The word "Seoulfie" of course means a selfie taken in Seoul! Which means you can guess where Trevor and I went last week ;). A lot of people say that going to any big city you'll have basically the same experience and that you should go to small towns that have more character. While I agree with this to an extent, there were some things that Seoul offered us that we couldn't get elsewhere.
One of these being the LDS temple. I think the best part about going to the temple especially outside of the US is that the church is the same everywhere. The principles and values and truths are perfectly aligned no matter where you go. There are no discrepancies in teachings even in the slightest. Also replicated, the members at the temple showed the same love and welcoming as any LDS temple you can go to. Trevor and I arrived at the temple on a Thursday in the afternoon and we can suffice it to say that the members kept us there as long as possible which helped me to get my priorities in order. I will admit that I was anxious to explore the grand city of Seoul but I am so grateful to those at the temple who very persuasively asked us to stay longer than I had anticipated. Looking back, I realize it was the best way to spend our vacation.
Thursday night I forced my ever loving husband to take me to On the Border (for those who don't know, it's a chain restaurant featuring Tex-Mex flavors). You see, Mexican food is somewhat of a rarity in South Korea which is so sad because Mexican is my all time favorite cuisine. Although much more expensive than what you can get in the states, On the Border definitely did not disappoint. MMMmmmmmMMMmmmmmm!
After sufficiently stuffing ourselves to the point we could barely move, we walked around the streets where there was plenty of street vendors and fun things to see. So much in fact, we went back to that area of Seoul for dinner the next night as well. Friday night consisted of Istanbul kebabs (not shishkabobs but Istanbul's take on something like a taco) and guys, you have to try these! YUM! We also got street churros, waffles, meat kabobs (yes this time the shishkabob kind), and bubble tea. Bubble tea is basically a milkshake with this squishy bubble things (ya things isn't the most descriptive word but they are hard to describe). Once again, we could barely move due to sudden influx of food intake.
Oh! I forgot to tell you about Friday during the day! We went to an old palace where previous kings used to live. They are similar to some of the Buddhist temples we have posted on here before as far as design and coloration but this palace had secular artifacts instead of just religious ones. Plus, since it was for the kings, it was all grand and large and intricate. In a word, beauty. I'll let the pictures and their captions say the rest about this part of our vacation. We also went to a zoo (like we always do, it's tradition) but I won't get into that because it just makes Trevor mad ;).
The rest of our trip basically consisted of various shopping/window shopping spurts, eating more food, and spending time getting around on the subway. It really was such a fun weekend and the best part about it was that I got to have fun with my best friend!
*Stay tuned at the bottom for some great videos! :D
Small, but beautiful :)
Hooray for chimichangas and enchiladas!
matching fuzzy socks
supposedly a sun dial?
Someone important (ask Trev he probably knows)
Turtle boats. Impenetrable. They are cool you should look them up
Another important guy. Mighty and powerful.
This is the main gate to the palace
Scary guard has to endure tourists taking pictures next to him all day (yes he has a giant knife)
So intricate!
In the throne room. The dragons are shiny gold!
more of the throne room
"And you, oh demoted one?" "I....ring the gong...."
A less well-kept gate (seems easier to infiltrate)
Posing like a queen by the queen's quarters
A representation of what would be found at a feast. A lot of fancy rice basically
I'm a monkey. All my friends born in '92, this is our year by the way! 2016 is the year of the monkey!
Does it surprise anyone that Trevor is a snake????
Old pots probably still full of kimchi or something
Vintage Korean comic books. Pretty cool
My husband? Yeah, he's a stud!
Souvenir shops chuck full floor to ceiling of all your I <3 Korea needs ;)
A fried pastry shaped like poop with chocolate filling......
So right now in South Korea, the high schoolers are on winter break which lasts for several weeks which means that Trevor doesn't have to go in to work for a while. He also still gets paid the same monthly salary so basically we are getting paid to play around Korea for a while :D. And knowing Mr. Animal Lover, can you guess what we did first??? We went to a zoo!
Well, it was a small indoor zoo mostly for little kids but it was still pretty fun! This zoo is very hands-on and encourages interaction with the animals which is really cool. They mostly had small animals including arctic foxes, meerkats, racoons, coatis, pigs, bunnies, hamsters, hedgehogs, snakes, lizards, and birds. If you couldn't pet the animals, you could at least feed them which was neat. When you walk in, they give you a cup of carrot sticks and a pack of bird seed so you can go around and feed your favorites (mine were the arctic foxes).
