Jindo Parting of the Sea Festival

Beautiful Korean flowers in Mokpo! 

Hey guys! This weekends adventures included something that I've had my eye on since finding out about this program. Korea has festivals for just about every thing you can think of, but who would have thought there would be a sea parting festival? Not me! And on top of that, who would have that that the sea actually parted?! Not me, again! Just call me Moses from now on, because the sea parted and I walked through it! But while Moses had the Red Sea, I actually walked through the Yellow Sea in Jinod, Jeaollnamdo. I'll give you a brief history of the parting and then blow your mind with pictures! 

Don't you dare skip this intriguing story... I know you want to go straight for the pictures, but just wait! 

Legend has it that a long, long time ago, tigers invaded the Jindo island causing all of the people on the island to swim to the nearby island of Modo. Poor Grandma Bbong got left behind and prayed to the God of the Sea that she would be reunited with her family, and just like that, the sea parted and she walked to her family. Ever since that day, the sea has parted twice a year and now it's a tourist attraction for thousands of people from all over the world. So that's how it happened apparently, and thank goodness it did, because it was so cool! 

Grandma Bbong and the tigers that invaded. 

Okay, now that we are all caught up, enjoy these little gems! 

And their off!! Look at all of these people! If you look really hard, you can see them WAY out there.

Proper rain boots are a must, and we went for the bedlam edition. Boomer Sooner! 

I found a starfish!!! Laura was brave enough to pick it up! 

Laura and our new starfish friend! 

Virginia and the Star! 

Emilee and the Star! 

Preparing for the handoff and looking like a kid on Christmas! My only goal for the day was to find a starfish. Mission accomplished! 

OH MY GOSH! 

The aftermath. lol We were all still a little in shock that we actually found it and held it! 

Just hanging out in the middle of the Yellow Sea! 

Me, David and Nat! The coolest English boys I've ever met! (and possible the only ones.. lol but still the coolest for sure!)

When the sea parts, so many sea creatures are in the open, so locals take advantage of this and dig for clams. There were people everyone digging for them with those shovel things. 

We also found this little crab. Laura, aka Miss Brave, was the only one brave enough to hold him. 

Is this real life?!

Look how many people there are, and how far out they are. We didn't make it all the way across, but there were people who did. 

If you were wondering what the bottom of the Yellow Sea looked like, this is what i would show you. 

Check out all the diggers. 

Then there's this little guy just catching octopus like it's a baby puppy or something! What the heck, kid!  

Before the parting happened there were people out there on rocks searching for clams and black seaweed, which this island is known for. 

Some of the parade participants in their super cool hats. lol 

We walked pretty far out into the sea, but we had to be back to the bus by a certain time, so we decided to turn around and head back. It was a really cool experience though and I'm so glad we go to do it. 

As always, I'll leave you with pictures of my cutie second graders. 3rd-6th graders are usually too cool for pictures, so that's why I always only have my second graders in pictures. They're the cutest anyways though, so it's okay. lol 

Quick story about this little guy. Even though I have my days where I get so frustrated, when moments like this happen, I know I'm meant to be a teacher. This little guy speaks English about like I speak Korean (which means he knows nothing at all, if you haven't been keeping up with the blogs). Well last  week he answered four questions right and I'm not sure which one of us was more excited. We high-fived more times than necessary, for sure, but it was just so exciting and fun to hear him use the words I taught him. I loved every second of it, and surprisingly enough, he did too. So sweet! :) Now, I'm moving in on his older sister. She's in my 3/4 class right after him and she speaks just as much English as  him, so my next goal is to get her more comfortable with speaking to me!! 

The little glasses girl is one of my cutest ones, I think! lol Look at her...so precious! And the sweetest little thing you've ever met. 

 Okay, have a good week America! I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. Love you all!

-Kyla

Just Another Manic Monday

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom! 

