what did you see when you were there?

nothing that does not show...

this is a picture post! enjoy!

This is me outside of my school!

Jack, Amy and Abi weren't huge fans of the snow sledding

Me, Chnichu, Bella and Harry were! Chinchu and I went down a bunch of times!

Jack found other uses for his snow tube! He is the cutest!

Me, Abi and Olivia, I think.

We found a Statue of Liberty in Korea!

Sara is beautiful!

The view of Kyoto from the Kyoto train station

Me and Elijah at the temple in Wakayama.

The river in Kyoto

The first temple we went to in Kyoto

This is the Nabe soup I talked about earlier. 6 of us shared this, with some left over! Isn't it pretty!

Me at the beach in Wakayama, Japan!

This guy was guarding the temple!

i must have lost it on the wind

Hello!

Not much new going on here. The weather has gotten a little warmer which is so exciting! I can't wait for warm spring weather! We have been doing such a bad job at doing cultural stuff because it is so cold! We do have a list of things we want to do and hopefully we can start working on that list! I really want to go to the war museum and the DMZ (demilitarized zone) There is also a Buddhist temple we really want to go to! 

We had Heather's kindergarten graduation on Saturday. It was fun... it got a little dull after the first 45 minutes, but the kids were cute! The sang tons of songs including "skiddamarink" you know, the song from The Elephant Show that came on when I was a kid! That was funny! When we got there Cinderella had some Hanbok for us to wear. Hanbok are the traditional Korean dresses. They were fun to wear! Heather took pictures so once she uploads them i will put them on here! 

Saturday night Katie and I went to see Jason Mraz in concert! That was exciting! He puts on a good show! Then we had had a few beers with his band afterwards which was really cool! I guess being the only white girls in the crowd pays off sometimes! 

My kinders graduate on Friday! I am nervous about their performance! They can do the songs, but the play is a little difficult for them! They will do fine I'm sure! I am going to miss them so much! I don't want a new class, I just want to keep them! 

Well, I should be going to sleep, I just wanted to jot a little something down! More soon! All my love!

Me after the show

Jason Mraz in Seoul!!

nothin' to say but what a day

Kyoto, Japan

Me at a Golden Temple in Kyoto

Me and Elijah with the Geisha

Heather cleansing me at a temple in Kyoto

My half luck fortune
Me and Elijah at the temple in Wakayama

So, it has been awhile, but I am back! The day I got home from Japan my computer screen went out. Well, not all of it, only half. But I just bought a new laptop!! I'm so excited! I made the switch from PC to Mac and so far I really like it! So....

Japan was so much fun! It was, however, the most expensive place in the universe! And it's almost impossible to get money! ATMs don't take foreign

 debit cards (unlike Korea) and very few places take credit cards! So money was a bit of an issue for us. If you ever go, just exchange a ton of money into Yen before you go... you'll need it! 

When we got there, Elijah was waiting for us at the airport. I was so excited to see him! We took the train from Osaka into his town, Wakayama.  One of his co-workers met us at the station and took us out to eat and then took us to a temple. The

 temple was dedicated to a a man who a woman fell in love with. She chased and chased him and he ran and ran. She turned herself into a snake (dragon) and he hid in a bell. She blew fire onto the bell and he was killed. It was really interesting. Once ou

tside of the temple you could buy a fortune. You give your money and then you randomly pick a fortune from a basket. My fortune was "half luck". And I truly do have half luck! I get home from Japan and only half of my laptop works!! The fortune also said that I would have lots of babies.  Later that night we went out for dinner and drink with Elijah's friend Seiji. We had a good time!

We woke up early the next morning and went to Kyoto. In Kyoto we met up with Jen, Katie, Jordana and Lynise. Jen grew up in Kyoto so she got to play tour guide all day! We went to several temples and had a really good day. That night we went to a performance of traditional Japanese ceremonies, plays and dances. It

 was really fun! The best part was seeing the Geisha! After the performance we got to get our pictures taken with the Geisha... which was my goal in Kyoto! We didn't get back to Wakayama until about 1:30 a.m. Elijah had to work so Heather and I slept in. When he got home we went to Wakayama beach! It was a rocky beach and really pretty. That night we went out with some of Elijah's friends. We went to a restaurant that serves nabe. Nabe is a soup that you cook all sorts of meat and veggies in. It is what sumo wrestlers eat! Of course they eat one massive bowl alone and we shared ours with six people! After that we went to karaoke! Korean karaoke is more fun, but Japanese karaoke has an amazing English selection! 

