Jack and his Howard complex.

I do not claim to know much about sports. I can hold my own in a conversation about football and I am decently versed around basketball, but I hod no affinity for the athletic world. I am tall, lanky, and generally lacking in all athletic ability. That is why I am musical, artistic, and into reading. (okay, also I just like those things)

My husband has taken our families intake of sporting events and banter to a whole new level. WIth March Madness ensuing we constantly have a streaming ESPN radio network on one or both of our laptops. Also, the NFL draft is coming up soon and after Tebow's new throwing style the gator nation is all a buzz.

(see, I told you I am pretty aware of most sporting issues.)

Jack has now taken it to a whole other level. Last week our children's service was lacking something as we were doing the planning. We had done musical chairs, toilet paper mummies, and random mind teasers. We needed something different. We made our way to Lotte World. Lotte World is the closest thing to Wal-mart we have. Except it goes up instead of out. Each floor is a different variety of items ranging from car repair on top that connects the the parking garage to the bottom floor that is solely a grocery store. We ventured to the toy store in hopes to find something. There it was on sale. 16,000 won. A kids basketball hoop and two small bouncy basketballs. Since our service free throw game, the hoop has made its way to our loft balcony.

Yes. that's right, Jack has installed a basketball hoop in my living room. haha I only really hate it when he forgets how late he stays up and puts on his metaphorical superman cape* for his own version of the dunk contest. It isn't like I am asleep, I just worry about our poor neighbors.



The crowning moment of the sports world however happened tonight through this lanky red-head. I have been sick all week. I think I may have a sinus infection coupled with several flu symptoms (the regular kind, not the pig kind). Tonight was particularly rough. I had been dying all day and came home to actually throw up (sorry, gross over share- get over it). The point is I was pretty screwed up. I was laying down on the couch with a cool wet cloth over my eyes, completely sick. Jack was playing basketball and jokingly said I bet you cant make it.

You may call me Kryptonite. Blindfolded and sick I got nothing but net. It was amazing. I may not be good at real sports and I may never get a medal but as for tonight, the bragging rights are mine.




*For those who are not aware of sports pop culture, Dwight Howard wears a Superman Cape each year for the annual Dunk Contest. :)

The Lemon Table

We finally went to the Lemon Table tonight after work. We had been urged multiple times by some of our co-teachers to check it out. We enjoyed it immensely. The burgers were heavily seasoned, but decent (also they include a fired egg on most of the burgers). I am really looking forward to trying out some of the pasta next time. The atmosphere is comfortable and inviting. We had a great time chatting. The best part is before your food is brought out they bring these incredibly crumbly croissants and a small dipping bowl with honey. It was scrumptious. The Lemon table is just down from our apartment. It is about a ten minute walk from Landpia just before the Sejong Outlets near the subway stop. We will definitely add it to our list of restaurants we frequent.









We hope to check out some other menu items and will will add to our review. The experience was nice, but we weren't completely sold on the burgers. They were just very Korean. I am pretty sure they cooked them in bulgogi sauce. We are going to try the steak and pasta next time. It cant hurt. The bill came out to be only 19,000.00 won. Which is about 17.50 for a sit down meal for two. Not bad.

New location- like I need to move again

Our school is moving. Well down the street anyways. We are moving to combine with the middle school campus. It actually works out in our favor. We will have a shorter walk to work and it is closer to restaurants if we want to step out for one of our breaks and run to grab some food. We will be just around the corner from MacDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and Holly's Coffee. The only thing that stinks is that we have to come in on Sunday afternoon and move our things to the new campus. It is really going to throw off our napping streak. Sometimes I swear Jack and I are like children. We actually have a napping schedule. haha. Sundays are the only day of the week that we dont sleep in. We have to be up SO early. (and by early I mean nine. haha) Normally we get out of bed at the crack of noon.

This week the move is on. I think the thing that is craziest is that Jack and I will no longer have a office. Instead we will share a classroom. The only thing that is kind of weird about that is that there are cameras in all the classrooms. We don't currently have one in our office so during our breaks we watch tv online. :) I guess I will just have to angle my mac away from the camera because I don't think I can part with watching Lost and the Office when they come online. The new school is awesome though. They bought out the rest of the second floor in our building so we will have a lot of space and new equipment. It is of little cost when you consider that our boss currently owns twenty different hagwons (private schools). We only found that out this week. Let's just say we discovered he is doing well. haha For now we will pack our desk and make sure the trash has been emptied while we head out to better things.

