My 'adventure' has ended ^_^

Hey guys, so i know its been a long time. But that is kinda the point of me writing this article.

Life in Korea has become just that, life. I love it here and I am going to stay here for another year after a few week visit home in August. Well, that is the plan anyways.

I actually think I am going to stop bloggin about life here too becuase now most everything is normal. When I first came I was shocked every second but now I am not suprised anymore. And I have taken living here a little more seriously for now, as in I am not just some lost foriegner anymore. I have many friends and strong relationships here that make up my life here. So anyway I might throw up a blog post here and there but please dont expect much because really living here has become just the exciting every day life.

Also as most of you probably heard I am seeing someone here and we spend as much of our free time together as possible. But also I dont really want to blog our relationship; sorry ^_^
As most my friends know I was planning on not having a girlfriend here at all but I was thinking of this as more of a vacation at first. This definitely isn't how it is now, I have lived here for 7 months and for the moment this is where most of my life is.
I definitely still miss my family and I am really looking forward to visiting home in August. I can't wait to see you guys again.

Lunar New Years!

Hi guys! So I thought I should make a blog post talking about my half way point in Korea. It is only half way for my work contract so I might come back for another year afterwards but it means I get to go visit home and family in 6 months. I really look forward to this.

Anyways we just had one of the biggest holidays in Korea, the Lunar New Years. Korea isn't quite as lucky as China in terms of the holiday. Chinese people take 2-3 weeks off work but in Korea we only get about 3 days off. And we are pretty unlucky because it fell on a weekend so really most people only got 1 day off work. (I got 2 since I work Saturday ^^) Anyways I actually didn't do anything that cultural or anything like normal :/ but I did have a really great time. Also my camera ran out of batteries the day of so I didn't get any pictures :( :(

1st Day:
So Saturday, February the 13 was pretty fun because I went to meet my friends Nikki and 형주 (Hyeong-Ju) in a pretty fun area of Seoul called Times Square. We went to watch a movie and then we just hung out in the area and had coffee. But the point of me telling you this is because Korea is really different with Valentines day.
Yeah, In Korea Valentines day is reversed. The woman is supposed to give the man chocolate and the like while the men aren't supposed to do anything really. There is another day (i should probably figure out when it is) called 'White day' (i think) that is an equivalent to the Western Valentines day. And normally Lunar New Years is not the same day as Valentines day, it just happened that way this year.
So a little bit of funny and a little bit of idiot Dustin. My friends gave me a nice little chocolate cake from Dunkin' Donuts (funny right?) with a card on the top. But what did I do? Well its kinda comical. So I read the card but I thought it was pretty well lodged into the top of the box but it wasn't and I lost their nice card :/ I considered going back to Time Square to look for it but I was on one of the last buses of the night so I would have had to pay a Taxi driver like 70$ for a ride all the way back to Ilsan afterwards and my chance of finding it was slim ; _ ; *Fail*
Korea has a lot of people so it could have been bumped off anywhere. (not done with the fails yet, remember the cake too. I will come back to that)

Second Day:
So the next day I went to church. It was lunar new years day and I didn't realize but most people felt bad that I didn't have a family to be with because it is a very family oriented holiday. I personally didn't feel bad at all because I haven't ever celebrated lunar new years. I felt bummed back on Christmas but this holiday I didn't even think about it since it isn't my holiday.

A friend at church who I think was probably going to just meet his girlfriend for the day (it was valentines day) instead invited me and a group of other people to join him for a really fun day. I think he did all that so I wouldn't be lonely. I tried to show him he didn't have to but well, he was very generous.
So we went out and had one of my favorite meals, 덝갈비 hmmm actually that is probably terrible spelling and not even the right name... But anyways it is a giant stew with noodles, chicken, potatoes and carrots. It is very spicy and I *LOVE* it. sooo tastey. (except I think I ate the throat of the chicken on accident ; _ ; )
So after that we went to one of the tallest buildings in the area and found this secret little sky lounge place and had coffee. I think it was my friends plan to go there with his girlfriend alone but I really enjoyed it because it looked out over most all of Seoul. It was really beautiful and I had really good conversation with the other people. Although our communication ability is a little limited.