The workers at the zoo also brought around several snakes and birds and would put them on peoples shoulders or arms to try and get a reaction out of them. Trevor and I are somewhat acclimated to dealing with animals (especially Trevor) so we looked like the cool brave (or weird depending on who you ask ;) ) foreigners who actually wanted to touch the snakes.
Aside from the zoo, we have slept in, played games, watched Netflix (yes, it finally came to Korea! (thanks Linz for letting us mooch)), and ate food. Which brings me to the title of this post: Chicken Soda! I told my parents I had chicken soda and having told them all sorts of things I've eaten and drank in Korea, they immediately assumed it was some sort of like chicken broth with carbonation or something like that. Actually, it is just the nickname I gave to this ingenious fast food item. It is a cup of soda that has a smaller cup with a brim on it that sits on the brim of the larger cup. The bottom cup is filled with your choice of soda and the top cup has popcorn chicken! To make things better, they even give you a plastic sword with which to eat your chicken, a hole for a straw to drink your soda, and sweet and spicy sauce drizzled on the chicken for an extra kick!
What did Trevor get? A breakfast bagel from Isaac Toast. Boring!!!! ;)
Anywho... We are planning on going to Seoul (South Korea's Capital in case anyone didn't know) hopefully this weekend and we will tell you all about it next time!
The most lights in one spot in Ulsan
This is all of them.
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day whether you celebrate or not. Trevor and I had a different sort of Christmas considering Christianity (or even the secular tradition of Santa and all that) isn't quite as popular here as it is back home. Those who do celebrate Christmas here don't do it to the extent that is traditional in the states. Thankfully, the gospel is the same wherever you go so we had a whole church family to celebrate with us. In fact, our ward Christmas party was on Christmas day, but more on that later. As you may have seen on our last post, Trevor and I made our own Christmas tree because we didn't want to buy one since we will only be here one year and they are just too expensive here. I also made a red and green chain to string along our patio window and drew a manger scene on our sliding glass door. Even with all our efforts, it still seemed much less like Christmas than we are used to. There aren't usually Christmas lights on trees and houses everywhere you look and snow on the sidewalks and perfect gift ideas in every store. I'll admit I was kind of sad to not get the type of Christmas I'm used to. Don't worry though, Trevor and I tried our best to make it as good as we could and we did have a really good Christmas day.
Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents. We had presents from each other and then both of our families sent a package (mine was mostly from my sister Ashley who had me this year on our family rotation). We really enjoyed getting some American goodies. As usual, my sweetheart spoiled me more than he should have. After presents, we spent some time skyping our families.
We had invited the 3 sister missionaries over for breakfast and offered them to use our computers to skype their families. We had pancakes and bacon and eggs and the sisters really seemed to enjoy being able to see their families for a while which made me happy. After they left, I had to quickly get ready for the day because I had to go to the church early to help the Relief Society (women's organization at our church) get ready for our performance.
Performance? you ask? What performance? Well for part of the Christmas party, our ward was having a sort of talent show and the Relief Society wanted to do a group dance which they asked me to choreograph. Koreans love to be perfect at everything they do so even though the party didn't start till 5pm they all wanted to meet at 3 to practice the dance (keep in mind we have been practicing this once a week all of December). Since I was the one who choreographed it, I got to teach it to everyone which can, in truth, be frustrating because of the language barrier. With the help of one sister who speaks English really well and the helpful actions of Trevor queuing everybody on what came next, we got the dance down pat. I will post a video of it below. I also put together the music for the dance so hopefully you can hear that. It was supposed to be a bit comedic so it's ok to laugh I will not be offended ;).
The rest of the talent show comprised of other little dances and musical numbers and such and everybody did such a good job. Trevor and I did some swing dancing and everybody went completely nuts over it. They even made us do some more at the end of the program. I will also post a video of that for your enjoyment.