3.14 White Day/Pie Day

To all my mathematically inclined friends (I actually think I really only know one haha), Happy Pie Day π (3.1415926535897...). For all those who are located in Japan, Taiwan, or Korea, Happy White Day. White Day is the Asian version of a Hallmark Holiday. Valentine's Day is celebrated differently here.

Here's a snippet from wikipedia:

In Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, Valentine's Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a male, as an expression of love, courtesy or social obligation. The handmade chocolate is usually preferred by the receiver, because it is a sign that the receiving male is the girl's "only one". On White Day, the converse happens: males who received a honmei-choco (本命チョコ?, "chocolate of love") or giri-choco (義理チョコ?, "courtesy chocolate") on Valentine's Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Traditionally, popular White Day gifts are cookies, jewelery, white chocolate, white lingerie and marshmallows.[1] Sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し?, literally, "thrice the return") is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine's gift.[2]

I think it is interesting that the women are the ones doing the giving, instead of the men. The good news is at least in White Day they are supposed to return the favor with a more expensive gift. :) This actually was all started by a confectionery who started marketing marshmallows as gifts to those who presented Valentines Day traditional chocolate. Eventually marshmallows increased to white chocolate, then dark, then jewelry, and before long it was a full blown lovers holiday. Occasionally gifts can be exchanged for social obligations, but mostly it is a sign of affection.

I think the best part is that the love based holidays do not stop at two in Korea. There is also a singles day later in the year. On this day single people are all supposed to go out and eat jajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce). They say it is to celebrate their singleness. My instinct says it is so they can easily spot each other and possibly hook up. :) haha

Mokpo- a day trip...

Mokpo (Mokpo-si) ( Korean 목포, Hanjia 木浦 ) is a major port city in South Jeolla Province , South Korea ,surrounded by hills facing the sea on the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula with a population of about 260,000.

The area of Mokpo was controlled by the Mahan confederacy in the 3rd to 2nd century BC and later by the kingdom Baekje (18 BCE – 660 AD) . In 1439 King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty established the ' Mokpo man-ho ' or Mokpo bay camp to help fight Japanese pirates . There were many battles around Mokpo during the Japanese invasion of 1592 ( Imjin War ) in which the Korean national hero, admiral Yi-Sun-shin fought . The most famous of the battles in the Mokpo area was the battle Myeongryang on October 26, 1597 where admiral Yi-Sun-shin defeated a Japanese force of 133 ships with 13 ships .

from http://mokpo.info/

This weekend we went on a day trip to the city of Mokpo. It is a beautiful port city with an interesting history. We were accompanied by Katherine and Caleb, a couple of friends who teach at a different school in Gwangju. We wanted to go explore some shopping and do a "quick" mountain hike to see some of the beautiful views from Yudal San Park. It was gorgeous! We saw some of the temples, beatiful pagodas, and some really neat carvings on the mountainside on rocks as we trekked down the other side.

The bit I am leaving out is perhaps the best. What started as a pretty little hike turned into quite the conquest to make it up the face of a beautiful mountain. While on the side facing the coasts there were countless sets of stairs in various levels of steepness. The fun came when we tried to find our way to the beach down the other side. We looked around for quite a while and found a break in the railing which began a interesting dirt trail. The trail began with nice ropes to help you down the steeper parts of the rock where there was no hand grips. Later on down the mountain however the ropes became more sparse and the adventure ensued. While Jack enjoyed mimicking Tarzan and swung from trees and ropes we all made our way down. The beach turned out to me about an eighth of a mile of sand stuffed between two ports, several restaurants, and some other businesses. It was worth it though. The one thing I miss most from Florida is the beach. Besides, can you say you scaled a huge mountain today?