And then we hit the fun part! 노래방!!!! Singing room! So that is a old traditional Korean custom. When friends gather and eat together afterwards they sing together. And we rocked out for an hour and a half in a singing room. I love them! Oh, and to my parents, 'no there was no alcohol.' I don't like singing after having alcohol because my throat doesn't work then. There is nothing like a Korean singing room experience. I wish everyone could try it.
So that ended that day and I went home very happy. The original plan was to go to one of the big touristy area's of Seoul and watch a parade and traditional Korean things but well I had much more fun with those friends than going sightseeing alone.

Third Day:
So this day I took it easy most the time because I was really tired from staying out so late and my voice was pretty much gone from singing too much but I got Nikki to come over later with Nari. We went out for a Korean snack that I really enjoy (although normally only kids and girls love) called 떡볶이 Duck-Boh-Gi. It is basically like pounded rice in a really spicy sauce. Hmmmm. I cant really describe it, but it is awesome.
Then I bet Nikki she couldn't beat me at shooting guns. So we went to a little airsoft shooting range (common here) and shot at targets. They are in a little arcade like place, I am at a loss as to how to describe these places but thy have a batting cage normally and airsoft shooting among other odd games I havent seen before.
Anyways... she totally destroyed me :( Infact she did so good that she won one of the stuffed animals for having a high enough score and she gave it to me ; _ ; Well at least I learned that when we get in a fight, to make sure it isnt a gun fight.
It was pretty late at night so we went back to my place and watched movies and did a puzzle until almost 4am. Yeah we did a 500 piece puzzle in 1 night! how awesome is that.
Oh i almost forgot about the cake.

So Nikki asked me if I had any of the cake left for us all to share and eat but of course what did I do the night before :( I ate the whole thing ^_^ So instead of eating the cake she got for us together I totally ate it myself the night before (LOL)*insert swear words* ah well. I didn't think she would be coming over Monday or I would have saved it.


Well the next day at work I was a little sleepy but I survived.

So next weekend is my birthday and I cant wait! That Tuesday Nikki and Nari invited me snowboarding again Friday night! Time feels like it is passing sooooo slow because I want it to be Friday night already. Well, almost there. It is Thursday afternoon now.

Snowboarding!

Hiya guys! As normal life is busy but I have found some free time, so here we go!

Fail:
I was trying to go on a snowboarding trip for a while with my church members but we weren't having any luck because of the massive amounts of snow we were getting. Funny right, too much snow to snowboard. The problem was getting to the mountains. Nobody wanted to drive through 27cm of snow. Yeah, that was just one of the few snow storms we had. It seems I chose to come in the winter with the most snow and cold ever. Well, I did come asking for some snow since I haven't seen much of it in my life. And it has been really fun. Here I and most other people don't drive and the snow isn't a problem. (i could live without the -20 degree C though, its not normally that cold, it was just for a week)

Woohoo:
So anyways during the beginning of January I was a little bummed because the holidays were over and my friends are in Seoul so I cant see them as much as I would like but then I came to work and my coworker Nari invited me night time snowboarding later that week! yeah how awesome is that!!! Nari is a Korean English teacher who I have spent some time with before, but not much. I was sooooo happy that even though my students were being total brats, that day and the next it didn't even matter. I just smiled the whole time because I was happy.


So Thursday I worked most the day then later I went to a going away party for a friend going back to America. It was fun but I got to sleep later than I should have. Next I woke up Friday and hurried to work and taught for 8 hours then ran home shoved some food in my mouth and grabbed my bags to hop on the subway to meet Nari.

