Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary Eric!  May 1^st marked mine and Eric’s 3 year anniversary. We were pretty excited and to celebrate we decided to take  little trip together.   We have wanted to do this for a while and never had the opportunity but that weekend we did!  We took a bus to a neighboring city of Ansan, called Icheon.  Icheon is the major Korean pottery and ceramics city in South Korea.  Sounds nerdy?  You bet!  We went and stayed at a little house in the country, that was located at the foot of a mountain and beside one of the most amazing sports facilities I have ever seen.  This facility was brand new, as you can see in the photos, and had not even opened yet.  You can see that the beautiful soccer field had been untouched.  We took a hike in the afternoon/evening in the mountains and returned to the house to enjoy some wine and cheese on the roof patio at sunset.  The next morning we were up early for our pottery class with the artist who owned the house.  She was a really nice lady, who did not speak a word of English so we knew this class was going to be interesting.  We were doing it with a Korean family that included two very adorable little boys.  Eric and I decided to make mugs.  Not just anymugs…but the biggest most excessive coffee mugs we could make in 3 hours.  Eric was much better at it than I.  I think this is because he has a lot more patience.  Regardless we were REALLY happy making them, and we are still waiting for the finished product to come in the mail.  In the afternoon we were going to go to a hot spring spa.  We thought we were on our way there…until we realized we were on the wrong bus and ended up at the Ceramic and Pottery festival that was conveniently going on in Icheon this weekend.   At 4:00 we reached the hot spring spa called Termeden.   Now this place is not just a spa,  it is a mini water park.  There is a huge outdoor pool with fountains ,body massage water beds,  a water slide and an indoor pool section as well.  There are several different kinds of hot tubs and saunas you can go into.  All of the water in these pools has no chemicals in it, it is pure hot spring water.  This makes it an incredibly comfortable temperature, and really good for your skin.  I don’t have any pictures from here because I didn’t  think it would be appropriate to take them.  Regardless, you can check out some pictures on the website link.

http://www.termeden.com/english/facilities/facilities_3.asp

Still to come; Dad Visits!  Buddha’s Birthday!! Grandma Visits!!!

Safety First!

All Woman. Possibly the best statue I have ever seen.

What Did We Order?!??!

So the other day Eric and I decided to go to a chicken and beer place.  These places are about as common as Tim Hortens in Canada.  Korean’s love plates of chicken, of any kind.  Fried chicken, baked chicken, grilled chicken, popcorn chicken, chicken on a stick…If you want chicken done a certain way chances are they have it.  So we wanted chicken that evening.  We go and we weren’t particularily hungry so we didn’t want a full plate of chicken.  Our regular dak galbi (spicy chicken stir fry) place was closed so we looked for something on this menu that looked like dak galbi.  Now remember, menus generally don’t have English on it so we were going by pictures.  We ordered what looked like chicken stir fry and waited for our dish to come.  By now we were really hungry and just wanted our food.  Finally the plate came and it looked…interesting.   It was definitely a spicy stir fry with some vegetables…but there was definitely no chicken, or at least a part of a chicken I had never seen or eaten before.  In fact what I was looking at looked more like the tentacles of an octopus.  I thought to myself , “why is a chicken place selling octopus?”  I would not have cared if it was octopus, I love it!  Unfortunately it wasn’t.  Nope, instead it was a giant plate of……wait for it…..spicey chicken’s feet.  That’s right, they were fully recognizable.  Three little talons attached to a little boney ankle…mmmmm.  Well I was really hungry, some would say hangry (hungry and angry).  I thought to myself, I have eaten stranger things and no part of animals should go to waste.  Both Eric and I tried them.  I got through three before I thought I was going to vomit.   I just shuddered thinking about the gelatinous texture of the claw part and then the crunchy gristle around the bone.  Sadly, I did not have my camera with me so no pictures of this culinary adventure.  Needless to say,  we left pretty fast, paid our $12.00 for an uneaten plate of food and went to a restaurant with an English menu. 

An Obsession with Cherry Blossoms.

Another beautiful Spring weekend and cherry blossoms are in full bloom.  This was a very exciting time and perhaps my favorite seasonal point in the year.  It isn’t just me or other foreigners that are captivated by these beautiful trees.  Tones of Koreans are just as excited to take pictures of them.  There is something about these beautiful white and pink flowers that make you want to take unjustifieable amounts of pictures  like you never have before.  It is one of the most romantic things I can think of.  Walking through a canopy of white fluffy flowers as they fall to the ground like snow.  So, Eric and I spent the weekend outside.  We started with a picnic in the park taking pictures of the pretty blossoms.  We then headed into Seoul and enjoyed some beers on the waterfront.  This plan was almost sabotaged by the fact that we couldn’t find any public bathrooms at first.  Thank God we did or we would not have been able to enjoy our beverages.   At sunset we then hopped on a boat cruise of the Han River.  This river basically runs  straight through the center of Seoul.  It is not used for water traffic or taxi purposes so anyone is allowed on there with boats which is pretty cool.  There were people on jet skies and people tubing and water skiing.  The boat ride was great, and it was a perfect sunset.  Afterwards we headed to an Indian food buffet and had a wonderful end to a successful day.

A Day at the Races

Ok ok so I will admit it…I have let the blog slide. For the past couple months the weather was starting to get nice and to be honest I was enjoying some time outside. I’ve also had a few visitors, which was amazing. It is a really cool feeling to show people from home our life here. Regardless I am not feeling like writing much these days so I will try to keep it short but put more pictures in. I am also getting a lot of questions about how much longer we are here. We have 4 months left of teaching in Ansan and then on October 3rd we are flying to Southeast Asia for a 40 day backpacking adventure. We will be home around the second or third week in November! Just in time for a lonnnnggg Canadian winter. Yes we are crazy. So here is what we have been up to. We live a couple of stops away from Seoul Racecourse Park. It was our first time at the races, so we were hoping for beginners luck. Eric and I are big gamblers….NOT. We bet the equivalent of $1 on each race and won our money back, ultimately coming out even. The way we see it, it was a fun day that cost us no money. It isn’t the happiest atmosphere to hang out in, watching all of these Korean men obsess over stats, chain-smoking and frantically pushing people out-of-the-way to get their bets in. Although it is worth it to feel and see how excited everyone is once the race is going, and the horses come around the corner to the finish line and thousands of people are screaming at them. As exciting and fun as it is, I will never bet big money, that’s just way to dangerous and I’m not willing to feel the anxiety over betting more than $1-2.00.