노래 방 NORE BANG

Nore Bang (노래 방) is literally translated "singing room." I thought i would devote a short post to one. While in Seoul we visited a Nore Bang. Basically you pay a small amount for 15, 30, or even 60 minutes and have unlimited access to the karaoke equipment. You would think it would stop there. But no. In the room you will find microphones (usually cordless so as not to hinder dancing) song book with English and Korean tunes, lights, the occasional disco ball, and of course some big speakers. Most Koreans go for parties. Karaoke and alcohol are a bad combination. You can usually hear people blasting the latest K-pop or classic 80's rock. It is awesome. I decided to show a few pictures. I hope you enjoy. :)

School birthday fun

As if all the crazy birthday enjoyment during my weekend wasn't enough i was met by the teachers at our school on Tuesday (Monday was a holiday) with a beautiful birthday cake and singing. I think the best part of the day occured when I was greeted by one of my classes with them singing happy birthday (in English I might add). They were so cute, but that wasn't the best part. Later on in the lesson it came to my attention one of the boys had forgotten his book. It is a real offense hereso I started to get on his case. In the midst of my stern talking the whole class simultaneously busted out with the last line of the song: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!" It was such a clever usage of the song I decide to let it slip this time that he had forgotten his book. Unfortunately, the behavior rubbed off on Jack after I told him the story. Over the last week if he had committed any offense, he just randomly breaks out into the birthday song. I assured him it only worked if he was an adorable eight year old Korean but still he persists. I have to admire his commitment. ha ha Here are a few pictures. Check out the rest on our gallery. You can find the link on the side of this page.

Birthday fun. Seoul, Nikon, and photoshop...

This past week was a milestone for me I suppose. I turned twenty five. As my sister "lovingly" put it, I am half way to fifty. (Thanks Jenn.- by the way, you are half way to sixty) I have never really celebrated my birthday in any large capacity. Given that it is within a week of my sisters and the fact that I am a pastor's kid (meaning we didn;t have a huge amount of money) birthdays were never ranked much higher than a cake and friends or as I got older movies and embarrassing singing at the annual restaraunt of our choosing.

This year we decided to change all that. The weekend before my birthday started out with a trip to Kumho World (금호월두). It is a multi-level store that sells everything from toilets to furniture to instruments. We typically go for the computer section as it is the only retailer that sells Apple products that we have found. We went in and headed straight to our planned sales counter. NIKON. We walked up and the guy kind of didn;t take us seriously until I told him it was my birthday and pointed to the beautiful D90 on the shelf. We purchased a new camera, Two lenses, a cleaning kit, and a travel bag. All of which were really nice and some of which were complimentary from our salesman since we were making such a big purchase. Towards the end of our buying frenzy he handed me a remote and said Happy birthday. It was a great start to the week.

From there we got our stuff together for church on Sunday and left shortly after a quick afternoon lunch with our school principle. We headed to U Square (the bus terminal) and bought our tickets to Seoul. We splurged an extra five bucks each and got the luxury buses. The seats recline a rediculous amount. It is like first class airplane recliner. Nice. We arrived in Seoul around seven and were met at the Seoul Gangnam terminal. One of our friends from university, Ryan, and his super awesome newly wedded wife Christina helped us grab our bags, took us to our Hotel, the Hawaiian, and took us out to a great dinner. It was our first non-"koreanized" Italian food in months. It was amazing! We cant wait to go back.

The weekend progressed and we hit some awesome spots including the palace, Butterfingers (western breakfast joint= amazing), a Nore Bang (Korean Karaoke rooms/bar), an amazing German restaurant, and a stop by a piercing place to get my nose re-done. (SIDE NOTE: I took my other one out for our last church job. I figure why not? It didn't help me keep that job. haha) We ended the week with a sad goodbye and a trip back to the terminal in Seoul. We only walked around for forty minutes looking for the Honam line inside the terminal. :) We caught a bus nearly ten minutes later. At least nine of which were used scrambling to find a bathroom before the three hour trek home to Gwangju. We arrived safely home around three in the morning and hit the sack. Happy birthday to me. haha

It has been great. Playing with my Nikon, editing all the photos with photoshop (cs4) that was gotten for me by our friend Peter, who teaches at the other campus of our school, and just enjoying possibly the biggest birthday celebration I have had to date. So despite the fact that I am half way to fifty, it was a pretty awesome time.