My favorite people:
First I met Nari's friend Nikki who is really nice then Nari was driving and picked us up and then we picked up one more of Nari's friends named Hyeong-ju. Also super nice but she was tired from work so she went to sleep. It was a long long drive but i wasn't tired so I stayed up and talked with Nari and Nikki. They are both English teachers who lived in Australia for a while so conversation was easy.


Finally we arrived and about a mile away from the snowboarding resort we stopped to get our rentals. It is cool in Korea you rent everything. I rented my blue jacket and snowboarding pants. The funny thing is it is mandatory that you wear hip and knee pads under your pants. I didn't complain ^_^ I think they saved me. So snowboards, lift pass and all that was under 50$! really cheap!

So we headed over to the snow boarding resort and it was really nice. It was actually really difficult to park even though it was 1am but we left that to Nari as we went and claimed our boards. So we had time for some pictures.

The slopes:
I wish we could have taken some pictures of the slopes but no such luck. But I will tell you about some funny things. So there are employee's watching the lifts of course but here they are more like amusement park employees. They wave at you and act way overly happy to see you and greet you every time. I thought it was funny. One time under my whole mask and hat they realized I was a foreigner and they stopped talking Korean and said, "Uuuuwoh! Hello!" Yeah it makes for a fun atmosphere.

I haven't snowboarded since I was a little kid and I didn't remember how to very well so I was a little slow to start. Well I mean my ability was, I would go down the hill quite fast but my amount of control was pretty limited which I realized when I almost killed some poor korean girl I never met before. It wasn't a bad or hard collusion at all and I made sure I took the impact not her but it was still a difficult situation since I don't know how to say much to her. I made sure she was okay but I think she was more frightened that I was a foreigner than anything. Anyways I am glad that she was okay. Snowboards are super easy to loose control of since you cant move your feet :/

I didn't see it but apparently someone took down Nari too so she had a headache most the night from it. So after an hour I became much more confident in my ability and could do heel side turns just fine but toe side was still difficult but I was figuring it out. Nari and Nikki were still learning so they were sticking together most the time.

After about half the time I was trying to keep up with Hyeong-ju. She is quite good and goes often. She is super nice but I couldn't communicate with her too well.

The Cold:
SO it was REALLY COLD! But we came prepared so when we were down on the ground it wasn't so bad at all. We had masks and hats and the only thing showing was our eyes. But I felt bad because Nari lent me an extra mask she had that was the same as hers just different color. So we looked like a couple and the worst part was in the cold the snot just falls right out. So i totally snotted up her mask. ^_^ She said it didn't matter and wouldn't let me wash it after. Too nice huh?

So the lift was the worst! Soooooo cold! On the ground there isn't any wind but on the lift way up high there was lots and lots of wind. By the end of the ride I couldn't feel my hands normally but fortunately at the top of the lift was a snack place selling hot food and drinks. Stupid me forgot my wallet in the car so Nari would buy and my hands would survive.


Idiot Dustin:
So we decided to start a snow fight but I haven't really done that since I was a little kid and the snow was hard to pack together because it was too powdery. But we did it. Of course the first good snowball I make, what do I do? This is where the idiot part comes in. So i see Nikki kinda running through the snow maybe 10 feet away and I launch a pretty big powdery snow ball at her... and it hits her right in her face when her mask was down :( :( :( T_T T_T T_T

So she was in an awesome amount of snow ball to the face pain and I couldn't do anything to help her because I caused it. T_T

Ah well she forgave me, these people are too nice to me.

Poor Nikki: (long before the snowball)


Lastly:
So we snowboarded through the night until 5am (oh starting to feel tired). Most this part is a complete blur because I was beyond tired. I don't know how Nari was able to stay awake because the whole long drive back to Seoul i was falling in and out of sleep. I really wanted to stay awake and talk to Nari so she wouldn't feel sleepy but I couldn't.
Thanks Nari!


