Bonsai

Walking into the Bonsai garden. I liked it in there, it was beautiful. I will go back soon and bring a book and just chill out.

Water!

Mo and I at the fountain. She was being a brat and splashing water on me! She's kind of naughty like that!

Bambooooo :)

I found the bamboo garden, I miss my bamboo! Mom, are you taking good care of it?

Water Fountain!

Just chillin' in the Aroboretum. A cool water fountain behind me. It was so much cooler up here at the Arboretum.

Daegu Arboretum

Arriving at the Daegu Arboretum. It is over 1000 acres, it is the largest urban arboretum in the world.

Me and Buddha!

I walked down by the temple and found these cute little buddha and his people displayed in the mountain. I was being a dork :)

To the top

We had to be really quiet up here..people were praying to Buddha. You can see Mo in the backgroud with our taxi driver showing her what to do.

Up to the temple we go.

Here is Mo, she is leading the pack up to the temple. It was quite the hike up. Winding stairs will get you every time.

Sara and Sarah

Here we are in front of a cool statue before we head up to the temple.

Me in the forest

Here I am leaving the Forest, thought it would be nice for you all to be able to read a little about it.

Us girls in front of the forest. Our taxi driver was so nice, he stayed with us and kind of became our tour guide. It was good that he stayed because otherwise I'm not sure how long it would have taken to get home. He took a picture of Stephanie, me, Mo, and Sarah.

Boy in the river!

Here is a kid in front of the forest walking through the stream/river??? There was a whole family under the bridge on air mattresses just chillin' in the water. I guess it's a good way to stay cool. I see alot of people in the river....they will walk out find some rocks to sit on and have a picnic.

Daegu Arbor vitae Forest

We went to the Forest, it is Natural Treasure No. 1. It wasn't all I expected but it was fun. We couldn't go hiking in there like I thought we would be able to. The trees grow right out of the rock and was beautiful.

Citizens Stadium

Under the lights....enjoying a good game of ball!

My first game in Korea!

Here I am at my first baseball game in South Korea! Our team is the Samsung Lions. It was alot of fun.

Lunch Korean style

We found this little restaurant down the street from our hotel. We had some really good bulgolgi. If you see here they always put us sweaty americans in front of the air conditioner. They are so good to us.

What?

Walking back through the park and Stephanie snapped a shot of me. I think I was talking instead of smiling...whoops! It was beautiful in there, probably because we were out of the sun!

Peace

A cool bell in the visitors center at the Daegu Information Center. It was given was given to Daegu from Hiroshima City as a sign of everlasting peace and friendship.

Go where?

This is seriously the bathroom at the rest stop in the park. It is what we call peeing in the ditches..this is a nice ditch! No toilet paper though. I thought Mary demonstrated this quite well.

Daegu

Here I am with the famous Daegu Needle in the background. So, I'm not exactly sure what it is called I will get back to you on that. It is the tallest structure in Korea though...pretty cool!

The drain!

Again, I'm not sure what that bowl is for either. The floor and walls are usually soaked when I come after the housekeepers...I'm pretty sure they just throw water everywhere. The drain in front of the tub is the life saver of it all. I finally fixed my sink as well. The water was just flowing out the bottom all over the floor. When I come home I could get into the plumbing business.

Where's the curtain?

Here is the infamous shower with no curtain..again I am getting used to this different lifestyle. Notice how small the tub is...I'm a shower kind of girl anyways. The pink bowl is still a mystery to me. I have heard that the water is supposed to flow around it into the tub, who knows?

My home!

This is the door into the room. The door to the right in the picture is the bathroom. My bed is to the right of the suitcase. I hope this gives you a little piece into my world!

My BED!

So, this is my bed. I bought 2 pillows but pillowcases seem to be harder to find. I am getting used to the whole floor thing. At least I have the 2 mats. It's really not that bad. I am living the life I chose and loving it.

After dinner.

Here I am with the crew after a few of those free drinks. :) I had a ton of fun!

Steak!!!!

The Dean of the University took us all to dinner at this beautiful restaurant up in the mountains last Friday night! I ordered an awesome steak and drinks were on the house ALL night! It was a blast!

Lovin' my kids!

Today was my last day with my kids. They were so much fun! Here we were playing a blind fold game where they had to give each other directions to get to the prize! Thus the girl with a blind fold over her face in the picture..she didn't want me to show this picture! Oh well!

The President!

