Shingi Weekend!

 Last Friday, after work, Aaron and I met at the train station, with our coffee's in hand, and jumped on the Korail to Jeomchon to see Jessica and Carlos for the weekend!

The train ride to Jeomchon is 3 hours and 30 minutes, which gave me lots of time to play sudoku!  Notice, this is an EXTREME sudoku, and it's finished!  It may have taken me 24 minutes to do it, but I did it! :)

 The train ride flew by and before we knew it, we were pulling into Shinji (Jess and Carlos's city)!  It's been a couple months since we've seen them both, so it was really nice to be all together again!  We spent the first night talking and catching up over wine and orange fanta!  Strange mix, I know...

Carlos woke up nice and early and cooked up an awesome bowl of fancy eggs for us!  I'm not sure what all is in them, but it was delicious none the less!

At around 10am, we all bundled up and headed over to the local school to see Jess and Carlos's neighbor perform in the school talent show!  She had hand written them an invitation (in english), so they knew they needed to go!  I snapped a picture of this sign on our walk, because it says that Shingi is for me!!  How nice huh?! ***

Is she not the cutest little thing!?  This was only 1 of her many performances!  She sang the Korean marshmallow song, with motions and everything!

 

Bouquets of fake roses and tissue paper filled the audience!  

This was probably one of my favorite performances!  The boy sitting down is a "special ed" kiddo, and his performance was to hit the bells on his desk, along with these 6th grade girls to create Christmas songs.  In the middle of one of the songs, his teacher motioned for him to hit the bell, but instead, he put his hand up, waved, and yelled, "Hello!" to me and Jess, who were sitting in the front row!  It was classic!  

After the show, the boys went into town for some Samgyupsal, while Jess and I opted for some home made Kimchi soup!  Staying with Jess and Carlos is like living at a gourmet restaurant!!

On the way home from town, the boys ran into Jess's pharmacist, who loves her and Carlos.  He followed the boys back to the apartment and insisted that we "go for a walk" with him. When we asked where, he motioned around the neighborhood.  We all hesitated a bit, since we prefered staying home and relaxing together, but when an older Korean insists, you don't really have a choice!  So, we all bundled up and headed out.

First stop was the pharmacy.  We should have known this walk wasn't going to be a leisurely one when her pharmacist insisted that Aaron borrow one of his hats to wear... 

(I love this picture!!)

and each of us were handed a pair of white gardening gloves to put on!   Who takes walks around the neighborhood with white gloves?!  None of us could hold our laughter in!

The walk started through their neighborhood, and was indeed quite leisurely!   Notice I'm wearing my pajamas because I thought this would be a quick thing!

We stopped to see the goats...

 

... and even fed a couple of them!

But just as we thought we were finished, her pharmacist took a turn in the road that headed UP THE MOUNTAIN!  That's when the real workout began!  

By this point, we had hiked to the top of the mountain!   Uuughhhh  

Whenever they're together, they're pure entertainment!

Like brothers from another mother...

After hiking another 15 minutes or so, through the forest, we stopped at this exercise park and each got a little workout in!

I'm a reindeer incase you couldn't tell!

We started to head down the mountain, but before we knew it, we were hiking back up another one!  This is the 2nd mountain we hiked!  We were about an hour or more into our "walk around the neighborhood" at this point. Jess and Carlos's house is way over where all the houses are!

As much as none of us really wanted to spend our afternoon hiking, I will say there were some really beautiful areas!

Our mountain men - couple picture!

 This man is 72 years old and was kicking all of our butts!!!  He was always way ahead of us calling for us to hurry up!

Carlos spotted this bird nest, which I thought was really beautiful!

Her pharmacist noticed she was picking these berries (to use for Christmas decor) and stopped, picked one off the branch and ate it... then offerred one to her!  I wouldn't recommend trying this on your own hike through the Korean wilderness, but since he's a pharmacist, he probably knows what he's doing!

The hike ended up being about 2 hours, but felt more like 10!  We were all exhausted and desperate for showers! 

Jess had grabbed this pine branch, off the ground, during our hike, and made it into a christmas tree for her apartment!  So creative huh?!

After settling back in at home, Jess started cooking dinner - an incredible pumpkin rissotto, with home made cheese!  I'm telling you, Jess is amazing!

  We had a great dinner and delicious wine to top it off!  These were our beverages for the weekend...  We like to keep things classy!

The mixture of wine and early 90's rap songs made for one of the funniest nights I've had in a long time!  In case you were wondering, Jess and I can simultaneously rap every word of most TLC songs! 

We always have so much fun together and were sad to have to say goodbye Sunday afternoon.  But before we knew it, it was time to go!  This is the last time we'll see Shingi, since Jess and Carlos will be leaving their school's in February!  So, we took a nice good look at it as we drove off to the train station! 

Not sure when our next train ride will be, but hopefully it'll be to Seoul to see them next year!  We're all hoping they get university jobs there.... because if not, they'll be going back to the states. :(

I'm back into the real world this morning, planning and organzing my teaching supplies at work, and hoping for a great and QUICK last 2 1/2 weeks of teaching before Christmas break!  Then, Aaron and I are off on another vacation - although this time it's to the states to meet each other's families!  We both can't wait!