One year in Korea

It has officially been one year since I came to South Korea and started teaching. When I first started, I was incredibly homesick and I felt like I was missing out on such a great time with my friends. I even started to think I probably wouldn't be able to make it a full year here. Now a year has flown by and I've met such a great number of people and I couldn't help but feel so greatful to them for making this year great.

I've traveled around South Korea, from the nothern part where the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang. I've seen the parting of the seas near Jindo and some gorgeous cherry blossoms in Gyeongue. I've traveled outside of Korea to Singapore, meeting my god mother's brother, Robert, and his wife, Beulah. I got to see some wonderful places there and I do hope to make it back before I head back to the states. I've been to Japan and was able to pet deer! I've hiked the highest mountain in Korea and will be hiking the 3rd highest this October and then in the spring the second.

I'm pushing myself to go farther than I have before and trying to discover where my passion lies. I love teaching these kids most days, and I enjoy traveling, once the trip has been underway.

Bryan, Brittany, mu, Mckenna, Milly, Collin. At Yesou

At sunrise hike for Jinhae trip

I expect another year of traveling with friends and seeing more of Southeast Asia. There are so many places I want to explore and I hope to make this blog more of a log of my travels and adventures!

End of the Month: March Photo Post

In March I started going on Seoul Hiking Group trips and the first one I went one since the ice fishing trip in January. I went on a hike with the group around Dongdamun to Seoul Fortress around the president's house. Also, there are photos of Saint Patricks day with a group of friends. I also have some of the photos I took with my NEW Nikon D3000 I bought. I am so happy I purchased this DSLR because I really wanted a new camera but just didn't want to spend all that much money on it.

My hair was so long! :( I cut a good portion of it off the next day and I still have yet to get it to this length again.

Grace, Katie,Me. Katie is a fellow Wisconsite!



We were realy ready for the hike to be over, it was getting so cold! From L to R: Holm, MckEnna, Bryan, Me, Milly

The woman and the man. It's a very romantic spot supposedly. The woman is suppose ot be leaning into the man.

St. Patricks day with friends.

Here are some photos I took of students I had during the Spring term.

I have one student I trust to let use my camera. 

Gloria... Her shirt made me laugh.

Jessica :)

Brendon and Arthur

Casey

Casey and Mckenna

Lucas

Lucas and Kevin

Gilbert...they only photo I got of him.

Binny

Gabby

Junho, he looks innocent.

But he was the spawn of a demon.

my former seedbed 1 class.

Shion. So adorable

Brian

Amy

Tom Park and Tom Kil

Diane

Gyeongu Trip with a whole lot of biking!

My last weekend trip I took with Seoul Hiking Group was the first one where I was going with out any of my close group of friends. Luckily I had made friends with other peple who took tripswith Warren so I was able to meet and get to know some people more. this trip started on Friday night, so right after work I left to finish packing and get on the bus! We stayed Friday night at a traditional Korean village in Hanok Traditional Houses of a UNESCO world heritage Yangdong Village. I met Hiley, a coworker of my friend Matt, and she and I walked around the village in the morning. THis was really teh first weekend where I got to see cherryblossoms and the gorgeous magnolia trees in bloom. :)

Saturday we hiked Mt. Namsam in Gyeongu before we went into the city and started biking. It was an awesome hike and pretty easy. The hike up to the top had tons of little Buddha statues to see as well as temples to stop and see. There was a nice ridge that you could follow along but I didn't want to spend too much energy climbing on rocks when I would need it for bike riding. The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect!

The Village we stayed Friday night. This is Saturday morning.

The scenery up the hike was gorgeous and was one that I would love to see again.

View from the top of Mt. Namsam of Gyeongu. Really gorgeous

I was not in acceptable hiking gear and the Korean enjoyed watching me walking around.

It was gorgeous at the top! A nice korean boy took my picture and changed some settings. He said my pictures were not right. Ha!

When we started biking we had about 6 hours to bike around the whole of Gyeongu. I started with a group of people I had met through Seoul Hiking group and we saw the tombs, which is shown in this picture. We also saw the observatory and then parts of the park. The group was about 8 people and we were biking around kinda aimlessly so I splintered off with Matt, a friend, and we biked around the Bomun Lake Resort. We covered quite a lot of ground and I definitely did not feel like an experienced biker!  It took us about 2 plus hours to bike around that whole area, which consisted of a lake in the middle. It was wonderful and a thoroughly enjoyable ride, even if I nearly took out a couple of Koreans whil I was out of it.

Even blurrly, this photo to me holds so much beauty.

Sunday morning took us to the beach at around 5:30 AM to see a sunrise. I went with Matt and other friends but instead of being greeted by a nice sun, it was overcast so we did not get to see it. Instead almost every one went climbing on teh rocks on the beach and just hung out on the beach for a while. After that we went to a nice scenic spot by a lake and temples of a ruin. It was wonderfully fun! The rest of the day was spent at another temple grounds where I learned about using my ISO and Aperture setting on my camera. I really love taking pictures with it!

The ISO is a bit to open for this picture, but you can tell more in this that I was playing around with the settings.

These are prayer or wishing stones. You stack them on top of each other and have a little wish or prayer to go with them. You don't want to topple the stack, otherwise the wish will not come true.

Some soju bottle at lunch we were all very...intrigued by.

After getting some food we got back on the road and I got home around 10 that night. It was such a great group and lots of fun! Can't wait for my next long trip with Warren and Seoul Hiking Group!