Saturday in Seoul

We all work up at 6:30am, and were out the door by 6:45am to meet Dawn and her boyfriend Derek at the bus stop.  We rode to a park on the edge of the Han river where we set up a yoga photo shoot, under the bridge. 

 Jess played stylist (and wardrobe cleaner!), which she actually used to do back in the states! 

Wait till you see how awesome these pictures turned out on Aaron's camera!  

They're amazing!

Aaron, doing his thing!

Derek and Mayo were feeling a little left out, so they entertained themselves behind the scenes, doing their own yoga moves and laughing about them...

Checking out the raw photos.

Jess, getting into her move!  As you can probably assume, we all laughed a lot today!  Yoga can look really crazy sometimes, and the positions you get into in order to morph into the final position can be really funny!

How?! Seriously, how does she do this stuff?!

A quick snapshot of my sweet Jeshi!

We ended up drawing a bit of a crowd for photos like this one!  Everyone wanted to watch the yoga girl doing splits on the edge of the bike path! LOL

Ohhh Jess!  She'll kill me for posting this, but I couldn't resist!  She wanted to try!

 

Aaron had the girls pose completely still so he could get photos of blurred bicyclists riding in front of them!  Mayo had to jump in, on the side, to make the girls laugh!

After the bridge shoot, we walked along the river to this beautiful area of wild daisies where Aaron got some shots of Dawn, and this snapshot of the three of us girls

during a little break!  I WISH we had more areas like this in Busan!  I'd go and sit amongst all the flowers after work and eat a kimbap or something!! 

Dawn had to rush off to teach a yoga class, so Jess, Mayo, Aaron and I took a taxi to a really cool and upscale area of Seoul (can't remember the name), but it's where most celebrity sightings are, and we sat and had lunch here, at Deli Heinz Burg, a really cool German style deli.

Jess and Aaron at lunch.

We walked through the streets of this shopping area and had ourselves a nice little (out of character for me) shopping spree at FOREVER 21!  Man, I miss that place!  Me and Mayo outside a cute little bear cafe.

Another reason we came to Seoul this weekend was for Aaron to find an English speaking tailor to have his outfit tailor made for the wedding!  We were referred to this guy in Insadong, and after choosing fabric, sitting down and talking design, we decided to go somewhere else.  He kept saying, "Yes. It will look like that" after every photos we showed him, and "My shop is closing in 30 minutes, so we need to hurry."  We felt rushed and it just didn't feel right there, so we left. Sad for him!

Luckily, Aaron had seen a video on a foreigner's blog about getting suits made in Seoul and this was the place they highly recommended!  This felt a whole lot better!  More stylish, more options, free drinks!  Yes, this will work! 

The woman was really nice, and paid a lot of attention to each detail of the outfit, including what seemed to be about 15 butt measurements! I think she was just enjoying her job! :)

Can you believe all the measurements they have to take in order to make a custom suit (and we didn't even order a jacket!)?!  We were given the option to choose just about EVERY detail of every stitch of the thing!  Pretty fun, if you ask me! 

We chose a medium/light gray for his pants and vest, a small white and black checkered pattern material for the shirt, and a yellow skinny tie!  I'm not gonna lie... I am SOOO excited to see how it turns out!  The ivory swatch is a piece from my dress!

After spending a very enjoyable hour and a half with the tailor, we took a taxi back over to Insadong where we met Jess and Mayo for dinner at Vatos, an awesome MEXICAN RESTAURANT!  Aaahhhh, how we miss Mexican food!  They had the hugest and most delicious blended margaritas for $12, and kimchi/beef fries, Jess's recommendations!   

After dinner, we walked back over to SPACE and hung with Pete, the apartment hamster!  So cute, huh?!  We had a little down time before heading back out to meet up with Dawn and Derek again for more yoga photos!

 

The next photo shoot location was in Myongdong, a VERY busy outdoor shopping area in the heart of Seoul!  Aaron and I climbed to the third floor of a coffee shop so he could get an arial view of Dawn doing yoga positions in the middle of the crowd!  The photos turned out really cool because Dawn is completely in focus, while the passerby's are blurred. Talk about a hilarious thing to watch from above! Have you ever walked through a busy market and run into a random person doing an intense yoga position right in the middle of the crowd?!  My guess is no.  People's reactions were classic! 

I'm not gonna lie... I was definitely the proud fiance of the photographer who was drawing huge crowds with his yoga photos! 

The next photo stop was the Cheonggyecheon river, which runs right through the middle of the city!  We came a just the right time to get a shot of the lanterns which are hung across for Buddha's birthday celebration! 

We set up right on the river and had Dawn do some really cool poses on the rocks that run through the middle of it!  ...Again, drawing HUGE crowds!!!  People couldn't believe the stuff she was doing, while balancing on a rock!  Heck, I couldn't believe it either!  You'll just have to wait to see them until Aaron finishes editing. 

We had a VERY full and long day and were all pretty happy when we got back to SPACE and were able to kick our shoes off and relax!  Tomorrow's schedule is yummy food, more yoga photos, dinner at Kristen and Alicia's, shopping, and basking in the sunshine! Yes please!

Friday in Seoul

Buddha's birthday is Monday, May 28th this year, which gives us a 3 day weekend!  Thank you baby Buddha!  Aaron and I decided to spend it up in Seoul with Jess and Carlos (whom I will now only refer to as Mayo)  :).

