thankful thursday.

1. Watching the Insight Bowl live yesterday.  Even better, watching Iowa beat Missouri!  Such a good game.  Go Hawkeyes!

2. Amazon.com.  I just bought so many piano books (half for students, half for me - hee hee)!  I love that I can find obscure books for sometimes pretty cheap and that they ship things here.  And, along with this, I'm so grateful to have a piano here.

3. Starting school again.  I probably won't be grateful for school once it has started, but I'm glad to have the opportunity to finish my degree while we're here.  It's way past time to get it done.

More Pictures from Korea House.

I mentioned here that while at the Korea House a couple weeks ago, I got the chance to join the traditional dancers on stage.  One of the guys in our group took some contraband photos and shared them with us.

We watched about an hour of performances before this, so when they pulled me from the audience, I didn't hesitate at all!  It was so much fun!

Fog.

We recently had 3-4 days of heavy fog, so dense that driving was nearly impossible.  I took Lillie to play ball one very foggy morning. 

Shopping in Suwon.

Ben had a couple days off for the Christmas holiday, so on Thursday we took the opportunity to explore some of Suwon, a city about 40 minutes north (by train).  We walked the streets and saw some interesting things.

There is a giant mall above the train station.  This is the view from the walkway while crossing the street.  Yes, we have driven here too.

And while walking around the streets just outside the station, we found this:

... for sale at a butcher.  When I took this picture, the two guys in the shop started laughing.  I thought they were laughing at me for taking the picture, but they just wanted to show me the cow head at the other end of the counter.  Yikes.  Shopping here isn't for the squeemish.  But at least my curiosity entertains the locals.

Korean Choir.

Wow.  I am sure behind a the blogging!  Our new friend, Mr. Lee, invited us to see his choir perform at the beginning of December and I'm just now sharing.  Shame.  I was having the hardest time chosing between all the videos I took, but uploading multiple videos to one post was too frustrating so I chose my favorite.  Ever heard ABBA in Korean?  So worth it.

Mamma Mia!

They are really pretty amazing.  Wish I had the patience to upload some of their more serious numbers.  Very talented.  I look forward to their next performance in the spring.  Mr. Lee also invited us to the symphony in Suwon last week, which was just amazing.  I hope we get the chance to see many more performances while we're here.

english.

At a coffee shop with friends.

Korea House.

A couple weeks ago, we got the chance to visit the Korea House in Seoul.  They created the Korea House to show visitors to Korea traditional dances and food.  We went with a tour group from the base.  We started with dinner - they had samples of so many kinds of Korean food including several types of rice, octopus tentacles, crab, and different desserts.  The food was so good, though I wasn't as adventurous as Ben - he even tried the octopus!  After dinner, we were treated to about an hour of traditional dances and drum performances.  During the last number, they pulled four people from the audience to dance with them and guess who got to go up - ME!!!  It was so much fun!  Pictures weren't allowed, but I'll never forget it!

Korea House

Some of the performers came out afterward for pictures.  Their costumes were so pretty.

It was a nice look at the traditional Korean culture - something we'd recommend to any visitor to Seoul.  Hopefully we get to go again when family comes to visit.

Namhae - Turtle Boat.

First, the view from our room.

On our way off the island, we stopped at the turtle boat replica.  The Koreans built these boats starting in the early 1400s to fight the Japanese.  Turtle boats have several cannons inside and a spikey roof to prevent the enemy from boarding.

A closer shot of the spikey roof.

Inside the boat, Ben got to play around with a sword... 

Then I dressed for battle.

The bridge to Namhae.  We got out just before the storm hit.


We followed friends home, which shortened the trip to about four hours (including a little traffic).  For such a short vacation, we got a lot of sightseeing in and had so much fun!

snow.

We got our first snow of the year last night!  It was so pretty, coming down in big, wet flakes.  This morning, this is the view:

Namhae - Bori Temple.

After the ferry, we had lunch at Sangju Beach.  It was a beautiful day - sunny and warmish.

Next we visited the Bori Temple.  It sits at the top of a mountain.  We drove a good portion of the way up and then hiked the rest.  The views were absolutely unbelieveable!

The view of Sangju Beach from the mountain top.

It really was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Namhae - Fish and Ferries.

This weekend, we were able to take a Thanksgiving vacation with some friends.  We went south to the bottom of the peninsula to an island called Namhae (nahm-hey).  Even though we were only there Thursday-Saturday, we got to see and do so much!

We were planning on meeting everyone (about 10 families) at the resort in Namhae.  So we left at 11:30am and set off on the 4-hour drive.  Eight hours later, we arrived.  Without GPS, our maps didn't exactly get us there directly.  But we made it and were able to relax Thursday night.

First thing Saturday morning, we set off as a group for a fishing dock.  They were unloading sardines from a fishing boat and crating them, along with cuttlefish and some long, skinny silver fish.

Ben posed with a giant anchor.

Then played Capt Morgan on the giant 'jacks'.

 Us on the fishing dock.

Then we took a ferry ride to explore the 80+ islands that make up Namhae.  Only 3 of them are inhabited - the rest are too small.

And this was just the beginning!

market.

When wandering around here, it's pretty easy to stumble across restaurants displaying their fresh seafood - so fresh it's still alive!  Saw these last weekend:

These wormy things totally gross me out!

Hungry?

New Piano!

We recently got a hot tip on a local piano store, so last weekend we went hunting.  After investigating two buildings with pictures of pianos on them (the first was a closed piano store and the second was a music studio), we found a tiny little shop with a bunch of Korean uprights.  The owner is a master tuner and spoke surprisingly good English.  He gave us free delivery and even agreed to tune it for free for the next two years!  Isn't it gorgeous?!?

I've already cluttered it up with books and sheet music.  I love, Love, LOVE it!

Itaewon.

Last weekend, Mr.Ben and I went to the international shopping village of Seoul called Itaewon (Ee-tay-whan) for some Christmas shopping and general sightseeing.  We also took our first trip on the Seoul train/subway - super easy and cheap!  I didn't take very many pictures, but here are the few I got:

Shopping and restaurants.

today's views.

Today I took advantage of the crisp fall weather and walked to do my errands.  We had a little storm last night but today was clear and relatively warm.  Here are a few of my views from the walk home.

Flower Market.

Earlier this week, I got the chance to visit a giant flower market in Seoul with some friends from church.  It was AMAZING!  I wish I could have taken a picture of the smell - heavenly!  There were so many different types of cut flowers, potted plants, and silk flowers.  I loved the cut flowers and ended up getting several bundles that are now making my house smell wonderful.

The first thing I saw when we walked in:

We thought the cabbage flowers were so strange!

The bonsai section.

My take-home - lilies of course.  The total cost of these 3 bundles and vase was less than $15!

Needless to say, I'll be at the flower market every chance I get!  Thanks to Jihyun for organizing this trip and being our tour guide.  Can't wait to go back!