kalie/julie xmas!

Last Thursday I went to Seoul after work to meet up with some of my friends I met working at Disney World in Florida. One was my friend who lives in Seoul named Claire and the other was my friend Jen who’s from Taiwan and was in Seoul visiting for a few days. It was awesome to see them both again. I don’t get to see my friend Claire often even though we live so close because she is very busy all the time with grad school and work. We met for some drinks in Sinchon and got to catch up on life. While we were there, Claire checked on her iPhone and Lucas, one of our Brazilian friends, was on Skype so we called and chatted with him for a while as well. It was pretty fun! 

Jen and her friend Blake

Claire and I

The three lifeguards!

Claire took this pic on her phone. It's kinda fuzzy but you get the picture. This is our friend Lucas!

Chatting with Lucas!

Kalie/Julie Christmas was last weekend. Everyone in Korea that knows me probably knows about kj xmas because I was talking about it nonstop until it arrived.  Kalie and I have to plan months in advance to hang out because weekends here in Korea seem to go by so quickly and fill up with random things to do. When I arrived in Daegu on Friday night I walked into Kalie’s charming apartment set up with a little comfort of home. For those of you who don’t know my family well, my mother’s favorite holiday to decorate for is Christmas. She goes nut! We have a whole storage closet under our stairs solely dedicated to Christmas decorations. If you think I’m joking, please stop by my house this Christmas season and check it out for yourself. I’m sure my mom would enjoy your company. She claims to have toned it down this season but I highly doubt it. Anyways, Kalie had a Christmas tree lit and I brought some Christmas lights that Hadley gave me that we put up, Thanks Hads! She also had some presents already wrapped and under the tree for me! It was fantastic. To add to it, there was Christmas music playing as I walked in! 

Kalie's decorated apartment! 

Our Saturday was spent getting up and going to Starbucks in the morning for a breakfast sandwich and beverage. Then we went to go get out nails done, it’d been a while since I’ve had any maintenance done to my nails. The lady took one look at my nails and had a frightening look on her face like; dang these nails need some work! We then wasted away the afternoon hanging out and eventually made it to an Italian restaurant. This restaurant is where one of Kalie’s students father owns. He is completely Italian, married to a Korean. It was the best meal I’ve had so far here in Korea. It was amazing; we both got a pasta dish and had a glass of house wine. Since the dad was working, he gave us so much food for service – I love the free service dishes! 

Starbucks! 

The Italian at work! 

The salad was one of the service dishes! Kalie's won't even look up from her food to take a picture because it was that good! 

The rest of our night was spent wondering about Downtown Daegu enjoying the many lights that they had displayed in town. I had told Kalie a while ago that I was going to miss being at Macy’s around Christmas time with my mom and sisters, seeing the Christmas display on the 8^th floor and wondering about the Christmas items. Kalie was so cute and brought me to the department store to look around in Daegu. We looked at some of their holiday displays for a bit. Thanks Kals, it was awesome. I had a great holiday weekend, I’m so happy that I got to spend a bit of Christmas time with my best friend from home. It makes the holidays overseas so much better! 

In front of a little tree display at the department store... it was no Macy's tree in Chicago but it'll do this year I suppose.

Had to take a picture from the outdoor stand in Daegu on Kalie/Julie xmas! 

You can't really tell but there are at least 8 employees working the tie section in the department store with no one even shopping in that section... The department stores are overstaffed like crazy here in Korea.

My lovely surprise gift from my mom, christmas in a box! I received this on Tuesday just as I was feeling crappy and sick. It was such a great surprise to get! Thanks Mom, you're the best! Ps. nice christmas "family tree".... haha.

Puppets

This is the ceiling of my apartment. I came home to my room last Wednesday only to find water all over my little table. I figured my water bottle fell over but nope, sure enough I look up and water is coming down from the light. Excellent! It was leaking a little bit this summer too but nothing was done because it stopped. It isn't leaking anymore right now so I'm not too concerned but it was a little annoying. My director told me it was because I live in apartment 404 and the number 4 is extremely unlucky in Korea.... makes sense. Oh well.

Last week we went on a field trip to Chuncheon to see a puppet show and museum. It was probably the worst puppet performance I’ve ever seen. That’s saying a lot based on the fact that I haven’t seen many puppet shows in my life, probably only the ones my classmates put on in 6^th grade. It didn’t help that the puppet show was in Korean either I suppose. One of my 6 year olds was translating a bit for me… it’s pretty bad when you count on a little kid to translate things for you.  We also walked around a puppet museum next to the theater that was fun to look around in with the kids. 

The 6 year olds with Sharon Adam and I. You can get a glimpse of the scary looking puppet behind us on stage. The play was of Hansel and Gretel. 

Little Scott wanted me to sit next to him. He said "Julie teacher, come here. Sit. Scott is a little bit scared of witch!" He's so fricken cute, I will miss him for sure! 

Sharon, Scott and Joseph were interviewed for some local TV show that was filming the play apparently.

The crazy 6 year old class. I love them! 

Alex Lee, Alex, Connor, Julie, Scott,  Joseph

Kyle playing with the big string puppet

Joseph and Kyle showing me how the hand puppets work!

Last weekend I went to Suwon to go greet a friend of mine, Mike, from home that just arrived in Korea. Mike is good friends with Clayton from back home. Clayton and I met up with him on Friday after he had dinner with his new co-teachers. We showed Mike a classic night out in Korea filled with darts at the bar, a stop at 7/11, noribong, and attempted to find street food to munch on but had no success. I think we were pretty successful at showing him a good time, Mike seemed pretty happy with his first weekend in Korea. 

Mike and I 

Trevor and I. I've known this kid since junior high. We randomly saw each other in Korea. It really is a small world! 

Clayton and Mike rapping at the noribong (karaoke)

Saturday we headed to some town outside of Suwon where Mike’s Korean co-teacher, Sally, lives. Her family owns an apartment complex where Mike will be staying for a week while the other teacher is getting ready to go home. The apartment was pretty nice and clean but there was nothing to do in the town. Sally’s mom saw that we looked hungry when we got to the apartment around 3pm and she instantly made us some food. She was so cute and kind to us. After our late lunch we hung out with Sally and ended up at a pool hall. She loves pool and you can tell because she’s amazing! Clayton and I stayed the night at the apartment with Mike and just relaxed and hung out. It’s always great seeing friends from home. Sunday, Clayton and I headed off to Seoul to make our way home. When we got to Seoul Clayton told me he was going to take a bus home. I then got a text a half hour later saying; I got on the wrong bus. Going the opposite direction… hahaha. Then about 3 hours later I finally got a text saying that he was home! It was way too funny and a typical Clayton move. 

I'm terrible at pool, by far the worst one! 

Clayton breaking the rack. He's a decent pool player but doesn't think too much. When I was on his team, Sally told him to hit her solid ball in as a joke. Clayton, however, didn't realize it was a joke and proceeded to hit her ball in. What an idiot! It was so funny. Don't worry though we ended up winning in the end! 

Sally, me, Clay, and Mike at the pool hall. 

I think this is one of the smartest things Koreans do. They have these permanent gloves on the handles of their motorbikes (which they have a TON of).