funfun!

so i'm feeling less homesick these days :o)

i had a girls night friday that was pretty fun. only a few girls came but we watched the latest episode of antm and made fun of tyra and that's always amusing lol

last night there was a pirate lebowski party and that was alright (it was national talk like a pirate day and the annual lebowski festival...i guess in the states...so a friend of ours combined the two and had a party lol we wore combo pirate/the dude costumes and watched the big lebowski) ...at first it was just a bunch of guys and me but some girls finally showed up a couple hours later and i had someone to talk to. the party did help me realize why i don't hang out with single guys who like to drink though! :o)

i had a HORRIBLE night's sleep unfortunately. i just kept getting woken up by jens, the dogs, drunk ajossis yelling outside, taxis honking, people using the elevator in my building, etc. but at least it was a sun. so i could sleep in! i'm amazed by the amount of noise in this country and how different it is back home. the most you ever hear back home is people driving by your house and that's not very loud at all. every once in a while you might hear something like people trimming trees, etc. but that's not an everyday thing. can't wait to get back to semi-silence back home! :o) but like i said i'm not as anxious to get back home now that i've got some stuff going on here.

today a bunch of girls met up to bet on the latest season of antm (america's next top model). we watch the first few eps. and then choose who we think will win and put 10,000won into the pot. if our girl wins then we'll win all the money. quite a few girls are in on it this season so whoever wins will get a good chunk o' change! i have no idea who might win so i picked fairly randomly. who knows though- my girl might end up winning lol

so i think i'm gonna try to have some kind of girls night every week...even if only one girl is available to do something. i just think it'll be fun and it'll help a lot with homesickness to plan to do things with friends every week. esp. gatherings with just a few girls or even one girl- so that it's not always big parties where you can't really talk to anyone for any length of time or you can't hear anyone that well, ya know? i like to go to parties and have time with small groups.

i'm happy that i've got all my lessons planned for this next week. i'm gonna have to plan two more pretty soon though. hopefully i'm motivated enough to do it lol but by plan i really mean - take someone else's lesson and adapt it to my classes lol so it's not that hard.

next weekend i've got girls night again, then a housewarming party and i might have jens take me out to practice driving the scooter. i drove it a little around a parking lot last night and did ok by myself but i absolutely could NOT drive it with jens on the back. as soon as i would push the gas i'd fall towards one side or the other. i really wonder if i'll ever be able to drive a scooter with someone else on it. i doubt i'll ever do it in korea. we're most likely getting a scooter back home though so if i practice driving by myself a lot then i may eventually be able to drive with someone on it too.

pretty soon it'll be chuseok and i think jens and i are gonna go with our friends to an island and just chill out for a few days which will be nice :o)

then soon enough it'll be halloween. the big party is already being planned! :o) fun fun!

anyway, i'm glad i'm getting over this homesickness. life is more fun when you're not depressed! haha lol i still get down about things here and there- things i'm tired of dealing with in korea - but now i'm starting to plan fun things to distract me from the negative. so that'd good!

if you're wondering about how jens is doing after lasik- he's doing great! he can see far away really well but still can't quite read a book yet- it's a strain to look at things up close. but over time that'll go away.

oh and the dogs are doing well! i'm happy to say that we can actually let jjang sleep in the bed with us and sadie now!!! we just decided to try it a couple weeks ago because he kept waking me up in the middle of the night scratching on his cage or making choking sounds (because he'd be eating parts of the cage) so i just threw caution to the wind and let him sleep in the bed with the door open (we can do that now that we don't have to use the ac anymore, since it's getting cooler) and he didn't pee on the floor! AND he hasn't peed on the floor once since then. i think he's finally gotten the fact that we only want him to pee on the pads. so that's exciting lol and i like being able to cuddle with him in the bed now. i felt so bad before that sadie could sleep with us and he couldn't.

i'm a little worried about when we get back home though because we wanna train them to go outside...so it'll be housebreaking them all over again :oP not looking forward to that! but we'll deal with it when we come to it.

for now i must go! have a great week!

well hey - i'm updating again...not sure why though since it seems like hardly anyone reads it...someone comments about 1% of the time...but whatever.

anyway i was feeling homesick recently but i'm starting to feel better. i'm getting a break from teaching this week since most classes have earned a movie day. i just teach classes on friday. also i've decided to start getting together with some girlfriends once a week if possible. first get together is this friday night at my place. we're just gonna do something really laid back- hang out, eat, chat, maybe watch a movie. i think it'll be really nice to get together with friends at least once a week and just have some bonding time, ya know? bond over our mutual lifestyle of living in korea lol

i'm thinking about MAYBE going to yoga at this studio that's like right by my apt. complex. i hear it's not as intense as that place i used to go to. i'd be more motivated to go if i could get someone to go with me though. one of my friends is thinking about it but she just had a baby so we have to wait and see.

oh and i've gotten some girls together for the annual america's next top model betting pool lol we've done it for two seasons so far- this will be the third. we watch the first few episodes and then bet on who we think will win. we put 10,000won each into the pool and whoever picks the girl that wins will win all the money :o) antm is pretty cheesy but it's just a fun, silly thing to do - esp. during free time at work - watch an ep. and then talk about it through email or facebook lol

i think things will start gearing up here pretty soon- with parties and then planning for halloween, thanksgiving, xmas and finally new years...then it'll be winter break and we'll be going on vacation and before we know it we'll be ending our time here in korea. as much as i want it to go by quickly i know that i'll be sad to leave and a bit scared to start the next chapter in my life.

i'm sure looking for a job back home will NOT be fun...and i'm worried that there's no chance i'll find something i actually WANT to do :o( i really wanna be an assistant to a wedding planner or event planner. if that doesn't work out i'd like to do anything related to the eco-friendly field which will probably be easier to find...so we'll see.

