Vacation!

Over Valentine's weekend we finally visited one of my family friends in Songdo. By bus, it took us two hours to get there and then a 20 minute subway ride from the bus terminal. We met her in the subway station and she walked us to her apartment before we took a tour of the school she works at and met her son for dinner.

Let me first start by saying, we can see ourselves taking up permanent residence in Songdo! It is a high tech, brand new, "planned" city. Just a few years ago the city was a tidal flat. The land that Songdo was built on had to be filled in, in order for the city to be built. Although growth is slow, Songdo will hopefully become a booming international city.

On Sunday, Catherine made us a delicious breakfast of waffles, complete with Krusteaz batter! Afterward we took a self-guided walking tour of the city, stopping only for some fresh Italian coffee and delicious burgers!

We headed back to the bus station in the late afternoon so we could get home, do laundry and rest before the work week. However, another Nikki-adventure was to be had! I walked to the kiosk to buy bus tickets when I open my phone case where my AMEX is kept, and guess what wasn't there? My AMEX! Surprise! I lost my credit card. Jacob bought the bus tickets while I frantically searched my jacket, backpack, pockets. We didn't have WiFi or cell service so we had no way of contacting my friend.

I walked around the bus terminal until I found a very weak WiFi signal. I emailed Catherine about my credit card, maybe I was lucky and just left it at her apartment. Nope! She (thankfully) responded very quickly with a big fat no. Luckily, she found the number of the coffee shop that we had visited before we headed to the bus terminal. Apparently, I left the card at the coffee shop!

Jacob went to exchange our bus tickets for a later bus so we could head back to Songdo. Thirty minutes later we were back in Songdo walking to the coffee shop, then walking back to the subway station, and finally back to the bus station. The whole ordeal took over an hour. My dear husband was such a trooper, again! I guess that's what he gets for marrying me? Never a dull moment!

We arrived back in Wonju way later than expected, stuffed ourselves with food, went grocery shopping and collapsed back in our apartment. Thankfully, our coming work week was only two days!

It's a baby Tim Tam package!!! I am obviously spending our money wisely. :)

A new shopping area in Songdo that features old style, traditional Korean homes

The happy couple, compliments of Catherine

Catherine and myself

Such a cool city!

Chadwick has three 3-D printers for their students!

Art in Central Park 

More "art". Hard to see but it's like a totem pole with faces/masks representing a bunch of different countries. 

Cool architecture 

Panorama

Peeing in the river. Boys will be boys!

Underneath the big "bowl" statues

Thought mom would appreciate this

We LOVED the matte paint job

Eating the most delicious burger and fries in Songdo

Seollal in Seoul

Monday and Tuesday went by without incident. We had the remainder of the work week off for Korean Lunar New Year Seollal. Although we didn't go to Thailand (another Nikki-adventure), we had a trip to Seoul all planned out! We left Wonju Wednesday afternoon and arrived at our hotel in the early evening. The first thing on our list was to get Jacob a couple of tailored suits! We headed straight to Itaewon (foreign/international shopping street) and went to the tailor my mom uses whenever she's in Korea. We got a nice discount and ordered Jacob a navy blue suit and a black suit. We can't wait to get them in the mail! After walking around Itaewon for a while, we went to an American pub for some more delicious burgers!

Thursday was New Year's day so many shops/attractions were closed. We spent the morning walking around Insadong, a huge arts/crafts market area, and toured a street of hanok houses (traditional Korean homes).

The second half of the day was spent at a jimjalbang (Korean bathhouse/spa). Google "Conan Korean Spa" to get an idea of what we did. We went to a huge 24-hour jimjalbang called "Dragon Hill" and paid for 90 minutes massages. While we waited for our massage time, we sat in a charcoal sauna, salt sauna (literally filled with salt), ice room, and energy room. In addition to those rooms, they also had separate men/women's saunas, multiple baths, clay sauna rooms, body scrub rooms, eyebrow threading, nail art, waxing, outdoor swimming pools, a cinema, restaurants, an arcade and simulator horseback riding. By the time we finished our massages we didn't have energy to do anything but re-hydrate and sleep. In retrospect, our experience was not great. Kids were running around and screaming the entire time, the place was packed with people, and we were lost in a sea of activity. Even sitting in the sauna people were chatting, sitting on their phones, and people were coming and going every two minutes.

Friday we spent most of the day at Holt Ilsan Town, a community of handicapped infants, children, and adults all taken care of by the wonderful volunteers and employees of Holt International. Since this was Jacob's first visit, it was particularly special. I showed him around the 30-acre community, it has several houses where the residents live, a gym/weight room, cafeteria, workshop (where residents can learn technical skills), church, hospital, K-12 school, and houses for married residents.

