Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Cherry Blossom Saturday

Korea made from flowers.


Erin our instructor.

Look at all those people!

This was at the marina. Weird building.

very big, open magnolia

Isn't he so handsome? :D





On Saturday we went with our Korean class instructor, Erin, to Yoido to see the cherry blossoms. We were sort of expecting a park-like setting, but it was just a street that was lined with cherry blossom trees. The street went around the "congress" building. This building is where the Korean representatives are, sort of equivilant to our congress building. But, nonetheless, there were tons of people! Sunday was the last day, and there were going to be tons of festivities. There would be massive amounts of people, so good thing we didn't go that day! :) The road runs next to the Hanyang River, so with the weather being as beautiful as it was and walking next to a river under cherry blossoms, Saturday was a very gorgeous day! It took over an hour on the subway to get there, and I have never been on the subway packed with that many people. Yoido is a VERY popular place at this time of year. I was literally being touched everywhere! It was madness! But we had a great time. The last two pictures are of the Magnolia trees in front of the HomePlus store. There are magnolia trees in many places around us. They are very beautiful. We have white and pink ones. The tulips are finally starting to bloom as well, and I hope to get a picture of them shortly because they are very pretty too.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Ho Hum

Some crazy Korean workout equipment

Here is just an update of somethings. I am two weeks away from being finished with my second master's course, woo hoo! The last weekend of March we went with our Korean instructor to Suwon to go shopping. It was fun for me, but probably not so much for Jeremy. :) I found some clothes, surprisingly, but I still had a hard time finding pants of any kind. The prices for clothes here in Korea are higher than in the States. A shirt alone could cost anywhere from 20,000 won to 50,000 won (about $15-$45) and pants were all at least 39,000 won (about $35) and weren't even that great looking. Needless to say, I think I will just stick with the three second hand stores that I know of. The first weekend of April we went with both our Korean instructors to a mountain to go climbing. The is the mountain that Jeremy and I went to, but were on the other side where the man-made waterfalls are. We've wanted to climb it, but never did until now. It was hard work!! It didn't take very long to get to the top, but once we did it was really neat! We had a great time hiking and just being outside. We also had learned parts of the body in class, so during our hike we had to practice what we learned. :) During this week, I had a job interview with a school in Green River, Wyoming. I was very excited and nervous because the interview was happening over a Skype video call. I thought I did pretty good, with the exception of a few questions that I was sure I didn't answer to their liking. I did enjoy being able to teach a real lesson to students even if it was for only 15 minutes. I just found out today that I didn't get the job. :( I cried a tad bit only because I had gotten attached to the idea that I could be teaching in a wonderful town at a wonderful school, knowing all the opportunities of recreation that we could have done,  the possibility of owning a small house, and just the fact that I could see us living there. Obviously this was not the place God wanted us. This was probably more of an opportunity to prepare for more interviews in the future. Ho hum.... Tomorrow we are going to the AFB probably for the last time. Our friend Paul is leaving back to the states next week, so we are sort of doing a send off for him. It will be much fun and great food!