After the talent show, we watched a nice video of the true meaning of Christmas and although the dialogue was in Korean, I got the message. It was a good reminder to celebrate the miraculous story of Christ's birth and I was very thankful for the sweet message it brought. While the video was going, one of the men in the ward told Trevor that he was going to be Santa for the party (the real Santa had of course already come and brought presents to all good boys and girls who believe) so he sneaked away to change. Turns out they only had a red coat, red pants which were too short and a hat so we had a very young, skinny, sexy Santa with only a small goatee. The kids didn't seem to mind though since he called each one by name to give them a present and take a picture with them. They even handed out some presents to the adults. I did not get to sit on Santa's lap :( but I snuck a picture just in time before he had to get out of his Santa outfit before dinner. Last but not least, we had a lovely dinner. It wasn't a ham or turkey or anything like that but a bunch of Korean dishes. Everything was very tasty (except maybe the acorn jelly...ya don't ask) and it was so refreshing since I hadn't eaten anything since 10am and it was now around 7:30 or so. Everyone did so much to put on such a fun party and worked so hard. It was really nice to take part in the festivities and watch the performances and eat good food.
We hope you all had a great Christmas and pray for your safety and well-being in the new year. If you have any fun stories about your Christmas day, feel free to share in the comments! We love you all!
Hey everyone. Change of pace this week as I (Trevor) am going to write the blog. I guess its been longer than a week. We've been busy, and I keep forgetting to write. So here we go.
November has been a somewhat busy month, and its been a nice change. First week nothing special happened. We were going to go to an amusement park with the youth of our church but decided to chicken out since it was raining so hard. They still went and said it was okay, but not as fun as it could have been. We were glad we didn't go. The second week was about the same, lots of rain and getting colder. I got some good news that I got an interview with a graduate school in Winnipeg. It went well we think and are hoping to hear back from them soon. Also at the end of the third week in November the relief society president asked Kelsey to make a dance for the sisters in the ward to perform at the ward Christmas party.
That brings us to Thanksgiving week. I had graciously invited the missionaries to Thanksgiving dinner, because I know what it can be like in Korea. More times than not the missionaries don't get much of a Thanksgiving here. However, I did this on Sunday, without discussing it with Kelsey. So any plans that she may have had went out the door when I invited 4 extra bodies (2 of them being hungry Elders) to our Thanksgiving dinner. I also soon invited 2 coworkers but they had other plans. My wife being the amazing person that she is, took this all in stride. I soon realized why though. She was fine with all these extra guests because it gave us a good excuse to go shopping at Costco. Always one of Kelsey's favorites. There we purchased several things, including our turkey (about $50 for 13 pounds) some hot chocolate, and veggies. We also then got to go on several “shopping adventures” for pie tins and other baking goods for the desserts and rolls.
Thanksgiving dinner was great. We had the 2 elders, the 2 sisters, and Chloe, an investigator that the sisters brought. We ate, we laughed, we had a good time. Unfortunately it was cut a little short due to the fact the missionaries had English class, and I had been recruited to be a judge in a debate at school that evening. My wife being the trooper that she is was promptly abandoned with all the dirty dishes from the dinner. Luckily we have a dishwasher in our apartment now, so its not as bad as when we were first married.
Now that thanksgiving is over we are promptly moving on to Christmas and couldn't be more excited. Kelsey has had several ideas to decorate our apartment, which have resulted in several more shopping trips (noticing a pattern here?). I'm sure some of you have already seen our Santa door. We are currently finishing up our Christmas tree. We decided not to buy one since they are very expensive here, and we would then have to turn around and sell it when we leave. Anyone tried to sell a Christmas tree in July? I'm sure that's rough. Now do that in Asia. Yeah… we didn't like our odds. So we made our tree this year. That's about it as far as what we've been up to. Lots of shopping and getting things ready for Christmas. We have started going to a language exchange on Wednesday nights, in order to improve both of our Korean, and to make some more friends. These next couple weeks will be nice, since we are winding down here at school for the winter vacation, and we'll probably just end up having a nice small Christmas with just the two of us. We may have the missionaries over so they can Skype their families later that day. Don't know yet. So that's all I wanna say as far as catching us up. By the time I post this I'm sure Kelsey will have another blog post ready since its taking me so long to type this.
