i suck at updating.

i know i know... i suck at updating. but i will ease the sting with a multitude of pictures beginning with my ruby. 

ruby: kami teacher. when are you going back to texas?

me: oh not for a long long time. long time. we have almost an entire year together.

ruby: hoo-rah! that is an excited scream kami teacher. very excited scream. 

i love her. oh how i adore her, so! 

alright..welp, there's no secret here - i suck at updating this thing. life is moving in the fast lane here in korea. it really is. the weeks fly by and the weekends are spent discovering more of what korea entails. so here is a quick, in my kam-way quick, synopsis of the past two weeks.

FIRST: WORST BIRTHDAY PARTY I HAVE EVER BEEN TO IN MY ENTIRE LIFe. EVER!!!

i love korea. i do. but they do things ridiculous here. and the first birthday party is done up insanely. thousands of dollars are spent on the first birthday. my co-worker, jun's, son turned one a couple weeks ago and he asked us to go to his party. sara and i named him ben b/c we can't pronounce his korean name. all of my co-workers and directors came to support. here are a few pics...

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1. this is jun, his wife, and son, ben. they are all decked out!

2. this is un bear ( whom sara and i have deemed 'hannah' ) she is one of my co-workers daughters. she is two years old... and she certainly acts like a two year old.  but she is a doll. except when she brought me baby squid... where i did all but throw up in my mouth. DISGUSTING. 

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1. un bear (hannah) LOVED picking on sara. this picture was the highlight of my day. hahaha. look at the fear on sara's face!

2. this is the face off. hannah vs. sara.... look at hannah's tiny little fist. haha. she was precious! terrible twos... they ain't kiddin. haha. great entertainment! 

AND THIS...

was the worst time of my life. absolute worst. 

this crazy bitch (pardon the french... but there are no other describing words... trust me, i've thought about it) learned my name and decided she would try to drag me to the front of the stage. (where, mind you, 60 korean strangers were staring at me. so... she goes off in korean and then i think i hear my name. i look at sara puzzled b/c i don't quite understand why... and all my other co-workers didn't get it either. 

AND THEN... this crazy lady grabs my camera out of my hand, gives it to sara and literally drags me up on stage. ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME???

so there i am... standing there...looking just as confused as the 60 pairs of strange korean eyes staring at me were... wondering what is going on. and the crazy lady says, "Sing Happy birthday!" so.. i'm thinkin.. eh, okay, i can sing that without a little embarrassment. so i sing, and then try to go sit down. but noooo. this feakin spaz grabbed my arm, stood in front of me, and told me to sing a pop song. i think she and i argued back and forth for around 3 minutes about how i was NOT going to sing a pop song. (the entire thing lasted 10 minutes. the longest most painful 10 minutes of my entire existence - NOT FREAKING COOL!!!) in the end, though, i sufficed with a christmas carol and made sara come up and sing it with me... to the room full of strangers... who were just as confused as i was.

i was pissed. that lady was crazy. literally. she was crazy. no one knew what to think of her and her retardation tactics of making me stand up there. i felt like an american puppet. sing american. dance american. make a noise american. not cool. NOT. COOL. AT ALL. i dreamt the following night that i pushed her down the stairs. that is how much i disliked that moment! she better hope i can't distinguish her one day from one of the other 150,000 koreans walking around.... 

moving forward....

this is yin sun si park. i think. one of the GOOD things that actually came out of that cracked out party, was that i had the opportunity to meet a band that has a studio here in town. where i was invited the following day to come record some music. 

 

that is the studio i record in. and there is me singing. haha. not the coolest of pictures.. .but remember i am not the one taking it! :) 

i think the best thing out of it all is that now each day i take drum lessons. so every day from around 11am-12:30 i take drum lessons. the guy in the picture - he is my drum teacher. but he also teaches piano and guitar... and it is his studio where it all takes place in. it's a pretty phenomenal place. it's so nice to be around real musicians here... i get free drum lesson and all i do is teach him english. i totally got the better end of the deal! boom-shaka-laka! 

