souvenir 2.21

This event happened over five months ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. 

The winter weather was starting to clear away and I had teacher training with all of the new teachers. Meredith also had to go but for some reason Loree didn't (the lucky duck) but we decided since two of us were already close to my neighborhood that Loree should meet us there after school so we could finally try Hungry Kitchen. 

In January I had a I-need-a-real-burger-now-or-I-will-go-crazy meltdown and started to research the best burgers in Ulsan. There were two burgers that tied for first. One was near the beach an hour away and the other was in my neighborhood. 

When we got to Hungry Kitchen we had to wait a half an hour before the burger would be ready. Since Meredith and I needed cash we decided to quickly run to the ATM while Loree saved our seats. 

I should give a little forward about how awful Meredith's week had been. Nothing seemed to be going her way and even the taxi driver who brought her to training that morning couldn't read the address so he just drove around until he found it. Plus she had a cold. 

I got my cash out with no problem but Meredith's ATM wouldn't spit out her card. It was stuck. We tried calling the help line using the phone there but they hung up as soon as we spoke. 

We tried hitting a few buttons but nothing worked. That was when Meredith started to freak out (rightly so because she was leaving for Hawaii in two days and she needed that card to buy things). 

The only thing I could think of doing was calling my coteacher. So I called her and explained our situation and that we needed help. She then called the bank and told us that someone would come in five minutes to get the card out. Well we waited and waited. Many people came in and took cash out of the same ATM that ate Meredith's card. We were very confused. After about fifteen minutes someone came and saved the day. He went behind the ATMs and pulled out Meredith's card! 

We can back to the restaurant and sat down in time for our hamburgers to be set in front of us. We weren't able to laugh at the situation that night or even after Meredith got back from Hawaii but we can now. That situation could have ended in many terrible ways but it didn't. Instead we got the card and made it back in time to eat one of the best burgers I've had in Korea. 

Bless friends. 

Vacation

I had a week off in August and it was lovely to be quiet and when necessary, lazy. I was able to do one fun thing that Meredith and I had been wanting to do since the winter- visit the trick art museum. The museum travels to different cities and during the winter it was in a city we had never visited and the English information said we would need to take two trains to get there... So we never went. Later we found out there was just one train to get to the city but by that time the museum had moved on. This summer it moved to Busan and we were very excited about that! Busan is one city that we are really getting the hang of. The subway system isn't confusing and we now know where our favorite places to shop are. 

I had mentioned the museum to my friend Yeoung Hee and she was very interested in going as well. She found us a coupon for the museum on a Korean type groupon website and we were ready for our adventure. 

We got Indian food for lunch and spent a lovely afternoon in the museum taking funny pictures and laughing. I think the idea of this museum is brilliant because all of the paintings are two demential but when you take a picture with the painting it becomes three demential. They had classic works like Starry Night that you can be in and also modern funny paintings like helping superman. 

It was a fabulous way to spend an afternoon. 

Then we visited one of our favorite cosmetic shops, Too Cool For School. They were very excited to see Meredith and I return (we are hard to forget) and they got to ask all the questions they wanted in Korean because Yeoung Hee was with us. Common questions are: what do we do in Korea and where do we live. The workers there are so sweet and try very hard to explain each of their products. I'm going to miss their shop. 

It rained the last three days of my vacation and that has really helped change the weather, it's like overnight the evenings decided to cool off. I'm now able to open my windows and enjoy a cool breeze again. I even hear crickets singing when I wake up. Those poor animals must have been hiding for a month because of the heat. I think every bug that flew into school over break died from the heat because every day I walked the halls a new bug would be belly up on the floor. Poor little things.

Bless friends.

Birthday Celebrations

In June I visited Jeju Island with Meredith over a long weekend and as we were leaving for the airport to go back to Ulsan we talked about what else we wanted to see before going back to America. One thing on Meredith's list was to see the Hand of Harmony on her birthday at sunrise. 