We left on the 5:30pm KTX train tonight and made it to Seoul station at 7:55pm

We took a taxi to SPACE, the studio apartment that Jess and 4 friends are renting and using for yoga classes, cooking classes, building community, art, etc.  The girls had just painted this chalkboard wall, and Aaron and I were the inaugural welcome!  :)

Jess and Mayo's apartment is actually about 45 minutes from the center of Seoul, so to be able to hang at SPACE, which is right near Insadong (the mecha of foreign food and shopping) was perfect!  The 4 of us are actually going to stay at SPACE, together, until Monday afternoon when A and I head back to Busan!  Super excited for some quality time together!

We got to SPACE at about 8:20pm, dropped our bags and walked over to an awesome Thai restaurant for some curry!  I loved the wall hanging behind Jess! 

Aaron and Mayo.

The green vegetable curry was soooo yummy and AUTHENTIC!  

The head chef is a Thai woman and she definitely knew what she was doing!

Part of the purpose of coming to Seoul this weekend was to do a photo shoot of Jess and her friend, Dawn, doing yoga in busy areas of the city!  We did a little location scouting tonight and hiked up to this rooftop wine bar to see if it was somewhere we wanted to shoot from tomorrow.  We ended up scratching the idea, because it was way busier than we thought, but enjoyed the views while we we there! 

We all got home around 11 and called it a night!  Everyone's alarms are set for 6:30am tomorrow in order to get up and get the morning sun!

Wednesday Lunch!

It's a well known fact among my students that Wednesday lunches are ALWAYS the best!  I had never taken notice to the difference in the menu throughout the week, but recently I started noticing that Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are almost always 100% Korean - tofu, fish, Korean meat, etc.... But, sure enough, if you're a student and you like fried stuff, kid food, or fresh fruit, Wednesday is like hitting the jackpot because that's when Western foods are integrated!

Today's menu was

APPLES...

McDONDAL'S STYLE CHICKEN NUGGETS...

YELLOW CURRY...

AND WHITE STICKY RICE...

If you were a kid, you would LOVE Wednesday's too, right?!

No matter how many times I ask the ladies who serve the food to only give me a little (and yes, I say it in Korean), they still PILE it on!  Korea is a hierarchical society, and this culture flows over into the cafeteria at our school.  For example; if you're the librarian or a teacher's aid, you get a certain amount of food.  If you're a teacher, you get more.  If you're in Admin, you get more than a teacher, and if you're the Principal, your dish is sure to be overflowing everyday! haha  

  

Happy Wednesday from the Dae Gyo Elementary cafeteria!

Sunday, adventurous Sunday!

I woke up Sunday with an itch to get outside and explore! The weather was lovely, the scooter was fixed and ready to be driven, and Aaron was up for a day out too!  So, we jumped on Scoot and went where the wind took us... which happened to be an awesome temple on the mountainside, on Yeong-do island!  I'm not sure what the name of it was, but it was WAY UP THERE and really beautiful!

Buddha's birthday lanterns!  The best time to visit a temple in Korea is right before Buddha's birthday (end of May) because they're covered in these brightly colored lanterns, which are lit at night!

Last week, Aaron sold my Nikon D5000 camera and I inherited his Nikon D90. (The perks of marrying an avid photographer!)  He, in turn, bought a Nikon D700!  We brought our cameras to play around and learn all the new settings. I feel like my old camera took better pictures, but Aaron assured me it's the photographer, not the camera!  So, apparently I just need more practice with my new toy!  I'm not thrilled with how these pictures turned out, but I'm posting them anyway, because today was an adventurous day, and a memory I don't want to forget.

Aaron, being artsy!

There was a darling little Korean boy, playing between these baby Buddha statues, and I was trying so hard to get a good shot of him playing, but I couldn't find all the darn settings!  UGH... I need lots and lots of practice!

After we had had our fill of the temple, we rode back down the mountain! 

While we were heading back down, I caught a break in the buildings and houses and was able to see down to my school.  The red arrow is actually pointing to my classroom! :)

We were starving by the time we got back down into the downtown area of Yeongdo Island, so we stopped in at Cham (참), our favorite restaurant on the island, and ordered some tuna kimbap.  Yum, right?!

... and then treated ourselves to a Sunday afternoon coffee next door.

Around sunset, Aaron asked me to head out with him to be his muse for some photo practice.  He's really passionate and excited about photography, so I was happy to help.  We found a couple awesome alleyways within this neighborhood to get some shots, and then scooted up further on the hill to get a birds eye view of the city below. 

Nampodong (where I spend a lot of time) is right below the tower sticking up in the sky, and Yeongdo Island (where I live) is to the right. You can just barely see the bridge connecting the mainland to the island, between the huge apartment complex in the foreground and the end of the picture.

The sun had fully set and we were still out, riding around, when we spotted this REALLY steep street, lined with lanterns.  So we parked Scoot, and walked, walked, hiked, hiked, up to the top of the street.

This was the view looking back down!  (Again, still learning my new camera settings!)

We knew the lanterns were for Buddhas birthday and that a temple was surely closeby, so we kept hiking to find it.  We climbed, in the dark, up the lantern lit path on the mountain, to the top, where we were blessed with this stunning view of our side of the city!  Aaahhhh, worth the hike!

We made it down in the dark, without falling... AMAZING and called it a night.

I love days like these!