I apologize for not keeping this updated! The more we get settled in to life here, the more I don't want to write! However, the past five weeks have been VERY eventful!
The weekend after Easter we were invited by our friend to a mini-vacation at the local Oak Valley Resort. Only a short 30 minute bus ride away is a huge golf/ski resort! Her friend paid for a two bedroom condo and our friend asked us to tagalong for the weekend. We were so thankful. We had so much fun walking around and exploring. Not to mention, the group we were with treated us to a delicious Korean BBQ meal of famous Hanu beef, sourced locally in Hoengseong.
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| One of the three golf courses |
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| Enjoying Korean BBQ! |
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| Was delicious! |
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| Found a group of maybe Chinese tourists doing group exercise in the morning. |
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| Found where the really wealthy people stay. |
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| Reminds me of something from Avatar the Last Airbender |
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| Had a ton of activities for little ones |
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| Genius! Remote control car |
April 24th was the Seongnam Elementary Science Day. That day didn't change our day-to-day routine except that the school rented a cotton candy machine! What?! So awesome. So we spent the morning walking around the elementary school and eating cotton candy.
April 29th was my birthday. We woke up WAY TOO EARLY (4am?) to drive two hours to the east coast. All of us foreign teachers attended an all-day team building conference in Yangyang. Being around so many foreigners and hearing English all day was so refreshing! After the conference, all of my coworkers took me out to a fancy and way too expensive steak dinner. While it was a fun day, it was equally difficult to be away from home... I guess that's all part of growing up!
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| Classic sleeping in the car. |
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| Us with our coworkers from left: Angela, Sohee, and Linda. |
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| Angela bought me a bday cake! Yum! |
The next day, April 30th, was the Seongnam Elementary Sports Day. The school went all out! Flags from all the countries in the world were strung up around the field, big balloon arches posed as "entrances" to the playing field and big gazebos were set up for all the parents and students to escape from the heat of the day.
All the parents that attended had to participate in all the activities their kids competed in! Watching was great fun! Us foreign teachers, thankfully, were not forced to take part in the festivities. We did, however, have to put on a fun "English" game. We played True or False? We asked the students yes or no questions and they had to run back and forth between an O and X. Our game was probably the least fun but we gave out the best prizes! Stationary, pencils, and erasers. Yay?
May 1st was Labors Day, a national holiday. Jacob and I enjoyed a nice and very relaxing three day weekend at home, resting up for a busy week ahead!
On Monday morning we woke up bright and early to go work at the Hoengseong Children's Festival. Tuesday morning was Children's Day, another national holiday. The city of Hoengseong put on a huge children's festival that lasted all day Monday and Tuesday. Over 100 booth/tents were set up, a big concert stage, and a football field's worth of bouncy houses! The Hoengseong English Experience Center, aka Jacob, Linda and, me played the memory game and the bingo game with the kids ALL DAY LONG. The closest thing it resembled was the Clark County fair without all the huge rides. Different food, craft activities, games, photo booths, were all set up for the children of Hoengseong to enjoy to their hearts' content.
After our exhausting two-day extravaganza, our amazing boss let us sleep in Wednesday and come in to work late.
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| That dog is spoiled |
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| Principal on left with coworkers and one of our adult students |
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| Hard at work! :) |
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| Aforementioned student treated us to lunch! |
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| Got my groove on |
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| One of the girls called me the "Dancing Queen". |
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| Yes, we actually did work. |
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So stinkin' cute
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| We took advantage of the photo booth |
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The last big event was Jacob's birthday! On the 15th of May we celebrated big number 26! May 15th is actually teacher appreciation day (lucky him!) in Korea so many of the students brought in little gifts and treats for us not knowing that it was also Jacob Teacher's birthday. Instead of going out, Jacob wanted me to cook. We watched a movie, ate cheeseburger patties for dinner and chocolate chip cookie dough for dessert.
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| Cheeseburger patties with grilled onions, mushroom and garlic. |
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We pretended it was Jacob's birthday cake.
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Since all the festivities have died down from the past few weeks, we are resting and recuperating before Kelsey comes to visit and hopefully Jacob's dad Van and fiance, Eva! We have another three day weekend this weekend (May 22nd-25th) for Buddha's birthday. It was about time I caught up on this thing and now we have time to clean and grocery shop before another busy couple of weeks full of visitors.
Looking ahead, Jacob is flying home in five weeks for a very special wedding at home, and then I follow four weeks later at the end of July to celebrate another beautiful union! Mid-August, we have a two week summer vacation and plan to spend it (hopefully) touring Hong Kong Disney and on the beaches of Bali!
It will be September before we know it!
Here are photos of other odds and ends:
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| We finally cracked and bought a rice cooker. Our life is infinitely better. |
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| A golden retriever! So rare here! |
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| Free piece of cheesecake for the foreigner. |
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| Trying new Mexican restaurant with coworkers. |
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| Above the restaurant is an art gallery. Me *trying* to look interested. |
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| Piece of free pecan pie for the foreigner |
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| These boys got in trouble.. this is their punishment |
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| Drills if North Korea attacks. Didn't help us one bit. We still have no idea what to do. |
