Home at last

Chris finally got home on Monday night, after being delayed in Tokyo for 24 hours. He didn't have to work too much on Tuesday, and I took the day off, so he got a little time to rest. Last night he set up a voice-over-internet protocol service that allows us to have a Louisiana phone number, and gives us unlimited nation-wide calling. Which means that we can keep in contact with everyone a lot easier! It works just like a regular phone (we actually have a Baton Rouge number-it's the closest they could get to Lafayette), but runs over the internet, so our other, Korean phone number is still working. Anyone who doesn't have the number and wants it is more than welcome to email me: seoul_sarah@yahoo.com. We can get calls just like a normal phone as well, so feel free to call anytime! Although Chris swears the first time he hears the phone ring at 3 a.m. he's going to unplug it! I don't know what he's worried about, he probably wouldn't wake up anyway! But I'm just gonna tell most of you now, you can call anytime (especially Shy and Beth).

Delayed...

Well, Chris was delayed in Tokyo. His flight was grossly overbooked, and he was stuck in a hotel room overnight. He comes in tonight at 9:15, and we're definitely ready. After cleaning the apartment so thoroughly, it has been exhausting trying to keep it in such great shape a whole 'nother day!
Oh, and we've been trying to get Rachel a bed since October. Finally, a company was located that would actually ship such a large package, only to be stuck in the inevitable nightmare of customs paperwork. You'd think we were trying to import a bomb by the amount of paperwork we have to sign, fill out and express mail to the shipping company. And after all that, we still have to either arrange for them to drive it to Seoul from Busan, or pick it up ourselves -what could amount to a 5 or 6 hour drive...each way!. I guess it will all have to be worked out tomorrow. All I know is that it's here in Korea now. All that stands between it and us is a few very confusing attempts at communication by two people who don't speak the other's language. I had a wonderful phone conversation the other day, most of which consisted of, "I'm sorry, can you please repeat that?" or "I'm sorry I don't understand what you are trying to say?" I finally took the phone number down to our Realty office, where an angel named Teri was able to help me get to the point we're at right now. The ladies who work down at Dream Realty are really the nicest people you could imagine-you really couldn't find people more eager to help. I can only imagine what I would have done by myself-I'd probably still be on the phone saying "Umm, can you repeat that? I'm sorry I didn't understand"...

Chris comes home tomorrow!

Chris passed all of his tests, and is pretty happy everything is over on that end. It's late Saturday night, and he's been on a plane for a few hours now. He comes in late Sunday night, and I can't wait! I've starting cleaning the apartment top to bottom...starting with the cat! I don't want Chris to have any allergy attacks the moment he walks in the door, so poor Ozzy got a bath (hehe). He didn't mind so much... President's Day is a holiday, and hopefully they won't make Chris go in on Tuesday either, so he can recover from the jet lag.
Rachel has been pretty busy lately-sure don't see much of her lately, between her Tae Kwon Do demonstration team practices, her first week of soccer conditioning, weekly vollyball with the women's league, belly dancing lessons, and her boyfriend, Anthony. She's basically solid muscle at this point! She's been doing pretty well with soccer, considering she's never played before, and tryouts start next week. Of course, her coach was also the boys' vollyball coach, and plays with Rachel on the women's team in their weekly matches. Rachel also spent three or four months speaking to her unborn child, her face constantly plastered to the coach's belly! She had the baby in November, and Rachel was the first student they called. So maybe she has a chance to get on the team... We'll see.

This drink is called "Collagen & Fiber"...basically just juice. Good, though-not too sweet. 

Lunch...rice with seaweed, kimchi, radish and carrots...washed down with aloe juice...yum! 

Added tag-board to blog

I've added a "tag-board" to the right here, right under the "Links" section. It works differently than the comments feature, which just allows you to comment on a particular post. You can use this message box to let me know how you're doing, ask me a question, or just say hi! I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Our kimbap adventure...

