Ice Fishing Festival

These last two weeks were a lot of fun! Bryon came to visit us! We spent a lot of time in Seoul traveling as well as Gongju and some other surrounding cities. But the highlight was the ice fishing festival! There is an organization we like called Adventure Korea. They set up weekend trips for foreigners to various places around Korea. They take care of everything (transportation, food, lodging, activities, etc…). So, the weekend started out with a bus ride to the festival in a northern province (about 30-40mins away from North Korea). There were hundreds of people there. We started off the adventure appropriately with some ice-fishing. Within 10mins Bryon caught one! We put it in our plastic bag to eat later that night. We continued fishing and Michelle was using multiple strategies. If I can recall, loosely and with my own interpretation ;) she was wiggling her fishing line and pole to the “dance”, the “bob”, the “sway”, and some rapid fire jiggling. Unfortunately, her moves just weren’t interesting the fish. But that’s ok because soon our Adventure Korea guides (along with the paparazzi) came over to string our lines and hooks with some already caught fish for some picture and marketing purposes. My roommate, April, was the main event of the photo shoot topping it off with a kiss for the fish.

After that, we enjoyed various things around the festival such as fried/grilled foods, warming our frostbitten toes in the tents, looking at snow sculptures, and sledding on the ice with wooden boxes. There were also 4-wheeler rides on ice, ice skating, and tubing.

But among all these exciting festivities, none could compare to the bare hands fishing. Imagine, 2-4degree Celsius water outside in one of the most northern parts of Korea in a little pond filled with fish. We were instructed to strip down and put on a bright orange t-shirt and shorts. Then, we huddled together outside in the cold before lining up on the edge of this man-made pond. Once on the ledge, our feet were stinging from the snow and ice under us. There were news cameras and a band of Koreans circled around us shouting and cheering for all the shivering foreigners. Finally, they instructed and cheered one of us to dive in the start the event. The goal was to catch as many fish as you can with your hands.

I should preface this: A group of Koreans went before us to do this, they were shoving them down their t-shirts, putting them in their mouths, and catching them one after another. So many people from our group were determined to catch 3 or 4.

Ok, back to the big dive in. Some brave soul from our group went for it, dove head-first right into this arctic water! We were then all instructed to get in. Michelle and I were quite slow to get in. In fact, I am pretty sure I was the last to get in. Once I was in, my legs and feet were numb with pain. My feet and legs went rigid and it hurt! My brain was saying to me “this is not right, this is not right, you’re going to get frostbite and never be able to use your toes or legs again!” There were people taking pictures and video recording us, but there was no posed smile on our faces. I just screamed frantically into the news camera. Michelle, our friend Stephanie, and I were the first ones out. I would definitely say within 30 seconds of being in the water we headed out. We waddled, feet numb, over to the tent with a large wooden foot spa where we carefully put our feet in. At first you could only let the steam hit is because the warm feel of the water hurt your numb feet so badly, it took me about 5 minutes before I was ready to fully submerge my feet and calves.

So, you might ask, did anyone catch some fish with their bare hands!?!? The answer is no. Why? Remember the group of Koreans that went before us? Well, they caught most of the fish. There were like 5 fish left for the foreigners. We were all just splashing around, going completely numb looking for these dang fish when all along there was nothing there! To say the least, I think we got played. But on a brighter note, Bryon and the excellent fisherman he is, caught a fish with his bare hands! However, as soon as he held it up in the air to show, it slipped out of his hands back in the water never to be seen again.

It was a fun adventure! Enjoy the pics!

Love, Kayleigh

If you see me walking by and the tears are in my eyes, walk away, baby walk away!!

So while living in Gongju, random things often happen to us. We don't plan for these things, we don't try to make them happen in any way but they just do. For example we happened to come across the lighting of "the" Christmas tree in Gongju at just the right moment, got to meet the mayor once again, (luckily he remembered us from the chesnut festival) and then proceeded to be in the local Methodist Church Christmas photo of the lighting of the tree. It was hilarious!

However, one incident in particular was a little more "spicy" than we cared for. We were walking from the bus stop to my house after church and out on the street, there was a group of about 15 women churning up cabbage and making a smell we well recognize these days. It was kimchi making day in this part of the neighborhood and everyone was pitching in! I made the mistake of getting a little too close, innocently asking if I could get a picture of their mad kimchi making skills. As fast as you could say, 1, 2, 3...."say Kimchi" for the smiling shot, the woman standing closest to me shoved a giant piece of freshly made kimchi into my mouth and then in the next second, another woman nabbed Kayleigh. We smiled and said thanks and started to walk away.

