As of today, it is exactly 2 weeks until we start our 20 hours journey back to the states!

Merry Christmas!!!

Love this

A day in the life of a Korean High School student:

In regards to North Korea...

Many people have been emailing me, asking if the Koreas are on the brink of war. Am I concerned that North Korea is going to bomb Seoul?

Frankly, no.

I'm concerned about drivers- drunk or normal, mopeds, kids on bikes, falling construction equipment, building collapses, insulting the bartender at the mob-run bar and getting beat up, food poisoning, and more.

But I am not concerned with North Korea.

US media always over hypes these things. I remember the "bad relations" a few months ago all over American news. Didn't even make local news here.

I'm more concerned about the fact that I may not be able to procure a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, which I have promised to have in order to feed my 10 guests.

Once you learn that there wont be another war (at least until something dramatic happens to the relationship of the 6 nations) it becomes easier to shrug these kinds of things off.

Chris Hill was the top American negotiator for several years in the 6 party talks. He said once, that after a long day of negotiations and a few too many drinks, one of the NoKo negotiators let it slip. He said "We know America has hundreds of the newest technology nukes pointed at us every second of every day. We have, maybe 5. The technology that built them, decades old. What good are 5 old nuclear weapons against America's arsenal if not negotiating chips."

And he's right. They build a bomb, we give them a years worth of food to destroy it. They build two, we give them a years worth of oil. They build 5, we loosen trade restrictions so they can sell their poorly made products to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Africa.

All this is just a way for them to put as many things on the table that the West has to pay to take off. The shelling and that brand new nuclear plant... really big negotiating chips.

Halloween and Rock Festival

We saw the Hamburgler and Col. Sanders

Halloween!

Daejon Rock Festval.

The More You Know…(A post by Brendan)

So this might be common knowledge, but I found it interesting. The racial slur gook came

about during the Korean war. The Koreans’ word for foreigner is waygooken, but their word for

Americans is megook. So when US soldiers would walk through villages the Koreans would run

up shouting “Megook! Megook!” The soldiers’ reaction was, yes, we know you are a gook.

Pro's and Con's

+ Tomorrow is our "School Festival" and I don't have to teach!

- I am sick, possibly strep.

+ It's fall and the leaves are starting to change!

- There are still mosquitoes dive bombing us in our sleep.

+ 2 months till we come home!

- We're flying United. Bleh.

+ They have officially outlawed corporal punishment in Korean schools. (For the first time ever.)

- The students are insane.

+ We went to Costco and bought a bunch of awesome western food.

- We have very expensive tastes.

+Life is good.

Beijing (cont.)

Beijing Day 3.

We were awoken by the sound of our room phone ringing. Assuming that it was the wake up call that I had requested, Brendan answered the phone. In fact, it was not the wake up call, but our tour guide coming to pick us up for our trip. The wake up call never happened and we were late. Such was the beginning of the day for our trip to the Great Wall of China.

As we rushed to get ready, I took a quick jaunt downstairs to grab some food. I met up with the tour guide and told him that we were running behind schedule because of our non-existent call. He seemed to be pretty understanding. I went in the breakfast room to grab some croissants for the road. As I was buttering them up, a short old Englishman proceeded to make fun of me for being tall. Being already slightly perturbed I ignored him and ran back out to the lobby. When I got to the tour guide he suggested that if I wanted a wake up call, I have to ask for one from the front desk. I'm thinking to myself, "Yes, I know that tiny Chinese man, I am not an idiot." He then told me that the front desk clerk said I was lying and had never asked for a wake-up call.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a morning person, that on top of everything else that happened was enough to have Brendan find me yelling at the front desk lady while she sat dumbfounded behind the desk. The interlude was awkward enough that I didn't approach the desk for the entire rest of our trip.

Word to the wise, don't ask hotel clerks to give you a wake up call. Brendan and I have NEVER had them actually call us. This resulted in us nearly missing a morning flight in Malaysia, and holding up a giant group of people in China. Great. I don't know why I always believe that they will actually call us.

The trip to the wall was uneventful. The guide was giving us his cheesy, History-of-China-and-The-Great-Wall-speech most of the way there. I tend to despise guided tours and especially tour guides. I don't like fake happy people and I like my freedom. But that day, the simplest way to get to Wall was through him. We took a gondola up to the top of the mountain range and climbed all over the section of the wall were on. We even went a bit off of the beaten path to a section of the wall that was crumbling and not open to tourists. It was exhausting, but fun. I was really looking forward to going back down though, there is a luge that you can ride down. Not made of ice, but a long metal slide from top to bottom. Of course, being the day that God decide to hate Kelly, the luge was closed for repairs. On the way back down to our van Brendan and I bought some dried mangos and walnuts from a street vendor lady. Brendan's mangos were good, but my walnuts tasted like chlorine. Such is life.

