's McDonald's, even tried to copy McD's little characters by making these creepy-ass ones. Emma wasn't into it.  

Exploring Bukchon Hanok Village! 

I just love Bukchon so much. 

We were getting pretty loopy by the end of the night, wandering around Insadong buying as many ice creams as we wanted. 

The beginning of lots and lots of purikura pictures. I could do an entire recap just of these pictures. 

This is known as our Disney Channel Original Movie movie poster. 

Nami Island! We had a good time wandering around.

It was a particularly beautiful day on Nami, too. 

While in the area of Nami, we also stopped by Petite France, unable to resist since Emma had just completed her teaching contract in France. It was... weird. And underwhelming. And full of truly terrifying statues and marionette dolls. Full blog coming soon. 

Teacher's Day passed sometime in the middle of the month, and some really sweet notes and presents were passed my way from some very thoughtful students. 

Sister funday! Playing in a mirror art installation in a subway station. 

Aaaaand more purikura. Can't stop, won't stop.

Emma in Hongdae, looking ~so cool~ in front of this mural. She a day or so after this was taken, which was a tearful goodbye at the airport. I wish she could've stayed longer, and I wish I'd had more time off to explore Korea with her. 

Another cat picture, for good measure.

The month ended with the end of a term at work, which meant saying goodbye to a couple coworkers that have meant so much to me during my entire time in Korea. It isn't the same without them, though I know they're having a wonderful time back home. We took this staff picture to commemorate the momentous farewell. 

5 MORE Must-See Spots in Incheon, Korea

This blog entry was originally published on the Aclipse Blog, which is produced by current Chungdahm Learning teachers in Korea! The blog features entries on current events around Korea, advice for incoming teachers, and the best spots for sightseeing, shopping, and eating. The original entry can be viewed here. 

Nearly a year ago, I covered the top 5 things to do in Incheon: the world famous Incheon International Airport, Muuido/Wolmido/other surrounding islands, Chinatown/Jayu Park, Bupyeong Underground Shopping Center, and Soraepogu Fish Market. Now, after trying my hardest to do more exploring in the time since that post, I've come up with 5 more things worth checking out when you come visit Incheon. 

1. Songdo

Songdo is Incheon's new up-and-coming area for business. My CDI branch recently relocated to Songdo and I've really been enjoying exploring the area. There's good shopping and tons of great restaurants, so I definitely recommend wandering through this area. Keep an eye out for blog entries about Songdo coming soon!

2. Songdo's Central Park

I recently spend an early evening wandering around Songdo's Central Park and I was so taken with its landscaping and design that it gets a mention of its own. I am intensely jealous of the families living within walking distance of this park because I would probably go there daily if I could. While exploring Songdo, definitely make time to walk along the canal that runs through the park, taking time to rent a little peddle boat or to relax in one of the little gazebos.

More info can be found here via Trazy.

3. Eulwangri Beach

I love living near the ocean, but Incheon is unfortunately mostly shipyards. You can stroll along the shoreline in some areas, but as far as lounging on a beach goes, this isn't the place. However, beaches are still nearby, which I'm quite excited to explore as the temperatures climb in the coming months. On Yeongjong Island, aka the island where Incheon International Airport is located, is a pretty, white sand beach: Eulwangri.

Check this out for more details.

4. Incheon Grand Park

The beautiful spring weather has me somewhat fixated on spending time outdoors right now, hence another mention of a park. Incheon Grand Park is still on my to-do list, but I'm really looking forward to checking it out. The park boasts 727 acres of land that includes a botanical garden, a zoo, hiking, and bike rental -- definitely sounds like a great place to spend a day soaking up the sun.

5. Sinpo Market

I spent an afternoon in Sinpo Market last summer during my great K-pop adventure and really enjoyed it. Largely, the draw is the food, and much like other traditional markets (such as Gwangjang in Seoul), you should enter Sinpo with an appetite. When I visited, I was unaware of the market's specialty food: dakgangjeong, which is fried chicken in a sweet and spicy sauce. Since I'm a sucker for Korean street and market foods, I'm definitely planning to make a trip back just to try that chicken.

More info here!

Honorable Mention: The 17th Asian Games

Since this is a 2014-only event, it's getting placed as an honorable mention. From the 19th of September to the 4th of October, Incheon is hosting the 17th Asian Games and it sounds like it's going to be quite the event. I've always been interested in attending a big sports event like this, so I'm looking forward to checking it out this fall.

Have you been to any of these spots in Incheon? Do you know of anything else to do in Incheon that I've completely failed to mention? Leave a comment below! 

What's your "home away from home?"

I was recently contacted by the friendly people at DogVacay to answer a simple question: 

What is your home away from home?

I cycled through endless possibilities -- all of the places that have been important to me over the years. Sometimes it's been the ballet studio, sometimes it's been inside a favorite book.

