Winter Vacation

Hello,

Winter vacation is slowly coming to an end. :( The beginning of the school year starts March 2nd. Korean school year is a different then ours. They start in March, then have a spring vacation in May. Then summer starts in July (not quite sure if it is mid or late July) and they start back at the beginning of Sept. I was a bit surprised of the long vacations because I read that Koreans have a longer school year than us. They go to school every other Saturday, so maybe that's why... who knows.

Let's see... since my last blog I have been skiing a couple times, went to Andong (my birth city), the beach, saw AVATAR is 3D, had a goodbye party for a few teachers (:( one of my co-teachers is leaving), and said goodbye to a few friends. Wow, I can't believe I've been here half a year, and now I'm having to say goodbye to friends.

Skiing... I went skiing for the first time, and I think I did a decent job for my first time. I was a bit nervous, but got the hang of it after a while. One day one of my friend's got a free condo for a night, and a group of us went skiing and then hung out. It was a lot of fun!

A few weekends ago, my friends Derek, Steve, Sang-Mi, Seo-Young, and I went to Andong and then a near by beach city. We had a blast! Andong is 2 and 1/2 hours away from Seoul. It is famous for having traditional villages where people still live today. It was fun to see the old houses, and see people still living in them. Of course they have updated the houses a bit... refrigerators and tv. We then ate Jjim dak. It is sooo good! I loved it! It is a famous Andong dish. It has chicken, noodles, carrots and potatoes. It was so good we had it twice! We then went to the city area of Andong, which is very similar to the suburbs of Seoul. So, we decided to drive to the beach that night. We got to Uljin around midnight. The drive from Andong to Uljin was not nice to my body. I was starting to get a bit sick with all the windy roads. Luckily I was able to fall asleep and not feel most of it. Well when we got to Uljin, we found a hotel to stay. We then went to a convenient store in the hotel building, got some food and fireworks and went to the beach. It was a bit chilly so after the fireworks we went back inside. The next day we spent the whole morning hanging out on the beach. It was a really nice day. Derek and Sang-Mi went into the water, but I opted out on that one. We then had lunch and headed back home.

So I've had to say bye to a few friends in the last month. :( I can't believe that my year here is half over. Time goes by so fast! Most of my friends in Korea are going to stay for another year. I know if I stayed here another year I would enjoy it, but I still plan on moving back to the US and meeting up Rachel (college roommate) in Chicago.

Last week, we had a goodbye party for 3 of the teachers at our school. One of the teachers is my co-teacher. I am sad that she is going because I enjoy teaching with her and she really has become one of my friends, but we will keep in touch. She still plans on playing badminton on Mondays so that will be nice.

Well that's all for now! I have posted two posts of pictures, and maybe more to come!