About 20 feet after leaving their presense, both of us looked at each other in utter horror and started spitting it out as fast as we could. Our mouths were on fire, I couldn't feel my lips and for the next 5 minutes till we got to my house, you'd have thought we were 2 rednecks from S. Carolina (if my friend Jeff is reading this, you know I love S. Carolinans!!) spitting left and right till we could start to gain feeling in our tongues again. It was an atrocious experience and one we will not soon forget.

Lesson learned: Fresh kimchi will kill you!

Where Did December Go?

Wow, it's been a busy month! And we're a week into January already. I can't believe how fast time is going by. We've just finished 1/3 of our contract here in Gongju. We did our very best to have all of the normal Christmas traditions throughout December even miles and miles away from home and thanks to many of our friends and family, it was a very meaningful holiday time. On the 2nd weekend in December, we spent an entire day at our friend Virginia's home baking cookies and listening to Christmas music. We were a machine for like 8 hours straight! We made enough cookies for each of us to have a small bag to take home and also to deliver to over 60 children at an orphanage that our friend volunteers at.

It was so wonderful to be inside an actual home and have kitchen space to move around in. Plus Virginia has two little boys that were a delight to play around with. They are half Canadian/half Korean and the oldest can speak both English and Korean. It's such a great gift for him to have this skill. He may not appreciate it now, but I guarantee he will in the future! Poor little baby Aidan got his first taste of kimchi the night we were there. It was not an enjoyable experience for him. But that's what older brothers are for right? To torture and aggravate the younger one?

The next day we traveled to a nearby city after church to have a Christmas party with middle school students that live in an orphange that our friend Lisa volunteers at. We had a great time with crafts, games, lots of candy, music, snacks and all of this was done with very little Korean on our part and very little English on theirs! Fun is definitely a universal language. It was a great experience and I'm very glad we got to participate.

Troubles in Turkey

I promised I'd give an update on the Thanksgiving turkey and so here goes. I have to say that I did my absolute best to cook this stubborn bird but let's just say it weren't no Butterball!

After a crazy mixup about where we could actually cook the turkey, I finally decided to use my school's oven in the cooking room. (Mind you, they never once mentioned the school had an oven the whole time I was ordering my turkey, talking about not having an oven, brainstorming ideas on where to cook it, etc) That would be too easy! But after some help from another coteacher, I got set up at about 3:30 in the afternoon on the Monday night we had our Thanksgiving celebration. I washed, coated in butter, added salt and pepper, stuffed the insides with onion, apples, celery and poured chicken broth, apple juice and water over it and put it in the oven. I was doing just about every substitution I could find to make this all work.

I sat at the computer and caught up on "The Office" (with my boyfriend Dwight Shrute) in between taking the turkey out and basting every half hour or so. The party was supposed to start at 7:00 and I knew we'd be cutting it close but I was determined that we were gonna have turkey on Thanksgiving!

After 1 and a half hours, didn't seem like we were making much headway. I had followed the directions as best as I could, converted the oven temp to celsius and didn't know what the problem was so I prayed and just keep cooking. At the 2 and a half hour point, I only had one hour left to cook, clean up the room and take the turkey in a taxi over to Kayleigh's house. Time was running out! Finally at about the 3 hour and 15 minute mark, I felt like we could be quite sure it was done. I was working without the luxury of a meat thermometer so I just went on instinct alone! It looked right, smelled right and I hoped for the best.

Well, I hadn't planned out very well how I was going to execute my next step. Phase 3, delivery! The turkey was covered in foil, but still extremely hot and I had a lot of equipment to carry as well. All the teachers were already gone for the day but luckily a few students were still milling around. I thankfully ran across a student who is in my top English class and asked her if she could call me a taxi. She was happy to but didn't have her cell phone and as luck would have it, my cell phone minutes had just run out the night before so I couldn't make outgoing calls either. She ran off and tracked down another phone, called me a cab and then helped me carry everything out to the front road near my school. I was very indebted to Lucy at this point!

I got in the cab very carefully and held onto that bird for dear life. Taxi drivers are not well known for their smooth, peaceful rides and this was no exception. As he sped off, I could feel that the turkey juices were precariously close to tipping out the sides and all over the taxi floor. I pulled the foil as close as possible and prayed for the quickest drive ever. Kayleigh happens to live at the top of a giant hill and her school has several speedbumps in the parking lot. Well, we went over the first and I knew I was in serious trouble. The juices had sloshed over the sides and I caught it with my lap, desperate to save the taxi, not knowing how I would explain to him or apologize for making his car smell like poultry. I had him pull over even before we reached her house. I was getting out of there as fast as possible.