But now, after two and a half years on the other side of the Pacific from my actual home, I have to say that my home away from home has become Korea.

When I moved to Korea, I never thought expat life would be this easy. I found myself settling in quickly and experiencing very minor culture shock. While I'm sure my prior knowledge of Asian culture from years of studying Japanese helped me adapt, ultimately, I think Korea is just an incredibly welcoming and comfortable country.

The food, the festivals, and all of my students -- they are now home. I thought a temporary move -- one year abroad -- would be it, never thinking I would end up staying for three.

I only have six more months in this country, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Some days, I'm really ready to go home (I miss my dog! And, my family and friends, of course). Others, I can't imagine what it will be like to leave this place behind.

But when I do leave, a part of me will be left behind, that much I do know.

So, now you tell me. What's your home away from home? #HAFH2014

Monthly Photo Recap: October 2013

This past week has been spent fighting off a nasty head cold, so I'm a little late (again) with getting this recap up. And with posting half a dozen other entries... I think I'm going to start using my weekly planner (yes, I obsessively still use one of those... Carver Middle School and those "Time Management" binders did some serious conditioning on me) for blogging stuff. Between this blog and working for the Aclipse blog, I just don't seem to make the time for all of it.

Anyway, I've been excited about this recap, you guys. A lot of things happened this past month, including my mom being in town and two friends from home also coming for a visit. And! It was Halloween, which is my absolute favorite holiday.

Choosing photos was really hard because it was a seriously photo-heavy month. So, that's basically your heads up that this entry is loaded with pictures. :)

A true stroke of inspired genius: doing a purikura-style photobooth with my mom. We were endlessly entertained by the photo decorating process as well as our final results. Definitely a hilarious memory of her visit here. 

All of these notes were drawn by six of my elementary students, who were horribly affronted when another teacher, Angus, teased them about how he was the best teacher at CDI. He'd received a sweet card from a student stating this, and my (suddenly very loyal) students were furious. Only one of them has ever even been in his class, but she rallied her friends and they went to town. In their minds, in order to trump this one card saying he was the best teacher, they needed to produce x number of papers saying that I was actually the best. It's hard to see in the photo, but these girls were actually signing the notes with fake names and even trying to disguise their handwriting. It became quite the production, especially when they delivered all of these notes to Angus at break time, only for him to look at them one by one and dismiss them for various reasons. "This one doesn't actually mention me, so it doesn't count." "Oh, you have a spelling mistake, doesn't count." "This is written in pencil. So, no." They were howling at him by the end, a crowd had formed of other teachers and students, and I couldn't stop laughing. These girls have brought this incident up almost weekly since, still finding it hilarious.

We spent one weekend afternoon walking around Changdeok Palace in Seoul and even took a tour of the "Secret Garden," which was nice, but the having-to-be-on-a-guided-tour part kinda sucked. It would've been much nicer to just wander aimlessly, like we had on the rest of the palace grounds. But oh well. It was still awfully pretty. (Though I do still think Gyeongbokgung is my favorite of the palaces.)

Crazy hat hair! This picture just makes me laugh, and I think it's also an accurate representation of how Corey felt after doing souvenir shopping with my mom and I all around Insadong. 

It's also just occurred to me that it's a bit "Eraserhead," actually.

Mom's last weekend in Korea was a busy one, including the most crowded subway car I have EVER been on. We were trying to make our way to the Seoul International Fireworks Festival, which ended up being a mess of people and overall not really worth the hassle. At least not this late in the day... We'd gotten sidetracked with the aforementioned souvenir shopping in Insadong and should've headed down to the Han River much, much earlier. Instead, my mom got quite the subway experience. 

On Mom's last night, we headed back for another round of purikura. This particular machine is one that enlarges your eyes and makes you look generally creepy and doll-like. I have a series of photos from this set, but as they're a gift for Emma, who's now in France, I don't want to ruin the surprise of the other creepy ass pictures. After I've (finally) mailed them to her, I promise to post the rest -- they're hilarious and terrifying and they make me so happy.

For all of you that miss In-N-Out, Korea has your back: Crycheese Burger in Bucheon basically IS In-N-Out. The dude who owns the place used to work at In-N-Out in California and brought the recipes back to Korea with him. Seriously, it looks, smells, and tastes like In-N-Out. I'll definitely be going back.

A few days after my mom left Korea, round two of my October visitors arrived: Dinah and Marley! For the weekend they were here, we headed off to Korea's east coast to hang out in Samcheok. As you can see in the picture, we are standing next to a giant penis. Samcheok is actually home to an entire park full of phallic statues and sculptures, known as Haesindang Park, or Penis Park. It was an odd thing, walking through this beautifully landscaped park with its ocean views, rocky beaches, and carefully manicured flowerbeds. Every now and then you'd forget what park you were in, only to turn around and notice that the bench behind you is shaped like a penis and that giggling you hear is coming from the middle-aged Korean women currently posing for a picture while straddling a giant dick-shaped cannon. (I will forever regret not snapping a picture of these women -- they were having the best time posing for pictures with all the penises.) My only photo with any of the phalluses is the one above, where Dinah and I are standing with our Zodiac penis, the Year of the Ox. 

