SLP Birthday Party

Lauren and I

Some of the girls

Jasmine and Freesia classes

This video pretty much speaks for itself

An observation..which is of course rather obvious

I am the red umbrella

In seven days, I will celebrate six months in Korea (which will also be Caitlin Smith's birthday!)...This is unbelievable. Had I not gone home for Christmas, I don't know how I would be feeling right now. But life right now is Seoul feels very normal I guess you could say. It always takes me awhile to get used to being in a different place. Every new experience I've had, I have always dreading going into and HATED at first! I like for the end to always be the best part. Thats why senior year of college was so amazing because I left at the top of the game when I felt happiest. Hopefully that will be the same for Korea. But yet I still feel so uncomfortable here in many ways. I don't think I'll ever get used to the shoving on sidewalks without so much as an "Excuse Me" in Korean of course or the staring (which as Tennyson pointed out, is understandable in children but when adults who know better, is ridiculous...moving on). But most other things about Korea, I'm getting used to.
Anywho, the observation which is of course rather obvious about Korea that I've just thought about has been the loss of anonymity. The place where I live here there aren't many foreigners so basically I stick out. The places I have been to a couple of times (like the coffee shop, movies, etc.), they know me. I'm used to blending in and looking like everyone else. I'll admit it is nice to be noticed because it gets people interested and curious about you, which I haven't felt before. But sometimes, I don't want to stick out.

Lunar New Year vaca

So in honor of having a vacation from school, Erica and I decided to go on a skiing/ hiking trip to Gangwondo and Seoroksan Mtn. I know what you are thinking- skiing and hiking...that sounds like Andrea Mullen (at least I know my family would be surprised!) But I most definitely didn't want to be stuck in Seoul so this sounded great especially since we were going with a group. I left on Wednesday morning from Itaewon at 11am. We were supposed to get to the ski resort at 3, chillout, and go night skiing at 5. Traffic was awful (because everyone was traveling that day) so we got there at 5 or so. Oh and our bus ride was spent watching concerts. We watched Eric Clapton, Cher, some music videos, and then Shania Twain. Not everyone was thrilled with those choices! Thursday was spent skiing (after a Korean breakfast). I definitely took to the beginner runs. Friday was when things got interesting. We had to travel on Friday morning to the lodge near where we were hiking. The bus ride of course took forever so we had to forfeit hiking for that day. Also, our bus and our tour guide were never on time so this gave people on the trip the excuse to never be on time. It usually took us an hour to get anywhere. And because we were on a bus all day and didn't do much, this gave others on the trip an excuse to knock some back. It was like "Animal House" sometimes. Saturday we actually went hiking up to Seoroksan and it was beautiful! Not too crowded on the trails. We took lots of pictures! Then Saturday night before we traveled back to Seoul, our bus stopped! People had to push the bus about three times! This caused one guy on the trip to utter the phrase, "Korea is the most random country ever. No contest." Soooo true. The only time we were ahead of schedule the whole trip was getting back to Seoul. I'm not sure I would reccommend ZTravelbug to anybody, but it was an interesting trip!