Last night, Rachel's friend Anthony showed us how to make kimbap (pronounced "gimbap"-kim means seaweed, bap means rice). We went to Lotte Mart at Seoul Station to shop for the groceries, and to get a rice cooker. I was pretty tired of burning rice on our gas stove! We bought all the ingredients, and some shoes for Rachel-she has to shop in the guys section because her feet are so big! Kimbap is similar to Japanese sushi rolls. It is made with seaweed wrapped around a thin layer of rice, and filled with egg, crab meat, pickled radish, and carrots. There's another type of radish, which you can see in the pictures, that Anthony didn't know the name of in English (thin brown strips). Sometimes instead of crab meat they use ham, and add cucumber-there are a million variations...all tasty! This is something that I have had cravings for very often, so I was so happy Anthony was willing to teach us. First you cook the rice, then scramble eggs, turning them like an omelet. Then you cut the eggs and the vegetables and crab meat into long, thin strips. We cheated and bought the already sliced crab and radish. You have to use a "kimpal" to roll everything up, so you lay that down first and set the seaweed down on it. Then you spread the rice very thinly up to about an inch from the edge. Then you pile the ingredients in the middle, one of everything except the carrot and the brown radish-use two of each of those. Then you carefully roll everything up, and finish the ends by stuffing some rice in any gaps. Then slice and serve! We ate about 5 or 6 rolls between the three of us, plus some kimchi we bought to keep us from starving while we were cooking! We bought the already cut kimchi that was a combination of cabbage, cucumber, and radish. Wow, I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it. Yummmm! Rachel and I are planning on making some for Chris when he gets home next Sunday. I'm sure we'll practice a few times in between...

Shopping at Lotte Mart for all the stuff. 

Our instructor readies the ingredients... 

First you spread the rice on the seaweed. 

Then you add the other ingredients: pickled radish, carrots, egg, crab meat... 

Then you roll it up... 

The finished kimbap. 

Rachel and I slept until after 12 today! Ozzy tried to get me out of bed sooner by scratching on the door and crying for about an hour, but I ignored him and willed myself back to sleep. That cat just can't stand being ignored for longer than a 6 hour night. He's so spoiled. There wasn't much for us to do today, as most everything was closed in Seoul for the Lunar New Year. Traditionally, Koreans travel to their ancestral homes to give honor to the memory of their ancestors with certain rituals, and to visit with family. It was estimated that 21 million people would be on the roads from February 8-10. Can you imagine 21 million people driving around a country the size of Indiana? Quite a traffic nightmare. A normal weekend is bad...
Anyway, we did get out of the house tonight. We went to see National Treasure at the movie theater on post. I had already seen it with Chris, but didn't mind seeing it again with Rachel. It was a pretty good movie-made me think of the Da Vinci Code. I know they're making that into a movie soon with Tom Hanks, so that should be interesting. Anyway, movies are free here, which is quite a change from the $9.25 they were charging last summer in Maryland. Outrageous... The only thing here is that you have to sit through the Korean national anthem, as well as our own before the movie starts. Some of Rachel's friends who have never lived in the U.S. assumed that all movie theaters played the U.S. national anthem before movies! Of course, Rachel, being new to military movie theaters, had no clue what was going on the first time she went to a movie. The theater here plays pretty decent movies-they're a couple weeks behind the States, but they do get new features every week or two. Not too bad, really. We're going to try and see some Korean movies-I heard of a couple theaters that will use English subtitles, so that foreigners can be introduced to Korean cinema. I've seen previews for a few that I would love to see. And of course Rachel's dying for anything with Won Bin, her favorite Korean actor.

This is the picture of Won Bin that Rachel has on her computer desktop. We were walking in Myongdong one day when she spotted a poster of him. She practically got whiplash she spun around so fast. A group of Korean girls started giggling when they realized what she was so excited about. Apparently, they thought he was pretty cute as well.  

Happy Lunar New Year!!!

