Thanksgiving

November 11th is Pepero Day here in South Korea. It comes from the candy Pepero and is on this date  because it is "11/11". As the candies are like sticks, this is what the day is all about! Happy Birthday Trisha!!

November 16th
Today was Amber's last day here at work so we all went out to celebrate. It's always fun when the whole group is out. It's also entertaining when Amber does everything people tell her to do; like dance on the wall, take a shot that was lit on fire, or jump on one of the blow up advertisements.

November 20th
Today Buddy went missing. He just turned 15 years old on November 6th. He is deaf and blind and has everybody  worried sick. A friend of my sister made up these really nice posters:

November 22nd
Direct quote from me from Thanksgiving day:

"I am thankful for so many things that I could not even begin to list them all.

I am thankful for the excellent support system I still have at home with my family and friends, being able to travel to another country and experience a whole different way of life, the friends I have met, the places I've been, the things I have seen, and the way things have worked out to make this the most rewarding Thanksgiving I have experienced regardless of my current location.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Don't take anything for granted!"

Thanks to the posters, Buddy was found and the people got a hold of my sister. Buddy is home!

Saturday November 24th
Today for Thanksgiving  we were invited to the Sunset Cavern Thanksgiving Bash. Mike and Steve were hosting this event in their apartment and they are so lucky to have this place. It is a large 3 bedroom apartment (large even for American standards, but especially for Korea). They have a projector and screen that they use as their television and they had the Wii set up on it. The boys put on a great Thanksgiving and the apartment was full of people. It felt like being home with lots of friends and food. Mike and Steve fried a turkey and everybody brought something to contribute to the potluck.

After dinner Mike took us on a tour of the roof, complete with a helipad. The view was spectacular being that high up above Daejeon. Later on there was a paper airplane contest off of the roof of the building. The helicopter won.

Penises and Caves

November 10th (Saturday)

Last night we finally managed to go on a work outing with everybody from Chungdahm. We just went downtown for dinner and some drinks but it was so much fun getting to hang out with them outside of work.

Got home and went to bed a little after 2. After three hours it was time to get up and head out to Samcheok for Deanna's birthday. This was one of the longest days yet. After a 5 hours bus ride we arrived, looked at a map, determined our destination was not that far away, and proceeded to hop into a cab.

30,000w ($30) later we alighted at our stop, Haesindang Park (해신당 공원) or better known as Penis Park. 

The amusing factor was definitely high. As the story goes  a young maiden that was on a small island and was washed away by the sea. She drowned before her fiance could save her. As a result the fish dwindled until there was none left. One day a young fisherman relieved himself in the sea and the next day the fish were plenty. They said that the young virgin was happy that she was showed a penis and brought back all of the fish. 

 The park was erected to keep her satisfied. There are many phallus statues of various sizes, colors, shapes, and expressions. 

 Although the park was hilarious the best part of it was the location and the weather. It was a beautiful day along the coast with all of the trees changing colors for fall. Being from Florida and having flat beaches and no colors on the trees I was in complete fascination. 

When we had our fill of the sights we called a cab to come take us to a cave. As this really wasn't a day trip and we didn't know the bus systems we thought taking a taxi would be smarter and quicker. Definitely quicker! Daegeumgu was the cave and the last entry time was 4:30. As the cave was much farther away than anticipated the cab driver drove 180km (112mph) almost the whole way!! He was also blaring English music. He was  awesome! The fare was only $32 and I was surprised...until he hit the 60% gratuity button. Haha. But then he said he would wait for us at the bottom until we finished exploring the cave.

 There was a short, but steep, hike up to the cave. Daegeumgu cave is known for the amount of water that flows through it. It has many waterfalls and underground lakes. It also had a bridge of confessions where you are supposed to throw away your sins. It had a closed off cavern for bats, but we didn't see any. When we thought to check to see when the last bus left for home we only had a little more than an hour to get the station so we rushed through the rest of the cave.

We got to the bottom and our ninja hero cabdriver was waiting for us. Took us the bus station and asked us where we were going? Language barrier made it unable for him to tell us that there was not a bus going home to Daejeon, but after calling a translator, the wonderful Tina, we found out. Through lots of phone switching we discovered that we could go to the express bus terminal and get a bus to Seoul, then from Seoul, home. The cab driver waited the entire time, drove us around the corner to the other terminal, didn't charge us for the trip, and then waited around until we got on the bus to Seoul. Amazing, amazing man! Some bus changes and five hours later we were finally back home. Went out for a couple of hours with some great friends and finally called it a night. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEANNA!

Halloween!!!

On the 13th of October I tried to put together a Hashque (Hash + BBQ). However, it was so much more of a headache than it was worth. One of the hares had too many ideas about how everything should go. However, Lin and Eleanor made it to town to check out how we do things in Deajeon.