Right as I exited the cab, Kayleigh called me cause of course, I was running late at this point but I couldn't set the turkey down and hand the driver money and answer my phone all at the same time. So I missed her call and unloaded my stuff. I still had about a 3 or 4 minute walk to get to her house and really wanted some help to carry everything but of course, I couldn't make any phone calls. I walked with everything as far as I could, arms burning and muscles aching, until I had to set the turkey down in the grass on the side and make 2 trips. When I finally got everything into the house, I was so exhausted and smelled like turkey juices, it took some time to pep back up and get into the swing of the party.

I set a guy to work on carving and helped Kayleigh get the rest of the food on the table. We let him go at it, but despite our best efforts, the turkey was pretty chewy and there actually wasn't that much meat on it. However, everyone was very gracious and so thankful to have turkey at our Thanksgiving feast. We all got a little bit and had plenty of other goods to keep us full and satisfied. It was a great party with about 16 other foreigners and tons of food! I was thankful for many things that night but probably most of all that I never had to even think about another turkey for at least a year! I will not be volunteering for that again anytime soon!

Christmas posts are coming soon! Stay tuned!

Top and Bottom things of Korea

Top (and bottom) things about KOREA according to Kayleigh...

Things I love…
1.) Public transportation. It is amazing I can go to big city or small via bus and usually for under $10.00. But the best is the Seoul Subway. It blows my mind! I think it should be nominated for one of the seven man-made wonders of the world. Check it out at…http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/TR/TR_EN_5_1_4.jsp

2.) Reading the Korean Language. Reading the Korean language is rather easy (unlike reading Chinese, MUCH harder). Without being able to read it, life would be more difficult. I especially love that many words sound so similar to English words (only with a bunch more syllables!). For example:

Elevator à el-li-bay-ee-toe * can you hear it the similarity!?

(not the standard Romanized Korean, just my interpretation of what it sounds like, you have to study the Romanized Korean vowels to be able to read them properly).

3.) Festivals! The festivals in Korea during every season are so much fun! In January I am going to an Ice-fishing festival. They have festivals for butterflies, fruits, spices, teas, nuts, mud, lanterns, fish, film, moon, cherry blossoms, you name it….they probably have a festival for it. If they don’t you could easily make one…Just gather a bunch of people together, bring SoJu (famous alcoholic drink), some food, and make everything “themed”. Really, so much fun!

4.) People! The people are friendly and curious about foreigners. They will always welcome you to a dinner to try and get to know you better, even if you can’t understand each other. It is a very warm attitude.

5.) Hot water machines. Thank you! Restaurants, school, mini-stops, vending machines, everywhere has hot water! Thank you KOREA! I am limited to cold drinking fountains in my wonderful country (yes, to me it is now wonderful, I appreciate the USA much more!).

Things I don’t exactly love…

1.) People are really in a hurry in Korea! There is always something to do or someplace to go right that moment. You eat lunch as fast as you can, get out of the lunchroom as fast as you can, bag your groceries and pay as fast as you can (I am very slow at this, everyone in line always has to wait for me), get your bus ticket and move on as fast as you can, pretty much if you are doing something, you have to do ASAP.

2.) Appearance is REALLY important and emphasized. I can only remember seeing on one or two occasions where someone was in public and dressed ‘casually’ meaning, sweatpants and a sweatshirt (or for the women, anything not high heel). There are mirrors EVERYWHERE, and I mean that. And they are used well. Guys and Gals alike take a moment in every mirror to put a hair back into place, or just do a double take.

3.) Constant supply of fermented vegetables. In fact, I think that is the only way to eat vegetables. I do like some of them, but sometimes I just want a vegetable that hasn’t been sitting in vinegar for weeks.

Thank you Korea! The pleasant and not so pleasant.

Much to be Thankful For!

This month we've kind of slacked off on the blog but that is probably because we've been out of town 3 out of 4 weekends. It's been an extremely busy month for us but also very challenging. There have been several hard things we've dealt with culturally, personally and in the lives of our families. So needless to say, we have been feeling worn out! But our God is faithful to see us through these times and we have so much to give thanks for as we navigate through this holiday weekend away from home.

