Reflecting on a year gone by

It's the eve of a new year and time to say goodbye to 2013 and hello to 2014. It has certainly been an interesting year with half of our time spent living in Cheongju, South Korea. We've been back in the states for 5 months, going on 6 about mid-January and the time has flown since then. Sometimes we find ourselves talking about Korea, how we miss the kiddos we worked with (some of them, anyway!) and just little things about life in South Korea in general. At the same time, there are things that I really enjoy about being back home again too.

Because of our previous adventures, I had the idea that instead of getting Chinese food for New Years, like my grandparents always did, we would get Korean instead. A good way to remember our time teaching English overseas and treat ourselves to delicious food and kimchi! Fortunately for us, we have two fantastic Korean restaurants just down the street, so for us it's a dinner of 돈까스  and 잡채. 

In our time back we've been job hunting (still ongoing), gotten two jobs each, volunteered at the Children's Museum (as seen above), met some neat people, gotten cozy in our own place for the first time, spent time with friends, and had other interesting experiences. I hope that next year will bring new and interesting things and experiences just like those before it. This one will be spent with time in South Korea in mind as it was a wonderful new adventure that will live on in our memories. 

Modicum of Mementos (or Manda has more pictures to share)

I love the cute stuffed produce and food in the picture above, I'm trying to figure out if I want to get one to bring home with us! I am a fan of the banana, but there's also toast, a burger, and donuts down in the very bottom row. They're just too cute. 

So welcome to another round of me posting various interesting pictures from our location here in South Korea. I like taking pictures and I especially like finding things of interest, so this should be fun for everyone! Of course, any questions are welcome, I will do my best to explain things though. 

I understand that the delicious items found in this bag are a regional specialty here in the Cheongju area. Unfortunately my searching has come up with nothing, so I'm not sure what you'd call them. I'll keep trying. 

This is the delicious contents of the above bag. Take a moment and think of waffles, delicious warm waffles that not only taste good but smell amazing too. That's what these yummy treats are, but the large walnut shaped ones have a sweet bean paste inside while the peanut shaped ones have peanuts. Both are delicious and can be found while walking around on the streets. Some of the stands that sell these also have waffles too which are delicious. 

We found a delicious little restaurant around here with very reasonable prices and I'm slowly looking at sampling the various items on the menu. The one above was from this week. It's bibimbap and it is quite amazing. Bibimbap has many variations and it sometimes served in a hot stone bowl. This was one of my first introductions to Korean food at home at a small restaurant near Indianapolis. In the stone bowl you're supposed to stir everything together and that helps ensure that the usually raw egg placed on top is cooked.

This is one of my favorite little girls-- trying on my glasses. She's seriously too cute. 

Homework has become a big thing here at our hagwon, a project taken up by our director. I'm sure you've noticed my many criticisms of our boss's English abilities and I see errors probably everyday. This was one of them and I'm just not really sure what's happening?

Periodically I take toys from small children and photograph them. Nah, not so much. I ended up with Carley's Pokemon toy, however, because she was not being very good and I took care of it until class was over. It was kind of cute and I figured I'd get a picture. 

Another unique thing I've seen while we've been here has been this inflatable baby-shaped body to display diapers. There was the Huggies brand one and another Korean brand. It makes sense, it was just a rather interesting thing to see. 

We went to a local mall that's also part of an apartment complex (huge, rich area of the city) and I thought it was interesting that there is a female parking lot for the customers. Makes sense considering that South Korea has very high sexual assault rates, sadly. :/

This is really cool and I wish I had gotten a better picture, but they're moving so quickly on this building that I didn't get the chance. Looking through the doorway on the floor you can see the tubes placed for the ondol heating for the apartment. They were placed very precisely and it's pretty neat to see how it works. The ondol heating pumps hot water through the pipes to heat the room/home from the floor.