My wonderful friend pursued that dream with persistence that only comes from living in South Korea. There was not a ton of English information on the Hand of Harmony and there was not any English options for booking a hostel or hotel. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend from church who is Korean and he booked us a hotel that we found that said it was "near" the Hand of Harmony. 

The day of our departure came and we made the bus to Pohang just in time. We found a taxi once there and went to our hotel. The driver took a long and twisty road along the coast and we were very impressed with out situation. I was starting to think that this would be our first trip with no hiccups. There was a college student working at the desk and she spoke perfect English and while she showed us our room she asked what we were going to see in Pohang. Meredith explained about the hand and that was when we found out that "near" actually meant a 20 minute car ride. Thankfully she helped us call a taxi that night and arrange for it to pick us up at 5am so we could get to the Hand in time for the sun to rise. 

5am came way too quickly and soon we were in another taxi continuing on the twisty road along the coast. There was a decent size group waiting near the Hand to watch the sunrise when we got there. We found a spot near the rocks and waited for the sun's grand entrance. It started off slow and red but soon the sun lit the sky yellow. It was breathtaking. After seeing the sun shine through the fingers of the hand we turned around and the crowd was gone so Meredith and I were able to enjoy a quiet morning walking around the coast drinking coffee from a tin can. 

We called our taxi driver back around 7am and went back to our hotel to enjoy the comfort of tv and a bed for a few hours before once again getting back into the same taxi and head into the city. We spent the rest of the day at the beach reading and making new friends. 

It was a lovely vacation and an excellent way to spend a birthday. It has me wondering what I'll do for my own birthday in October. I love the idea of seeing the sunrise for mine as well. 

Bless friends. 

Summer Camp

I think I have finally recovered from summer camp. In all honesty it wasn't as stressful as winter camp because it was only two weeks long, the classes were shorter and I knew what to expect. 

My classes were much quieter and I didn't have many discipline problems. I worried I'd have too quiet of classes because my afternoon classes ended being 3 students and 1 student. I also had a first grader come and listen to both classes. I felt bad for him because he had no idea what was going on. I ended up printing off color by number worksheets for him so he could stay busy while I taught. 

This camp's theme was pirates. I enjoyed it but I think the students liked the Harry Potter theme better (I know I liked it better!) We had two field trips and I was excited for the one to Hyundai Mortars Company but it ended up being a let down because the factory they typically show was under construction so our tour was given on the bus while we drove around the company and a worker explained in korean about each building. There wasn't a whole lot of English used that day but I guess they had fun. We also went to the Ulsan Museum again and it was similar to our winter camp experience. 

Here are some pictures from camp. We made candles one day and a korean dessert another day. 

Bless friends

10.

Somehow I've made it to my tenth month anniversary of living in Ulsan, South Korea. The month of August has started out hot and sticky but I fixed my little fan a few weeks ago and I've been able to have cool nights for sleeping.

The school semester ended on July 26th and I can tell that the summer holiday has officially started in Ulsan. The buses are slow and packed full of people and the traffic is bad. The hardest thing to get used to is random businesses being closed for vacation.

I had three days off at the end of July and I wanted to visit this cute little brunch cafe near the park with my friends. We all met up and walked to the cafe only to find a sign in Korean on the window and dates 7/29-8/29. Really? You're on vacation for a whole month and your little cafe will be closed? That was frustrating mainly because we were hungry and hot.

There are a few places near my apartment that are closed for the week too. A cell phone store that is a part of a big chain in Korea is closed for four days and a Korean restaurant will be closed for the same days. It is interesting to think that people close their whole store just because they won't be there.

I'll be very busy the next two weeks with English Summer Camp. For this camp I picked a pirate/survival theme. I hope the kids will enjoy learning how to speak pirate and tying ropes. This camp is only 9 days long and I'm so thankful for that! Winter camp was 15 days and I was so tired that when my vacation finally started all I ended up doing was sleeping.

It's hard to believe that I'll be home in a little over two months. I have some important decisions to make, like should my first meal be Jimmy John's or Chipotle... or both? ha.

Bless friends.