After the Great Wall we visited the ming tombs, an underground burial spot for Emperors and Empresses (Emperi?) It was very...Eh.

On to the jade museum and lunch! Eh..

At the end of the tour the guide handed out review forms to everyone. Brendan wrote my name on it and suggested that I put that he was a "fair" tour guide, rather than an excellent. (Due to the fact that he may or may not have been drunk for the second half of our trip.) After I handed it in, the dude has the nerve to confront me about his review. I informed him that I wasn't in the mood to argue. He was probably jealous because I rated the insanely agressive van driver "excellent."

That night we ate some pretty awesome dumplings at a random hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Nothing like what a tour guide would take you to.

Korean subway madness!!!

This is a perfect example of how scary old women are in Korea. They are hardcore!!!!!!

If I was that girl, I would have thrown some serious punches though...

Beijing (cont.)

On day 2 of our whirlwind tour of Beijing, we decided to hit up some major tourist attractions, Jingshan Park, The Forbidden City and Tienamen Square. I woke up around 7:30 as I am wont to do, and had a leisurely breakfast of, you guessed it, eggs and salad. Brendan slept. The day was much warmer than our first exploration day, so we were happy to wear shorts and t-shirts.

Our first stop of the day was Jingshan park. I had read somewhere online during my intense pre-trip research extravaganza, that this park gave awesome views of the forbidden city and allowed for you to enter the FC from behind and leave from the front (supposedly a much better way to see it.) Brendan decided that wee should walk from our hotel to the park, another part of his secret plot to make me exercise. It took forever, but it was good to be able to see more of the city...I guess. On our way we passed by a popular nightlife place called Houhai. It a million restaurants and bars surrounding a small lake. Very picturesque. At Houhai lake we had one of many Chinese guys try to sell us a ride in a rickshaw, but we were feeling spry and decided to keep trekking on to the park.

Brendan, our navigator got us as far as the back wall of the park. We had no idea where the entrance was, so we had to guess which way to walk along the wall in order to get into the park. He was feeling the right hand side, so we walked in the direction. And walked, and walked while I mercilessly mocked him for choosing the wrong direction. We eventually found the entrance and Brendan was victorious. We briefly debated grabbing lunch at one of the restaurants outside the park but decided to buy a few bottles of water and some "ice cream-mint flavored oreos." I don't know if these are popular in the states, but we found these things disgusting. Brendan said that they made his mouth burn.

Upon arriving at the park, we immediately decided to climb the small mountain in the center. It had a temple on the top and we figured that was the best place to get views of the city. It was steep, but it wasn't a terrible climb for us since we live in a 5th floor walk up in Korea.

Like everywhere in Asia, the temple was super-crowded, but the views were pretty amazing.

After forcing strangers to take multiple pictures of us, until I got the "perfect" one. We descended the opposite side of the mountain towards the Forbidden City, which you can see behind us in the above photo.

According to wikipedia, "The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 m² (7,800,000 sq ft). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world."

The Forbidden city was huge and impressive and old. That's pretty much all I can say about it.

The Forbidden city can make you levitate.

One of many gigantic buildings in gigantic courtyards.

More FC.

After wandering through massive courtyard after massive courtyard, we exited the front of the FC. Where we saw the famous picture of Mao. We also found ourselves to be at the end of Tienanmen Square. If lots of cement and tourists excite you, you wont be disappointed there. After walking around aimlessly, we caught a cab and tried to go to one of the awesome restaurants that I researched before coming to China. Halfway there I realized that the restaurant I wanted was closed from 2-5 which would make it difficult for us to eat there at it was 3 pm. We somehow got the driver to go to another restaurant, close to our hotel, but realized that it was ALSO closed. As Bredan pointed out, at least now we knew the exact location of the restaurant, for future dining purposes.

Distraught, but not defeated, we ended up going to a steamed bun stand on the street. They are traditional Chinese steamed buns filled with meat and vegetables. Very tasty. Brendan had Beef and mushrooom and I had Chinese spare rib and cabbage. I probably would have ordered something else if I had known that they didn't take the meat off of the bone first! The neighborhood we were in is called Nanfujing Street...I think. It's an awesome little shopping district and many Christmas presents were bought there.