We stopped for some 헤종국 which the literal translation is 'hang over soup' because it is supposed to give you energy and it totally did which was good because I had to go work for another 6 hours. Nari was beyond nice, she knew I was going to be late for work and she drove all the way to my workplace in Ilsan! So after being nice enough to drive all the way to snowboarding and back when she was tired she made and extra trip to Ilsan for me so I could be at work on time. Fortunately I have a pretty easy day on Saturday but I still fell asleep a few times for a brief moments while grading papers or things like that. One paper had a half written grade on it then a line of my pen going right off the side of the paper from me falling asleep while writing a grade on it. ^^

So I have spent a good deal of time the past few weeks with Nari, Nikki and Hyeong-Ju and they are really really great people! I have been praying to find some more friends who I can hang out with and now I am beyond content.

There are more pictures on my facebook if your interested. Just look in my photo albums.

Christmas time!

Hi everyone! I have been meaning to talk about Christmas for a while but I was waiting on photo's and things. Now it seems like it was soooo long ago since so many things have happened since then but thankfully Christmas was pretty unforgetable. I was worried I would be alone on Christmas but it turned out to be really great.

Okay so if you read my last post you learned I had to work on Christmas eve until 5 which kinda sucked and my boss wasn't so awesome that day but dont let that fool you. Christmas was really amazing once I made it to Seoul and met up with my friends.

So first things first, I had to carry a big Costco Cheesecake all the way to Seoul from my house in Ilsan because it was kinda like my christmas gift to my friends. It was really more specifically directed at my buddy Calvin but like he could eat a whole cheesecake, so I shared with everyone.
It was interesting carrying the cake around because here in Korea Christmas is pretty much Valentines day and I wrapped the cake so nobody would get hungry and eat some (mostly just for myself ^^ ). But the reason I mention it is like valentines day is because I could feel many eyes on me wondering who that big package was going to. Odd feeling. I am especially glad nobody asked me who it was for because if I had to say a dudes name they would probably run away.
For Christians, Christmas is obviously a lot more than valentines day and much more like a night of worship.

So after a 2-3 hour bus ride through Christmas eve traffic and a subway ride I made it to church and I met up with Calvin. Our young adult group was supposed to be doing a song performance in front of the whole church at the 11pm service but I arrived late so Calvin and I skipped that and just watched the other members do it. (I must say I was quite thankful for that since all the songs were in Korean) So after service our young adult group had candles and we stood ouside the church and sang christmas charols in Korean for people as they were leaving. It was pretty fun; I was part of the humming section ^_^



So then we went around to a few houses near the church which belonged to church members and we sang for them too and at a local convenience store. It was fun being with my church friends and they asked me to sing the charols in English sometimes but the syllable emphasis is different so even though it is the same song it sounds a lot different. Most songs I could do a few words in Korean but that is about it.

So after the charoling we decided to go visit some of the church members homes. It was pretty late at night so they were expecting us. The funniest thing is the gifts we brought for them. We brought toilet paper. haha no joke. It has symbolic meaning in korean because it is wrapped up in a roll and it has symbolism that means your troubles will be rolled away. I think we need to get some symbolism going in america, it would make getting gifts much easier.

So that was my first time in a Korean's home. It was quite shocking because they went all out with different foods and such things to welcome us. A huge ice cream cake with lots of fruits and some other foods that looked great!



A funny tangent that makes me look stupid:
So as always when going in a Korean home you take off your shoes. Well.. my feet stank! This is the first time too, > . < I wore heavy socks because it was really really cold that day but the bus was crowded so I got stuck in a seat that had a heater right next to my feet. So my feet got cooked by the heater for 2 hours in heavy socks :( My feet never stink, I always wash them well and wear new socks but that day i was totally S.O.L. It just had to be the first time I went in a Koreans home too :( Everyone was very polite about it and nobody ever said anything. I kinda wished they would have so I could make fun of myself or something. oh well...