This weekend was another relaxing one in Gunsan. We stayed in town again because we are traveling next weekend to another festival. Nothing exceptional happened Friday night, but Saturday we got pedicures! Not just any pedicures either, Dr. Fish pedicures. I don't like describing it because it sounds gross, but it's the one where the fish eat the dead skin off your feet. (Yuck!) Well, with the miles and miles I walk daily, I was in need of something, so we gave the Foot Spa a shot. Emilee's co-teacher wrote down what we should say to the foot spa people when we got there so we would get the $35 package with the Dr. Fish. We walked in and were immediately greeted by the staff and an empty spa! Score! Instead of reading the paper, we took the easier route and just handed it over. After a minute of confused looks and a quick game of 'Pass the Paper Until One of Us Figure Out What These Girls Want', one of them figured it out and we were off to the fish...or so we thought! They sat us in these individual little foot bath things with hot water and some kind of pink stuff. 

Emilee and Laura in the presoak. 

Virginia and I, in our spa shorts. haha So cute! 

After a few minutes of that, someone came and took us to the fish part. We put our feet in the pool and the fish immediately attacked. haha We were laughing so much, it was the strangest thing. We also had the staff take pictures of us, then one of the ladies brought her phone to us and asked to take a picture with us. So cute! haha We thought we would sit in that pool for about 40 minutes and be done, since Emilee's co-teacher said it would be $35 for 45 minutes. Well, jokes on us. After we were in the fish pool for a few minutes, everyone came and got us again and led us to these really dark, quiet rooms. Virginia and I were in a room together, and kept giving each other the 'What is going on?!' look. haha it was hilarious. So these two ladies come into the room and close the door and begin a leg and foot massage. It was so awesome, and such a surprise! haha We had no idea that was included! I've never had a massage before, so that was pretty cool that it just accidentally happened. lol After the massage, our time was up and we left, but it was a really fun place and we can't wait to go back!

This is where the Dr. Fish live. 

Little tiny fish! 

For lunch, we tried Retro Kitchen. I'm a sucker for places that look like this in OKC, so finding one here made me really happy! If it were in the City, it would definitely be part of the Keep It Local restaurants. It was so cool and artsy inside. Next time I'll get some pictures! When you see what I had for lunch, you'll see why I was distracted! Take a look at this bad boy. Triple cheese cheeseburger!

Now that I look at the picture, it looks messy and gross, but it wasn't! It was delicious! 

I had the biggest burger! It was so good and I was in heaven! I definitely found of of my new favorite places in Gunsan!

On Sunday, I went to church with my co-teacher again and went and saw the cherry blossom trees at Eunpa Lake. It was SO crowded, but the trees were so pretty. We didn't get out and walk so my pictures were all taken through a car window, so I apologize for the quality, but I'll post them anyways!

Let me preface this next section by saying that I am in no way making fun of Korean people and their English abilities. I actually applaude and appreciate the effort, but being a native English speaker, I found these next things funny.

I've seen a lot of funny things here in Korea. Signs and shirts are among the top ones. It's very popular to have English writing on your shirts. I'm not sure why, but it's the cool thing to do, so there is an abundance of random English word shirts basically anywhere you look. A lot of them are just plain shirts with one big English word across the front. For example, I've seen some sweatshirts that just say "Snickers" across the front. haha So random cool! So the following is a short list of shirts I saw yesterday. Yes, this was just yesterday. haha I'm not very sneaky with my new phone camera because there is no way to take off the sound when I take the picture, so I could only get one picture, but I remembered the words for you. Enjoy!


"Tell the Jurors it was the murder" hahahhaha WHAT! Who makes these shirts?! This shirt was on one of the sweet little high school girls at my church! What the world! Luckily, no one at church can read English except me, my co-teacher and her sister. lol

"Ann Arbor is a Whore" The 'W' being much bolder and bigger than the rest, and actually being an upside M. lol This was on a sweatshirt of a college boy. haha What is that even supposed to mean?!

I was walking down the street and I passed a woman with a big blue sweatshirt on. In big, bold, fluorescent orange letters across the front it said "DUMB". I'm talking chest to belly button and arm to arm. haha Represent, girl!

I'm just kidding. I'm sure she wasn't dumb at all, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to use an Antoine Dodson Gif, ya know? 

And then this bad boy...

"Mexican May Me Rachel...Moustache?" This is real life, people. 

This is the only one I could get a picture of because it was hanging up in the store and I didn't have to try to creepily take a picture of someone walking down the street. I'll have to start carrying around my iPhone again just for it's ability to take pictures silently so I can show you guys these wonderful creations. There are also several shirts that I've seen with the F word just randomly thrown on it. What in the world?!

