long time no see

sorry folks. for some reason i haven't felt like blogging. or even posting pics on facebook. i'm not sure why. when i think about sorting through my last groups of pictures it just seems tiring.

i come home so soon! i'm feeling multiple ways about this. excited, anxious, nervous, sad, lots of things. i'm really excited to see my family again, and there are some things i've missed that will be fun to do/see/use again. here's the haps: last day of teaching is 6/30, move out 7/1, fly to china 7/2, fly back to seoul 7/13, fly to honolulu 7/14, fly to san diego 7/19, drive to utah 8/1 or thereabouts. so, i'll see y'all in august! wish me luck in china - that i don't get food poisoning, kidnapped and stolen into the sex slave trade, or drugged and get my kidney stolen from me. :)

you can see pictures of my birthday and trip to seoraksan here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125420&id=795438834&l=46b4a2394f.

i went to the dmz/north korean border a couple weekends ago and need to post pics of that too. who knows when that will happen!

love ya! see you soon!

boseong

last weekend i took a two-day trip to the southern part of south korea to visit boseong, home of the green tea fields. 70% of the country's green tea is grown in this area. my trip was full of small, hmmm, mishaps? it made for an interesting little adventure! again, if you can't see these pics, here's the link to the facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115569&id=795438834&l=092a3b10e6

i set my alarm for 6pm instead of 6am, so by the time i got to the bus terminal i had missed the morning bus so bought a ticket for the 3pm bus. it was a 5 hour bus ride, and when i arrived at the first bus terminal the lady who didn't speak english tried to help me get to my final destination - a seaside town called yulpo. long story shorter, i took another bus then a taxi and finally got to a motel in yulpo where 3 doors down from me there was a yelling couple (luckily i couldn't actually hear them in my room), and a lady out on the street that was lividly irate and screaming who woke me up 3 times. fun! seriously though, i don't mind experiences like that because it makes it all more memorable. and this lady, wow. i've never heard anyone scream at someone like that.

i woke up in the morning and went walking down to the sea. it was pretty and i found 3 shells that are keepers. all the things in the water are docks, or something similar. obviously seafood is a big cuisine item here.

whenever i go into the country i see cranes in the rice fields and would love to catch a picture of one. imagine the white against the green, it would make for a beautiful photo. this guy is on the shore and will have to do for now.

i took a bus back to boseong and on the way got so excited by this sneak peak. i've really been looking forward to seeing these green tea fields.

waiting at the boseong bus terminal were dozens of elderly people, mostly women. when i got onto my bus i snapped this pic from inside the bus so as not to be so obvious. so many of these ladies are about my half my height, literally. several of them have big packages, and when they're walking they carry them on their heads.

on both of my buses 99% of the riders were elderly. they were going to or coming from flea and farmer's markets. so cute.

ta-da! i finally arrived and the path going up to the main fields was lined with these pine trees. oh my land, i was in such heaven. living in seoul i'm always sucking in pollution and car exhaust and the wonderful smell of sewage. oh and of course cigarette smoke. walking on this path smelled so good i couldn't take enough deep breaths. i was in heaven!

this is one of the first fields and kept my excitement rising. i love the trees, tea field, bamboo fence with roots hanging out from something, moss covered rocks, and the pine tree borders on the sides of the pic.

laaaaaa! imagine the angels singing. breathtaking in real life and still makes me so tickled happy when i look at the pictures.

the three mounds in the middle of the picture are burial sites, graves. they also dot the country side and i actually really like how they look. i've decided that i want to be buried under a small mound too.

don't you love the curving?

i like the small contrast of the red leaf trees in the back left.

this is the second set of steep millions of stairs. i was the only white gal around, but i wasn't totally white - my face was plenty red. :)

at the top of the stairs when i could finally tear my eyes away from the fields, i looked up and realized that there were layers of mountains and water out there! must be the sea. oh my goodness, so gorgeous. you know a picture can't accurately capture these kinds of things, but this gives you an idea.

kimchi pots!! i love them and would love to have one in my home when i grow up. but instead, i opted to buy a mini one at the gift shop.

