Seonsangnim (teacher) and students. this is my last day of level 1 korean! wooo hoo i graduated with an 86 on the final.
This is a beautiful flower arrangement that sam got me for my birthday. He also showered me with some Korean kids books, a box of Ho Joo (red pepper) chocolates, a pair of Frida Kahlo socks, and some other goodies. The best being a nice wooden stamp that says "Jennipoah" in Korean. I use this to stamp my kids' homework. they think this is just hilarious. they asked me where i got it and i told them that it was a birthday gift from my boyfriend. they said, is your boyfriend Korean? I said, no... well, sort of.
Sam and Kerri at the Noribang (Karaoke Bar). We sang some brown eyed girl, barbie girl, born in the USA, guns n roses, etc. It was a great night. I finished that night by chomping on a bunch of bread and some homemade salsa my friend and coworker steph made while i drank some more wine and studied for my korean final. bad timing! OR WAS IT REALLY GOOOOD TIMING???
just before the revelers arrive. my korean teacher kim myong soo and kerri.
check out this spread!
joe being abused by seongsangnim. look at that view!
lighting of the cake!
ummmmmMM!

Entering Her Late Twenties....

This is me on my 27th birthday! Well, actually it was not yet my birthday in the states. I am a day early, but it is my birthday in Korea. By Korean age standards I'm 29 because they add a year for when you are born you are 9 months old of course and then also another year at Chinese New Year or something of that sort. I know, I should really research this type of stuff before blogging about it but, there are other blogs that deal with particulars.

Do I look older? Please post a comment and let me know! I feel older. And I like it. I am wearing a beautiful necklace my friend Kerri got me for this special day.
Myself and friend Mike, it was our joint birthday party last Sunday at my apartment. 3 pm.

Blowing out the candles!
To follow are headshots, some scary, some not so scary, of certain party guests....
Drinking games, Korean style.
Jamie who lives next door. She is dating "Gator" who is a boy from the South (USA). He used to wrastle crocodiles, or so he says!
Joe shi. He got here on the same plane that Sam and I did back in July 2006.
Mike. He's our newest mate at Avalon Imae. He's from Canada and fresh out of college. Both he and Joe take Korean classes with us at KECC in Seoul. Classes are really paying off and they allowed us to have a baby conversation with older gentleman at a dog soup restaurant. More blogging on that to follow. I have to keep you on the edge of your seat!

just som eye candy since i've been too busy to breathe lately. many times in life when i am riding the subway or having a compelling conversation with whomever i have gems of thought that fleet before i am able to record them. i wish they were all on here.

today is american thanksgiving day. we worked and this holiday of course is not celebrated in korea! myself and my 7 foreigner coworkers (including 2 canadians, i know, some people argue that they should not have been invited. :D) went to outback steakhouse to celebrate. most of us had a chicken breast smothered in cheese and bacon with a loaded baked potato for about 15 bucks. or else coconut shrimp.

so the photos with the folks are the thanksgiving dinner.

also some changing leaves near my school. it is nov 23 and the trees are finally shedding their leaves.

backlogged photos of halloween at school. we made masks in one of my classes.

and also, of course, more hiking photos! this time we were just off of line 8 (the pink one) at namhansanseong (south han mountain seong-?). it reminded me of living on circle mountain when i was a kid. which was both a circle and a mountain.

lastly are some photos of a contemporary art show in gwangju called the gwangju biennial. it's huge and i think one of the largest 5 in the world, maybe even better renouned than the whitney show. it was great b/c so many asian artists were involved and a then a few token whities. it is usually the other way around where i come from. the photo with the black stripes on the walls are actually made with torn black masking tape. this piece was gargantuan. the other was a photo of a movie playing on a big screen. this movie was by yoko ono. it showed a fly on various parts of a naked human body and very close up. this obvious is a nipple with a fly resting on it. i think it is funny b/c there are kids watching the video in the foreground. it was funny to see the korean women stand in awe and astonishment in what they were watching and then hurry their kids off to the next part of the exhibition.

tonight on a seperate note, two mid-20s aussies (?) wanted to ride in the elevator in the apartment. i saw them coming and thought i was pressing the open door button when actually it was quite the opposite. i kept holding it while half this boy's body was in the door crushing him. then i realized what i was doing and pushed the open door button. you would think i'd have more ideas about this working in an elevator company for a year and a half. then the other guy did this silly bow to me and said "kamsamnida" which means thank you in korean and got in the elevator.

it was funny b/c i realized they had no idea i was a native english speaker and then i wondered if later they were like, "wow, her english was pretty good. she musta lived overseas for a bit." like we sometimes comment on ppl we run across. and then i wondered if they wondered if i spoke english to them b/c i assumed they did not speak korean. which, in actually they could possibly speak it better than i. and then i wondered if they wondered that, were they offended? ha.

This is a spread of food we had when we were in Gyeongju, S.K. it's called "ssam bap" and consists of any number of side dishes that are shared among table members. YUM!

next, an old poster of some kids playing hopscotch

a photo of the family we ate Chuesok dinner with in Gyeongju

myself in front of the Gyeongju burial mounds for royalty. these were awesome and out of my whole chuesok vacation trip, i would consider living here in this small historical town over busan or daegu.

seafare drying in a windowsill

love graffitti by the port in busan

prapples? (i think they may be a cross between pears and apples, at least in taste and texture) but anyhows, they are for sale during chuesok and are wrapped up very nicely by women in fancy traditional korean dress called hanbok. and well, they should be wrapped up very nicely for 110$!!!!

two dogs all dressed up. dog-wear is very popular here and many street vendors hawk it with live models as seen here. the second model is wearing traditional korean hanbok. sometimes i've used the argument that little dogs get cold and therefore do need sweaters, but let's not be ridiculous.