Okay, enough about tshirts for now! Today, I almost had two students fight and it was the funniest thing. The fighting itself wasn't funny, but the way it happened was yet another cultural difference I've seen. Let me paint the scene for you. It's 3rd/4th grade time to go, and one 5th/6th grade boy is in the hallway waiting. I always make them line up at the door and tell me one thing they learned that day before they can go. After they leave, I always go back to my desk and prepare everything for the next class. Today, as I'm walking away, some of my girls in the hall start yelling 'Fighting!!! Fighting!!', so I got back out there to see one of my 3/4 grade boys and one of my 5/6 grade boys standing about 10 inches apart from each other whispering at each other and the girls watching from a distance. Koreans don't fight much, at all. No drunken bar fights, no kids at school fights, none of it. In fact, apparently there was a fight at school (I know, I just said this doesn't happen, but it's very rare.) a couple of weeks ago before I got there and they called the cops. That's how rare fighting is.. I guess teachers don't know how to handle it or something? I'm not sure. haha Anyways, so I'm watching and trying to figure out who it is that's fighting because there is no noise or touching or anything. After a second of observing, the girls point to the two boys and I go stand in between them. When Koreans fight, they whisper at each other really closely....? haha So strange! Maybe it's the intimidation factor? I have no clue! So I'm standing there and they continue staring at each other and whispering Korean things. Finally I ask the 5/6 boy if he is coming to English today and he says yes, and so I tell him to get in the room. The other one storms off. haha So weird! So I asked my girls what they were saying and they said, "Oh, teacher, very very bad words." haha I also asked one more time, just to confirm, "Those two boys were about to fight each other?" and they all responded yes, so then I said, American boys fight like this, and then screamed and jumped around a lot. Then I said Korean boys fight like this, and stood really still and whispered at them. haha It was so funny! They didn't believe me and just laughed and laughed.

Speaking of cussing in Korean, some of my students tell me that other ones are cussing sometimes, but obviously I don't know because I hardly have the vocabulary to get myself to the mart in a taxi. So today, we're drawing and sometimes my students like to quiz me or say a Korean word and then make me spell it, only to laugh at my awful Korean, so I don't think anything of it. One of my students says, "Teacher, read." So, being a good Korean student I am, when my tiny Korean teachers tell me to read, I read. As soon as I do, all of my kids gasp and start cracking up. Immediately  I knew something bad had happened. So, I innocently asked what I just said, and again, my sweet, angelic girls said, "Teacher, no!! Bad word!!!" So not only did I punch a student last week, I cussed at my whole 5/6 grade class. hahaha If I didn't already have the Teacher of the Year Award in the bad, I sealed the deal today with that little number. No more learning Korean from those boys!

Okay, my last funny for the day, then it's off to dance class at the gym. Last week, two of my friends got haircuts. That doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but haircuts have been the topic of the hour since we signed up for this thing. How are we supposed to get a haircut from a hairstylist who doesn't speak our language? Well, my friends took pictures and a Korean with them to help translate and it actually turned out really well for them. After seeing their cute hair, I was inspired and wanted a haircut too. This is where things get good. I have really been needing one, but my co-teacher is really busy so I don't want to bother her with it, so I decided that I'd be okay with just cutting my bangs. I used to cut my bangs all the time in high school and college, and it always turned out okay. Well, obviously after today's results, I can tell that I'm clearly out of practice and no longer good at cutting my own bangs. haha the good news is, it's just hair and it'll grow back. The bad news is, I look similar to this....

hahaha just kidding, I don't. But my bangs do look extra awful. You know how tiny kids go through that stage where they cut their own hair and the mess it up so bad, there's no fixing it? Yeah, I went through that stage this morning...at 22 years old. hahaha

This also might be my karma for taking this picture yesterday...

I saw this. "Duck Hair Shop" and for some reason the first thing that popped into my head was this:

Picturing that duck when I saw that shop made me laugh so much. Little did I know, about 12 hours later, I would chop up my bangs so bad I can't wear them down for the next two months, but their too short to stay pinned back without half a bottle of megahold hairspray.

Okay, that's all for today. Happy Monday, America. Have a great week!

-Kyla

Korean Quirks Vol. III

Here are just a few more thoughts that have crossed my mind lately. If you missed Vol. I or Vol. II, check that out now! 