"i heart noke cha" "i heart green tea"

the last mishap was the scariest. i got back to the bus terminal with the strong feeling that i should go early, just in case. well, following the feeling paid off. i tried to pay for my ticket with a card, but out in the country i guess they don't use card machines, only cash. i didn't have enough cash, by half, to pay for the ticket and no one spoke english! i know the word for bank, so i said, "bank?" now imagine lots of korean talking and motioning out the door. not helpful. after a while i came back to the bus depot and asked again, and a guy was there that knew enough english to draw me a map to a bank that would hopefully have an open atm and would accept my card. i booked it down the street (i had an hour to find cash and get back) and luckily and amazingly found an atm in a grocery store. phew! i was supremely relieved. if i didn't get cash in time i would have missed the only bus going back to seoul that afternoon and would have missed a day of work. man! i also would have had to sleep in the dirty old bus depot because i didn't have enough cash to get a motel either. now that it's all done and everything's ok, i think it was a great experience! adventure!

today i'm off to the northeast part of the country. i have to use every weekend now that it's warmer again because i leave so soon! goodbye! have a beautiful day and fabulous weekend!

busan

and finally, here are the last 2 days of the 4 day trip i took back at the end of april. this is busan, the second largest city in seoul - about 4 million people - and the biggest port of south korea. i really liked it. if i can't find a job in the states i would consider coming back here to teach english. so again, if it takes too long to load these pictures you can look at the facebook album here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112866&id=795438834&l=3ab76023c5



the subways were so great because they were far less busier than in seoul. we usually got seats which is a rare occurence in seoul. this little guy was having so much fun trying to grab the rings. he finally got them! cutie.

this is gwangalli beach with a view of gwangan bridge, just beautiful.

peace.

the guidebooks say that you have to eat jeon while in busan, which is like a korean pancake. it has onions, carrots, and squid in it. it's really good, but i didn't have any of the squid.

classic - plastic surgery is a big thing here, and small faces are important. ?? i think that means a narrow face and narrow jaw?

this is on the street close to our motel, i love street food!

and finally! this is what i was most looking forward to with this whole trip. haedong yonggungsa is a buddhist temple on sea cliffs. just wait, it's gorgeous!

it was buddha's birthday weekend, hence the hundreds of lanterns. love them.

i love the shadows of the lanterns on the ground here.

his belly is black because so many have rubbed it. lucky buddha belly.

this is the most popular beach in south korea. i collected my sand from here. in summer this place is packed with umbrellas. there are so many that it has won a guinness book of world record.

i like the cliffs, rocks, and lighthouse in this picture.

this is the ktx we took home. it's a super speedy train. bus takes about 5 hours, this train takes about 3.

these two entertained us for the beginning of our journey home. the guy in the black jacket was still drunk from, whenever. and the guy on the left was working very hard on seeming suave.

lauara and i, homeward bound.

gyeongju

**i'm remembering now that korea has super speedy internet (something i'll miss so much when i get back to the states); so, i hope you have a good internet connection. this is a lot of pictures! if it takes forever to load, you can view my album on facebook witht his link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112852&id=795438834&l=388b8b46a5

this is day one and two of a recent four day weekend i had. my co-worker laura and i went to the other side of the country - gyeongju and busan. these are pictures from gyeongju, which is the historical heart of korea. a long time ago, long, long, long, like 7th century, the silla kingdom united korea and ruled for a couple of centuries. many things have been destroyed over the years, but a lot of things in this area survived and/or were re-constructed.

this first set of pictures is from the seokgoram grotto. it's a mound on a mountain that houses an incredible statue of buddha along with other statues. we couldn't go into the grotto, but we were able to view it from the entrance. so, this is the park:

because this area is so important, students from all over the country come here for field trips. we would pass groups of children and very often they would say, "hi!" "how are you?" and would be in awe when we would answer, especially if we said something in korean to them. so fun!

this is the building outside of the grotto, the inside of the grotto is under the mound.

this is the buddha in the grotto, i found this and the previous pic online, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

laura and i - she loves the middle aged women, called ajummas, who wear these massive visors. she calls them darth vador visors. they're actually quite effective! they swivel up and down, and are see through.

outside the grotto. these guys were some of the many that talked to us and they wanted their picture taken. cute.

at the bottom we bought some traditional bread. delicious!

the inside is filled with a red bean paste that is a little sweet.

these ladies were also selling a number of things, most of which i'm not familiar with.

as i walked by though, this little one pointed at these nuts with her lips, indicating i should buy them. so, i decided she was so cute that i bought some.

