Hanbok

                                    

Woohoo! My Hanbok is finished! A Hanbok is a Korean traditional dress. A long time ago, this is what Koreans wore when they got married, and maybe for some other special occassions. Now, some still wear it when they get married, women who are married can wear it to weddings, but mostly people wear it on Chuseok (Thanksgiving) and/or Sol Nal (New Year's). I looked through many books to find the colors I wanted, with Jeremy's help of course, and then told the lady what I wanted. She brought fabrics that she thought I would like, but I was only interested in one combo: navy and red. The stitching on the navy top part is of flowers and butterflies that are actually hand-stitched! Neat! The Hanbok has many layers: underneath you wear pants, then an underskirt that makes it poofy, then the red top skirt that has a tank top like top, then an under jacket in the same shape as the top shirt/jacket, then the navy colored shirt/jacket thing. Oh and to top it all off..... the official Hanbok shoes with the socks! I wasn't wearing the socks because apparently they can be difficult to get on and off. The lady also threw in a free clutch purse, a cute turtle pin (it means long life), and a tassle that hangs under the top piece. I was so excited to put it on! It felt like I was putting on a wedding dress again. :) To stand in it, you have to roll your shoulders forward and place your hands infront of you. Sorry mom, I can't have good posture wearing this. :D For me, it's the best piece of Korea that I will take back home and cherish forever. Thank you to the best husband for having such a wonderful idea for my birthday present!!

Flowers and Airshow

This past week/weekend was the Ansan Street Art Festival which was held right out infront of our place. We were intending to go to it at some point, but on Thursday (the first day of it) the weather was extremely gorgeous and warm. We had planned to hang out with another couple from the church that day, and they thought we could hang out at the festival. It was a great plan! The festival was interesting. There were a few bands playing that weren't even Korean music, many booths that had activities for children, and many food vendors along the street. On one end of the whole festival were some carnival rides for kids. Our group had lunch together, and some one thought, hey let's eat in the middle of the street! Ha! We really did, and it seemed like we became part of the festival because many Koreans stared at us and even took pictures of us! So hilarious! :) Later we decided to go see the airshow. On the way Jeremy and I discovered where the Reed's Wetlands are. We've been wanting to go this place for awhile. We got to the airshow around 4 which turned out to be just in time to see the end of the airshow. :( It was still fun though! Hanging out with friends in the sun was fantastic. The other flower pictures are of tulips that grew out infront of our place. They were really pretty when they all finally came up and bloomed! Don't worry, that brown you see, it's green now. :) It just needed some water, haha. The last picture is of the coolest flower ever -BI-COLORED! When we first saw it, we seriously thought it was fake. The dividing line is literally down the exact center of each petal. It was the ONLY flower of it's kind. ONE OF A KIND KOREAN BI-COLORED TULIP. :D

Miscellaneous photos

Jeremy's Teacher's Day gift

What a sweet Valentine's Day gift

Don't they look delicious? They were!

First time ever making cinn. rolls.

Our first rose bush :)

Juniper! May he R.I.P.

For Valentine's Day

All I can say is: HAHAHA!

It's a giant lollipop!

Chef's salad in a huge seashell!

Kenny the co-worker

Background of Seoul city :)

Seoul Tower, Namsan

Kenny, our co-worker from D.C.

On Saturday we wanted to take our co-worker Kenny to Seoul Tower in Namsan. Jeremy and I have been there before, but this day had beautiful weather and we hadn't been there in a while. Kenny has been here for almost a year and hasn't explored much of Ansan, but also hasn't been to many places elsewhere in the Gyeonggi-do district. Jeremy and I wanted to be like his tour guide. :) Just so you know, Kenny was born and lived here in Korea until he was about 6, so really Kenny should have been our tour guide, haha. We made it to the base of the mountain for Seoul Tower, but Kenny (and I) didn't want to climb the millions of steps to get to the top. We all agreed on taking the gondola to the top. That didn't work out because the line was really, really long. I watched it come and go, and I got a little nervous that I would get sick because it was swaying in the wind. Kenny also is a bit claustrophobic, and the people were jam packed into the small space. From there, Kenny decided he would take us to a man-made river. I do not remember the name, but it turns out this is the exact same spot that Jeremy and I came to for the Lantern Festival earlier this year. It looked different in the day time with no lanterns. :) All in all, we had a great day. We had two meals and dessert with Kenny, so it was actually quite a long day. But the weather was so beautiful, who can complain? :D

Jeju Day 2

Japanese-made cave

For Danielle :)

An arch of glass balls

Every girl's dream :D

Just...a...little...further...

He always wants to beat a drum

Our second day started out better because the weather was much, much nicer. Breakfast was not great, but it was more American than what we had the day before. :) We got on the bus and headed for our first destination: Sunrise Peak. With the weather fantastic, I was happy to be next to the ocean and doing a short hike. All along the edge there seemed to be many caves that the Japanese had made to store their artillery during the Korean War. Technically you're not suppose to get near them, but I don't think people read signs. Haha! Along the way we stopped at some lookout points. We saw a submarine surfacing and then watched it descend again. There was like a horse farm or something also in the area because we saw a large group of them eating. After this, we headed to the Glass Castle Museum. This was the coolest part!! Everything was made from glass, even some of the flowers and trees! Everything was so pretty. We spent like an hour and a half or so here. I wanted to buy a souvenir, but of course it was a bit expensive. :) The sun really made some of the art look really pretty, so we are very thankful that the weather was so nice for us. On our way to the next spot, we stopped at a location called Ghost Road. It's an optical illusion that makes you think you are coasting up a hill. After the next stop, we headed to our final place, the botanical gardens. We only had less than an hour here, which was really a bummer because we really like to walk through places like that. It turned out that we were the last ones on the bus, too, because we were trying to explore much of the area. We didn't get to see much of it because 1) we didn't have a lot of time, and 2) because we started our journey off by hiking up a really tall and steep hill. That was really crazy, but great weather! We saw a bamboo garden with large bamboo trees, an herb garden, very old traditional graves, a so called "rock garden" that consisted of only one rock, and even a Korean pheasant! On our way to the airport we stopped at a souvenir shop and of course bought the famous Jeju Island orange chocolate. :) Our trip ended sort of like it started -a delayed flight. We were told it was going to be delayed 40 minutes so we would have time to eat, but Jeremy and I weren't really hungry (nor did I want to eat right before getting on a plane) so we headed to the gate. Thank goodness we did this because it turned out that our flight actually wasn't delayed. They started boarding like 5 minutes after we got to the gate! Only half our group was present also, but everyone made it on the plane. The flight was smooth, but I was thankful when we finally made it home. Our weekend was great, but exhausting. Hope you all enjoyed reading about our trip to Korea's "Hawaii" -Jeju Island.