1. At the movies in Korea, you pick your seats as you're buying the tickets. It doesn't sound that extraordinary, but it's actually really cool and will hopefully catch on in America one day! It reassures you that you have a seat when you get in the theatre and won't be stuck in those dreaded first few rows that give you a crick in your neck and make you feel car sick. haha My explanation does it no justice, it's a cool system!

Disclaimer: this next little story is sad. I apologize in advance, but it's sad and I just learned about it recently so I wanted to share. I promise to follow it with better stories.
 
2. There is so much pressure for Korean students to do well in school that the suicide rate for middle school and high school students is among the highest in the world. Most students, grades K-12, attend school all day, then go to one or more after school private academies-hagwons-that their parents pay extra for. These academies come in a wide range of subjects, including English, Math, Science, Piano, Violin and PE. There are so many more, but those are the ones my students talk about. I was walking home one night about 9:45 and saw a bunch of kids getting out of a hagwon by my house. 9:45 at night! It was very likely that they had been going nonstop since about 8am, only to get home and study and do homework for their school and hagwons. With all of that being said, high school seniors have it even worse. They have to take college entrance exams and the score they earn determines which university they can get in to. This is literally life and death in some cases. If a student does bad, they think that it's better to commit suicide than to continue their life. The college you get into determines the rest of your life in so many different ways. It's so sad to me, and I feel for them being put under this much stress. This is an excerpt from a blog I found talking about suicide and testing. It's been called suicide season because of the increase in suicides around this time every year. This excerpt talks about the testing day. Please read and see how serious this stuff is:

"Today, roads will be blocked off to eliminate traffic noise around test sites. Airports will even re-arrange flight approach paths, so that airplanes' drone does not distract students in their seats, during the exam. Police wait by subway stations to speedily escort late students from the subway exit to their exam site, to help them arrive on time. High school seniors have been living on four hours of sleep a night for the months leading up to today; some parents even rent their kids a room in a goshiwon -- a cheap hotel -- so that they can study without distraction from their brothers and sisters, or from the TV or internet."

It's so shocking to me that this happens. I've made a new friend recently. He's my age and in nursing school full time. He was working at a Western bar in my town behind his parents back because they only wanted him to study and having a job would take up too much time. His dad found out and grounded him because he was so mad. Isn't that mind blowing? In America, parents are forcing their children to get jobs, and in Korea,  children are going behind their parents backs to get jobs. We need a happy medium, people!

3. So I had a weird walk to school today. It takes me about five minutes to walk to school everyday. Occasionally there are two ajumas (old Korean women who rule the Korean world, basically) sitting outside of a store on the stairs. The thing about ajumas is they don't speak English because they're part of the older generation when it wasn't importnat to know English. They are also usually pretty unfriendly (and mean) and don't really have to follow any rules. If they want to cut you in line at the store or while you're buying a ticket for the bus, you can't do anything about it. If they want your seat on the bus, you better get up. If you're talking too loudly, they'll shush you without hesitation. If your bus window is open and they wish it wasn't, they have no problem acting like you're not even there, reaching over you and closing the window. Well, these two ajumas are not like the ones I just described! They always say hello to me in English, but unfortunately for everyone involved, that's all the English they know. The first day I saw them and they said hello to me in English, I responded back with hello in Korean, and a bow. They were shocked, it was so cute. So since that day, the three of us have become friends. They're usually outside 2 out of the 4 days I go to school, so they always greet me in English and I always respond in Korean, all three of us amused by this, or so I thought. Eventually they started attempting to have conversations with me in Korean. As we've learned previously, that doesn't work for me. Luckily  I understood a few words and figured out they were talking about me being a teacher. I told them I was an English teacher at Naun Elementary. For a few weeks, that simple conversation was enough, but today, they wanted more. Today, they said hello like normal, and then one extended her hand. It's not really a Korean norm to shake hands, so I wasn't really sure what she was going for? I awkwardly extended my arm, praying she was looking for a handshake. It was exactly what she wanted! But for good measures, I still threw in a little bow. Then she pulled me real close and made me take off my sunglasses to look at my eyes. Oh boy...that really got them talking. I assume they were talking about my eyes being blue, but I have no clue what they were saying to me. Just then, one of my students and her mom drove by, yelling Kyla Teacher out the window, giving me a perfect escape route. The conversation obviously ended with them asking me about school and being a teacher.. haha I said, yes, and ran off to school. haha So odd! Sweet ladies though! I can't wait to see what we 'talk' about next week.