then we went to the national museum, and while i was looking at the big bell, some girls started to say hello. when i responded, many others came to talk too.

i love these guys gathering around to see how hot they are in the picture they just took of themselves.

then we went to anapji pond. beautiful area.

laura and i decided to buy theses cool hats. of course we looked quite foolish as we were the only ones wearing them. i was ok buying and wearing it, because farmers do wear hats like these still. ours were the basic equivalent of $5 and had stickers on them that sad, "made in vietnam". we got lots of looks. one guy was waking towards me, not looking at me, and then when he looked up at me he did a double take and stared for a second. i don't know if it was just that i'm foreign, or wearing a crazy hat, or because i'm so strikingly beautiful that he was stunned for a second. but, because he was just looking at me i said hello in korean and that too caught him off guard and he started laughing, quoted me saying hello in korean, and then kept laughing and walked away. ? funny.

these little-bitty kids are so cute and so tiny! i don't think they'll remember anything from this trip because they're so young, but man are they darling! i love the matching outfits. you gotta keep track of them somehow!

a really old observatory. wikipedia says this: Cheomseongdae, one of the oldest surviving astronomical observatories in East Asia.

this is an ancient ice storage facility. even the kings had ice back in the day.

then we headed back down the mountain to bulgugksa, a famous buddhist temple. these guys greeted us at the entrance.

you walk over this gorgeous bridge to get to the temple. actually, we entered through the rear and almost missed all this gorgeousness. i'm glad we didn't, i love this picture.

buddha's birthday was the next day, so these ladies are working hard to get all the lanterns set up. i will miss the lanterns, as you know, i absolutely love them! say "kimchi!"

this is one lucky hog, apparently. he was getting all kinds of rubs and pics taken of him. i love the girl in the back not caring at all about the temple. she's just happy to have a lovely new orange umbrella.

behind one of the buildings i found this big rock pagoda garden. hundreds of little rock pagodas have been built here.

preparing more lanterns, these gals are inside the temple grounds.

something of a birds eye view. this stone pagoda is very old and is a national treasure, along with the temple and the seokoram grotto. i'm standing on a platform that allows us to view another national treasure that's being worked on right now.

special water of some sort, i guess. maybe it's coming from the mountain? i don't know. there were no english signs that i noticed.

all right, back into the town of gyeongju. laura and i rented bikes for an hour and went to see these old burial mounds. amazing. my hometown is such an infant compared to these places, just amazing. there are burial mounds all over this area of south korea. there's one person under each mound, and when you see a double mound like this, then it's a king and queen buried together. they are buried with thousands of relics to keep them comfortable.

they've opened one to allow the public to see inside. inside the kings were buried in wooden caskets.

this is a replica of the king's crown.

then we went and got some grub. while walking i had to snap a picture of these two. it's something to be proud of when you have a special someone, and so we see couple shirts fairly often. couples also wear matching rings that they call couplings. and, if a couple meets and starts dating when they're in college, then they're called "cc", which stands for campus couple. in shops matching couple underwear are also proudly displayed in storefront windows. i wonder if my future husband would like to wear matching pink boxer briefs??

this is a typical meal. sit on the ground, meat and stuff cooked on a flame in the middle of the table with lots of side dishes and stuff to eat with the meat.

on our way back to the hostel we walked through a park and sat for a minute. these darling 3 middle schoolers, 15 years old in korean age, started talking to us. they were great! they couldn't say much, but really tried and even sang and danced for us with music from their phones. only in a country as safe as korea would girls stop and talk to strangers in a dark park at night, and laura had a beer in her hand. in america, even as an adult, i would never stop to talk to strangers in a park.

and finally we reach the end of our 2-day journey. this was my first time staying in a hostel. i was going to take a pic of the bathroom and shower area, but forgot to. it was a beauty. the place was dirty, but not filthy, and the best part is that it was cheap. for 2 nights i forked out 30,000won which i guess you could say is about $30.

this is the "dorm room" we stayed in. it had 4 beds, 2 off the ground and 2 on. the first night we were alone and the second night 2 silent men joined us. seriously. they didn't say even hello. all right, better than being raped in my sleep. :)

this rosebush in the courtyard was visible from our "dorm room" window. the owners said that it is 32 years old. my age! it was more like a rose tree than a rose bush.

that's all folks! well, until the next post of our final 2 days...