A Busy Summer

Hi!

The summer has been flying past, I feel like I've sort of been dragged behind.  I'm sure that you all agree when I say that I can't believe it's August already!!!   

Last weekend my niece came to stay with me for the weekend.  We had a great time seeing Despicable Me 2 in 3d, visiting the farmer's market, shopping, and seeing the sculpture garden.  

Waiting for the movie to start with our 3d classes on!

I've noticed an interesting change in myself since spending a year in Korea.  I think that Korea has made me blind to the length (or lack of except in extreme cases) of my skirt and that the social stigma with cleavage has stuck with me even though I've returned to American life.  

I have received several comments about how "short" my dresses are, which seemed surprising to me because I've usually been very aware of that.    

Having been blessed in the... er, chest area, I have always been a fan of clothes that show a bit of cleavage.  In recent years, I have been a little more conservative with my approach to this area, but now I am even more vigilant about what I am sharing with the world. 

Is that too much?!?
(At my nephew's birthday party with my sisters and niece.)

Unfortunately, I have been a little too busy to cook delicious things.  In a few weeks I may be starting an anti-inflammatory diet per my chiropractors recommendation.  Perhaps I'll find some delightful things to share on here.  Tonight's dinner - Homemade Pecan Crusted Tuna with steamed carrots.  I'll be making it up from my head, so who knows if it will turn out!

Summer Storms

Greetings from Minnesota!  

Sorry for the hiatus.  I'm looking back at the last few months since I've been home and I have very few pictures of what has happened.  It seems so boring without the pictures to back it up.  Might have to make some photos happen in the near future.  There.  Consider yourself warned!

My life back in Minnesota seems to have pretty much picked up right where it left off.  I returned home at the end of March and started working two weeks later.  It's probably a good thing too, living without work is great, but living without pay can be challenging.  Especially when you're traveling and have a lot of things that you needed but waited until you got home.  Like make-up.  

Things have been great.  I'm doing some admin/office assistant work and some business development for a networking group here in the Twin Cities.  It's proving to be quite busy, but a lot of fun.  

There's been crazy thunderstorms the last two nights.  The first woke me up at 4am, but the second happened last night about 8.  It was crazy!  It went from dark clouds to the west to a flooded street and power out in about 20 minutes.  It's hard to make out, but the street in the pic below is completely flooded, you can't even see the curb.  

I'm really excited that the flowers are all out -  I wish I had some of my own.  These are peonies and always catch my heart when I see them.  They were my grandma's favorite.  :)

This is my youngest sister and I last weekend out at the farm.  Such a peaceful sunset.  

I promise to post more.  The problem is that I started my jobs, then moved into an apartment 6 weeks ago.  I'm so close,  I have only 3 boxes left to unpack! Then I'll be fully into my new apartment that I share with 1 (soon to be 2) roommates.  Maybe I'll even have free time!!!  Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?  

Vacation Time!

These last few weeks have been crazy!  A busy time filled with friends, packing, cleaning, trains and planes.  It was wonderful, exciting, happy, sad, heart-wrenching and tiring all at the same time.  

I squeezed in a trip to Taejongdae, a beautiful area on Yeong-do Island that I had been meaning to visit.  Beautiful scenery and good weather made for a great afternoon!

What is Taejongdae?

Here is the observatory at Taejongdae, a lovely look out point on the island.  It's said that on a clear day you can see Japan from here.  It was a bit too cloudy for us to see that far though.  

Nikki and I at a pebbly beach at Taejongdae.  

Probably one of the hardest things about starting a new chapter in life is not seeing the people that I've become close with.  Saying "Until next time" to my friends in Korea was difficult and definitely sad.  But I look forward to the times when I will see them in the future and the trips that I will take to make that happen!

I arrived in Cairo nearly a week ago.  I spent the first few days relaxing and adjusting to the time change after such a crazy few weeks.  It's been a great week and my cousin has been taking excellent care of me!  

I'm looking forward to being a tourist in the next few days, my camera is fully charged and I'm ready to explore!  Wish me luck!

A busy beginning.

January has brought a renewed sense of things to come.  When I think of leaving the life I've created here, I am sad.  I will greatly miss all of the friends that I have here, many of whom are also leaving.  We will be scattered to the winds, each of us returning to our corner of the world, to recreate our home lives.  I am glad, though, to have come to know them and to have some friends to visit on my travels in the future.

  

I had 10 days of winter camp, with only 9 students.  It was nice to have a smaller group of students, and a little more one on one time with them.  Winter camp is finished now, but I wanted to share some of the pictures with you.

 Here are some students putting together their egg-drop challenge.  The challenge being, of course, to protect the egg from breaking when dropped from a set height.  

Here are some of my students doing an experiment to test the strength of hollow bird bones.  I think that they sort of cheated though, because they taped all the paper tubes together.  I allowed it.

My friends!  My friend You Na and I with two of the other teacher's daughters.  They're so cute!

I met a friend for boribap.  It is similar to bibimbap, but instead of just rice, there is boiled barley in it as well.  Top it with a fried egg and some veggies and it's a meal for only 5,000 won! 

 I had lunch with Hee Jung and her mom (pictured above) last week.  We ate a Vietnamese dish that is similar to shabu shabu.  They bring raw meat to the table and a pot of stock in the middle.  After cooking the meat in the stock, you wrap it up with some raw veggies in rice paper like a spring roll (below), and eat it!

