Rain...Rain...and More Rain

Well it's at least day 5 of rainy days...I'm sick of it. It's the monsoon season here in Korea and ever since about 2 weeks ago it's been rainy. We, however, did have 2 days of sunny, hot, and humid weather last week, but then it got rainy again. It's not fun at all. I hate it being rainy all the time. It's so depressing.
So what do you do on all these rainy days? Absolutely nothing. There's nothing to do. It's not like it's nice weather to go outside. The thing that really gets me is that there's nothing on tv these days either. I can't wait until it stops and there's sun again.

First Tropical Storm of the Summer

As some of you know, Korea had a tropical storm that passed through here yesterday. There had been talk of a typhoon earlier in the week coming toward Japan, but it turned toward Korea and became a tropical storm.
I woke up early Monday morning to the sound of pouring rain. I went back to sleep, seeing as though I had a couple of hours before I had to get up and get ready for the day. When I woke up, the weather was the same, sometimes the rain came harder than others, but I had no problem with that because I was in my house. I got ready for the day. Around lunch time the wind started to pick up, but it wasn't anything too bad, as I was still in my house. As time got closer to when I was to go to work, I got a phone call saying that work was closed for the day because of the weather. I thought this was nice because then I didn't have to go out of the house, as the weather was still pretty bad, lots of rain and wind.
So I stayed in the house all day with nothing to do. It was nice to have the day off, but I had absolutely nothing to do and no one to talk to. There was also nothing on TV. The wind calmed down and the rain stopped around mid-afternoon. It was nice to have things quiet again, as the rain was really noisy. I ventured outside for a breif time. The wind was a little strong, but nothing that I haven't felt before on a windy day here. There was a crazy amount of humidity and the air was surprisingly warm.
That was the tropical storm. It really wasn't of any worry to me. In my first 6 months of being in Korea the first time I experienced part of a typhoon and that was crazier than this tropical storm. So for all of those who were worried about me, everything is good, no worries. :)

A Week With Char

So after a long weekend in Seoul, Char came home with me to Jinju. We spent the first 3 days going out for lunch/dinner, seeing Jinju, and going to my classes. Monday morning we pretty much just rested because of the crazy weekend. We went out for lunch, Char had sushi and I had a chicken cutlet. Monday night I had invited a bunch of my Korean friends to join us for dinner after I finished work. We went to have some Korean food. It was a dish of bones (with meat on them), noodles, vegetables, and rice cakes in a soupy sauce. It was good, but a little too spicy for me.
On the left is the dinner that we ate. It looks worse than it actually tastes.
After dinner we went out for coffee/dessert at a coffee house. It was nice to just relax and enjoy everyone's company. Char and I shared an ice/milk/fruit/ice cream dessert. It was nice, but they put the red beans in it and weren't supposed to.
On the right is the group of us enjoying our dessert.
On Tuesday morning I took Char to the Jinju Castle with Soa, my co-worker. We walked around the Castle and went to the museum.
Here is Char and I at the Castle with a cannon.
After the Castle we went out for lunch together. We at galbi and sum-gulp-sol. It was very nice.
Wednesday we went downtown Jinju to look around and ate soup for lunch. It's called beef bone soup. It has noodles, rice, beef, and spring onions. It's so nice.
Here is Char with her soup.
Classes for Char and I were a question answer session for the most part. The week before Char came I had the students think up some questions to ask Char. I didn't tell them anything about her, so they had to make up all the questions to find out about her. So when Char came into class I had all the questions typed up and they were to choose 4-5 questions that they wanted to ask her. After the students asked Char questions, it was time for Char to ask them 2-3 questions. I think it was a really good experience for the students.
On Thursday and Friday Char and I went to Busan, as I had those two days off of work. We stayed at a hotel for the night so we didn't have to travel back and forth to Busan. Thursday after arriving at the hotel, we went out for lunch. We were going to go to TGI Friday's, but for some reason we were ignored in the waiting list, so we went to Bennighan's instead. It was nice. After that we went to the beach. It was the perfect beach day. Not a lot of people, sun shinning, and cool water. The sea was actually a little cold at first, but once you were in it was good.
On the left is me.
On the right is Char testing the water...It's just a little cold!
As I was walking in the water I saw 3 jellyfish. One almost touched me, but I don't think I would have been stung by them because they were just little. After a little fun in the water, we sun bathed for a while. It was nice to get out in the sun. It was my first time really being out in the sun.
After sun bathing, we went back to the hotel to wash off the salt water and change. Then we went to the aquarium. It was nice.
On the left is Char and a huge fish that was just sitting there.
On the right is me and a shark.
After the aquarium we went back to the hotel room to rest for a while after getting Starbucks. After resting we went out shopping for a while. It was nice to just look around. I bought a pair of running shoes for really cheap.
after returning to the hotel, we went to use the free internet.
The next day we checked out of the hotel and went for lunch at TGI Friday's. Then took the subway to the shopping area of Busan. We put our stuff in a locker and went shopping and looking around. It was nice. I bought a watch, 2 pairs of sandels, and a shirt. After a couple of hours it was time to leave. We took the subway to the bus station and were on our way home to Jinju. It was nice to be back home again.
Saturday we were up early to take the bus to Seoul. We missed the 9:00 bus by like 2 minutes and had to wait for the 9:20 bus. Once in Seoul we had a hard time finding the airport limo and by the time we found it, it was time for Char to get going. What a rushed day. I elft for Jinju right after Char left for the airport.
All in all, it was nice to have someone around for the week. I hope that Char had as good of a time as I did.