TONGYEONG MARATHON:

 - since i did not get to tongyeong until early november, i missed the sign up period. i was bummed. i'm still bummed i couldn't share in that experience. but there is one in march, so i am awfully excited to attempt the 10k. (hoping i don't break my foot again... good ole' insurance if i do!) anyhow, all of our foreign friends (the actual americans/canadians) here were in it. two of them ran a 5k, two of them ran the 10k, and two of them ran the half marathon (around 13 miles). so sara and i went and cheered them on... with awesome signs..

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1. WE SPOTTED OUR AMERICAN (AND CANADIAN) FRIEND!!! they were so happy! we were so happy! out of the 1,000's of runners... we saw 'em! haha.

2. sara and i were excited to be around such craziness! 

now....

I AM A MILLIONAIRE... in won. 

 - i have never in my life seen that many 0's in my bank account. insaaane. ha. so in lieu of getting our first paycheck, we hit up some american culture - pizza hut. good times, good times! 

 

PEPPERONI PIZZA, BABY! oh man. after eating so much rice... my taste buds were in heaven! korean pizzas are quite funny... they wrap them in bows...easier to carry, i reckon. it's quite cute. i think america should do it... it made me happy. carrying my little leftovers like it was a present from santa. 

TRiP OUTTa town:  CHANGWON and hike numba dos. 

this weekend sara and i had the opportunity to get outta town for a day. our directors had to go to changwon to get some books, and they offered to take us and drop us off at the big ole' mall. my ears perked up at the first hearing of this... and it proved to be a wonderful wonderful time! 

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1. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES... IN KOREA?! really?! you KNOW it must be good then!

2. me and my fellow posse... all the little korean children and myself love to jump on the tigers... yes, i am very mature... i know. 

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1. my engagement picture to a sculpture man. oh yes. one day... FAR FAR FAR away.... 

2. i got ruby hooked on the chocolate chip fraps... her parentals will thank me one day.. haha

i didn't find much at the mall, neither did sara. but we DID find a starbucks (which we drank at twice) and a mcdonald's which i ordered a fabulous big mac at. oh such delight. it doesn't take much for me you know... just a small taste of america. though i haven't eaten mcdonald's in years back home... something screams 'DO IT FOR AMERICA' each time i see one.. ha

HIKE TIME. 

our director and his family go hiking each sunday. it was the same mountain sara and i hiked up the first time... but this was a direct route... instead of the 3 hours around the actual mountain that sara and i attempted. the hike was beautiful. i always have fun hiking and being in the mountains... my back isn't a big fan...but i enjoy it. so here are some pics of that...

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1. the view from the top. so beautiful. at 8 in the morning... in the freezing cold... totally worth it... maybe? ha

2. all in the family: my boss and his family. we love them to pieces. they have been so good to sara and me. they really have. i don't think i am nearly as deserving as such great people to be around here in korea. Jesus really does look out, mayne. he really does! 

 

you know... when you hike up a mountain... everyone wants to jump rope. yep. 

jump.

jump.

jump.

so yes, as you can see... the time is going fast. it seems so unreal to think i've been here over a month already. time really does fly here. i think working in the evenings really makes it better. i couldn't have picked a better place to be in than right here with all these people. this year is going to rock. christmas is around the corner and sara and i will be going to seoul. uncle j is on board a big methodist church there, so i can't wait to go there. it's the largest methodist church in the world (i think). that's pretty stellar. christmas eve will be spent watching all the christmas movies with the other foreigners drinking eggnog in our pajamas, and then we head the next morning to seoul. we will also spend new years there, as well. 

let the fun times keep on rollin'! 

i am a lucky girl. life is wonderful. christmas isn't done up here real big, so it doesn't make me feel like i'm missing anything back home. however, if anyone feels like sending me something nice.. say... mac-n-cheese or something tasty... please feel free to! haha. 

much love chum-a-roos,

kam-dogg

it's all just a game of charades.

