Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Spring is beginning to show and the world is slowly waking up from its winter slumber. I love spring time for two main reasons. It means winter and the horrible cold is starting to leave and I love flowers. I'm very excited for next weekend when Trevor and I are going with a friend from Trevor's work and his girlfriend to the cherry blossom festival! It will be so pretty!

I want to make this weeks post fairly simple. We haven't had many grand adventures lately so it works perfectly. We have just spent some time trying to enjoy the beginnings of spring and being able to wear jackets instead of coats. One trip we made outside was to the bamboo forest by the river here in Ulsan. It was very relaxing despite the increasingly harsh wind once we exited the forest.

I love the first couple of weeks of spring and Easter weekend because it makes everything seem so bright and rejuvenated. This makes me happy because it allows me to remember the joyful and most beloved parts of the Easter holiday. If you have a few minutes for an amazing reminder please watch this video about why Easter is so important.

I know with a surety of heart that Christ lives and that because of the pains and afflictions which he suffered, we can find great happiness in this life and have eternal life. It is sobering to contemplate on his afflictions, but my favorite thing is to feel the joy knowing that he overcame the grave and lives again. We all have this same opportunity and our choices in this life help determine the kind of life we will have for eternity. I am thankful for a loving husband who shares these views and we are both striving as a married couple to live up to the potential of the atonement. We are certainly far from perfect but that's why the atonement is so great because we have a chance for repentance and to better ourselves every day. May you find peace and joy in the Easter season as I have this year.

Already March?!

Whoopsies! I guess it's been a little while since I posted and I dearly regret to keep you hanging not knowing all the details of our oh so exciting lives ;).  I've mostly been busy babysitting and keeping up with my dance classes.  I'm not entirely busy, I've just forgotten to write. Sorry! But here I am again so don't fret, you shall be entertained once again.

Since last I posted, I've turned a year older (I'm almost a quarter century now!).  I wanted to spend my birthday trying out a Korean craze that we haven't tried yet.  We dusted off our singing voices and hit up a  노래방 (aka karaoke bar).  At a Korean karaoke bar, you rent out a private room equipped with your own individual karaoke system complete with tambourine to keep the beat.  It's a fun idea-you get a group of friends and sing your heart out in a supposedly sound-proof private room to all your favorite songs (yes they had Korean and English songs).  

The only down side was that the music was so loud and the microphones echoed so much that you couldn't even hear yourself sing.  Now maybe that's the whole point but I was certainly done listening to blasting instrumental versions of the songs we picked before our hour was over.  Luckily I had the good company of my friend Janelle and her adorable baby Ryan as well as one of Trevor's co-workers/friend Lee Hyun Joon.  As always, my birthday was great because my husband always spoils me and I got a lot of birthday wishes from all of you on the other side of the world.

Another thing that happened within the past couple of weeks was the first full moon of the lunar year.  Over here, we had a massive bonfire on the beach with live entertainment and fireworks.  It was quite the display and there was a great turnout from the whole city. The bonfire is supposed to represent any of your burdens or troubles from the past year burning away as you start the year out new and revitalized.

Before the bonfire we decided to stop by a restaurant on the beach which specialized in Korean barbecue.  They set out a variety of side dishes and then you order your choice of meat which has been specially marinated.  Then you cook the meat right at your table and wrap it in leaves with rice and your assortment of side dishes.  The meat was incredibly delicious and I would have eaten it all plain if it weren't for the fact that putting it all together made it even more delicious if you can believe that.  If anyone were to come visit us, I wouldn't hesitate to take you there ;) ;) ;) 

Well, consider yourself caught up!  Hope to see your page views next time! :D

Just Chillaxin'

Not much to report on this post.  Trevor has had most of the month off so we have just been relaxing and the biggest adventures we've had recently have been about food.  It's been nice to kind of lay low and not worry about too much.  I guess the main change in our schedules is that I've finally started to contribute to our income!