jens has A LOT going on! just got this lasik done and that's going well. he can drive and use the computer and play video games...just no reading yet. he's been practicing music with a friend once a week. they're trying to start a band. he also just joined a d and d group which meets once a week so that's two nights i week i can get him out of the house! ;o) lol not to mention he's wanting to start his 3rd novel soon.

hobbies that i would LIKE to have are painting, knitting, doing yoga but none of those seem to be happening at the moment lol maybe at the girls night i can get my friend to remind me how to knit and then i can make that scarf i wanted to make for jens...

as for painting i have all the supplies but i don't know what to paint. i kinda feel like i don't wanna waste the materials on a crap painting ya know? it's like - if i'm gonna use one of the two canvases i have i want it to be good...i want to be able to display it...i don't want to have to just hide it or throw it out afterwards...i also have two little cardboard covered in paper canvases...5x7 inches or so, which are a little less intimidating...i should just do it! just paint already! geez! lol

anyway i need to go take a shower and get to bed. goodnight everyone!

japan, ben and viv's visit, back to school, etc.

well it looks like i'm not going to get the time or motivation to sit down and write a really detailed blog about our japan trip and ben and vivienne's visit to korea but i figure my photo albums on facebook are pretty much a photo journal of those two thing so it's all good.

i'll give a brief summary of each.

jens and i weren't planning on going anywhere this summer because we knew ben and vivienne would be visiting us here but after a while we decided we should go somewhere (it always seems to happen that way...that's how it was last summer lol). anyway we decided on japan because we had only spent 4-5 days there and loved it and wanted to see more. this time we decided to just fly into tokyo and spend 10 days there and in the surrounding area. it's so expensive to travel across the country so staying in one city was more economical- plus there's plenty to see in and around tokyo.

we stayed with our friend kacie most nights. (we met her in university and she's been living and teaching in tokyo for 2-3 years now.) we also spent time with erin (another friend from uni, living and teaching in tokyo for almost 2 years, friends with kacie too).

we spent one night in hakone which is a very lush, natural, mountainous setting with a lake. very beautiful but very foggy while we were there. also, everything closes at 5pm so that made my birthday dinner interesting lol that's right- i had my 26th birthday in hakone. pretty cool! :o) that makes 4 birthdays outside the u.s. - korea, vietnam, korea again and japan. while in hakone we road a pirate ship, cable cars, a funicular and a few buses! good times!

we also spent two nights in nikko- another natural, mountainous setting but with more temples. still foggy though! apparantly summer is very foggy in the mountains in japan.

here's a list of things we saw in an around tokyo: an awesome 1-hour fireworks show, many temples and shrines, people dressed up in crazy costumes in harajuku, topless anime figurines in akibahara, fish on a stick, really tan japanese girls with big hair dressed up in ukata (summer kimono), a yo-yo trickster, an opera singer/accordionist in a park, lots and lots of cool mossy areas, we dressed up in ukata and jimbae (japanese style shorts and top) and went to a lantern float festival, art museum, zoo (where we saw a pangolin, giant anteater, mouse deer, tapirs, capybaras, and other weird animals), the original see no evil-hear no evil- speak no evil monkeys, went to a maid cafe, sang karaoke, and ate many different things...

including: sushi, dango (rice cake balls), matcha (weird green tea), monjayaki (fried...stuff...), yakisoba (fried noddles), yesaiyaki (fried veggies), whale!, ramen (way better than the 50cent stuff! lol), soba soup, grilled squid tentacles, octopus balls, okinomiyaki (veggie, egg pancake thing), yuzu ice cream, purple sweet potato ice cream, and of course tempura and i'm sure a few other things. japanese food is delicious!!!! (yes, even the whale! it was like steak Po:)

overall, i LOVE japan. both times i've been there i've felt- why don't i live here!!! then i remember i wouldn't save NEAR as much money. i'm content with living in korea and just traveling to japan (and many other places!) :o)

things i like about japan:
it's SO CLEAN!!!!! people even sweep up leaves and tiny debris outside their shops everyday!
japanese people seem to like being different from each other (much moreso than koreans).
the food is GREAT!
the traditional dress is my favorite out of all the other countries i've visited. i love kimono/ukata!
japanese people like to have a good time! there are festivals and fun things to do everywhere!
they have a funny sense of humor.
they respect others in public by being reserved and polite.
they are helpful and friendly.
they recycle EVERYTHING!
and many other things.

ok now for ben and viv's visit.

it was so great to have them come visit us!!! we hadn't ever had any friends visit before. we had had family - which was awesome! - but it's just different to have friends visit. we spent some time in mokpo, gwangju, jeju island and seoul! viv had a hard time adjusting to the time difference and food at first but after a while she felt better so that was good!

we went noraebanging (karaoke-ing) MANY times and that was fun, they met some of our friends, we rent scooters on jeju and drove around (including a harrowing trip over hallasan (dead volcano) in the rain and fog! lol), we ate all the good food we could find lol, went shopping, took them to our favorite temple in korea (yakchansa), went to the very interesting sex and health museum ;o) lol, and while in seoul we sent them off to see the war museum, cheongdong theater performance and art museum (since we had seen each of those at least twice).

and all in all it was really fun! i'm so glad they got to come visit us! :o) (i would write more but i gotta go to a book swap soon!)

the day after they left i had to go back to school! :oP it's been ok. the students were really getting on my last nerve the first couple of weeks but i'm starting to realize that i just need to calm down and not care so much lol sounds bad but that's what the korean teachers do! it's really the only way to survive the semester without going insane. so that's what i'm trying to do- just relax, take things in stride and get through it. it's my LAST fall semester in korea!!! it's so weird to think about that!!!

anyway, gotta run! have a great day! <3