Lantern Festival

April 25th marked the beginning of the Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul. The lantern festival takes place to celebrate Buddha's Birthday (Seoul: Birthday in 2009 takes place May 2nd). The festival lasts for a week and you can find the lanterns strung throughout various parks in Seoul.

Lauren and I are not buddhist, however this has special meaning for the both of us.

Freshman year of college at ASU was quite an adventure for Lauren and I. I was so head over heals in love with my future wife I actually went to classes I was not enrolled in to sit and listen to lectures I would not be tested on. A freshman in college, the world at your fingertips, and you are in a class that will have zero impact on your future. Love is the only word that can explain such bizarre action from a 19 year old, "I know everything there is to know", novice college student.

The class I attended voluntarily was World Religions. The instructor was a small (no taller than 5'1) white-haired, vibrant professor. She embraced her lectures like a convicted pastor of a Southern Baptist Church.

The middle of the semester brought Buddhism to the table. Like any typical Wednesday afternoon, you could find me in Neeb Hall (ASU alum you know what I'm talking about), oogling over my wife-to-be while trying to block out the lecture. This particular day though I was drawn to her words. As Lauren took notes and I listened attentively, the professor was building up to an enormous climax. She had been going on and on about Buddha and the world for some time now, when she slowly peered across the full 300 seat auditorium and proclaimed for everyone to know "SO, the thing is...Everybody in here, is... BUDDHA!". At that point I turned to my beautiful girlfriend. With loving eyes, I exclaimed "OH! Hello Buddha!"

From this moment we have lovingly used the pet name - Buddha. Our closest friends know this to be true. It is a name we use more often than our given names.

So, in honor of this loving nickname, we attended the opening of the Lotus Lantern Festival (Buddha's Birthday).

Lots of Spots

So Jupiter class is working on their Short O sounds this month. Part of their homework was to memorize one of the Short O books that we are reading in class. This was assigned by the principal (not myself seeing as I don't think it's necessary that children of five memorize books) but needless to say, it was pretty dang adorable. They each had to "present" their book to the class on Friday. I couldn't be happier with how they did. I graded on accuracy, pronunciation, eye contact, and voice expression - each child did a fantastic job! After everyone presented, I decided to capture some of the performances on video. This is one of our favorite kids reciting Lots of Spots. He is much more relaxed, knowing he is not being graded on this performance, so his pronunciation is a little off which makes it super cute. (I've included the actual words since he is a little hard to understand to the untrained ear)

Lots of Spots

Moppy has a spot.
Floppy has a few spots.
Dottie has lots of spots.
Moppy and Floppy want more spots.
Dottie dips a mop in paint.
Dottie drops spots on top of Moppy.
Plop, plop, plop.
Dottie drops spots on top of Floppy .
Plop, plop, plop.
Now Moppy and Floppy have lots of spots!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dilVofz6qI

PS...check out how Jun congratulates his friend for a job well done at the very end...too cute!

63 Building's Aquarium

A few weekends ago Lauren and I ventured over to the 63 building. This is the tallest building in Seoul, you'll never guess how many floors...

Here are a few pictures from the aquarium on the main floor of the 63 building:




and a short video

Technomart

One thing Lauren and I knew we couldn't live without while we were in Korea is coffee. We neatly packed our french press, a pound of coffee, and purchased a teapot first thing when we arrived. We would be able to have fresh coffee our first morning. Fail, we purchased whole bean coffee.

No problem, we can go a few days without coffee, and if we are really needing it, we'll just go to one of the thousands of coffee shops on any corner (there really are a lot). After a few days, we can pick up a grinder. Grocery store? no. Small electronics shop? no. Starbucks? no. Somewhere in Coex mall? no. E-mart (the target [cough*walmart*cough])? no. Not a single place carried a coffee grinder. Ridiculous.

Then we heard of technomart. This place is the craziest electronics store I have ever been to. Imagine Bestbuy. Then imagine eight Bestbuys stacked on top of each other. Enormous. We had to be able to find one here, right?

No such luck. After speaking in broken English/Korean with about 45 different independent vendors, we were quite frustrated. We could go no longer without making our own coffee.

Thankfully for a cunning salesman, he was able to convince us that a "magic bullet" blender would grind coffee. Indeed it can, thankfully.

Here are a few pictures of the inside:

How Long Do You Wait For Coffee?

I love coffee shops. They are fantastic. Nice little settings, usually with very delightful coffee. One thing I dislike, is having to wait the one or two minutes for the coffee. I need instant gratification.