Wandering away from all the penises, we were able to get down to the beach, which was just gorgeous. I definitely need to spend more time exploring Korea's coasts. 

Our second day in Samcheok was spent in one of the huge caves in the nearby mountains. This cave, Hwanseongul, is the biggest limestone cave in Korea, with over 6 kilometers of known passages. We spent quite a while wandering through this place, marveling at the huge caverns and the strange/obsessive use of rope lights. Definitely cool, and definitely something I would recommend should you find yourself in Samcheok.

The subway shopping in Korea is the best shopping. Seriously. Where else would you find a random Heisenberg sweatshirt? And for less than $10?! I had to buy it. No question. Bupyeong, I <3 p="" you.="">

(ALSO, I'm only in season three -- no spoilers!)

"I want pizza for dinner." 

"I kind of want chicken."

"Why don't we get both?"

"I'll bring the fries."

This is how we de-stress in the middle of the week. With a disgusting(ly delicious) food party. Sidenote: There were five of us eating this and we weren't able to finish, just so you're not completely judging us right now... 

While Dinah and Marley were here, we did a DMZ tour, some of which I'd seen before. During the planning and booking process, it dawned on me that we would have to take a photo with this sign. DeMilitarized Zone? More like Dinah Marley Zannah! 

One thing that was different about this DMZ tour was this one actually took us to the Joint Security Area, and with that, North Korea. The blue buildings in the foreground are under South Korean control, straddling the actually demarcation line between the two countires, but the big building farther back is North Korea. If you look closely, you'll see the North Korean soldier that was watching us through his binoculars. 

In this photo, I am technically standing *in* North Korea. That soldier is South Korean, and his job is to guard the door behind him, which opens up into the North. He doesn't move, he doesn't speak, he just stands there, like a creepy breathing robot-statue, and watches. He also apparently knows two kinds of martial arts and could probably kill me with, like, two fingers. Standing this close to him made me very, very nervous. Stay tuned for a full write-up on my visit to the JSA... It was interesting.

A little while back, Corey finally figured out how to get onto the roof of our apartment building. I'm not entirely sure we're allowed to go up there, as we have to walk through a maintenance room full of breaker boxes and other noisy, large things, but we also have to tap our building key cards, and they work... so... maybe it's okay? Anyway, this is the gorgeous view of Incheon from my building's roof, about 27 floors up. Pretty spectacular, eh? 

GPOY. Because I just love fall fashion and I'm really enjoying layering skirts and blouses and sweaters and stuff. Unfortunately, it's getting cold fast, so I better enjoy this while I can. I'm also just obsessed with this skirt because it's covered in dalmatians. 

A student was using colored mechanical pencil lead the other day, and upon seeing my fascination, he awkwardly gave me one stick of each color after class. (Pretty sure he thinks I'm a weirdo for being so excited about pencil lead.) This was the result of my first experiment.

A picturesque view of Seoul, from the 60th floor of the 63 Building. Blog entry coming very soon, as I've written one for the Aclipse blog that will go up later this week. :) 

We have new neighbors! And they brought us a present of sweet potatoes, persimmons, and choco-pies. They seem to be a nice family, with a high school aged son that the mom is already pushing to practice English with Corey. I'm curious to see if anything comes of that, but even if it doesn't, it's nice to know our neighbors! Plus these new neighbors have a dog... So while they're angling for English lessons, I might start angling for puppy playtime. 

This year's Halloween makeup/costume! I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out -- I swiped ideas from several different versions of deer makeup that I'd seen on Pinterest. Halloween, lately, has started to become all about the makeup for me, rather than planning an elaborate/really awesome costume. And I kinda like that my Halloweens have been headed in this direction -- gives me a chance to play with makeup and test my ~art skillz.~ I've already started trying to think of what I want to do for next year...

The gang out in Seoul! We headed to Hongdae for this year's celebration, bouncing between a retro dance party and drinking in the park from cocktails-in-bags. As you can see from this picture, the park was where the real party was at. Much longer post about Halloween, with lots of pictures, coming soon. 

Day one of this term's level-up exam proctoring, this time playing with some new gel pens while my classes tested for hour upon mind-numbing hour. 

On actual Halloween day, my classes were taking level-up tests. My master class, because they're awesome, all brought in candy for each other (and me!) to eat while they took their test. Since they're at the top of the levels at CDI, they can't level up or down -- taking these tests is just extra practice. So we had some fun and quietly celebrated Halloween on our own. Definitely a nice way to end the month. :)