The Cable Car!

Aaron and I have been talking about riding a cable car up onto Geumjeong Mountain, but were waiting until the weather turned! Finally, the perfect day arrived, where the skies were blue, we didn't have to wear coats, and it happened to be a Saturday, so we knew we had to go!

So, we jumped on the subway, and got comfortable, because it was a long ride! When we reached the Myeongnyung-dong exit, we headed straight for the Lotte food court for some korean lunch!

Then, we decided to get a little exercise and walk to the cable car instead of hailing a taxi! As were were walking, I spotted this picture on a door! Aaron said when he first got to Korea, people would always ask him if he was a monk! I couldn't pass up the opportunity for this photo opp! He was a good sport! :)

This poor dog! We spotted him in the window of a pet shop along the walk!

When we arrived at the base of the mountain, we realized there was an amusement park of sorts... This man was the first thing we passed. He was sitting, comfortably in his Korean folk village style hut making a traditional basket!

We spotted our first directional sign for the cable car and were so excited that we were finally nearing the station!

Yay, we made it! For a mere $5.00, we got "roundtrip tickets"!

The view from the cable car ride!

There were tons of different paths to take once we arrived at the top, but we decided to head towards the "south gate" and "the fortress!"

These purple flowers were everywhere! Aaron pulled one off and stuck it behind my ear! :)

We finally arrived at the South gate! I'm really not sure what this was used for, but it was pretty none the less!

Aaron snapped this picture of me, sitting infront of the door to the gate... I love the RED!

This rock wall surrounded the gate and legend has it, it runs for 4 kilometers and was originally built in the 1500's but reconstructed a couple hundred years ago!

After arriving back at the base of the mountain, we headed over to the amusement park for some play time!

Me, in my plane! (This pic is for you dad!)

Aaron, in his UFO!

This was Aarons idea... such a kid at heart!

Minus the one serious whiplashing, I had a lot of fun and did some serious bumping and crashing!

After leaving the park, we set out to find the famous wall graffiti near a man made river that runs near the subway on this side of town! I thought I'd throw this one in for all my fans who like misspellings!

We just happened to be there at the right time, to catch this artist painting this woman's face onto the wall! He was incredible!

The pathway runs for about a kilometer and is filled with beautiful artwork and graffiti! There were lots of families riding bikes together, spouses, walking hand in hand down the path, and college age students snapping pictures! It was a great way to end our fun Saturday!

No janitors!

I've talked, before, about how the students come to school early to clean the entire school, and stay after to clean it again! What I didn't mention though, was the fact that, all of the workers in Korea clean their businesses too! Here are 2 post office workers, in uniform, cleaning the outside of the post office!

Girl Scouts!

Some of my favorite students happen to be either girl scouts or cub scouts, so when I found out there was a girl scout/boy scout ceremony this past Friday, I knew I couldn't miss it! I wanted to be there to support my kiddos, and of course take some pictures!

Before the ceremony started, a bunch of the girls hung out with me in my office and gave me a sneak peak of their performance dance! (below: Lauren, Julie, and Erin)

The ceremony began at 5pm sharp!

The leaders: Stella, April (the music teacher and my personal schoeffer!), Mr. Joe, and Jason (the one who's baby had the party last week!)

After the ceremony, all of the moms ran up to congratulate their kiddos! It was so fun to match up the mom's with their sons and daughters! I see them volunteering at school all the time, but I have no idea who their kids are!

This is Susan (I named her) and her son Scott! She is the librarian at my school and is constantly studying English, so we've gotten to know each other pretty well over the past year! She asks me to call her "Oni" which means big sister!

Then the students changed into comfy clothes and all went on an hour long hike on the mountain behind the school. While they hiked, all of the staff who stayed to help, had dinner together in the teacher lounge... The parents of the girl scouts and boy scouts "prepared our dinner," meaning they bought us a ton of amazing seafood and fresh fruit and gave it to us as a thank you! :)

After dinner was the cooking contest! There were 4 groups - 2 girl scout groups and 2 cub scout groups! Their moms brought all of the food, and the kids cooked it! (Wait, let me restate that.... The moms brought all the food and the daughters cooked it - The sons all sat around and watched while their mom's did all the work! TYPICAL KOREAN CULTURE!)

They came up with some pretty interesting combinations! This was a plate of fried rice, garnished with strawberries... hmmm

The cooking contest would have been awesome if I hadn't already eaten so much for dinner! I literally felt like I was going to burst at the seams, but I felt bad rejecting my students offers of kimbap, bulgogi, chicken, rice, etc! They were literally stuffing food into my mouth, right and left! Finally, I decided I had to say, "Jincha bebulio" (I'm really full!) or I would have thrown up!

After the cooking contest, the talent portion began! This group did a dance to BoPeep, BoPeep (a popular Korean pop song!) They did all of the music video motions! It was pretty adorable!

After the talent portion, they broke out the Karaeokee machine (which my school owns by the way!) and sang until about 9:15pm!! It was then that I decided it was time for me to call it a night! Here's one last pic for ya of my sister Stella and I!

"On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law"

Oh, and for the record, they don't sell the cookies here. :(