This unique work of art was found on the Chungbuk University campus here in Cheongju. There's a handful of art displayed on the grounds which I may post later, but this was particularly cool. 

 

Finally, on our walk across the river from Shinae (downtown) I spotted this on one of the pillars. It's pretty neat. The text in the balloon reads: "where is human rights?" and if that isn't a cool message, I don't know what is. I've enlarged the image below for detail and easier to read text. 

I'll keep hunting around for more photographic evidence of life over here. Hopefully some video too!

We're on the Map!

Oh hi! We're at that purple dot on the southern side of the map.

We're on this map anyway! I thought I'd give everyone back at home (and anyone else that's curious) a better idea of life around Cheongju-si, especially in relation to where we live/work. I took a few screenshots of Cheongju, zoomed in to give you a better idea with a few highlights.

Cheongju is a decently sized city. In the map above, we live in Juklim-dong which is approximately where that purple dot is on the southern side of the city. Why purple? Because I happen to like purple, its a nice color. I would consider Cheongju to be a pretty large city, though it's no Daejeon or Seoul by any means. The most recent population numbers I remember seeing on Wikipedia for Cheongju put it around 700k, so it's not what I would call small.

Some people that we've talked to have come to understand part of the difficulty of living "out in the boonies" if you will. We can hop on any number of buses at our bus stop down the road, but you also have to wait for the buses and that can be trying in the cold. We're actually one bus stop away from one of the bus end points/rest areas for the drivers. It's also quite hard to catch a taxi out here too. The bus takes approximately 15 minutes to get from our closest stop to the bus terminal and closer to 45 minutes to get from home to Shinae (Downtown) if things work in your favor.

Riding the bus is kind of an adventure though. Sometimes the bus drivers are crazy, you see interesting people filtering off and on, they drive all crazy sometimes, you just never know. There was the one time where there was a person in a car behind us with major crazy bass going on (we're talking rattling windows here) and all the ajummas (older women) freaked out and the bus driver stopped and gave everyone their money back because they thought it was a problem with the bus.

Here is my other handy dandy map, complete with numbered purple dots. After some consulting with Zach I think I got it all figured out. As I said before, we live in that area in the far south on the map in Juklim-dong (1).

The small square to the north that is not numbered is the approximate region of two small convenience stores we sometimes visit to stock up on snacks and food for the week. The prices are reasonable at these places and we've even become familiar faces to those that work there. 

North of the small square is our second dot, Homeplus (2). This is where we shop for all our needs. Homeplus has pretty much anything and we end up there somewhat frequently. It's also next to the chicken place we like to go to. There for a while we would just walk up the road toward Homeplus and walk on the sidewalk. Then we discovered that we could cut through by going between some apartments and a school and take a bridge above the road and it really saved us some time. This area has several blocks worth of restaurants, cafes, and small shops. There's also a street vendor with delicious waffles.

If you head toward dot number 3 you hit the bus terminal area (3) in Gagyeong-dong. If you take the time to walk to and from there to home down at (1) it's approximately 30 minutes. We've walked it many times and will probably walk it many more. There's a nice park that we started exploring when we first got here, but didn't get the opportunity to look much otherwise. The bus terminal area is also bustling. There's a Lotte Mart, DreamPlus, a bookstore, lots of restaurants, a local street market and many other things. We sometimes hit up this area and go to Pizza Hut for dates! Also near the bus terminal is a fantastic cultural store where I hope to buy gifts to send/bring home and a man who is almost always selling battery powered toy dogs that walk around.

Dot number 4 is up to the northeast. This is Shinae or Downtown (4), which we frequent somewhat often. The spot I marked is just the start of the downtown area as it's quite large. This is the home area of the cat cafe we visited. There are tons of restaurants ranging from KFC and McDonalds to Italian to traditional Korean and more. There are many street vendors here and it's always bustling. Teens, kids, ajummas, you name it you see it all. Near a small video game store we visit sometimes there are typically people out selling their crafts and they're very well done. We also ran into the talent contest thing the one time. And there was the time we saw a small parade of people dressed as clowns that were handing out some sort of flier that we couldn't read. 