Well, as the eve of the Lunar New Year approaches, and things slow down tremendously in the city, Rachel and I have been taking this last week and a half to do...absolutely nothing. Since Chris left last Wednesday, we've been relaxing and taking it pretty easy. Because of the upcoming holiday (Thursday is the big day), Seoul is very quiet. This morning it took all of 3 minutes to get onto post, and that includes two left turns! Left turns are notoriously a pain in the butt in Korea, because you have to wait for an arrow-there is no turning on a green light, even if there is absolutely no one coming. And most arrows are only about 3 cars long, unless every car in front of you is doing a U-turn instead, and then maybe 1 car will make it through. Aarrggh! But this morning, we coasted through both lights, onto post, and were into the parking lot at 7:25 a.m. So Rachel and I grabbed some breakfast at the Dragon (Dragon Hill Lodge is the hotel right across from the school). Tomorrow should be even better, and I'm tempted to say I could leave 10 minutes before school starts and still get there on time! But enough about that-no one else will understand how nice that is, so there's no point in boring you.
Rachel had quite a day on Saturday-she spent 4 hours at the Hyundai Department Store working for a modeling agency. She and another model were advertising the new Tommy Hilfigger store at the COEX mall (old COEX pics on our website here). They dressed her in Tommy clothes, and she passed out free mouse pads, phone straps, and other stuff to shoppers. Lots of people wanted their pictures taken with Rachel, as you can imagine. It's not often you see a super-tall blonde girl (plus heels) , and guys and girls were eager to pose with her. The pay wasn't too shabby either-Rachel made close to what amounted to $35 an hour. 150,000 won for 4 hours work. And she had fun! A few more Saturdays like this, and she'll have put quite a dent in her tuition for the fall (or summer).
In other less consequential news- I am now a yellow belt! Yes, I finally learned my first form, and am currently learning the next- Taeguk 1. Once you get the hang of it, it isn't too hard. I am still horrible at balance. Some days I am great, and feel like a pro. Other days, I almost fall down with some of the easiest kicks! I don't know what it is...must be an inner ear thing! Ha ha.
Well, I have about 10 minutes before I head back to school to pick Rachel up. We're going grocery shopping at the commissary! Whoohoo. Exciting. I'm telling you, the moment Chris leaves, the girls really know how to party (sarcasm implied there, if you didn't catch it). But before I go, I have to give Ozzy some lovin'-otherwise he'll make me pay later on!
Love to all...have a wonderful Mardi Gras and Lunar New Year!

New look for the blog

As you might have noticed, I've changed the template for this blog, added some links, and now I've got free photo hosting, so I can add pictures to the blog. Of course, our Seoultrain Picture Gallery remains the main photo album, but I think it makes my blog more interesting to show pictures of what I'm blogging about.
I am having the tutors in my AVID class (1 junior, and 3 seniors) start a blog and keep weekly posts, in lieu of keeping a handwritten journal. I think this makes it easier on them (one less notebook to lug around), and provides them with a way to communicate with family and friends once they've gone off to college. I left the subject of their posting entirely up to them, so I'm eager to see what they write about. Oh, and I almost forgot that Rachel is now one of my students! She is a senior tutor, in my second period "B" day class.
The photo I've added below "Me and Chris at the ski lodge" was just an experiment with the photo hosting...expect more pictures soon!

Me and Chris at the ski lodge 

New stuff

Not only did I add a sitemeter to this blog, but I added a "Links" column to the right, which includes links to our seoultrain website, Rachel's blog, and my MSN photo album. The MSN photo album is one I primarily use for my personal photos not related to Korea, or our family activities here. So I include pictures of my godchildren, my nephew, and anything else I feel like sharing... It's not updated quite as often as the seoultrain picture gallery, but when I get new pictures of the kiddies, I add them almost immediately. Rachel started blogging just recently, and has a few posts so far, so stay tuned to hear more from her! We started a mailing list for our Seoultrain website, so we can send out updates when we add pictures. That way, instead of checking the website randomly to see if there's anything new, you'll get an email when we add stuff! So check out the website if you're interested.
Also, there's a nifty feature on our website that offers others a chance to share pictures with us. If you're a registered user, you can create an album in the "user's gallery" and add pictures to it. Oliver (Chris' brother) has created one, so feel free to do the same!
I imagine I'll be doing lots of blogging in the next couple weeks, since Chris will be back in the States until February 20th.
Oh, one more thing about this blog-I plan on adding a list of other blogs/websites that I find interesting about Korea. There are a few that I regularly read-one especially, by a food critic, that is extremely helpful and interesting to anyone interested in Korean cuisine. Coming soon!