After hours of walking, wandering, and present buying, we made our way back to our hotel and rested up for the evening, where we planned the ultimate Chinese meal: Peking Duck. Like I said before, I did an insane amount of research before we went to China and one of my main goals was to find the best Peking Duck that China had to offer. Luckily, one of the greatest duck restaurants, Quan Ju De (King Duck) was in Houhai, fairly easy walking distance from our hotel. We got specific instructions from the hotel front desk on how to get there and started walking. We were in for a bit of a surprise. Apparently Houhai is one of the most popular nightlife spots on the city of Beijing and walking through the crowds there is like...black Friday shopping. Another obstacle, aside from the crowds, was our inability to read Chinese or figure out the addresses. We ended up circling the entire lake and walking up and down each side of it multiple times looking for the restaurant in the massive crowds. All the while, people standing outside of every restaurant and bar we pass are yelling, "Hello! Hello! you want Drink? You want have fun? Come here! Come here! Hey you!"

We searched for the restaurant endlessly. We were lost, hungry, grumpy and as usual in Asia, many of the tiny people were laughing at the giant blonde woman and the hairy faced man. Brendan worked up the nerve to ask a group of young Chinese girls how to get to the restaurant, they pointed to the other side of the lake. GAH! We walked over there, found nothing. I was beginning to give up hope. We circled the lake again, smushing through the crowds. I saw a restaurant that claimed to serve "Beijing Duck." I wanted to surrender and eat there but Brendan "didn't like the look of it." We pressed on, discussed giving up and decided to double back the way we came one last time. All of a sudden I saw the number 57 up ahead, the address of Quan Ju De! The crowds parted slightly and a large yellow duck sculpture appeared. We found it! Come to find out that the restaurant was in the basement of a large building, we took the elevator down and the doors opened up to a massive restaurant. We ended up ordering an entire duck between us with multiple sides. It was crispy and delicious. Served with sauces and small pancakes to be wrapped in. Certainly worth all of the frustration trying to find it. At the end of the meal they gave a certificate identifying which specific duck we had eaten. Interesting.

Peking Duck...mmmm

Back from Beijing (with pictures to follow)

I can't believe that September will be over tomorrow! October is one of my favorite months of the year. The cooling temps, sweaters, changing leaves, hot drinks, snuggling up in a warm house and looking forward to the holidays. And we really have something to look forward to this year as Brendan and I will be coming home on Christmas Eve and staying until January 8th! That's only 3 short months away. :)

Our trip to Beijing was amazing. We had nearly a week off for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) and we tried to take full advantage of it. Usually we spend our vacations staying in hostels and backpacking from place to place, but this time we decided to take it easy, stick to one location and one hotel and work outwards from there.

We had a short, two-hour flight from Incheon airport (which we almost didn't make because of terrible bus traffic on the way to the airport.) Who knew that one should leave early on the busiest Korean travel day of the year? We made it into Beijing by 9 and into our hotel room by 10:30. Surprise when we showed up, free upgrade!

The "continental breakfast" at our hotel turned out to be make-your-own salad, assorted breads, and cook-your-own eggs. Interesting. We had to stand in line to get to the pan and hotplate that were for egg-cooking, but I actually prefer to have control over how my eggs are cooked, so it was fine by me. Brendan didn't like the crowded breakfast room and vowed never to return. A vow which he kept.

The first day of sightseeing was the coldest of the trip. And rainy. Not the best way to start a walking tour or Beijing, but great atmosphere for the Lama Temple. It's a huge temple complex near our hotel which originally served as a palace for one of the many princes of the many dynasties in China. It was a great experience. Every time I visit a Buddhist temple and experience the peacefulness and tranquility it's very moving and I kind of wish that I was a Buddhist for a minute. There were many people there doing prayers and burning incense, as well as a myriad of different representations of Buddha, ranging from the reclining and laughing chubby-faced Buddhas to what we think of as more traditionally Indian Buddhas with hundreds of arms and dragon-like faces. Of course the architecture was super-impressive and intricate. It's scrolls on top of gold on top of filigree on top decoration. A little bit mind boggling. There were many impressive statues but the MOST insane was a 3 or four story standing Buddha that was entirely carved from a single sandalwood tree. To give you an idea of scale, it's foot was twice the size of my entire body. It's little toe was the size of a giant suitcase. We weren't allowed to take pictures of it. Depressing.