Now for all of you that are curious. I'll talk a little about my job. I teach at a private high school in Ulsan, South Korea. Its one of the most prestigious high schools, simply because there are always students from here that end up going to the top national university in Korea, Seoul National University. That being said, most of my students are very smart, and academically driven. For those of you that don't know the Korean school system basically revolves around the college entrance exams or suneong. You take this your senior year of high school, and if you do well enough on it and get into your school, great, if not, you may retake it NEXT YEAR. That's right. Think like SAT or ACT, but you only get to try it once a year. Combine that with vast amounts of social, family, and peer pressures, and you see why suicides always go up in Asian countries around the time of this test. If you don't get into one of the best universities you get kinda a low end of the stick, since many companies here operate on the good ol' boy system, where they will take people from their own Alma mater, rather than look at credentials all the time. This is changing but slowly. Anyway, so my students have lots of incentive to learn, and grow. Sometimes I do get a few students that don't want to participate in class, simply because they don't like English, but really I can't complain at all about my job.
Lately me and my co teacher Joe, have been trying some new ideas. I had them research animals one semester and give presentations on animals of their choice, and we also had debates. This semester (which is just ending) we've been doing K-pop, or Korean Pop. More specifically how we can help spread it. So what we did was have the students pick a popular Korean pop song they liked, and make their own lyrics in English to it. They had to include certain literary elements, as well as make a music video. Its been a fun unique experience for them I think, since most other places don't do things like this. But I sure am glad its over. Imagine having to listen to over 60 different k-pop songs that don't have the best lyrics, and are done in almost karaoke fashion. Haha yeahhh…. But thanks to the Internet you don't have to imagine! I'll provide a link to our facebook site where a lot of these music videos are. So head over there and listen to a few maybe! It's kinda fun! Anyway, thats about it, just a normal high school teacher. I guess I may write more but since it took me so long to get this one out, maybe Kelsey will ban me from the blog all together! Thanks for all the support and prayers. We've appreciated it. Love you all! Cya!
Halloween? In Korea? Well, no not usually but anywhere there are Americans, there will be Halloween. And why not? It's such a great holiday why would anyone want to do without?
Halloween's lack of popularity here makes it somewhat difficult to find traditional Halloween necessities so Trevor and I did the best we could with what we already had. We dressed up as Anna and Kristoff from Frozen. Not only do we both already resemble these two characters, but Frozen is extremely popular in Korea so I was so excited to make our costumes work. Sadly, they did not get raving reviews. In fact, we had to help almost everyone guess who we were supposed to be. I thought we were a little more obvious than that but oh well, I liked our costumes!
So, what better way to spend midday Halloween dressed as Anna and Kristoff then at the ice rink??? I thought it was pretty fun and a good date idea. I guess nobody else got it. They were probably all wondering why I would wear a dress ice skating. Once again, I thought it was clever so that's what counts, right?
In regards to the video, what Trevor means is that I can go a little bit faster than him. Not that I'm great a ice skating. Although I enjoyed the comment about the pink streak :)
The main event for our Halloween was the church party organized by the missionaries in our branch. There was a cake walk, bean bag toss, fish pond, bobbing for apples, put your hand in the boxes of "brains", "eyeballs", "guts", etc, pumpkin pinatas, and a haunted house. The kids went absolutely crazy! It seemed like they really enjoyed it.
Trevor and I were in charge of the cake walk and most of the kids who participated thought it best to run around in the circle as frantically as possible and then push and shove onto a number when the music stopped. Every once in a while when there were more numbers than kids, Trevor would call out a number and nobody would be on that number so at least one kid would make a dive for the number trying to be the winner. They were pretty nuts!
Unfortunately, I hadn't been feeling that good so we decided to go home a little bit early. They had brought out all the food at the very end and everyone was going to have dinner once all the kids went through the haunted house. I don't know if they thought the kids would get done sooner or what but the food was out and sitting for a while and by the time the kids got done everything was cold. We decided to grab a handful of candy and sneak out and have pizza at home while watching Nightmare Before Christmas.
All in all, I had a pretty good time and Trevor was such a good sport to go along with all my ideas (skating isn't his favorite thing to do). Hope all of you had a good Halloween and enjoyed your extra hour of daylight savings time (if it applies to you). There isn't daylight savings time here so we will be an additional hour ahead of most of you back home. Feel free to tell us in the comments about what you did for Halloween and write about or attach a picture of what you and your friends/family dressed up as!
