Bobby + Jestine

I am so excited to reveal our engagement photo shoot with Bobby and Jestine from a couple weeks ago!  They were so much fun to work with and were complete naturals in front of the camera!  I think my friend Katie Olson said it best when she said, "I'm in love with their love..."  They really are the sweetest!

Movie and Eel for dinner!

Today was our school's "Culture Day" for 5th grade, 6th grade, and English teachers!  This basically means that we're allowed to leave work 2 hours early to go do something "culturally Korean!"  Good news is, we never actually HAVE to do something Koreanish, we just have to say and write that we are!  YAY!  So, all of us left school at 2:30pm and headed to Nampodong to see a movie!  Most of the teachers saw a Korean movie, but Loola, Hyun Jung and I went to see TAKEN 2.  There was A LOT of violence, so poor Loola had her hand over her face almost the whole movie!  

Okk, Loola, Me, Hana, and Hyun Jung outside the theater in Nampodong.

Next stop was Amnam Park, where we all met for a group photo (typical Korean style)!

*** These are all of the 5th grade, 6th grade, and English teachers.

... as we were perusing through the park, Loola asked if she could try using my camera to take a picture of Hyun Jung and I on the steps.  She took this picture, looked at it and immediately squeeled, "I want one with Chelsey too!" Awe! 

hence... the same photo, with Loola!  :)

We all headed down to a seaside seafood BBQ tent!  How awesome is this place?  There are plastic windows in the back of the tent, that were zipped down tonight so that we could enjoy the gorgeous view of Yeongdo Island across the water and the giant bridge connecting Songdo to Yeongdo!  It was one of the coolest eating atmospheres that I've experienced in almost 4 years of living here!

There are perks to eating at little whole in the wall beach side tents, like having a cozy and charming place to eat... but then there are negatives to it, too.  Like when you find a worm in your edamame!   I'm guessing there aren't a whole lot of food regulations around these parts!

After waiting about 20 minutes, the lady brought out thie GIANT tray of shellfish!  Clams with chopped veggies, octopus in a red sauce, more clams in red sauce, covered in cheese, and a giant bowl of hot pepper clam soup!

These were something I would never have touched in America!  Now they're one of my favorite foods!

When the lady brought this basket of freshly slaughtered eel, I almost threw up.  Turns out though, once eel is cooked up, dipped in a little oil and salt mixture, it's fantastic! :)

I had another first tonight!  I ate the creatures growing inside of these seashells.

Here it is, up close!  

Slimy? - You bet'cha! 

Rubbery? - Oh yes!  

A little sandy? - Yep!  

Yummy? - Surprisingly so!

The 9 of us all stayed huddled around these two round BBQ tables, cooking, eating, talking, laughing, and drinking (our table just had cider - but still!) until the sun went down and the lights of the island lit up the ocean water! 

I'd venture to say that this was my all time favorite teacher dinner in 3 1/2 years! :)

Cheers to that!

Jess and Mayo's photo shoot!

Last weekend, between eating delicious food, playing cards, drinking craft brewed beer, chatting about life and love, hiking, walking, picnicking on the rooftop, and shopping with Jess and Mayo in Seoul, we were able to sneak in a photo shoot near the Han River!  Between the two of our cameras, Aaron and I had well over 100 photos that we absolutely loved!  How could we not, with such a stunning couple who ooz so much love, passion, and adoration for one another?! 

Click below to see

Jess and Mayo

... and if you look really carefully, Jess's growing baby bump! 

Love you two!

Casino Night!

Last night, our friend's Adam and Ashley invited me and A to come with them on a lil' double date to the Casino on the 2nd floor of Lotte Hotel in Seomyeon.  I love this, considering we introduced them to the casino about a month ago and now they're hooked and inviting us to come!  We all decided to dress up and make it a fancy night, which gave me an excuse to wear my new MANGO dress that was 70% off!  Ahhh, yes!  $25 is much better than $100... and it also gave us an excuse to take a taxi there, instead of a bus or the subway.  (instagram photo)

We spent 4 hours together, playing at the roulette table, laughing, betting, cheering, and whining when we would lose our chips. Taking pictures is a SERIOUS NO NO inside the casino, so I had to secretly snap this one, with my iphone, from the dining room of the casino, where we ate FREE dinner. :)

Ash and I

Aaron didn't get the memo that we weren't showing that we were losers yet for this picture!