On the 27th went to a Halloween Hash. Sam and a friend of hers put it on. This is the first legit hash that I have been too. The premise of a hash is to drink everything at the stop and run as quickly as you can to catch up with the hares. This does not usually happen. However, this time we ran mostly for 2 to 2.5 hours. We missed one stop and almost caught up with the hares. But as it was Halloween everybody was dressed up and then we all congregated downtown. Dusan was packed with foreigners in costume!

 
We had a little thing for Halloween at school. The teacher's all dressed up. Amy dressed up as..... Nina made a purple and blue crayon costume for her and Matt, and I dressed up as a witch. My make up was all done up and the shock factor for the Korean staff was so funny. I think one of them asked me why I didn't wear that kind of make all of the time. Haha. On break we took class pictures with all of us dressed up and the children. We taught the kids "Trick or treat. May I have some candy please?" At the end of class we all gave them candy.

Seed 2 Rose, Danni, Sonia, Sara, Luna / Hestia, Daniel, Here (One of my favorite classes.)

Seed 2 Walter, Ron, John, Joe / Sion, Micheal, Teddy ( A class of all boys - this is a rough class)

Seed 2 Crystal, Sarah, Edward, James, Jeenie / Sophia, Kyle, Amy, Sally, Kelly ( My favorite class!!)

Sprout 1 Kyle, Lilly, Yuna, Sarah / Brian 2, Brian 1, Jack (All but Lilly and Sarah I have had my whole year. They can be challenging)

Sapling 1 Kelly, Louis, Tom, William, Rooney / Victoria, Lisa, Jane, Angela ( The boys can be a handful, but these kids are good.)

Sapling 1 Robin, Mike, Lucy, Amber / Gregory, Mathew, Andy, Kevin (I have had a couple of these all year, but most are gone now. This is also one of my favorite classes.)

Seoul and Lost Phones!!

September 8th and 9th

This weekend TVC (or the Techno Valley Crew as we have started calling ourselves) made a trip to Seoul. On Saturday Zeeshan, Me, Song, Ed, Francia, Deanna and Anjali hopped on an early afternoon train. We headed off to Myong-dong for some shopping. Which if you are reading this blog than you know me well enough to know that I hate shopping. So as expected I found nothing...except my delicious spiral potatoes on a stick. :) And some random musical thing going on. However, I did run into several girls that I know from Daejean, as well as my old co-teacher Jin.

Then we went and found a hostel, pregames a little bit there and then headed out to Hongdae. There I spent the night in high heels running from my group that I came with to the friends I had in Seoul. Let's just say I got a lo of exercise and sore feet. And I don't know how I do it but I manage to get the coolest taxis drivers. The one that took us home was no exception. Although, I did fall asleep I remember him saying he spoke German..."Guten Morning." Haha.

On Sunday we packed up from the hostel, grabbed some lunch and headed to the (???) palace. After a night on the town this was such a relaxing day. The weather was perfect, the palace was not crowded so it was peaceful, and the palace grounds were beautiful. It was a great trip and so enjoyable to spend some time outside of Daejeon with some great friends!

On September 12th Megan had an open mike night at Brick House. A group of us went to enjoy the show. It was a lot of fun. I had never seen Megan perform before and she is quite good. The bad part was as I walked into the bar I realized that I  no longer had a phone. Damn...left it in the taxi. As I was debating what to do I changed all of my passwords. Then Song got a hold of it and as it turns out the taxi driver dropped it off at a phone shop near where Tina lives. So she picked it up for me and brought it to work. These are the reasons I love Korea!!!!

I sent a little post card to Lowes a couple of weeks ago and I got this little Facebook post from Trish. They put it up on the Lowes appreciation board!

On September 22nd I finally went to my first football game (soccer). Don't know why it took us so long to go but I had a lot of fun. The team is not the best though. So we started playing a drinking game that you had to take a drink every time someone fell. We finished our beer rather quickly. Quote of the day. Song "Does this beer taste like water to anybody else?" Zeeshan, "I think that is the first sign that you are an alcoholic." Haha.

At last I made it to Deagu again to see Julia on September 30th. It was fun but pretty uneventful and even called it an early night at 2am. However, as I walked into Julia's apartment, I realized that I left my phone in the taxi...again. (Ahhh!) Anyways. I had Song with me and she called it right away. The taxi driver answered it and was only 5 minutes away, but he would not give it back. After a lot of headache and calling, Kevin finally called him and he sent it to Chungdahm. So glad to once again get my phone returned.

We closed out the month by going to the GyeJok Mountain to hike on the barefoot path. The path is thought to have all sorts of healing qualities if you walk barefoot along this clay path. After a long and steep climb with the help of some Korean's we met, we made it to the top. It was another pleasant weather day and quiet also, as I was still without my phone.