Last day of school!

Yesterday was the last official day of school before Winter Break! :) So, the kids all left at 10:15am, and the teachers boarded a bus and headed north a couple hours into a town I can't remember the name of! Sorry, the names here are really long and confusing!

Anyhow, we stopped the bus and walked up a giant hill to lunch, which was Sashimi (raw fish)!

When we got the restaurant, I spotted these 2 dogs outside, and had to say hello! The one in the cage in the background was going crazy and barking and growling at us...

So Lee, (our resident Buddhist teacher) walked over to it and told it to "slow it's temper and settle down." Buddhist believe they can communicate with animals. Sure enough, it did!


So then she asked it to sit down, and wala.... It did that too! She's like the Korean dog whisperer!


When we walked into the restaurant, the teachers immediately taped this banner to the wall above our table! I have no idea what it means, but I can tell you one thing... Koreans have a banner for EVERYTHING, literally everything...

... and toasted (with alcohol) to a great school year! As a side note: The male teachers and administrators get drunk at every teacher outing we have... so drunk infact, that some of them weren't even able to climb the mountain we climbed after lunch and slept on the bus!

Me and Stella!

Then, my sadest moment of the day came, my camera battery died! I was especially sad, because I would have loved to have taken pictures of the HUGE mountain that we climbed! Only 11 people were able to make it to the top, and I was one of them!! BIG thanks to Aaron and his awesome workout training that I've been doing for the past couple weeks! I've been getting stronger and stronger everyday!

FYI: This was the 1st mountain I've climbed to the very top of, in my life! For all you Arizonan's, Camelback Mtn is 1280 feet. This mountain was 1631 feet, that's approximately 29 more flights of stairs!!

Then, when we got to the very top of the mountain, I couldn't look down! It was terrifying and I felt like I was floating... so I sat down and latched myself around a tree! Then, once I got up the courage to stand up, the 11 of us started the treck down. Within minutes, we were faced with one of the scariest things I've ever encountered... a really long (approzimately 150 ft), and narrow (approximately 3 1/2 feet wide) wooden bridge, hanging about 100 stories in the air, that we had to WALK ACROSS!!! The bridge connected the 2 mountains, and it was the only way to get down the mountain! I started panicking and told Stella I couldn't do it! She said, close your eyes, and we'll get across! So, all 11 of us, scared to death, lined up single filed, grabbed each others shoulders and walked across! The bridge was wooden, so it swayed as we walked, which made all of us scream, even the guys!! I drew this picture, in the paint program on my computer, so you could get an idea of what it was like! :)


After 2 1/2 hours, we made it back down the mountain, safe and sound! Whew! We jumped on the bus with all the rest of the staff, and headed for dinner! :)

After dinner, we got back onto the bus and were told, by the bus driver, that the bus was actually a special bus - a Karaoke bus! YES, A KARAEOKE BUS! Within minutes, the bus lights were turned off, and the Karaoke lights were shinning in blue, red, yellow, white, and green! The party had officially started as far as I was concerned! For the next 2 hours, on our way back to town, each teacher got up and sang a song in the isle of the bus while we all clapped and cheered! It was awesome!

Stella and I sang a Korean song together! I think we were the big hit of the night! :)

I'm overwhelmed... in a great way!

My mom's best friend, and one of my favorite people in the world, SHERRY GREGORY, sent me a box with 3 Christmas presents inside! Wooo hooo!!


My Vice Principal is getting REALLY jealous of all my packages now! Funny story actually. He asked me who the box was from, but being the overly inquisitive person that he is, I knew he had already read the box and saw the return address said "GREGORY" (Which is Sherry's last name, but also a man's name!) This made him very concerned and he wanted to know if I had a boyfriend in the US that I hadn't told him about! When I said, ""It's from my mom's best friend," he then thought my mom had a boyfriend! The language barrier can get a lot of rumors started around here!!


Thank you a million times over Sherry... I can't wait to see what you sent! I won't open them until Christmas morning! :) Besides, I wanna be able to look at them all wrapped up for a while in the famous Sherry Gregory wrapping!!

The Crystal Tree

For those of you who live in snowy areas of the world, you probably won't think this is very cool... but since I've been a Cali and Arizona girl my whole life and have never lived in the snow, I thought it was amazing.  Just humor me, will ya?! 

So, I was walking to Nampodong, and noticed the sidewalk was wet in front of this building.  I noticed it because the lady in front of me slipped and fell on the ice that was created from the built up water.  I looked up to see where the water was coming from...

and as i looked up, I saw this... the most GORGEOUS icycle tree!  The water had dripped down from this building somehow, and froze as droplets on these bare branches.  It literally looked like it was draped with thousands of crystals.  Sooo gorgeous! 

Video Intercom Peep Hole!

In Korea, we don't have peep holes in our front doors... Instead we have intercoms and even video screens! Yes, we can actually see who is outside our door with a video screen! How awesome is that?! This is Aaron modeling what it looks like when people come to his door!

Bugok Hawaii

This weekend, Jess and I treated ourselves to a relaxing day at Bugok Hawaii, a multi-complex resort about an hour and a half north of Pusan! We jumped on a bus to Bugok city, that cost us the equivalent of 5 dollars, and relaxed, enjoying the scenery and reading gossip magazines that Amy sent me! (Again Amy, "thank you!")


We're here!! There's the front!


What we didn't realize was how much this place had to offer! We knew it had a spa, hot springs, and a botanical garden... but we literally could have spent the entire weekend here and not seen everything! There was a roller coaster, and a huge outdoor wave pool (obviously that's closed because it's FREEZING outside right now!)


When we walked in, we were shocked at the sheer size of this place! Check out the gigantic pirate ship and lap pool! Usually this place is PACKED with people, but due to the fact that we went in December, we could have had the lappool almost to ourselves!


Jess was ready to do some swimming!


Every 2 hours, they had Chinese acrobats performing on this stage! They were really amazing!


Jess and I floated around this lazy river in the kid area, and watched the acrobat show from here! The stage was just to the right.


Then, it was time for lunch! Bi Bim Bamp mmmmmm!


After lunch, we headed over to the actual jim jil bang spa area (the naked part)! This place was incredible! It was probably the size of 2 high school gymnasiums, and had spas galore... a hot one, a cold one, a warm one, a green tea one, etc! There were waterfalls you could sit under, lots of showers, and to top it off, it looked like you were in the middle of the jungle, with HUGE boulders, trees, and rocks everywhere! Jess and I layed on these benches, inside this cave, with masks on our face, hoping to tighten our wrinkles! :)


Then, it was time for the best part of all... the hot springs! We could have stayed here the entire day! The temperature of the water is 78°c! The water contains sulfur and over 20 kinds of inorganic matters such as silicon, chlorine, calcium and iron. It was freezing outside, but the water was REALLY warm! I loooooove hot springs!


We got home around 10pm, feeling super relaxed and rejuvinated, all for the measley price of $30.00 for everything! Gotta love girl days at the spa!