Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Intense Jenga

So Karen, my church friend/one of the pastors, invited me to her house.  We live in the same neighborhood and she thought it would be a good chance for me to experience seeing a lived in Korean house. (I usually only see apartments or 'special houses' on display.) We ordered out and had a girls night with her and her Korean friend Yj.

We played Jenga, and it may be hard to see, but this was a really intense moment! It was teetering on a single block for several layers.

Seoul Forest Park

Next on our list of places to visit was Seoul Forest Park.

 This was just an interesting building I saw on the way.

Christine and I at the entrance.

The place made us feel like we were in the apocolypse! Ruins with lots of graffiti and plants growing over it all.

Complete with creepy lighting.

This would have been a great place to play hide and seek!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Korean Language Lessons

Despite living in Korea, it is still difficult to 'pick up the language'. Yes, I do pick up random words here and there, but because I am an English teacher, I spend most of my time speaking English. Even in the outside world, instead of me using Korean, Koreans want to practice their English with me.  English is very highly valued in the world.  They believe that if you can speak English, you can achieve anything. 

So, in order to help improve my Korean skills, I learn Korean twice a week from one of my co-teachers.  In return, I help her english and help her prepare to visit and study in America.  Her name is Seong JaYeong. She has been an incredible teacher and friend to me, and we often eat out before hand and we end up gossiping afterwards.  The sad news is that she will be leaving the school in a month.




Sunday, June 17, 2012

Korean Baseball Game

This weekend I was also able to visit a baseball game. I actually love Korean baseball, it's very exciting. They also cut the game off, unlike American baseball, so it cannot go beyond 3 hours long.  What's special about Korean baseball is again their cheering spirits. It's not just that one person has a noise maker, everyone has one. Every player on each team has a unique song with their name in it that you cheer when they are up to bat.  Also, like stated before, Korean games let you bring food in, so we bought a bunch of chicken and drinks outside and had ourselves a little picnic in the seats.


 Before the game, the seats starting to slowly fill up.


After the seats were filled



 Christine, me and Trenton
 Fancy Baskin Robbin's afterwards.


Something to mention: In seoul, there are a ton of smart screens everywhere.  They are these TV screens out in public where you can look up information. Like in the subway, you can use it's GPS and find out where you are going and how long it will take, etc.

Waterfall

Yes, I live near a waterfall.  It's on a walking path and it's only about 15 minutes from my house!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

A Korean father with his son just came up to me and started to speak to me in English to show off to his son, very cute!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Korean Soccer

I was lucky enough to be invited by my friend Karen to a soccer match.  We live very close to one another, and we also live near the World Cup Stadium where it was being held. I'd written before that I had shopped at the World Cup Stadium but had never seen a game there. Well, here was my chance!

It was on a Thursday night and the best team, FC Seoul was facing the nearly worst team, Seongnam, so the crowds were light, but that just gave us a better view. (Though that also could have been the crowds looked even smaller due to the massive size of the stadium!) Soccer is a low scoring game, but as I've found with all Korean sports, I didn't get bored at all. It was exciting watching the match and cheering along side of everyone. Our team won of course~

I was talking to Karen's husband, who is a Korean, and he told me that its every Korean man's dream to go to an American sports game. To which I replied, really? You couldn't drag me to an American game.  You just sit there... it's probably the collective society that Korea has that really pulls me into their games.  EVERYONE cheers. All the time. You sing songs with your neighbors...(Or it might just be my crazed obsession with Korea, but I really think there is some truth to it)

Oh, and you can bring your own food and drink into sports games. No more super highly priced drinks! This is also allowed at theatres.






Look at the size comparison of the FC Seoul (above) and the Seongnam (Below)




Wednesday, June 13, 2012

I've mentioned the Cheonggyecheon river before.  It's a river that runs through the center of Seoul.  It was once very polluted and run down, but a few years back the government put a ton of money into it and turned it into a 5 mile nature walk right in the center of the city.  I've been to it several times, but yesterday Karen took me and Christine there to see the laser show they have.


"Growing" flowers. These 'flower' projections grow every day little by little.




Below is the laser show. It's created by spraying water into the air and then playing a projection onto that water. It's free, so even if it doesn't show much, it's worth it.












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