After a few hours wandering around the temple, and visiting the inevitable gift shop (where Brendan, regrettably, did not buy a jade elephant he was eyeing, we moved on to walk toward Wangfujing street. A "snack street" where they serve everything from grilled scorpion to starfish, to seahorse, even sparrows and spiders. Now there is some alliteration for you!

It was a looooong walk and we got hungry on the way, so we popped into a restaurant that had lots of pictures and English on their menu. We settled on some duck in a black bean sauce. Sounds kind of eh, but tastes AMAZING! It came with some small pancakes to wrap the duck with some shredded cucumber and onion, and tasted better than any Chinese food you can imagine. It was rich, like a dessert and hard to finish one plate between us. We did manage to finish with the help of some tasty Chinese beer to wash it down. Now, onto Wanfujing!

By the time we got to Wanfujing, I was still incredibly full from our lunch and the site of scorpions still squirming on a stick gave me the urge to call PETA. Brendan wanted to try some delicacies, but I wasn't feeling it so we walked around the market a bit and examined their wares. Many stone statues and incarnations of Buddha later, we had bought nothing but a pair of "Ray-Ban"(yeah right) sunglasses for Brendan that I bartered down from 60 to ten bucks. After much walking and talking with a few sets of Chinese "art students" who wanted us to come and see their "exhibitions,"(scam) We decided to head back to the hotel and rest up for the evening. (To be continued.)

So, we'll hopefully get to Borneo in the near future. In the meantime, we went to Costco & bought a bunch of food. I hadn't had turkey since leaving the US, plus we got awesome salami, cheese!, and good rolls. First real deli sandwich in over a year. Oh my god, it tastes good. Also, we got andouille sausage (another first in over a year). Forgot how good some american food can be.

We'll be home from December 24th to January 8th. We're also leaving for Beijing, China in 8 days.

Oh, and at least I'm not a hokie!

I hate getting news like this

I'm feeling shocked and upset.

Todd Weaver, who graduated high school with me, passed away yesterday in Afghanistan. He left behind a wife, who also graduated in my class, and a beautiful baby daughter. He was just a really nice guy, with a beautiful family and now his daughter will not be able to know him.

I've known other young people who have passed. Even other people from our graduating class. But, I've never felt so angry at hearing about someone's death. It was his choice to join the military and i'm sure that he served it proudly, but this seems so senseless.

If you would like to see pictures of our trip to Borneo...

...click on the following links.

Borneo 1

Borneo 2

Details later.

In 6 days...

...we're going to Borneo!

We're going to the Malaysian portion of Borneo called Sabah. We're fluing into Kota Kinabalu, then flying to Sandakan and finally to Semporna.

Were going to do some jungle trekking, see an Orangutan Reserve, Snorkle, Beach, White Water Raft....Gahhhh! I'm so excited. We're also (hopefully) going to be diving one of the top 10 dive sites in the entire world!!! (If we can get permits.) Sipadan Island. Turtles and Stingrays and Sharks, Oh My!

We are also finally finishing up moving. All that is left is to get the last stuff from my apartment this weekend, clean up and finish unpacking. Pictures to come!

White Water Rafting and Bungee Jumping

Saturday was really fun. Brendan and I, with some friends, went rafting in Gwan-ju on the only river in Korea with anything resembling rapids.
We had a great Korean Buffet lunch and then went bungee jumping.
I didn't jump because I have some pretty serious back issues that were exacerbated when I fell backwards out of the raft and landed on a rock. However, Brendan did.

One of our friends was set to go before Brendan, but chickened out twice. It took Brendan jumping and not dying in order for the guy to man up and take the plunge.

In order to fully appreciate this video, turn up your volume so that you can hear the terrible noises he was making before, during and after the jump. Also the repeated "Oh God!"

He's groaning so loud near the end that I thought for a second he was hurt, but fear not, he was just freaking out.

Please try to ignore my loud, grating voice.

The Bungee platform.

A view of the Bridge

The Jump

Brendan after the jump: Happy to be alive.

Adventures in chicken (by Brendan)

So, a couple months back I went to dinner with a Korean friend of mine. The place had a small grill in the middle of the table to cook or heat up the food, depending on what you ordered. We got some mushrooms wrapped in bacon and coated in BBQ sauce (prettygood), sausage (meh), a freshly diced ½ a pineapple (awesome, grilled or raw), & a trio of mystery chicken on a stick. She claimed they were all parts of the chicken we eat in the US. I knew she was lying, but why not be adventurous? After trying them all, I found out they were, in order: the skin, scrotum & testicles, & hearts.

