Overdue Update

Wow, this month has been so crazy for us! Our apoligies for not posting with updates. To start, the month of January was packed for us. We had a morning class from 10:30 to 12:10, then our normal schedule of classes. We would go home at 7:30, but our night still seemed short because of how early we had to get up the next morning. So, we had less time to ourselves in the morning, and it was difficult to enjoy our evening because we were tired. On top of it all, I have started my master's, so I have to spend my free time doing school work. We also still have diaries, book reports, and online essays to correct. Aaaaahhhh! It was definitely a hard month for us! This is our last week, and thankfully next week we get a five day weekend -Lunar New Year's. But today, we just found out that for next month, when we go back to our normal schedule, we are actually getting an extra class at night that will be similar to what we just did for the month of January. :( That's all the information we know right now. Can you say "Much needed relaxation and rest?!" :) For Lunar New Year's, we are staying at a hotel in Seoul that is next to the largest indoor theme park. We are very excited for this! This month, we also bought two hamsters! It's been fun playing with Juniper, but Hammy, well, Hammy was special. :) Unfortunately, a few days ago, Hammy died. Sad, but it's okay. Juniper is a much better pet. :D Jeremy enjoys holding Juniper a lot. Today I also went to the doctors. Yes, again with the doctors. :( This time it's my foot. For over a week it's been hurting on the outer side. Don't know what happened or how it happened, and the doctor isn't even sure what's wrong either! Therapy did not work at all, and I have been prescribed some pills for two days. I am to stop wearing the shoes I have, and wear shoes with thicker soles. I only have my sneakers. I will not have good luck finding new shoes with thick soles because I have too big of feet for this country. Hmph. Oh well. Hopefully if I baby it emough it will heal on its own. Well, that's all I can think of for this month. We are hoping next month we will do better with the blog, assuming we will have more time. :) Missing you all! Have a great weekend....

DMZ photos

After 1/2 mile walk back up the tunnel

North Korea!

Freedom Bridge

Bombed train from the war

Names of contributors for Dorisan train

End of Freedom Bridge with peace ribbons

Twilight Zone? I'm all alone!!

Made from paper cranes!

1 year Anniversary

Wooohooo! It's already been one year, can you believe it?! And what an amazing year it's been. :D Our anniversary weekend was great. For our anniversary we decided to sign up for a guided tour at the DMZ through a company called Adventure Korea. We had to meet the group at 9:00 a.m. sharp Sunday morning. We had planned an hour for the subway ride to get to the station on time. But, this is where our day started off on the wrong foot. Thankfully we prepared most things the night before because boy were we late Sunday morning. We left before 8 a.m., but missed one subway and didn't actually get on another until 8:15. Oh no! All we could was just ride the subway and get there when we did. When we finally arrived, there was no one around from Adventure Korea. :( I was ready to cry, oh wait, I did cry! I thought our anniversary was ruined. We tried to find a contact number but getting open internet access is hard. Finally the contact person actually called me. He called to say they were leaving to the DMZ now. Thanks mister for that. :( I pleaded for help, to find out if there was anything that we could do to go otherwise we were going to be out our money. The man has a heart because he had us get in a taxi to take us to where they were because he was going to wait! So, an hour behind schedule, we were finally on the bus and heading to the DMZ The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone right next to the North and South border of Korea. It was sort of a dangerous time to be there with everything North Korea is doing, but the DMZ deemed it safe enough for people to still tour it. It was certainly a lot of fun. We saw one of the tunnels the North built to send 10,000 armed soldiers to Seoul within 1 hour. We learned some more history between the North and the South. We visited the train station that sends a cargo train to the North once a week, and hopefully in the near future will be a passenger train as well. It's also the ONLY train that runs from the South into the North. We visited a unification village where people from the North that fled during the war live because they can't get back home. Imjingak also has the Freedom Bridge where the North and South exchanged captured people. A little creepy if you think about it. :) We also went to an observatory where we could view North Korea and see some houses, rice fields, and army towers. That was neat. So all in all, even though our day started out in the wrong direction, it was truly an amazing day and experience to share with each other on our anniversary. :D The above photos are from the DMZ tour.