Good Bye Jawoon Elementary

Friday was my last day at Jawoon Elementary! I was so happy to be done but sad at the same time. I am really going to miss the students and the teachers. Ms. Lee started to tear up when I gave her a good bye hug. It was sad. But here is a picture of my second class.


This girl Jasmine wrote me this cute little card and made a little envelope out of paper and tape and put some paper soap in it. She is so sweet! Made me so happy to know that these kids love me! Oh and as a gift the school got Sky, Judit, and I this really nice picture frame with a pencil case and Korean key chain!


Friday night my family took me to play some Korean Traditional instruments! Apparently this instructor is famous in Korea. She is the best of the best! I got to play, it was so exciting! One of the old Korean ladies goes tap it like a boys butt! referring to smacking the instrument! We were all laughing! Whats even more funny is she said it in Korean and then InJae (13 year old boy) told me in English! He was laughing so hard!

Tae Kwon Do in Korea! =]

It doesn't get any better than learning/doing Tae Kwon Do in Korea. WITH...National Champions (which might I add were ALL younger than me!)

I had such a blast! I even got to break wood! Check out my video-
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1089398286&v=app_2392950137#!/video/video.php?v=1366746443919

Here are some pictures of our night! ps...its way harder than it looks! ^^







Tonight was such a great experience! Oh and my host mom is a publisher for a smaller newspaper here in Dobong. She is putting the first picture on this post in the paper. She is also writing something on me too! :) how cool is that!?

veggies-cards-tea

Tonight was a blast! Judit text-ed me to see what I was doing. She wanted to get out of the house, no one was home at her house. So I asked my host mom if she could come over. She said yes, please! Well my Umma was just starting to cook dinner. When Judit got here she goes,"NO MEAT, just veggies!" Because Judit is a vegetarian. It was hilarious because InJae hates veggies! He LOVES meat! Dinner was really good though!

Afterwards we started to play a card game. InJae taught us how to play 1 card. Guess what game it is exactly like? ...Yep, UNO! It was a lot of fun! The Queens were reverse, the Jacks were Skip, The black/white Joker was Draw 5, the colored Joker was Draw 10, the Ace was Draw 3, and the Two was Draw 2 cards. When you get down to one card you have to say 1 card or you have to draw 5 cards. After playing a few times- Judit and I taught InJae how to play BS. HE LOVED IT! FYI- I won all three games! :) While we were playing Umma made us some Chinese Tea. We were dying laughing the whole time and just having SO much fun!

After BS, Uppa (Dad in Korean) Took Judit home. Well every night InJae gets a phone call at 9:40pm. He talks to a Native English speaker for 10-15 minutes to practice his English. She called on our way out the door. Well as we are in the car he is on the phone with her telling her about his day. He begins to tell the lady that he played cards with his sister and sisters friend. They he tells her we played BS. As he is telling her he turns around and says, "Whats that mean? B...S...?" Judit and I were laughing SO hard. We were like Bull Shit. haha But don't say that word. Use the abbreviation! and he gets back on the phone and goes, you know the game, ...Burrrrr shit? and we simultaneously go- BULL...with an L. He had to have said it 5 times in a row to her. Right after explaining the games- he goes oh and we were drinking. You could hear the concern from the teacher. She started asking him questions because InJae goes, yeah they are both Women, Adults. I was thinking, oh my gosh this teacher probably thinks we are such a bad influence on him! I go- InJae, tell her what we were drinking!! InJae goes, "Oh NO! We no drink beer or soju! Just TEA!"

After dropping Judit off InJae goes, "I am hungry! Lets eat some meat!" They normally have meat with every meal here, and since Judit was over we had nothing but vegetables! So sure enough its 10pm and my Uppa stops and a Chicken and Hof place right down the street from our house.

After that we were on our way up to the apartment. I was telling them that tomorrow I am going to go to a Tae Kwon Do class. When we got up to the apartement they started showing me some moves. Well Uppa tried one on InJae. Lets just say InJae fell to the ground and laid there for a good 4 mins. He was SO pissed at his dad. And I ...I couldn't hold in the laughter- I felt so bad, but the dad started laughing too, and it made me laugh!

It was a great night!

ps...Last night apparently Korea had a small Hurricane. It did rain very hard and a lot of rain! I am so glad nothing drastic happened!