4. My classroom is on the second floor of the school, so I made my way up stairs and flipped on the lights (which are located outside the classroom and behind this really difficult door...doesn't make sense!) and I notice my classroom door is already open. Not thinking much of the door being open, I start to go in. I hear something down the hallway, so I'm not looking straight ahead when I walk in. Just then, one of my students jumps out and scares the crap out of me! Unfortunately for him, my reflexes told me to punch him. Yes, you read that right. I punched that little booger right in the chest. hahahaha It was probably one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me. We were both laughing so hard we were almost in tears. He just kept running around the room holding his chest saying, "OHHHHHHH! TEACHER!!!!" I apologized a hundred times and told him he shouldn't scare people like that! He then drew a picture on the board for me and went to recess. What did I learn from this situation? That I shouldn't punch my students I have awesome reflexes and if I ever get attacked, I can hold my own.  He's actually one that I wouldn't even punch if I could, so maybe my bad students will start coming to class to scare me. hahah jk...kind of.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Today marks 18 years after the Bombing downtown. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Oklahoma today, as well as those involved in the Texas explosion and all of the things going on in Boston. This is out of control and I'm praying for peace! I love you all! Stay safe and let your loved ones know you love them. It's a crazy world out there.

-Kyla

Life Lately..

I'm really slacking on the blogging lately but when you read what all I'm about to post about, you'll understand why. I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary or extra fun lately, so I don't have any awesome stories. But since I like to blog, I'm going to try to find some things to talk about.

Last Friday I finally had queso after two and a half long months without it. (Yes, this is a story about queso. hahaha I told you my life wasn't very fun the last few days.) If you know me at all, you know queso is one of my favorite things possibly ever. Well my sweet, sweet grandma sent me some Velveta and Rotel and me and some of the girls had a wine and queso party on Friday night. It was really fun...and delicious! Unfortunately, it was gone within seconds minutes. But some of the other girls made sure to request more Velveta and Rotel in their next care packages, so we're counting down the days until that happens again.
Moving on to something slightly more entertaining, prepare yourself for the gym saga....

I joined a gym on Thursday with Laura and my new friend Lindsey. Thursday went well, a slow workout to get me warmed back up. Friday, on the other hand, was killer and I thought I was going to die. haha It was good though. I needed that, but this is where things got tricky. It takes me about 25 minutes to walk from the gym back home, so as I'm walking back up to my front door of my apartment I start to dig for my card that lets me into my building. I can only get into my building with this card, or on the very slim chance that someone is leaving at the same time I'm entering (With that being said, I'm almost convinced I'm the only person that lives in this whole building because I never see anyone else. Just me and the screaming, crying baby next door...who I'm convinced doesn't have parents because of the amount of screaming and crying he does daily. Poor guy.) Anyways, so I'm rushing back from the gym to shower and get ready for school, when suddenly I realize....I don't have my card. Right then I remembered it was sitting on my desk right next to my computer. I grabbed it before I left, walked to my computer to check my Facebook, and then walked out the door without the stupid card!!! AH! What do I do now, you ask? Well, crying was about the only thing I could think about doing, but somehow I managed not to. I just kept thinking about how sweaty and nasty I was in my sweats and Uggs, all my school stuff was inside my house, and I had no way of getting in and fixing any of those things. In Korea, appearance is a HUGE deal, so rolling up to school looking (and feeling) like I just ran to school all the way from America would not have been okay. So I take a second to collect myself and then ding! a lightbulb came on and I messaged my co-teacher asking her what to do. She said she would call my Mentor Teacher and ask her for the landlords phone number. This is where things get good...

Okay, let me start this part of the story by saying I'm about 99.9% sure my landlord is a tiny Korean Angel sent from Heaven to take care of me while I'm here. I don't know where he lives, don't have his phone number, and never, ever see him. But when I need him, he appears out of no where, just like a little angel. So here I am, panicking about this whole situation, when I turn around and POOF! there he is. My personal Korean Angel is standing there. I almost burst in to tears.