Anyways the people in the house were super nice and welcoming even to a foreigner like me. I was worried that it wasn't appropriate for me to come along because I am a forienger but everything worked out wonderfully.

Next when we got back to the church we had a big wonderful meal which was shared between 25+ young adult church members. And everyone got to enjoy the cake. In Korea we never have our own food plate or dish, it is always group food. As in the food sits in the middle and we all get chop sticks and take some. It was quite fun and everybody loved the cheese cake, especially Calvin. I had to keep telling him to stop eating so much because i think he was trying to be more than polite.

So after that we organized into teams and played lots of fun games. The first games were Korean word games which I probably wasn't the best teamate for (slight understatement). Then there was a game where we had things like toothpics in our mouths and we had to transfer rubber bands from the toothpicks to other people down a line. (Score! I was next to 2 pretty girls that i really hope arent going read this) So there was a tall dude on our team having trouble and backing up the line so I had to start getting like 3 or more rubber bands on my toothpick to pass on.
I feel like my depth perception is much better with my left eye closed so while transferring the rubber bands I would only use my right eye but Calvin called me out on it! "Dustin! stop winking at her!" hahaha yeah, still makes me laugh. I was planning on telling him my nose was to big to see with both eyes but I was busy with the game. (I.E. koreans dont have big noses)
So we lost that game but it was cool. Next we played a the game where you tie a baloon to your ankle and try to pop the others. I lost big time because while I am here here I am overly cautious and gentle since I can't really explain myself. (okay in truth i tried to do a huge stomp on some girls baloon while she wasnt looking but i totally missed and lost). It was fun though. We played games like that until almost 4 in the morning.


Then we had a really great time where we all shared stories of our lives from the past year and gave prayer requests for the next year.



Finally we went over to my pastors house and he let us sleep in a small room. It wasn't uncomfortable at all. We had a few hours of sleep and then went to another church service which wasn't bad. (although i wish i had some more sleep) It was nice though, when we woke up the pastors wife made us a delicious breakfeast and the pastors kids were lots of fun. So that was my second experience in a Koreans home. (once again with smelly socks :( ) I will tell you more about that in the next post because I went back to his house for new years.

So next most the young adult members went to a handicapped people's facility on christmas day to volunteer but I didnt go because well as a foriegner who cant communicate well I would probably cause more harm than good.

I got a couple more hours of sleep in one of the pastors office cubicles because we were waiting for people to come back so we could go Ice Skating. Unfortunately, most people were too tired to go ice skating but that is okay. It was just me calvin, 원희, and 진길. It was really great for 원희 and 진길 to come because they were really tired too.



So we went to LOTTE WORLD! It is like the best theme park in Korea (or one of them at least). It is all indoors and it is truely an amazing sight. I have never seen a building so big and with so many people. We didnt go to the amusement park section, we just went ice skating. Ice skating was really fun but as with anything in Korea it was very very very crowded.
But of course that didnt stop me from showing off big time. Koreans aren't that great of ice skaters, generally (No offence Koreans or Yoona Kim). So I got to show off my years of hockey training. They only allowed figure skates so I was very limited but it was still cool. Afterwords I bought us some 1$ ice creams to help us get over the sleepiness.



So after that (yes i know, this just keeps on going...) we rode over to one of the rich shopping districts in Seoul called 강남 and did a little shopping. I was suuuuper lucky! I was really hoping for snow all day on Christmas and I got my wish! In 강남 it started snowing and I was really excited.

After shopping we made our way to a wine bar and it was nice to sit and relax (omg we were sooo tired). We enjoyed the wine bar to ourselves and had a couple glasses. It was a cosy little place where we could watch the busy, snowy street outside.

After that we called it a day thankfully. So I rode home for a few hours by subway and bus but I was completely content. Err more than content. It was a wonderful Christmas. I definetely missed my family but that was an unforgettable experience.