This a picture taken at our school with all the ELC teachers and staff. It's ok if you're thinking it; I've been told that I'm beginning to look like an Asian on numerous occasions :)

New Years...agian!!

I'm so excited because I'm blogging for the first time using my own Internet!!! I'm sitting on my couch (not at the cold window) which was the only place I could pick up wireless prior to getting my own. It's wonderful!!! I woke up this morning and watched a movie online without having to endure pauses every 5 minutes. This is an important purchase that I should have made as soon as I got to Korea, but what can I say? I am my parents child, and yes, they both have instilled in me an importance for thriftiness. However, that being said, I'm sure both of my parents will be pleased as this should make communication even more simple!!!

On the Korean home front we have a major cold front passing through. We're on our second vacation in the past month, both of which the weather has been terrible. We are celebrating the Lunar New Year with the eastern world this week. School is out, and the majority of businesses will be closed for the next few days. So, we are left with not a lot to do. O well, we've decided to sit around and be very lazy during this break. Thankfully, we will be using the handy dandy world wide web to catch up on all the new releases from the states. As boring as it may sound... I'm gonna be honest...I love staying home and just watching a good movie! Our travels are being postponed until our next break. Chris and I both hate the cold weather. So, we couldn't justify traveling at this time of the year, knowing that we wouldn't get out and see as much as we possibly could because of the cold. We've scheduled some "personal time" off in the spring, and hopefully the weather will be nice at that point, and we will go exploring more in Korea and Asia.

I didn't really have real news for you guys. Just wanted to say hi, and let everyone know that I have real Internet now.

새해복 많이 받으세요!

( Sae-hae-bok ma-ni pa-dŭ-se-yo)

Happy Lunar New Year!

~Am :)

Recap

Sorry that I slacked off on writing over the past couple of weeks! My internet has been cutting in and out. I'm afraid that I need to stop being so cheap and break down and buy it, but it's so hard for me to do since I can usually get it. Anyway, I guess I should back up a couple weeks to get you all up to speed.

We had a wonderful holiday season, and our vacation time was so aaaamazing. We ended up going out of town for New Year's. We made a trip to Busan where we ate a wonderful Turkish restaurant. It was quite possibly the best food I've put in my stomach since August. We both at so much that we could hardly walk when we left. The owner of the restaurant was there, and he came over half way through our meal and offered us a free appetizer. It was something new that they were putting on there menu, and being that we were foreigners, they wanted our opinion :) It was wonderful, and then we added dessert on top of that!!! The trip out of town was a much needed change in our routine. I can't wait til summer, when we'll hopefully make more frequent trips to Busan to hang out on the beach!!!

We also went bowling!!! It was a lot of fun, but neither of us are any good at bowling. I will say, that I did better of the two us. However, this isn't saying much at all. Regardless, it was fun, but a little embarrassing. You see, when you're the only white person in a place you get a lot of stares no matter what you are doing. So, the fact that we are white made everyone look at us while we bowled, which obviously brought attention to the fact that we were not any good.

Last but not least, we had massages. Well, we thought that they were gonna be massages, but they actually ended up being facials. This was quite possibly the most humorous thing that I've witnessed since being in this country. Picture this: Chris, a facial, a pink mask, a Korean woman saying "just relax" over and over again, and lots of lotion (which he hates). OOOO, it was great! As you may know, Chris is awkward enough when it comes to things of this matter. Throw a language barrier in the mix, and this made great comedy. I can't decide which was the best part. At one point, Chris's woman got lotion in his eye, which caused him to start crying!!! When she finally realized why he was crying, she whipped out her handy dandy eye drops, and squirted them in his eyes before he had a chance to realize what the heck was going on. Then, the very last thing that she did was pull his arms back over his head and then sling them forward. I cannot possibly explain how funny this entire ordeal was!!! So, to help you better understand I have included some pictures.

The remainder of our vacay was spent just relaxing, watching movies, eating at many different restaurants, and shopping. Which reminds me, we found our new favorite place to shop, E-Mart. This is the closest thing that Korea has to a Wal-Mart. It has a great meat department, where we found ground pork!!! We've now grown accustom to pork burgers. Hey, it's the closest thing we've found to a hamburger, for under $10 a pound. We also found these awesome freshly baked blueberry bagels. I'm so glad we discovered E-Mart. This was the extent of our break. We've been back at school for a couple of weeks now, but we get another break next week. YIPEEE!!!!

blame it on Korea

A couple weeks ago Chris and I had to have a health check for work. We went with a number of other foreign teachers to a nearby hospital. Myself and the other girls that we teach with were all shoved into a closet where we were to told to undress. We did as we were told, and then we pranced around the hospital in our almost exposing purple gowns. We went to all the different stations: we had our eyes, ears, heart, weight, and height checked. We gave a urine sample, and they took our blood. Unfortunately, when the woman drew my blood she had to stick me about 6 times before she got anything out of me. This was the extent of our health check, very normal. Anyway, I haven't thought another thing of it until I got a print out of the results. I couldn't read any of it because it was all in Korean, but I could see that a few of the categories were outside of the normal range. This sparked some interest. So, I had someone translate the categories for me. I'm anemic, which I've known for a while now, and I've always had really low blood pressure. So, I wasn't surprised by either of these. However, I was shocked that my cholesterol was high. This is surprising because I've never had high cholesterol, and I've always ate anything and everything I've ever wanted. Since we've been in Korea, my eating habits have actually changed for the better. So, why my cholesterol would be high now....I haven't a clue. I'm probably just over reacting, and I'm sure it isn't that big of a deal. But nevertheless, I'm a bit worried. I've lost weight since coming here, and though I'm not the best about monitoring the foods I'm eating, I know I don't eat an extremely fatty diet. I'm so frustrated because I have no clue where this is coming from!!!! I've been on the computer all night reading about the causes of cholesterol problems, and none of this makes any since. The main causes are a fatty diet, heredity, alcohol consumption, excess weight, and little physical activity. I don't drink. My weight is very normal, and I walk just about everywhere I go. I blame this on Korea since I can't come up with any other explanation!!! For lack of a better solution, I'm gonna put myself on a low cholesterol diet, and start using the gym at my apartment. Then, I'm going back to the doctor, and I'm gonna have it checked again. The last thing I need is a heart attack at 23....good Lord I must be a redneck!!!