Back story on the landlord/angel. He is pretty old and speaks exactly zero English. When my internet wasn't working one time, I didn't know how to get ahold of him so I could get it fixed. Something made me think it was a good idea to go out into the hallway of my apartment and look for my landlord, whom I hadn't seen since day one of moving in. Well what do you know,  that little guy is standing in the hallway on the 2nd floor. Just standing there, doing absolutely nothing. Again, like God told him I needed help and so he just waited for me to come find him. So great!

So when I see him this time I'm ecstatic! I start my game of charades to tell him I have no card to get in. Luckily, I'm the only white girl for miles, so it's not like he's questioning who I am. Instead, he does a quick little laugh and points at a piece of paper really far away and says, "Pone." (That's how Koreans say "Phone"...they don't get the 'f' sound very well.) Anyways, so he tells me that's his phone number and I'm assuming he's suggesting I should have called him. Well, we don't speak the same language, at all, so I'm not sure how that would have went, but at least I know where to find his phone number now. haha So he runs and gets a card and lets me in. As soon as I get into the building, I get a message back from my co-teacher saying sorry my MT didn't answer the phone, so she will try to call back later. So that means that my landlord had never gotten a call saying I was locked out, he just randomly showed up exactly when I needed him to. Perfect timing, yet again!

Okay, back to the gym. I'm really glad I joined. It's an all women's gym so that's pretty cool and there are fitness classes, so I'm excited about that. How excited am I? Well, I went to the gym twice today, which is more times than I've been in the last four years combined, so that's saying something. haha I am also so sore I can barely move, which you'd probably imagine would be true after sitting out for so long. I'm back in the game though, and have a goal of eventually doing a 5K, even though I hate running, and still don't really run at the gym. We'll see how that one goes.

I received my first Korean bill today. Not sure what it's for, since it's all in Korean, but it's only $8.24, so I don't even care what it's for! haha I've heard bills are pretty cheap here, so I was very happy to see an $8 one in my mailbox this morning. Now, if I could only figure out how to pay it. lol I'm sure that'll be a topic for another blog post.

In American news, I missed my sister's first prom, so I was pretty upset about that, but she looked beautiful..see for yourself!

So pretty! I'm so sad I couldn't be there! 

This is the cutest picture I've ever seen!! 

It's also Cameron's birthday today, so Happy Birthday Cameron! We'll have a combined birthday party celebration in August when I get back!!!

Thanks for reading. I promise to do something fun this weekend and get some good stories. haha

-Kyla

Can't Rain on Our Parade

I apologize for the delay on posts recently. I've done some fun things since I last updated, so I'll tell you all about those adventures.

Last time I told you about my friend Tanner from America, who now lives and works in Hong Kong, so we'll go back to him for a minute.  We actually bartended together at TGI Friday's for almost a year before he grew up and got a big boy job in Hong Kong. I found out I would be coming to South Korea before he left though, so we often talked about meeting up when we were on the same side of the world. What a crazy idea right? Two friends working together in Oklahoma City, talking about hanging out together 6,000 miles around the world. Luckily, he had some vacation time and asked if he could come to Korea and visit for a few days!! I can't believe it worked out so perfectly. It was so much fun having him here. He's probably the bravest person I know. He moved to Hong Kong by himself, not knowing anyone. He's the only American at his job. He has been to Singapore and Malaysia by himself for vacation, and now Korea...what a brave person. It's one thing to understand that you're in a new place and know that it would be so awesome to explore and learn about it all, but it's another thing to actually venture out on your own to all these places. He has successfully done it a few times so I knew he could handle Korea. As I said before, we all met in Seoul that weekend, but when we left Seoul to come back to Gunsan for work, he stayed for a couple more days. I don't teach on Wednesdays, so he came down to my province and we went exploring all day! We took a ferry to Seonyu Island, which is about an hour away from Gunsan. Once we got there, we rented bikes and rode for about 3 hours. I thought there would be more hiking opportunities, but it was still a really beautiful place and I'm so glad we went. I can't wait to go back this summer and lay out on the beach! We came back to Gunsan and met everyone for dinner and went to our new Wednesday night hangout spot. It was such a fun day! The next day, Tanner went back to Seoul for some more exploring before heading back to Hong Kong. It was fun to be able to hear comparisons between here and Hong Kong. I'm hoping I can work my vacation days out and make my way over to his side of Asia before I leave.

