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!