Penguins-Sea Horses-ART work- and a beautiful view of Seoul

So Sunday my host Umma asked me what I would like to do in Seoul. I heard everyone talking about how cool the 63 Building is so I said I kinda want to check out the 63 Building. Not knowing anything about it really. Just that it was the tallest building in Seould (which there are TONS of high rise buildings here) But yeah my Umma was so excited because she had never been either! When I got there she bought me, InJae, and herself tickets to go to "Sea World" a 3D Moive, and the the Top Sky View/Art Gallery. I had such a great time! Oh and InJae taught me some really fun Traditional Korean Games! I can't wait to teach you all!

This was my favorite one!


Can you believe that they had a picture of me in the art gallery?
HAHAHA!

Seoul Tower

My host umma took me to Seoul Tower Friday night. It was a blast! check out the view that I got. When you are looking at the pictures- just imagine that it was a million times better in real life! I would suggest that everyone visits this tower if you visit Seoul! You will see the locks and probably wonder what they are. They are called "Love Locks" Some have been there SO long! They don't take them down either! So they have all of these locks you see in the picture and MANY more!

















After Seoul Tower my family took me to Itaewon to have dinner! It was so much fun! There are lots of military people there!

Buddha & Rain

It was funny tonight I got done eating with my family and my host dad suggested that we go to Bukhansan National Park. Do you know of that place? Well anyways there is a famous Buddhist Temple there. I am not really into Buddha nor have I ever really known about Buddha until I came to Korea. I actually got Buddha 101 from our first trip. Well anyways we got up there and my dad wanted me to rub Buddha's belly. Which I really didn't want to because it looked really dirty (Buddha's belly was a differnt color than the rest of his body) there were a lot of people around me waiting to touch his belly. So I just laughed and said no thank you. Well my son said she is not Buddhist, she is christian. And the dad said, so its good experience. LOL

Then we walked a bit further and there was a drinking well. I got to try the water, and it was the most fresh water I have tried in a LONG time! Then as we were walking further my host father goes, oh I think you will have a great experience up there as he pointed up the 5 flights of stairs. So I thought to myself, "experience" - he is going to have me try something. I already knew that we were walking up to a Buddha temple where people were probably worshiping him at. I could smell the incense in the air. When we got to the top I looked to the right and there was a Giant Buddha ingraved into the humungous stone that was sitting on the mountain. In the middle was a beautiful green tree and below the tree were about 20 people bowing down and worshiping Buddha. My father said, "Lets have a seat." I couldn't say no, even though I am no Buddhist he said that it was okay- more people began to trickle up the stairs (we were surrounded by a lot of people! I looked behind me and there was a girl who was doing a special bow. My host father told me that if you do it 108 times you get blessed with a clear mind, and understanding. It was very peaceful up there but I felt out of my element. Just FYI, I don't have anything against people that believe in Buddha, its just not my thing. Anyways...

All day yesterday it rained. Today was very sunny and hot. As I was sitting there watching all these people praying/worshiping Buddha for about 15 minutes (which was a very long time to me- it wasn't like rubbing Buddha's belly where I could just say no thank you- If I got up it would have been a distraction, and I don't know what my family would have said- so .... as I was sitting there I began to pray to God. I said, "Please God let it rain so maybe we can leave." Sure enough it started pouring raining!!! NO JOKE! I couldn't believe it! We were pretty wet! I was laughing the whole way down the mountain to myself. And thanking God for taking me out of that situation. God is good! :)

golden rat

still on the mission for this golden rat! I asked SO many people and everyone looks at me like an idiot! Finally one person told me in the subway malls is where I can find them. So the search is on! haha Judit and I are going to go on a search soon! Oh and last night Judit's host stay mom bought movie tickets for us. We are going to go see SALT in theaters tomorrow after school. I can't wait.

Yesterday which was a Tuesday for us- we went to the theaters and it was packed as if it was a Friday where all families, couples, and people are out! So we didn't see Inception for the 2nd time because we would have had crappy seats - (another reason why I love the seat selection idea) Poor Sky, he is the only one out of the 6 of us that hasn't seen it. And he wants to SO bad! haha! SUCKA!

Students remember EVERYTHING! If you tell them something and don't do it they will remind you for sure! Learned that one today! =]

Miss you all!
<3 Nona!