The skin: Easy to figure out, it was cooked, but not charred at all, so was VERY fatty & gelatinous. If allowed to cook a while longer, it might have been pretty good.

The unmentionables: Had a fear, especially once biting into them, but I didn’t know what it was. Chewy, cartilage-like crunchy, it really was not pleasurable gnaw on. The flavor left something to be desired, but the texture was what really got me.

Hearts: AWESOME! Great texture, not overly chewy, slightly melt in your mouth-ish (probably just compared to what I had just finished eating). The flavor was intense, & all around tasty.

Overall, the bacon & mushrooms would be nice without the sauce, & the pineapple was good. As for the chicken, I’d get the hearts again in a heartbeat (sorry), and the skin if I had control over how long it could be cooked.

From Brendan

Here’s what three shirts a few of my 11-12 year old students have worn over the past couple weeks said:

Smell my Funky Monkey Ass (With butt cheek drawing!)

VALUE
Be Of Make
Natural Life

Blue
Blooded
Drinker
Bock
Duffle
Beer

New Apartment: Currently Under Construction

The following is a virtual tour of our new apartment. Please excuse the random order of the pictures, as the picture uploading thingie makes absolutely no sense. Also, it was a dark and rainy day, so the pictures arent great.

The living room

Our Soon-to-be-enclosed Laundry room.

Our very long and narrow porch, also soon to be enclosed (unfortunately.)

Brendna standing in front of the building while I take pictures.

The second bedroom. (Probably going to be a giant closet.)

The Master Bathroom

Master Bedrooom.

Kitchen

The view from the living room.

Front Bathroom.

The view from the front bedroom.

Front Bedroom aka the "Brewing" room.

Storage room.

Front door!

New Apartment

We went house hunting on Saturday. We saw some really crappy apartments, a few okay apartments and 1 brand new, top floor, 3 bedroom new build.

Guess which one we signed a contract for?

If you guessed the brand new apartment, then you guessed right!

It's still under construction, but they are "guaranteeing" that it will be move-in ready by August 1st.

The new building

Our Apartment is on the top floor



Our new street.

The street is actully not that new to us. The new apartment is only a half a block from Brendan's current apartment. 3 Bedrooms? I wont know what to do with myself. It has a separate laundry room, 2 bathrooms, a wrap around porch on 2 sides, a great view, gas range, extra storage room, built-in entertainment center and closets! (They usually dont have built-in closets in Korea.)

Now, on to buying furniture! :)

The World Cup

How crazy are Koeans about the World Cup? Oh just crazy enough to gather in the streets of Seoul in the hundreds of thousands to cheer for their team which is thousands upon thousands of miles away.

http://www.koreaherald.com/sports/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100617001053

Korean Friends and Deep Dish Pizza

Our new Korean friends

Recently, Brendan had been working out at a gym near his school after work. The trainers at the gym have taken a particular liking to him and attempt to make conversation with him every time he goes. They don't seem to mind if he is biking, running, lifting weights or showering. Any time is a good time to talk to the foreigner.

Long story short, somehow I got conned into having lunch with Brendan, his trainer, his trainer's girlfriend (a yoga instructor) and another trainer from the gym. To be honest, I was intially dreading meeting up with these people on Sunday. If anyone reading this has attempted conversation with someone who does not speak the same language as you, you know how frustrating and ultimately, boring it can be.

The lunch lasted about 4 hours, two rounds of grilled pork, one round of grilled beef, a korean pizza, many sides, and various types of Korean alcohol. I have no idea how Koreans stay so skinny with all of the eating and drining that they do. Surprisingly, it was a pretty fun time. In a long standing tradition, the more you drink, the easier it is to speak another language.

In other news, we made a pizza! Not only that, a deep dish. Chicago style, this is mostly because we dont own a flat pan of any sort. Using a pizza dough mix, sent to us courtesy of Brendan's mom, some onions, yellow peppers, garlic, tomato paste, tomatoes, pork and mozzarella cheese. It was delicious!

Brendan carefully dispersing the ingredients

Note the tiny oven

Our pizza, pre-cheese

Our pizza, pre-munching


A very happy Kelly and Brendan abot to eat some tasty deep-dish

mmmmm....