Well we learned a new level of patience in terms of waiting for coffee. After walking around Olympic Park on Saturday afternoon, we thought iced coffee might be the greatest possible idea ever. Good news for us, The Coffee Bean was right there in the park ready to serve us.

"One icee banilla latte, one icee banilla creamay". Apparently the iced vanilla latte and iced vanilla cream drinks were invented in the English language and adopted into Korean language (making ordering much easier). The barista took the order great, handed us our receipt and said "25 minutes".

We took the receipt, and our beeper (you know the restaurant beeper they give you when your table is ready for you to be seated) and went outside to wait. Twenty-five minutes is quite long time to wait for coffee. Thankfully a few things kept us entertained.

This lady's outfit:

The phrase at the bottom of the receipt:

After 25 minutes, sure enough the buzzer went off and we were on our way to observe the fountain and enjoy the rest of our Saturday afternoon.

Earthlings

A Spot of Tea

I enjoyed a cup of tea back when we were living in the United States. But for the six weeks we have been here, Lauren and I have enjoyed tea almost daily. Tea-bags, however, are rather hard to find. Have you ever had the tea jelly? Let me tell you, it is quite tasty.



Just dump some jelly in, pour in the hot water, stir, and success.

A Walk in the Park

We think Spring may have finally arrived in Korea! Chris and I were able to spend a very relaxing Sunday afternoon at Olympic Park this past weekend. Apparently, this was the plan for thousands of other Seoul residents because the park was packed. People watching has become one of our favorite activites since we've been here and Olympic Park was the prime spot to get our watch on. Although we saw many very interesting people, our favorite was a very tortured Cocker Spaniel. I can honestly say that every dog I have seen in Korea to date has been wearing clothes. This poor dog not only wore a hoodie, but also a diaper, and elfin shoes. It was obvious the poor thing hated his life. This is the best picture we got.


After walking several different paths, we decided to take our watching to a bench and relax our feet. We bought some delicious corn dogs and found the perfect bench to soak up some much needed sun. Within ten minutes of sitting down, we got a lovely surprise. Out of all of the millions of people in Seoul we never expected to see anyone we knew at the park, and who decided to stop literally right in front of our bench? Sophia, from Jupiter class! I couldn't believe my eyes! I jabbed Chris in the side and told him it was Sophia and of course he said "oh no it's not, it's just someone who looks like Sophia". Now I was pretty positive that it was Sophia because I have labeled her as "my favorite student". She is the cutest little kindy who has such a boisterous personality; the last time I had seen her she had her arms wrapped around me and was giving my belly a million kisses saying "I love you, I love you". I said her name and nothing happened, I said it again and still nothing. Finally, I got her attention (they were only ten feet away) and she looked up, right at me, direct eye-contact. There was nothing, her face didn't change at all. She just stared at me expressionless. So of course, I was completely embarrased and realized that Chris was once again right. Then her mother in broken English said that her name is Sophia, ah ha! I was right! But still no reaction from Sophia. Chris and I quickly got up and introduced ourselves to her parents as Mr. and Mrs. Haws from BIS. They obviously knew who were and seemed so happy to meet us. We got down to Sophia's level and tried everything we could to get her to say something to us. Nothing. Fail. She didn't make a peep (even in Korean). We had a short conversation with Mom and Dad through 8-year-old sister, Julia (she spoke beautiful English) and then parted our ways. Chris and I were so bummed Sophia didn't talk to us, we were also embarrased and didn't want her parents to think they were wasting their money on English school when she doesn't even speak any. A few minutes later Sophia and Julia came running up to our bench - redemption! I knew Sophia was obviously running back to tell me how much she loved me. Wrong again, they each gave us a bottle of grape juice, which was incredibly sweet, but still no words from Sophia. Her parents came back and asked for our picture and of course we got one too. Still no words from Sophia, we barely got a smile from her. Fortunately, we did get a wave goodbye.


I went straight into Jupiter on Monday morning to talk to that girl. As soon as I walked in the door, Sophia, along with all of the other children, ran up to me. With her arms wrapped around me, Sophia began to kiss my belly like usual. She was so excited to see me that she practically knocked Nicky, the smallest of the bunch, over while he was attempting to reach up and kiss my lips (what's up with all the kissing in this country?). Well, Sophia was definitely not quiet this time. She quickly rambeled off something in Korean to the other children. They all started laughing and jumping and saying "Teacher, you see Sophia at park!". Sophia then said, "I'm so happy" - aw, she speaks! I guess this teaches me to not be so shocked when I see a child outside the classroom and they don't speak to me. The idea of us teachers being anywhere other than at their school is just too much for their precious, little brains.