I also got the chance to visit Juno, the little boy that Kelsey and I connected with when we spent a month volunteering at Ilsan a few years back. It brought tears to my eyes seeing the progress that he's made and that Holt has assisted him with. When we visited him in 2012, he couldn't walk, he only "swam" around on the floors using his arms because his legs couldn't function. Through constant physical therapy, Juno was up and walking around (aided by leg braces). Truly amazing.

Unfortunately when we went to visit him, he was just going down for a nap. We took the opportunity to go grab lunch and walk around the city Ilsan. After a delicious shabu shabu lunch, we headed back to Holt Ilsan Town and woke Juno from his nap. We ended up taking him and another little boy for a walk around the property. We all loved it!

Before we left Holt, we sat to visit with Molly for a few minutes. Molly is the daughter of Harry and Bertha, the two people who founded Holt. Molly permanently lives at Holt Ilsan Town and devotes her entire life to the residents. I left with a full heart.

After Holt Ilsan we walked around Seoul Station (huge transit area) where I got to eat Quiznos AND Cold Stone. BEST DAY EVER. Just as we were finishing dinner we witnessed a fight between two middle aged males throwing each other around the hallway. Eventually building security showed up and pushed them outside where they continued to fight. A few minutes later fighting ceased and they both shared a smoke. If only we knew what the fight was about.

Saturday morning we packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and spent a leisurely morning in a coffee shop before it was time for us to head back to Wonju. It was a great little getaway for us!

Pre-trip coffee... always

Or strawberry milkshake

Cool architecture

This guy was working the street corner everyday.

One of the few Starbucks in the world that is written in a different language.

Our hotel had a Jura!

Always a me-sized door wherever we go.

Courthouse?

The following photos are of Bukchon village, all traditional Korean homes

Someone was nice enough to leave their doors open!

The jimjalbang that we tried

Entrance to the jimjalbang. Seems peaceful... looks can deceive!

In Ilsan, this whole area didn't exist two years ago! Four huge high rises!

Jun-o just before nap time! Bunches of cuteness

Another little boy who lives in Love Home with Jun-o.

Administrative offices

Tour Guide Nikki

Harry and Bertha's Grave site

Touring Memorial Hall

Workshop where residents can acquire skills to be productive citizens in the workforce.

Another little boy that went on a walk with us.

Melts my heart

We said smile and this is what he did :)

Juno up and walking around!

Pre-bus coffee... 

Last Week of 2014

This past week of work was the last week of the 2014 semester (yes, ending in 2015). Monday we hosted a group of Chinese exchange students for one day. We all prepared special and "fun" lessons to teach. Jacob and Linda taught a mini-Winter Olympics class and Angela and myself taught a K-Pop/Movie genre lesson. Unfortunately, Microsoft PowerPoint kept crashing so our lessons ended up being a lot shorter and we played games and watched movie trailers to fill the time. It all ended up being a lot smoother than it felt.

We had our regular after school program Monday-Thursday and Friday we put on a special closing ceremony for the kiddos. Now that we've finished the after school program we thought we would start teaching the new 2015 semester on Monday, March 2nd. We just found out that we don't start teaching our 2-day camps or Seongnam classes until the 9th and we don't start the after school program until the 16th. It's a relief and kind of a drag at the same time. I thought we would start getting busier but instead we have another week of desk warming ahead of us!

Only about half of my Hufflepuff (beginner) class. Making Waldorf stars for space class.

Kevin and Michael

Luke and Sean

Olivia and Leeann 

Luna and Julia

Chino and Peter

Reading Club kids. Left to Right: Jackson, Jason, John, Cristal and Claire.

2-day Camp Plans

We finally planned our lessons for the 2-day camps. I changed my topic from music class to movie class (the same lesson I did for the Chinese students). I think it will be a lot more fun! For my cooking class, we are making the classic PB&J sandwich and ham&cheese sandwich, accompanied by juice boxes and yogurt.

Jacob changed his storytelling class to "Survival English" class, which I think will be pretty entertaining for the kids. He is also teaching a science class where he will introduce Nikola Tesla, and the various inventions that he's made along with a little science experiment.

The other two classes are the culture class (taught by our co-worker) and a gym class (taught by me and our co-worker). We haven't quite planned the gym class but it might involve relay races and bananas...

Bus is packed.

My mint frappe.

They had  a Popeyes in Songdo!

Biggest dog we've seen in Korea so far!