 I started doing some babysitting a little while ago and met some English speaking moms who told me there were several families looking to put their children in dance classes.  Guess who has a degree in Dance Education??? Me!!! I decided to start 2 dance classes at the clubhouse in our apartment complex to bring in some extra cash.  There aren't that many students in either class but it is definitely still fun and a good learning experience for me to start teaching my own classes.  The toughest part is that since it is for any English speaking foreigners in our complex, there is a huge diversity in the students especially in the little kid class.  Right now there are 2-4 year olds (anyone who has been in sunbeams should have an idea of what that's like) some of which English isn't even their primary language.  To put things lightly, it's been difficult to come up with structured activities to keep each child properly entertained.  I take it as a really good learning opportunity.  To be honest, in a word, it's been exhausting and I've only done 2 classes!  But I am still optimistic about future classes.

Other than that, like I said, our vacation time has mostly been about eating :).  We went to a buffet for Valentines weekend where Trevor ate to his heart's content (anyone who knows him knows he LOVES buffets).  We also went back to a restaurant we both really enjoyed that serves jjim dark (directly translated to braised chicken).  This particular restaurant allows you to customize how you want your meal and we love to have the spicy sauce and cheese on top.  They bring it out in a giant pan full of the chicken, some glass noodles, and sweet potato all covered in cheese.  Tonight, we decided to go out for dessert (cuz who doesn't love that???) and found a Taiwanese dessert cafe.  We got a heaping pile of what I can only describe as really really fine shaved ice.  And by fine I mean instantly disappears in your mouth like cotton candy but frozen doesn't even feel like ice type of fine.  Ours was blueberry and was accompanied by vanilla ice cream and cheese cake.  It was so delicious!!! Our extra income from my babysitting, some tutoring Trevor is doing, and now these dance classes is going to make us fat ;)

Sorry we weren't more entertaining this time!  Maybe next post we will have something super important to talk about ;)

P.s. If you have any advice on how to keep 2 year olds entertained in a dance class for more than 1 minute at a time, feel free to mention anything in the comments :D

Amethyst Caves

This week, Trevor and I experienced one of the most quirky tourist attractions I've ever encountered.  There is this place called the amethyst caves that used to be a mining area for well...amethyst of course.  The caves are set up as a mini labyrinth museum.  And by museum I mean a completely random conglomeration of garbely gook.  Seriously though there was no thought process whatsoever as to the displays in this cave.  There were animatronic dinosaurs, artifacts from Egypt, a Buddha exhibit, art gallery, skulls from Africa, and amethysts of course.

Also as part of the cave experience, there is a group of acrobatic performers from the Philippines who put on a show every few hours or so.  Luckily one of the shows was just about to start when we got there so we got to see the full performance.  They were silly and goofy and made the kids laugh (ok, and me too) but they did do some pretty cool tricks.  I'll post a few videos and pics of our time below with captions to explain everything.

Aside from the bizarre randomness of the caves, the only other thing to report about our time there was that after we got out of the caves it was SO COLD!  It wasn't cold enough to be snowing but it was raining and the rain was FREEZING!  There was a little sign that said there was a zoo at the top of the hill and Trevor begged me to go (you know our fetish for zoos) but for me it was absolutely out of the picture.  I'm sure it would have been a prairie dog, a fox, and maybe a peacock or something.  For me it was time to go home.

The cave had all sorts of different lighting effects

Cool tunnel 

Random water fountain 

There were animatronic dinosaurs here there and everywhere throughout the caves

Awesome dragon cave mural

Getting ready for the performance

So talented!

It's kind of hard to tell but her feet are on those raised platforms and she is picking up money with her mouth on the table

Enter the tiny realm of ancient Egypt

Part of a cave mural.  I call it Creepersaurus Rex

Random Christmas light hall??

Amethyst display.  Couldn't tell if real or fake.....

Super creepy life-size figurines of miners

Now we all know the reason behind the famous painting.

Hallway to Buddha

Of course he wanted a pic by the snake painting ;)

Whole view from on top of the hill

So cold in the rain!

This old man was contributing to the beat of the music by playing these things that look like scissors.  In the mean time, he was also cutting up these candy things to sell to audience members.  "Hey what's your instrument of choice?" "Oh, you know, I usually play the scissors"

Philippine Acrobat crew 

Our First Seoulfie!

First Seoulfie!

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......

It snowed!