So, we had a great time in Japan! We have been really busy since we got back. We had finals and then our classes moved around. Mine pretty much stayed the same, but I did lose my favorite class :(  Last weekend we hung out with Chinchu and went to this huge mall called CoEx. They have an apple store and we went there to buy my laptop, but they were out so I just paid and had it delivered to school. This weekend we are going snow sledding with the kids... sounds cold, but it should be fun. Chinchu is going with us! I bet the kids will love her. Later that night we are meeting up with Katie, Jen and Jordana in Seoul to celebrate Valentines day by watching "He's Just Not That into You". And probably some karaoke! Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well! I will post more often now that I have a decent computer and it won't take hours to post pictures!! 

All my love!

so this is christmas

Well, it's not Christmas anymore, but this is my Christmas post! We had a really fun Christmas. Wednesday night Jen, Katie and Chinchu came over to the spend the night and we celebrated with some Champagne! We each opened one gift then we watched a movie. We also had a good time playing on the Santa Tracker website and we celebrated when he got into Korea!

Christmas morning we woke up and opened our gifts. We all got a lot of cool stuff. Heather and I also had packages from our families. I got a ton of stuff! It was good to have all of us together. Had it been only Heather and I we would have been lonely and sad. But with an apartment full of people we had a good time. Of course, I still missed being home so much. It was sad not getting to watch the boys excitedly opening their gifts and showing me what Santa brought them. It was really sad to not be home with Mama, Daddy and Carly on Christmas morning. I called them though, and listened to them open presents. I help up pretty well, only Daddy and I cried... I think!

New Years was... not quite as fun. We went out to see the countdown (the equivallent of watching the peach drop, I suppose) only in a much smaller space with a bazillion more people! It was a sea of people and you couldn't just stand still. You were just carried away with the crowd. It was intense! By the time we finally got home it was like 3 a.m. and we were just cold and tired. Instead of black eyed peas and greens, we had sushi on NYD. It was delicious!

We had a really nice break, but when we came back to school our schedules were different. I teach a class now that has 3 kids that do not speak English! We are learning the alphabte right now. I thought it would be a miserable class, but I actually like it so far. They are good kids; pretty smart. I had to give them English names, which was fun. One girl already had an English name, Sallena (Selena). So for the other two, a boy and a girl, I just wrote names up on the board and let them pick. The boy chose Thomas! I thought that was cool. The girl didn't like any of the names I put up and instead chose Peach. I feel silly calling on her in class.

This coming up weekend we are going to Suji to visit Katie and Jen! They live in a small town that has a large concentration of foreigners. So, I guess we will have a good time! The weekend after that we are going to Japan!! I am so excited! We are flying into Osaka on the 24th. My best friend Elijah is living about an hour away from there in a town called Wakayama. We are going to some kind of fire festival and then we are going to the beach! I mean, it will be freezing, but I bet it will be beautiful! I miss Elijah so much and am so ready to see him again! Most of you either know or know of Elijah. We have been friends since 1st grade! We became really good friends when we both went to West Georgia! We will also be meeting up with Jen in Kyoto at some point! She has a longer vacation and her mother lives in Kyoto so we will be able to see her too!

I will take a million pictures while I am there! Well, Heather and I are going to eat dinner and watch a movie before we go to bed! Here are some pictures from Christmas! Miss you all!

had it been another day i might have looked the other way

Hello!

Christmas is getting closer and closer.. which means so is our break!! And we are soooo excited!! We are thinking of going to Busan, Korea for the weekend of New Years! Bsan is in the south at the beach! Hopefully it will work out! And our trip to Japan is in a month and a week! I am so happy that I will get to see Elijah... and Japan of course!

Katie and Jen came to Seoul for the weekend and we had such a good time! I was so happy to see them! We had lunch at the bulgogi restaurant, the one Heather and I ate at our first day in Korea. Then we hng out out at the apartment and Chinchu met up with us! After that we went out for awhile and ended our night at noraebang... or karaoke for those of you non-Koreans! It was unreal singing to Weezer songs with HP, Katie and Jen... when I closed my eyes it felt like being in the cube singing Weezer on Rock Band! I also found out that Rachael is planning on joining us in Korea! Very exciting!

I am really looking forward to having Christmas! On Christmas Eve Jen, Katie and Chinchu will come back to Seoul so we can all spend Christmas together. That will make it much easier on us being so far away! I know i will miss being at Aunt Sharon's on Christmas Eve and at Granddaddy's on Christmas day! I will miss watching the boys open presents the most! I miss those little boys. I talk to Seth the most and he is the only one that just about bring me to tears when I talk to him! The other day he was telling me about his birthday and how he would be five, then six, then seven, etc. So I told him he was not allowed to get any older and he said, "Anna, you can still hold me when I am five!" I need to give that little boy a BIG hug! The time difference makes ot very difficult to talk to friends and I miss my friends so much! Well, there are lots of people I need hugs from! I just make my kinders hug me all the time! Luckily they are little and still love hugs! One of my little boys, Jack, cried last week and it broke my heart!