Since I've got vacation and packing in my future, I've been busy trying to use up all the bits in my cupboard.  After coming across some frozen bananas one afternoon, I decided that my favorite banana bread was definitely in order.  I also found some chocolate chips that looked deserving of my banana bread, so I threw them in.  It turned out delicious! 

I had a few slices left over, so one morning I decided to 'french toast' the remaining slices.  It turned out wonderful.  :) 

I even had enough extra baking supplies for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies!  These had mini dark chocolate chips and white chocolate chips as well.  I was able to share some with friends over the weekend, so I wouldn't eat them all myself.  Thank goodness!

These, I did not make.  But, I have plans to share them with friends when I get home!  It is toasted dduk (sort of a rice noodle) drizzled with honey, sunflower seeds and sliced almonds.  Absolutely my favorite way to eat dduk!

9 days in. Going Strong.

Woo hoo!  2013 has proven to be a good year so far.  I've had lots of questions about when I will return home and my travel plans, so I thought I'd post some info here, as well as what I'm up to these days.  

Currently I'm teaching a winter camp.  I've tried to make it a little fun, by doing silly experiments.  The students still seem to find it difficult to pay attention, frequently asking me to watch the Simpsons as soon as class begins.  

So far we have done:

- a Soda Can Shake-Up 

- Pulling a sheet from under a place setting (Though I don't have any plasticware so we used books.)

- Egg drop experiment

- Testing the strength of hollow bones

Here are several students in my winter camp putting together their egg protection.  We only have camp for 4 more days.  I hope that I can keep them somewhat occupied during these next few days. 

삼겹살

Samgyupsal.  I've featured pictures of it before, but this was a particularly delicious version that I've had.  Thick slices of pork.  I believe it is the same cut as bacon, just not cured in the same fashion.  It is served with mushrooms to grill as well, and on the left is a washed kimchi.  I like kimchi (김치), but I much prefer the washed kimchi to the regular red variety.  My favorite way to have kimchi is grilled, as shown above.  It gives it a bit more of a mild flavor.  

The price of home in Korea

I'll be honest, I don't often purchase Reddi Wip at home, though I have been known to find uses for it when I find it.  I am a huge fan of running a strip of Reddi Wip down my finger for my own personal consumption.  Straight into the mouth is also a great way to enjoy it. :)  

The reason that it's here is because I saw this the other day and the price is rather exorbitant.  9,600 won is about $9.04.  Hahaha.  

   

 So... when am I coming home?

The question that's on your mind.  And what's going on after I leave Korea?  My contract is up at the end of February.  After I leave Korea, I will do some traveling in Europe and Egypt visiting friends and family.  I'm really excited to do some traveling and see lots of new places and sites!  

I will return home just in time for Easter on March 27th!

I can't wait to see all of your lovely faces! 

A New Year? I got this.

I can't believe that it's nearly been a month since I posted.  Sorry!!!

It's not that I haven't been doing anything.  I think it's mostly that I don't have as many pictures as I'd like.  In my mind, I've taken tons of pictures in the last month.  In reality, my camera has been acting up, thus I tend to leave it hiding in my purse and don't take as many pictures as I should.  I need to buy a new one, but I've sort of been putting off the purchase that I hadn't planned for.  

The first weekend in December I went on a fieldtrip sponsored by the BCMOE (they are in charge of hiring EPIK teachers in Busan).  It was the last one of the year, I was lucky enough to go on all of the trips!  First we went to the Hanok Village in Jeonju, which there are pictures of from my trip there in March during orientation.  After the village, we went to a Hanji paper museum.  Hanji is a special kind of paper that they make in Korea.  It must be made the traditional way.  I got the chance to make my own, and here I am!

Later in the day we went to a temple nestled in a valley between the mountains.  It was beautiful!

We ate shabu shabu that night for dinner.  It is a soup (center) that you add all the veggies and meats to.  The meat is just above the broth, and the seafood is in the lower right corner.  After the soup was finished, we used the last of the broth to make a sort of rice porridge that was awesome.  

A bit of bamboo in the background!

The second weekend in December, I had a holiday dessert party in an attempt to up the number of my holiday celebrations.  The food turned out mostly as planned, and people actually showed up!

So many friends in such a cozy space.  :)

I was really lucky to be invited to my friend Hee Jung's house for a birthday dinner.  She and her mom had planned it and made sure to make it a special day.  This picture is of a Korean version of Pad Thai.  

This is homemade bulgogi.

My birthday dinner with friends!

Birthday candles/matches!

Another December baby!  

Christmas dinner, we did a buffet in the early afternoon.  The ham, turkey, and the roast beef were lovely.  It's hard to find that kind of meat here, so it was nice to have something different.  

Christmas day in the evening, near busan tower.  The lights were gorgeous!

Book alley in Nampo-dong, it was really cute with all the bookstores lined up on either side.

On New Year's Eve, a few friends and I got together at Fully Booked, near Kyungsung University.  It is a great café/used bookstore.  Fully Booked was lovely enough to save us a room, so we had plenty of space.  

Ringing in 2013 with tradition, with champagne or sparkling wine.  It was a great night and I'm looking forward to all the joys of the new year.  :)