Our Ferry! 

Tanner exploring an old abandoned boat.

My photography skills and camera don't do this place justice. It was beautiful. 

Water and mountains as far as the eye can see. 

The water was SO cold!!

Fast forward to Saturday. We knew it was going to be rainy, but we had our hearts set on the Nonsan Strawberry Festival. Nonsan is in the province right above us, about an hour and a half away by bus. We found it with ease, so with umbrellas in hand, we headed straight to the sign-up booth for strawberry picking! Fruit is very expensive here in Korea, so when we heard that we could go to a strawberry farm and pick and eat as many strawberries as we wanted, plus fill up a tiny box to take home with us, all for 10,000W (about $10), we knew we had to get in on it! It was a pretty cool experience and there were a lot of foreigners on our bus, so that was nice to hear English! haha We stuffed ourselves full of strawberries, then stuffed our boxes full of strawberries and got back on the bus to the festival. Once we were there, we walked around and checked out all the booths. They were mainly food (which we love..haha), but there was also a face painting booth and a few that were selling nick-knacks.  It would have been more enjoyable if it wasn't raining the whole time, but it was still really cool. I'm glad we got to go check it out. Also, if you've been following along in the previous posts, I went 4 for 4 on traveling on the weekends and seeing monkeys! hahaha They had an area set up with all sorts of animals in cages. It was actually really sad because the cages were tiny, but I saw another monkey...they must really love monkeys here. I can't even imagine what it'll be like when I actually go to a zoo. haha

My tiny box of strawberries! 

Fair food! Sausage with corn in it...on a stick. omg.

CORN!

Rain, rain, go away...

...another monkey. 

Sunday I went to church again with my co-teacher. I know I've said it 1000 times, but I truly believe Koreans are the nicest people in the world. The only ones that might be nicer are Koreans that go to church. lol These people are so sweet to me, it's unreal. I go to a Korean service, so obviously I don't understand a word that's being said, but it makes it all worth it when they go out of their way to find me an English/Korean Bible, or tell me how beautiful I am or how I have really nice skin (I'm not sure on that one...maybe I did my makeup well that day? haha Either way, I went with it.). They are just so sweet and welcoming to me. It's a great feeling. My co-teacher also has a sister about my age, who speaks English really well, so it was fun getting to talk to her all afternoon. Their mother doesn't speak much English at all, but she is still so sweet to me and made sure I was okay the whole day. If you're ever going somewhere for an extended period of time, I highly suggest getting involved in a church . It's a great way to be around people who care about you and want you to feel comfortable, which is nice to have when you're thousands of miles away from the other ones who do.

Now it's Tuesday and I'm not sure what our weekend plans are yet, but I'm sure there is a ton of fun to be had somewhere in Korea. Possibly a Cherry Blossom Festival or something Springy like that? Only time will tell. Have a wonderful week, America. See you all soon!

PS. I enroll for the Fall semester this week. While I was making my schedule, it was finally clear to me how close I am to graduation. I only have 18 hours left, plus my student teaching semester. It'll have to be broken down into 3 semesters, which sucks, but because of the types of classes they are I am not allowed to take all 18 hours at once. So I'll have two 9 hour semesters, then student teaching! Nine hours will be a breeze though, and will allow me to work a lot more so I can save up some money and hopefully not have to work very much during my student teaching semester (which is totally Fall 2014!!!) Sounds really far, but when I look at the very few classes I have left, it makes me so happy I could cry!  

I'll leave you with some cute pictures of my kids!

Some of my 5/6 grade girls! 

They took me to the candy store and to eat Ramen. So sweet! 

I also blew their minds by telling them I microwave my ramen in America...and eat it with a fork.

They just put really hot water on theirs and let it sit for 3 mins. Maybe that's the real rules, I'm not sure? But that's how we do it here.

crazy 2 grade!

Some of the cutest girls in Asia! 

Some of my 2 graders...so cute! 

I can't even imagine how obnoxious I'm going to be one day when I have kids of my own. I apologize in advance. You will probably want to delete me from every social media site capable of uploading pictures. hahaha Anyway, I think my kids are the cutest, so I'm going to keep posting pictures for you guys to look at. I also have the cutest video to upload, but it won't work on here, so I'll try Facebook!! Keep an eye out for that! 

-Kyla