DMZ

Last weekend (Sunday, March 29th) Lauren and I went on an adventure with our friend, Molly. We went to the DMZ. For those of you who don't know, Korea is the only country in the world that is currently split right now. The border of North Korea and South Korea is designated the DMZ. It is a strip of land at approximately the 38th parallel. It was divided there at the end of WWII to distinguish between the US-occupied and Soviet-occupied Koreas.

Following the Korean war, this area was given the DMZ distinction, demilitarized. We took a bus tour with about 40 other foreigners up to the entrance of the DMZ. Once arriving at the entrance the guide told us it was forbidden to take pictures of the entrance into the DMZ (there were many military personnel around so I'm guessing that was the reason).

Once we got into the DMZ, our first stop was Freedom Bridge.


Freedom bridge is the bridge where POWs and families that were split between North Korea and South Korea were reunited. Standing on this bridge where so much reunification and love occurred was very powerful.




At this bridge they also had some small gift stands. This a frame that shows the currency used in North Korea:


Hopefully you can enlarge this picture to read the writings that explain what Freedom Bridge is all about:


There were a couple other attractions at this site. The Stones of Peace Wall is a piece of artwork that displays stones from 86 battlefields in 64 different countries. This was really cool to look at.



Also at this site...


The Peace Bell was another attraction at this site:



After leaving the Freedom Bridge area, we bussed over to our lunch site. It was a very traditional restaurant with the removal of shoes and sitting on the floor. Unfortunately the food we experienced here was not as grand as other times. We just weren't feeling these side dishes, can you tell?

(The preparation of those little fish does NOT include the removal of eyeballs...those suckers get stuck in your teeth seamlessly.)


After lunch waiting to go to our next stop:

Following our floss-inducing meal, we were off to the 3rd infiltration tunnel. Infiltration tunnels were tunnels dug by the North Koreans to invade South Korea (Seoul specifically) after the DMZ area had been set up. Four tunnels have been discovered by South Korean military. They suspect there are at least twenty tunnels. We went to the site of the 3rd tunnel found. They had a museum where we watched a short documentary on the Korean war then made our way down the long ramp to the actual tunnel. Here are a few photographs of the area, unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside the tunnel itself :(






The tunnel itself was amazing. The 350 meter ramp to the actual tunnel was pretty brutal walking down (but more-so back up). Once down into the actual tunnel, I had to duck through most of it (Lauren could walk standing up through most of it). It was very eery down there. That tunnel could put 30,000 armed troops into South Korea in one hour.

After leaving the tunnel, we made our way (via bus) to the next stop at the South Korean observatory that allowed you to see, from a distance, North Korea.

The city in North Korea we were looking at was Pyeongyang. Pyeongyang, unfortunately, is a propaganda city built for the onlookers from South Korea. The city was built to give the impression that North Korea was an abundantly prosperous country. It was from quite a distance, so it was tough to get photographs. Beyond that, if you wanted to take photographs, you had to stand behind a certain yellow line (see the video for what I am talking about)

Here are some photographs of North Korea (it is crazy just writing that):



In this next photo you can see a tall line (above the lady's head). This is the flagpole with the North Korean flag. South Korea had erected a flag right next to the boarder that flowed nicely in the wind. Upon seeing this flag, North intended to "one-up" South Korea by putting an ENORMOUS flag on a GIANT flag pole right across from the South Korean one. Unfortunately the flag is too large to wave in the wind without gale force gusts. Haha, rather humorous if you ask me


The final stop of our trip was to the Dorasan Train Station. This station is not a fully functioning station right now. It is built for the future international train travel in from South Korea. As of right now, North Korea allows one train bringing raw materials from the Dorasan Station to Pyeongyang once a week. The train is then loaded with the goods to be brought back into South Korea to be sold. The dream is that someday this station will be the gateway to North Korea, Asia, and Europe via train.


And that concludes our trip to the DMZ.

Walk Home

Fortunately, the distance between BIS, our school, and our home is only a 10 minute walk. The streets of our neighborhood get pretty crowded during rush hour. We've been told that Gangnam-Gu (our district) has the widest streets in all of Seoul. We find that hard to believe.

Here is what it looks like during a short stretch of our walk home.