We went shopping this weekend in one of the outside markets. I really like them! All the carts sell the same things but I still look at all of them! It is strange for it to be so cold outside and still be absoluetly surrounded by people shopping! Anyway, I don't have any new pictures of Korea to put up, but i have some pictures of all of us this weekend! And you can see my new short hair! Miss you all!!

Love!! Heather and Chinchu at karaoke!!!

Jen, Katie and Me!! Reunited!!

This is for Carly! I am being sweet and Chinchu is being mean, but we both miss you sooooooooooo much!! Love you sissy!

Outside market at Myeong-Dong

This is me and Jen at lunch!

i look around, leaves are brown, and the sky is a hazy shade of winter

I know I said I would do this last week, but... well, I'm me! But I am doing it now!!

We has our first real snow!! It was very exciting! But It was gone by nightfall! We had a really good weekend! Friday night we chilled at home and decorated our apartment for Christmas! AND we talked to jen!! Saturday, we finished our Christmas shopping! We went to Itaewon, which is a super touristy part of Seoul... with tons of foreigners. We shopped for a couple of hours and visited the Hard Rock Seoul. Then Sunday we went to Starbucks to read and watch it snow! Then we went to a DVD room. For 10,000 Korean Won (about 9 bucks) you can rent out a private room and a DVD. They had a ton of really good movies to choose from... even some movies in Spanish! So that was fun!

Not much else has been going on... Well, I got a haricut. And I mean a haircut,,, I don't have much more hair than Ali! The picture I gave the hairdresser had longish hair with long bangs... my hair it short! With actual bangs, not just the swoopy kinf I always have. I was horrified at first, but it is kind of growing on me. I mean, my hairstyle was probably all the rage in.. 1942 maybe? We'll see. I am kinf of scared for Mama and Daddy to see it!

Well, I hope you all are doing well! Hopefully you will be getting Christmas Cards in the next week! I got a card from Ray, Stacy and Connor today and it made my day!! (THANKS!!) So, send me Christmas cards!

Oh, and I am kind of bummed because Elton John and Billy Joel are touring together and they will be in Atlanta in March! What a rip! They will probably come to Seoul the week after I leave!

Love, love, love!!!

Me at the Led Zepplin bar!!!

Heather and eating Thanksgiving Dinner with chopsticks!

Thanksgiving in Korea! Chopsticks included! Although, we had Hoegaarden and champagne and pringles (courtesy of Scarlet!) at our dinner!

This was the dinner we made! Chicken, Mac and Cheese, mached potatoes, sweet potatoes, sunchips and pringles!! The green bottle is Soju... that was a gift from Cinderella!

Our dinner companions! Cinderella, the director of our school, Heejoo (julie) the teacher who is moving to Canada and Scarlet!

I took this at the Hard Rock! You know how I love my Fleetwood Mac! Oh, and I no longer have hair this long!

Our Christmas decorations!!

time to play b-sides

Sorry I've been so terrible at updating! I knowe this would happen though. I'll try harder!

Things are still going well here! We were really busy last week because we had finals. We spent two weeks making tests for all of the classes. Now we have to make report cards, but then things should be pretty easy at work. Julie is gone now, which is really sad. The new teacher is Melissa... she seems pretty nice. Also, some of the classes have changed a little. One of my classes now has eleven kids... I know, I know, its really not that much. But I am assuming it's easier to control a bigger class when you speak the same language. So, this class is pretty big. Each class room accomodates 9 students and a teacher so we are squeezed in. 5 of the kids were kids I already had.. they just combined two of the 3p.m. classes, so 6 of them I have never taught before. They seem pretty good though.

We are starting to get excited about Christmas here! There are Christmas decorations and music everywhere you go, so that feels like home! We were hoping to go to Thailand during our break, but with all the protests going on there it looks like we will be staying here. We are actually not that bummed. A break sounds nice! As long as we stay somewhat busy so we don't have time to get sad. We have eleven days off of work!!

My old roomate Jen is now in Korea!! And Katie should be here in the next week! That is so exciting! I can't wait to see them! Jen called tonight and it made me so happy! Heather and I are currently in the process of decorating our apartment for Christmas and we are excited about doing it! We are coloring and cutting and pasting like kids!

Well, it is getting very close to my bedtime so I will leave you for now... with pictures!!

love!

The view of Seoul from Namsan Tower at night!

Namsan Tower

This is a vietnamese dish from the restaurant that Heather and I always go to! It is so good! And sooooooooo spicy!!

Merry Christmas!!

Heather and I hung out with Chinchu!! Chinchu is Carly's friend from back home who is living in Korea now!

I actually have some pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner! That was very interesting! They are still on my camera though, and I am tired. I will post them tomorrow!!