The first weekend in Novemeber we had a chance to visit Cheonan, the capital city of our province. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and everything fell into place so well that we knew it was a special gift from the Lord. We took a bus early Saturday morning and basically shopped till we dropped! Kayleigh needed lots of winter clothing items and I was her "What not to Wear" fashion consultant. We actually both found several things we needed and went back and forth to a few choice stores. We stopped for lunch and ate delicious sushi. It was on the revolving little assembly line just like what I was used to seeing in Japan. It was a very fun treat since we can't find it in Gongju!

Then it was back to business. When we could no longer carry our bags any further, we pitched them in a locker and headed to the upstairs movie theatre for a taste of America. It's funny how you forget where you are and we have to remind ourselves as soon as it's over that we're in Korea and, yes, we don't understand anything. It's a nice escape into English World!

After the movie we ate dinner at this amazing salad bar buffet. They also specialized in BBQ but we were so full on salads, soups and breads, we didn't even try the meat. Next time! It was a beautiful day and we walked around the city and even got a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Yum!

Another gift that arrived soon after that was also a little bit of home. Kayleigh's mom sent us 3 packages filled with all our favorite goodies. Thanks Karen!!

We had an opportunity to catch up with some friends from AZ last weekend. Our sweet friends Bok Ja and Bae Hoon used to work and live in Tempe and returned to Korea about a year ago. They are living in Seoul and so we worked out a plan to go visit them. They have adorable twin girls and it was really fun to be around some kids for a change. We visited some shopping/art districts, Itewon (known as foreign town) and then went to Seoul Tower to get a good view of the city. My pictures don't do it justice at all! In Itewon, they have about every foreign restaurant imaginable and Kayleigh and I splurged on some mouthwatering Mexican food. Words can't describe how happy we were.

Sunday after visiting our friends, we headed to Daejeon to go to church and they had a "Thanksgiving" potluck after the service. There weren't ALL the usual dishes but it was more than satisfying. We ate and ate and then ate some more. I even got apple and pumpkin pie! Who can ask for more? This week has been a little hard teaching every day about Thanksgiving yet knowing I wouldn't be at home to experience it. But God blessed both of us in different ways on Thursday and it has ended up being a great holiday. All the foreigners in Gongju are getting together on Monday night to make a Thanksgiving Dinner. It should be a blast and there will be more to come about my first attempt at cooking a turkey and how God absolutely provided one for us without us even asking. I am so glad that He is especially fond of us! I hope you have enjoyed a special Thanksgiving with your loved ones and look forward to the coming Christmas season!

Conquering Sobaeksan!

This month we went on a trip with a group called Adventure Korea. They plan weekend trips for foreigners to travel around Korea. There is literally something every weekend and so we took our first trip with them in mid-Oct. We headed about 4 hours away to a Ginseng festival where we were able to see the "many" benefits of eating, drinking and ingesting ginseng. We had a ginseng peeling contest, tried fried ginseng, stuffed our feet in ginseng powder to improve circulation, made ginseng wine and harvested our own to take with us. It was a fun cultural experience and we learned that ginseng takes 4-6 years to be ready to harvest. After our tour of the festival we stayed the night in a traditional Korean village. We fit 4 of us in a hobbit home complete with a little door we had to crawl into and walked around exploring the beautiful trees and scenery. Wasn't much to do after dark so we had some serious card tournaments and went to bed early.

The next day we were going to hike Sobaeksan mountain. Now if you know anything about Korean hikers, you know they are intense. They've got the gear, hats, backpacks, Northface jackets, hiking sticks etc. They ain't messing around. So we knew we were in for a climb. I did not know however, how difficult it would really be. We got dropped off by the bus and had to climb up a steep curvy road to our starting destination. I was already out of breath and the hike hadn't even started! Yikes!

We began hiking and were able to go at our own pace, Kayleigh's was speedy and mine was not so speedy. She was actually one of the first people to reach the peak. Big surprise...sigh. The hike was a grueling 4 and a half hours and extremely steep. There were probably about 200 stairs too. I felt like I was Frodo making my way to Mordor. There was a section that we had to use handrails to pull ourselves up and I thought I'd never make it. But I was determined to do the best I could and even though, I knew I could turn back at any point, I managed to make it to the top! I was exhausted and hurting but proud that I had made it. The view was beautiful and I enjoyed seeing all the fall colors. It was some good alone time for me and God. I just keep repeating Phil. 4:13 "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me!"

We finished the hike and ate lunch and shortly after headed back to Seoul where we'd get a bus back to Gongju. On the way back, Kayleigh and I decided to brave the public baths. It was quite an experience which I won't go into detail but I will admit, it felt great to sit and soak my hurting muscles. Now we're true Koreans! :) Hope you enjoy some of the pictures. Fall is in full swing!