Seoul Weekend

Wow, it's been a really long time since I updated this...Sorry for all of you who look forward to reading about my many adventures.
Well about 2 weeks ago I made a trip to Seoul to meet up with Amanda and Char, 2 of my college graduates. Amanda teaches English in Pyougteak in Korea and Char teaches English in Taiwan. Char came over to Korea for a nice little break and visit time. So I took the bus up to Seoul with Attack. Then convinced him that he should stay because he was going off to the army in a couple of days.
Before meeting up with Char and Amanda I met up with Attack's sister and we took the subway to Insa-dong. This is a Korean cultural shopping area. It was very nice and this is where we had lunch. After lunch we looked around for a littl while. There was a performance going on of a traditional wedding so we stopped to watch and so I could take a couple of pictures. On the left is a picture of the groom and on the right is a picture of the bride.
At this time Attack's sister left to meet some of her friends and we went to the river to walk a little. When we got to the river we saw all kinds of children playing in the water trying to get a little cooler, as it was a pretty hot day.
After walking along the river a little it was time to go and meet Amanda and Char. So Attack and I took the subway to the place where we were going to meet. After meeting Char and Amanda we went in search for the hotel that Amanda had found that we would stay at. We got Attack to ask some people where the hotel was and they pointed us in the direction of what they thought was the hotel. After walking for about 10 minutes, we figured that someone was wrong and that we needed to call the hotel to find out exactly where it was.
This picture is our 'Where's the hotel?' picture of me and Char.
So after calling the hotel, we found out that we were directed in the wrong direction and needed to go back to where we started. So when we finally got to the hotel we found out that there was no room.
At this time we were hot and tired. We all had stuff with us and poor Char had everything with her for the week. She had taken the train and subway with her bag. Mind you the subway has many numberous stairs to go up and down. So we checked my travel book to find another hotel that would be simular to the hotel we wanted.
We found one in a different area and after calling to find out if there was room, set off on the subway again.
We got to the hotel, checked in for a really good price $30 each, and put our stuff in the room. After getting cleaned up a little we set out to find a place to tour around. We decided to go and check out a palace that was located close to the City Hall. So we set off again on the subway to go check out the palace. We arrived to find that they were just closing the palace. Big disappointment. So we decided to walk around, take some pictures, and find a Starbucks. At this point it was about dinner time also. Attack had called a friend, who was going to meet us in the area to go for dinner. We decided on Outback Steakhouse for our dinner. While we waited we took some fun pictures.
The picture on the left is of City Hall.
The picture on the right is of Char, Amanda and Attack in a phone booth.
Finally it was time to meet Attack's friend. We met and headed to the Outback. It was nice to eat at a nice Western restaurant agian.
The picture on the left shows all of us enjoying our food at Outback. We had a great waitress who spoke English really well. She even gave us free dessert of frozen yogurt with fruit. It was so delicious!
After eating it was time to meet another one of Attack's friends. We met him and headed off to Insa-Dong agian, where we would meet Attack's sister. We took the subway again. In Insa-Dong we did a little shopping in a store. It was nice. From there we decided to go to Seoul Tower, which wasn't too far away. We took a taxi to the Seoul Tower. We then took a cable car up to the Tower. It was a nice ride up, but very crowded. We wanted to go up the Tower, but found out that it was too late to get tickets to go up. So we just took pictures around the bottom of the Tower.
Here on the right is Amanda at the bottom of Seoul Tower.
On the left is Attack's sister singing an opera song for us. She is studying opera at university. She sings amazingly!
On the right is a picture of the group of us at the Seoul Tower.
By he time we took pictures and got into the line up to take the cable car down, it was around 12am. We headed off to our hotel by taxi and the Koreans went to a jjimjabong (a sort of spa/sleeping place). We would meet them in the morning to go to church. By the time we got to the hotel and ready for bed it was about 2am.
The next morning we headed off on the subway to where we would go to an English service. We were to meet the boys at the subway station there.
Here are Char and Amanda looking for the boys to arrive.
However, the boys got up a little late and so they were late meeting us, which made us too late for the service we wanted to go to. We decided on going to the biggest church in the world, the Yoido Full Gospel Church. We took the subway and then a taxi to get to the church. For some reason I didn't expect to see so many people, but there had to be thousands of people in the entrance to go in. It was crazy. We were directed to the place where we could listen to the service in English through headphones.
Here is a picture showing people filing in for the service. The church was massive!
It was nice to be able to listen to a translation of a service without having to worry about inturruping the people around me.
After the service, the boys left for Jinju and us girls went out for lunch. After lunch we went for a boat ride. It was nice to just relax and take a rest while seeing Seoul from the river.
Me on the boat ride.
After the boat ride we found a subway station and took the subway to the bus station. We said our goodbyes to Amanda and parted ways. It was a very busy weekend, but fun also.