We met the President of Yeungjin College. A very important meeting, it was like meeting the President of the United States. We had to meet a half hour before to go through everything before meeting him. There's me on the end with all the tall folks in the back! :) Movin' up in the world.

1st time for everything....

Sy and Stephanie. This is Stephanie's first time on the subway. We are on a mission to find this amazing park....hmmmm..I wonder how long it will take????

Sarraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..........

Haven't I told you I hate getting my picture taken. Kristin is a good sport...she does not like her picture taken. This is a park but not the one we are looking for.

Are you sure?

Ummm...are you sure this is the way we should be going? I don't think there is a park in our near future...note the dog on the lower right side of the picture. I told him to run back in and hide or else he will be dinner or well appetizers since he is so little.

We did it!

Here we are exhausted, ,crabby and very sweaty! We finally found the park, it was well worth the wait.

In the park!

Have I told you they don't have dryers in Korea....my clothes supply is running thin. We are washing our clothes in the tub and letting them air dry on drying racks...life is very different here folks. When you find a place like this though it makes it all worth it!

Beautiful.....

This is one of the beautiful pieces of architecture in the park. What a wonderful place to relax and meditate.

Magazine Project.

Here are the girls cutting out pictures of clothes to talk about what they are wearing in the pictures. We have 4 girls and 4 boys. Life is great with 8 students!

Sam and Bingo!

Here is Sam putting in his vocabulary words for the Bingo I came up with. They had so much fun. He is very competitive along with the rest of them. I played enough games so everyone won...what a good teacher I am.

Mold.....

We are doing a bread mold experiment. Here we are after checking on the growth. Harry 1 in front is a little scary...he is usually hiding from the camera. Sam has the magnifying glass, crazy kids!

Harry...what do you like?

All the kids have American names, this is Harry 1. We have 2 of them, a very popular name due to Harry Potter. They love this game we are playing it is called "I like"

Kimchi!

Here we are after playing "I like", a game that the kids loved! We say kimchi here instead of cheese. Apparently the peace sign is loved in pictures.

Main builiding!

Here is the main building. I'm not sure what is in there! Maybe the boss man. So, as you can see it is coming along, but not as quickly as all of us would like.

Classroom and offices

This building will be where our offices are and some of the classrooms. It is next to the main building which looks pretty close to being done. The workers came out when we showed up. I thought there would be many more, what's the hold up! Have I mentioned we are ready to move in!

A large pyramid

This is going to be in the center of the village, you can look down into the places that will be underground like the coffe cafe! :)

Daegu Village

Here is one of the buildings at the village. I think this is the student and teacher dormatory. It is separated in the middle by a larger tower. The students are on the further side. It's hard to describe. Where are all the workers? Get to work, I'm tired of sleeping on the floor in my hotel! :)

The Group!

Here we all are at the Village. It will be an amazing place when it is finished. I am very fortunate to be part of this program.

A few of us girls!

Here we are getting ready to go on a tour of Yeungjin College, our partner school! Let me tell you, I sweat my .... off doing this! This is in the morning and we already need our parasals. Keeps us a little cooler! From left to right..Stephanie, ME, Javon, Kristin, back: Crazy Mary and Mo. Good times!

A hike!

After lunch we walked up and found a fountain...well apparently it wasn't on! Still a beautiful place.

Lunch together as a group!

Hun took us up to this wonderful restaurant up in the mountains. Here we are sitting on the patio enjoying my first Korean meal! Hun is way in the back on the left side, he is sitting across from me if you see me way back there.

Our first outing!

Here are a few of the gang! We found our first coffee (kopi) shop! It was way down in the basement of some building...great! From left to right is Tad, Stephanie, Javon, Kristin, and Travis! We had some good laughs here!

A different plan!

So, here is Seoul Station somewhere we didn't plan on going! I flew in with some other teachers from the US that are with me at the Village. There are a few reasons we ended up at the Seoul Station....1. the plane was late 2. Travis lost his bags 3. I got picked to be checked at customs 4. We didn't really know we were supposed to stay at the airport to take the flight to Daegu! So, we jump in a cab with a crazy driver and he decides he is going to take us to Seoul Train station...this is what we took to Daegu. It was an adventure!

Double Decker

Here is where it all began! This is the plane I took from LAX to Seoul, South Korea! It is the most wonderful airline I have ever been on! You get to your seat and you have a pillow/blanket and a bottle of water! You have a tv screen built into the seat in front of you! There are millions of free things to do on it. You can watch up to date movies, play games, watch regular tv, or listen to music....way nice! They feed you good food often and are always smiling!