... but it's true, we all lost. :(  It's never fun to lose money, but that's kind of the chance you take when you walk through those doors!  Luckily, I only played with $45.00, and only lost $30, so it wasn't all that bad considering I played a game for 4 hours, and ordered whatever I wanted to drink for free, and had free dinner!  Gotta love the casino! 

Love it more when we're all winners, but whatever!  

As a side note, Ashley won $900 last time!  So, the little money she lost tonight was a wash!  Lucky girl!

Thanks for another great night together you three!

Fifth Grade Friday!

There's no better weekday morning to wake up than Friday!  Not just because it's the last day of the work week, but because I LOVE Friday's at my job!  I teach (3) 5th grade classes (which happen to be the SMARTEST and most well BEHAVED group of kids I've ever taught in Korea) and that's it... Just three classes!  Since the huge elementary government test was yesterday, I decided to let my classes do something a little less strenuous and intense this morning... Their little minds need a break sometimes!  I debated throwing on a movie, but I feel like such a slacker when I resort to movies, so... I made a writing/drawing/coloring assignment that went with this month's lesson and let them take the full 40 minutes to complete it.  Easy for me, fun for them!  I wasn't planning to snap pictures, but it was such a mellow, rainy day, and I realized I won't be in Korea forever and wanted to remember days like these...  So, there you go.  

Welcome to my 5th grade English class.

Molly and Ji-ji... BEST FRIENDS!  

My lovely co-teacher, Loola, who was enjoying today just as much as I was!

 I have (60) 5th graders, so I chose the top 30 papers and taped them to the archway in our classroom.  Koreans are uber competitive, so I knew this would push them to work harder and harder in my class! Heck, if their papers can be chosen to be posted on the wall, they'll study English during all their free time!

I've got quite a few lil artists at my school.

Teaching English can have it's bad, boring, and frustrating days, but days like this make it all worth it!

Happy Friday from the other side of the world.

Long walks on the beach...

I know it's cliche to say, "I like long walks on the beach," but it happens to be true.  Last Thursday, the sunset was abnormally beautiful, so Aaron and I jumped on Scoot and headed up the mountain, on the island, to get a good view of it.  Unfortunately, there are just way too many little homes, stacked one on top of the other, to get a good view of anything from up there!  Don't think we didn't try! We took the elevator to the roof of two apartment buildings, but the doors were locked. :(

Sooo... we got back on Scoot and drove to the side of the island, parked, and had ourselves a little walk along the cliff.  

Aaron and I have always talked about doing this before we leave Korea.  I love the idea of it!  Maybe after the wedding when we're DEFINITELY locked together for life!  

The beach was tempting us to come down, so we took the 297 steps (yes, I counted) down to meet it.

We both had our cameras with us... What's new?!  So, I asked Aaron to sit here and let me practice doing some sunset shots where the lighting it really awkward.  I definitely have a lot to learn when it comes to shooting on MANUAL. You really have to know your camera, and what all the different settings are, in order to get a nicely composed shot.  I'm still very much in the process of learning all of that.

The sun was setting really fast and the rocks were getting a little hard to navigate through in the dark, so we hurried over to the last stairway on the beach, and made our way back up the 297 stair cliff on the far end of the beach.

There was a little look out point about 3/4 of the way up the cliff.  We were shocked, to say the least, at how beautiful the island looked at nighttime, from this spot.  

We made it back to the top and started our trek back to Scoot... 

but stopped here when we spotted this FREE telescope!  You could literally read the restaurant signs and see the people walking, over where the lights are in the background.

... and I could perfectly see the craters on the moon.  I'm not sure I've EVER actually looked through a telescope, unless I was really young and just can't remember.  It's pretty amazing what you can see with those things.

No Scoot ride is complete without a stop at Serry's!  Tonight, she was on her leash, outside, enjoying the perfect weather.  As soon as she saw us, she jumped up, tail wagging and barked for us to come closer.  Gotta love being loved by a dog.  So we sat with her for a while and talked with Emo while we drank our banana milk that she insisted on us taking from her.  

Tonight was the perfect little school night adventure!