Number 5 in the middle area on the map is BCM (5). This is where Zach teaches the adult classes and I've visited the place a few times too. Yet another area we've walked to and from several times before. Taking the bus from home is about 20 minutes and the stop is just after the stop for Chungbuk University (which is huge and we intend to explore soon) but before you hit the huge stadium off to the left. Chungbuk University is that big area just South of the dot. There is a strip near the school for blocks and blocks that is all outdoor wear and hiking gear because Koreans love hiking.

As we discover more I might make a more detailed map (or make the ones above more exciting). Since it's getting cold out I'm not anticipating a whole lot of traveling until springtime, but I'm sure we'll be doing some local exploring.

Home for Confused Photos

Not all pictures are lost, some are just confused or otherwise don't really know where to go. So in this case we'll call it a home for confused photos, but it's all the usual here. Looking above though, this was on a timer for our food when we went to eat at Lotteria one of the first times we got here. The picture and the text says it all. This is the Lady Burger we're talking about here. "Sorry, Boys! Only for Ladies!" Clearly it's a "MUST-EAT" Hahaha. We got a giggle out of that one.

Speaking of food, what is this even? This is a bacon cheese donut from Dunkin Donuts that's down the road from us. They have some delicious things, but this is not one of them. I do like the fact that pretty much every place you go (that is fast food or something like DD) tells you the basic nutritional value and the kcal count.

Speaking of food, and things that are not food, another perk of living here is that they love to give you free things. This cereal has free small cereal packs attached and you see this pretty frequently. HomePlus likes to give you free things by way of their 1+1 sales too. You see the free attached things everywhere though, whether it's feminine products, frozen foods, or other miscellaneous products.

We first saw this amazing car when we started traveling down near the hub of the bus station. I love the pumpkin and I wish I could be cool and have a pumpkin like this one. It's worth noting that the road that the car is on in the direction it is facing is the local market.

Speaking of transportation, advertising comes in many shapes and forms and this is just one ad for an English school that was on the side of a bus. I like how the school can make kids into English speaking superheroes.

It's not uncommon to see ads inside the local buses advertising for various drawing and animation schools. This is similar. They're ads that are posted downtown (Shinae) near this little craft/youth hub that is next to a Dunkin Donuts. Sometimes there is singing or dancing and quite a few people gather in the general area. These are the ads for the school you want if you're looking to specialize in anime girls apparently.

Speaking of Shinae, the other day we were downtown just roaming around as usual and we ran into this event happening. There was singing, dancing, cameras, you name it. It kind of seemed like a Cheongju's Got Talent sort of thing. Yes, those are backup singers.

We were advised to also check out this underground mall downtown because it has this cool fish tank and is generally kind of interesting. There are so many tiny businesses, a lot of which sell clothing or shoes. Speaking of clothing, the Engrish (or Konglish for here specifically) can make for some very interesting apparel and signs. They're sometimes very logical mistakes considering the fact that there are some sounds that Koreans don't distinguish between. Others are just grammatical mistakes.

Changing gears this time, this is the rice field that we walk by when we come and go from the school. It's all been gathered up and placed very nicely, it's so pretty. By now it's been taken elsewhere and the field is just empty, but it still looks neatly trimmed.

And last, but certainly not least, this time around is this adorable chocolate whale cake that I saw today at Tous les Jours which is a local bakery. They have the prettiest cakes for sale and this one just looks so cute and pleased. Maybe I'll get a cute cake for myself as a treat, hopefully it'll be as cute as this one!

That's all for now though, I'll post another round of pictures in the near future. You never know what you'll find here and I like to appreciate the little things and I hope you do too. ^.^

Home For Lost Photos

Siblings with matching outfits. There are also couples with matching clothing that's a popular thing.

