Hallelujah! It's that time of year!

Tomorrow morning we're off to the airport to enjoy one whole week basking in the Thai sun! We're flying into Bangkok around 11:30 at night, staying there for two days and then taking the train up to Chiang Mai. There we will elephant trek and hang around for a few days before heading down to the beach! I'm so jittery and excited. I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this vacation!



I'll post all about it when we get back!!!

Mud Fest

This past weekend we got the opportunity to do something that few grown people have the opportunity to do: play in the mud! Every year Korea holds an annual Mud festival in July. Tons of foreigners and Koreans head down to Boryeong to participate in all of the muddy festivities. There are tents where you can paint yourself with colored mud, hug mudslides, mud wrestling pits, mud obstacle courses and a big mud prison where you get sprayed with a mud hose for about ten minutes. The ocean was right next to the mud place, so when you got too dirty you could just run on and wash yourself right off. The first day we got there it was actually pouring down rain. We donned our swimsuits and ran off with our friends to play in the mud. We went down mud slides, danced in the rain, played in the ocean and just had fun. So much stress got relieved in the process, although just about everyone managed to injure themselves in some way, shape or form this weekend. I got scratched up on one of the slides (the mud was kind of gritty and when your going pretty fast down the slides it will cut you up!). Our friend Ferrin really tore up her leg while riding an ATV through the mud and getting thrown off. Thankfully she wasn't hurt too bad! We really had God watching over us most of the weekend!
David got a few shots of people in the mud. He didn't want to take his camera out when WE were actually in the mud, so there are no shots of us all muddy, but this gives you an idea of what everything looked like:


The hajima who owned the pension we stayed in insisted on washing us off before we went into the house!




Me with the mascot: a guy with mud on his face!

There was also a pretty big concert with some big name Korean bands there and a huge fireworks show on Saturday night.
This week is basically a count-down to our Thailand adventure! Our friends Nathan and Tina Smiddy arrive on Wednesday to visit Korea for a few days before we set off to Bangkok and have a phenomenal time! I'm super excited. Every day I dance around with my class and sing the countdown till vacation! Ha. We're also getting into the thick of planning New Zealand, so I'm growing very anticipatory about that.
In other news, there was a really huge fire in our city, we could see it all the way from our apartment window. I'm really not sure if anyone was hurt or not, but it was a pretty huge smoke stack as you can see.

4th of July pics

Burgers on the grill. Ooh! They look so delicious!


Hanging out.


Friends who joined us!


Waiting to eat.


Sizzle sizzle sizzle.


David clearly enjoys the juiciness of his dinner.


Being patriotic.


Duel!






Ferrin's airplane.


Cage.


As you can see, we had plenty of fun!

'MERICA!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!! Despite being expatriates, we managed to have a pretty festive Independence Day here in Korea. We decided to hold our own BBQ, despite having no yards or grills to work with! David and I, along with our coworkers (minus Helen, who wasn't able to make it. Incidentally she is the only Canadian in our Western teacher force) went to Lotte. We bought a bunch of ground beef and hotdogs, pringles and sparklers! We also bought charcoal and a grill top. Because the set up grills were decently expensive, we went really ghetto and used the metal dishrack from our apartment. We coated it with tin foil and poked holes in it with a fork! Then we doused all of our charcoal with lighter fluid and lit it up!! It also took us a while to find a place to set up our festivities. A lot of the parks around us had no cooking signs, but we finally found one (which, later, I actually DID see a sign but it wasn't in the entrance we were at.)
David lit up the grill and we had lots of fun talking about our July 4th traditions. The burgers were pretty much beyond delicious. It's been so long since I've had beef! I was also pretty proud of the fact that the patties I made were so machusayo (delicious!)! We had cheeseburgers and hotdogs, which for us is a pretty big deal.
Once it fell dark we had some fun with the sparklers we bought. We got a whole pack of 50 and David brought his camera so we did some pretty cool things with it. The blog won't let me put up pictures at the moment, but I'll get around to it later.

Overall it was a really satisfying holiday away from home (although I did miss the really big firework displays).
The days are going by quickly and slowly too. I'm treasuring all the moments I have left with my chittlins. They bring smiles to my face everyday. There are a few in particular who I'll miss an incredible amount. In the past 4 months I've been teaching the class I have now, they've learned so much. When I got them they were barely reading three letter words. Now they can read pretty complex sentences. It's so exciting and cool to know that I helped them learn that.
That said, while I will miss my chidren, I know I'm ready to move on with my life. Things have gotten a little static here. I'm ready for a little adventure to rush into my veins.
I suppose Thailand in 2.5 weeks will have to do. :)