Coffee, lunch, coffee, supper, coffee!!!!

Things have been crazy for the last two and a half weeks! I don't have time for a long post, but I finally made it to Japan to visit Marie and our church in Tokyo. Last weekend I took a day trip to Busan. I've already had two papers to write, a presentation and one exam. I have one more exam, on Friday, and then I am done with school!!! I can't wait to not have homework constantly hanging over my head! I have been say goodbye to people like crazy. One day I had lunch, supper and coffee twice--all with different friends! Tomorrow (Thursday) I am having lunch with my teacher and classmates, and then I am meeting a friend for coffee, my Bible study group for supper and then another friend for coffee. Maybe I should study for my exam, you say? I think so too, but I don't see it happening! I will post pictures of Busan and Tokyo when I get home, because I don't think that I will have one more spare minute.

See you all soon!

I did it again...

Well...it has been exactly a month since my last post! My goodness am I sorry! Getting ready for the level up test, going back to the US, and then trying to resettle here back in Korea has been taking up quite a lot of time! I had a wonderful week in the US and the wedding was wonderful! Here are a couple pre-wedding pictures!

After returning to Seoul I met Hye Yun again and we spend the night and then went to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea), it was quite experience!

View of Seoul!

Bell of Peace

Train that went through the Korean War. There are over 1,200 bullet holes in it!

Only station that connects North and South Korea

Closest observation area to the North Korean boarder

North Korea! In the distance is the joint factory!

Since coming back to Dageu I have been studying, studying, studying! I did go to Thanksgiving at an American friend's house, though, which was really nice!

Friday our class is taking another trip. This is we are going to the beach. I am so excited! I hope that everyone is doing well! I can't believe that I am down to 3 1/2 weeks already. Time does fly!

Oops!

Okay, so I know that it has been a very long time since my last post. I haven't been doing too much at all, but then I realized the other day that I never posted about the Colorful Daegu Festival or my trip to Yeongju, so here it goes!

Every year in October Daegu holds a weekend festival that totally envelopes the entire downtown. They had performers everywhere, art showcases, music showcases, and you could do anything from having your face painting to eating traditional Korean food. At the end of Saturday and Sunday night they held a huge parade. Their parade isn't like ours, however. There were very few floats. The parade mainly consisted of people ranging from very young (I am going to say 4 or 5) to university students and beyond. They were all dressed as different things. In fact, there was everything from a group of people dresses to represent the countries around the world (Guess what America was? Yep, that's right, a cowboy) to Price Charming, Snow White and the Evil Queen (whatever her name is!), to zombie brides and vampires. Elvis Presley also made an appearance along with Jack Sparrow, Obama and Putin. The best part was that I arrived before the parade started and got to take pictures with them all, which made them quite happy! And, as a picture is worth a thousand words, I will quit writing and let you see for yourself!

Supper at the Traveler's Grill before we head to the parade. French toast. Yummy!!!

                                            A performance given before the parade started!

Asian Jack Sparrow

Aren't they cuties?!

                                       Dancing sheets! How many people do you recognize?!

                                                 A retro dance along with a random Elvis!

The end of the parade, and the end of a great day! As it is very late, I'm going to head to bed, but I will post about Buseoksa Temple soon!

Food here, food there, food everywhere!

Well, I have kept rather busy this week! Monday was our teacher's birthday, so all of us students when in together and bought her a cake--two actually! They were sooo delicious!

Assistant teacher

The two in the middle are from Mongolia and the third is from Japan

Enjoy this rendition of Happy Birthday in Korean!

Wednesday we had another holiday, Hangul Day, so Yana, another Chinese girl and I met up with our "buddy guides" which are Korean students that are selected to show international students around. We went downtown and had Baskin Robbins and went shopping.

 Afterwards we all went out to eat. You can't believe how much food they ordered! We got several different dishes and then shared them all (which is quite common in Korea. Rarely, it seems, does anyone person eat a dish by themselves). It was so absolutely yummy!

Steak & potatoes!

Noodles that were not made out of rice!

"Pi-cha"

We could barely fit all of the food on our table!

What made it even better is that Daegu University gives so much money to each group as long as they submit pictures and a receipt, so the meal was absolutely free! When we finished supper we went to a photo booth store (not sure what else to call it!) and took pictures together.

Yesterday, after school I met up with another Korean girl for coffee, and then went to my Thursday Bible study. We have a new girl that is interesting in learn more, but she isn't a believer, so prayers for her would be very welcome!

Today I got all of my homework done for Monday, so I can completely enjoy my weekend for once, woo hoo! I just got back from supper with two of my Chinese friends that are in the same Korean class as I am.

Tomorrow I think I will go downtown and do some shopping and somewhere new to eat, other than KFC (even though it is really good!). Other than that, all I have done is study and attend class. Teaching English is going pretty well. Oh! It finally stopped raining here, which is good, because I was starting to think that I was going to drown, even worse yet, ruin my heels!!! Haha! Okay, well, I hope y'all have a nice, rain free weekend!

Well, hello, old friend!

I must say that I am becoming a firm believer in the power of Facebook. While, I don't use it for much more than connecting with people (no, I am not a candy crush saga fan, or whatever is more popular now), this is the third time that I have been able to meet an old friend in their home country due to Facebook, and it is the second one that was possible due to one of my status updates! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hyeyun, our former exchange student (10 years ago!):

She came all the way from Seoul for the day, just to see me! We went to T. G. I. Friday for lunch, and I had an absolutely wonderful bacon cheeseburger and fries, yum!!!

 

 Hahaha! I am now the tall one, instead of being the short one, like when I was ten :-P

After eating we did some window shopping, went to my Bible Study together (woo hoo!!!), a little more shopping and then we had to head back to the train station for her to catch her train back to Seoul. It was so neat to see her again after ten years!

I was really hoping to go to Busan, the second largest city in South Korea, which is on the Sea of Japan (also know as the East Sea) this weekend, but it was very rainy, and who wants to go to the beach in the rain?! So, as of right now it is on the slate for next week!

Today (Monday) was the regular Korean class and teaching English. One of my Korean friends and I went out for supper. I am proud to proclaim that I can now use chopsticks quite well (even though people keep trying to give me a fork!) another win for Abby, woo hoo!

 

Proof of my chopstick prowess! And yes, that is a french fry that I am eating using my chopsticks. They don't use hands here, okay! :-P

Tomorrow is class as usual. Wednesday we have another holiday. I am beginning to think that Korea has more holidays than Russia! Friday, in place of class, we are going on an excursion to another city! No clue what we are doing there, but not having class sounds great to me! The less they teach us, the less they can test us on, right? Well, here, that's probably wrong, but it sounds nice!

I hope everyone is doing well! 32 days until take off!