So sometimes you take pictures and you just aren't sure where they should reside. They have some immediate value and you want to share them, but the hard part is figuring out where. Thus, I am making this into a small home for (current) pictures that deserve some sort of acknowledgement due to their sheer awesomeness. That or they're pretty neat, or vaguely interesting. You get the idea.

Everything over here is cute! This is paper clay for our art project.

So we get these interesting Dream Science kits which are of varying interest to our kids. Mostly due to their current fine motor skills or lack thereof.

So I have the big green yogurt bank, now I just need to get the adorable teeny ones to go with it. 

Playing my adapted Scrabble game in class with the older girls. They're surprisingly not being super lazy.

This stuff is delicious. Dried, seasoned seaweed is so good.

Not the best shot ever, but I caught a really pretty sunset.

Korean versions of familiar board games! Pretty cool.

Stella made these since she has a tendency to make many things rainbow, but I'm not sure what they are. At first I thought caterpillars, but I really have no idea.

I think I explained pepperoni penguin a couple posts prior to this one. But everyone should love pepperoni penguin, so here you go. Even if it is an anatomically deficient penguin.

Aren't we cute? Here we are sitting waiting for the 105 bus at the bus stop near our school!

The view of the exit doors for the bus.

We visited this rundown arcade in Cheongju near the bus terminal, it was cute.

The sign for the arcade, isn't it interesting? The Engrish makes it even more fun.

Chance of Victory with by Good Game

Some of these things are not like the others... 

Koreans and their clothing... it's so cute though.

My class of older girls? Yeah, they're kind of weird.

You see Gangnam Style references everywhere. Written with dry erase markers on boards in front of stores, on huge signs, everywhere.

I will play you when I get home, just you wait Viva Pinata.

This is the flower that was started before I got here. It's a cute little marigold.

This is adorable. Sarah is so cute and animated and she is, of course, talking to the daydreamer Evelyn.

Ellena has this thing for writing/talking about magic ddong powder and Lily which just sounds awkward and I really don't know what it means.

Aiden made robots because he is just that cool. He apparently drew these freehand too.

I have no idea what this is, but it's from the kitchen and I sometimes see it sitting out in the sun. I'm not sure I want to know and want to live in blissful ignorance. Also, what I think is Julia's hand.

These are crushed up seeds (that you crush yourself) that you get at Saboten. You pour this delicious dark sauce on it and mix it up and dip your food into it. It's so amazing.

Aiden made a bee without wings. We are kindred spirits as I have drawn wingless bees in my time too.

Speaking of bees, this is the packaging for baby wipes that are around the school.

Who knew Snoopy was a chef?

This is the tissue box for HomePlus tissues. Why is everything so cute here?

I wish I had gotten a picture of this earlier, but I'm not sure what these are. Previously there was an older woman sitting on the tarp whacking them with a stick. 

They cut down the rice field near us, but now it looks really neat.

At first I got these because the whale is adorably smug. Then I tried them and they were delicious. Also crunchy, which is good sensory input.

This snack was dumplings! They were so good.

I don't remember why I took this picture. I think they saw me taking a picture of my snack and wanted to pose. This is Daniel, Evelyn, and Stella.

Attack of the sticker monster, on my Kindle case!

Me with two of my favorite little girls, Sarah and Evelyn.

I wasn't aware that Tomas was into the confederacy, who knew?

In which sleepy Sarah fell asleep in my lap, which seems to be a trend.

I found this butterfly in the middle of the road in the middle of the night (on our walk back from the bar). Poor thing was so cold, but it's so gorgeous!

Dunkin Donuts has these fun Halloween donuts! I should have grabbed one of the chocolate ones, they look so good. I guess there's always tomorrow.

Pokemon snack! An odd chocolately snack, but the packaging is cute.

You get this little logo thing at the bottom and then a little hologram prize too. Fun stuff. :)