**there will be no pictures on this post, strictly just text.

anyhow, i decided that living here is just one big game of charades. every day i find new ways to attempt to get my point across in what i want to say, or what i want to order in a restaurant. the language barrier is quite humorous at times. my co-workers and i all find new ways to explain things to each other; whether it be writing on the whiteboard and trying to get the right pronunciation, or drawing a picture, or just blatantly giving up and saying forget it. ha. i really like the whole 'you really have to want to say something' or else you keep your mouth shut. it works for me, since i'm usually quite the talker. ha

as i write, i am listening to a christmas radio station on itunes. i just love itunes; what a wonderful creation. tongyeong doesn't particularly go big or go home for the christmas holidays. i think they might get the day off, but it's nothing like it is in the states. and i quite adore the commercialism of christmas. the cheery and joyful holiday cheers, seeing wreaths on doors and christmas lights beaming at night. i miss waking up and being able to see my christmas tree at home all lit up with my old ornaments on them. mom is a very nice lady for keeping them. haha. one christmas i didn't have any money (which has become a routine for me during holidays), so i drew and colored all the looney tunes in space jam and made them into ornaments. i think that was in 7th grade. they are STILL on the tree. haha. i will also miss seeing my stocking up. i will make my own! 

sara and i are going to seoul for christmas with our friend, amy. we are pumped up! we will spend christmas day on a bus and the night in asan - where amy lives. the next morning we will go to seoul to live it up! it is unreasonably cold there, though, so i'm frantically searching for warmer clothing. it was 9 degrees last night here... er, at 3 this morning. i think all the other foreigners here will also be going to seoul, so we will all meet up on new years eve and have a par-tay! who can say they celebrated new years in seoul? (minus the millions who actually live there, mind you) that will be a riot! can't wait, can't wait!

one last thing before i go. every friday myself, along with the rest of our gang, go bowling. it's quite entertaining. i am 'the train' and sara is 'phantom power'... i'm thinking about actually finding some neon head bands and getting our nicknames put on them. the bowling alley is great. i think i most look forward to friday nights. we bowled last night until 2 in the morning, then went and had 2 plates of chicken at some korean place i can't pronounce. those are the highlights of my week. bowling. who would have thought korea had bowling? they even have pros who bowl on the other lanes... they get a lot of X's and /'s... BUT... they go over the line every time, so it took all of me not to go over there and tell them they wouldn't cut it in the states. i might just get 120, but i don't cross the line! 

okay, nothing important in this here message. just a thought of holiday cheer and love i wanted to send your way. sara and i are about to go to e-mart (the local wal-mart) and get a few things. tomorrow there is a HUGE marathon here (of which i am bummed i wasn't here in time to enter), so we will go and cheer on our friends running in it. i am told it is going to be huge. my camera will be in my hand. oh yes. 

if you haven't checked out my picture site, you should do so. i add ALL the pictures i take here. so if you get bored or have about an hour to rummage through them, check it out. 

here, y'all! 

okay. much love my people. much love from korea,

kam 

so there was this mountain...

anyong my people! anyong! sara and i decided to venture out and climb 

this mountain (this is the view from the top) 

and this... is the story of how we got to and from this bloody view. not as easy as one would hope... especially with the special-ed lewis and clark (sara and me) attempting to climb it... here goes. 

 

FIRST off.. I found Jesus. everyone clap.

 Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! yep...he's big here in tongyeong. 

no really, he's a big dude. haha.

i should probably explain that sara and i are reading from a korean map.. with symbols and all. we don't know where the hell to start so we just pick route A or B. well, we chose route A. this route did not have a path. it was brush and dirt and ladders that were stitched together with pipe and some wire and cracking wood. whew how trustworthy i was to walk five feet up on that puppy. sheesh! anyhow - these are the views a third of the way up the wrong side of the mountain... 

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1. so there was this bell... and i'm probably going to have 800 years of bad luck for messing with it... but the orneriness (why is that word spelt like that?? it took me FIVE spell searches to find the correct spelling... seriously webster...seriously!) within me couldn't resist. i just had to! i also had to...

2. throw leaves at sara. we haven't seen this kinda foliage since last fall in texas. it was the first reaction i had when i saw it. like a child, i am, no doubt. LEAVES! LEAVES! LEAVES! I MUST THROW LEAVES! 

i forgot to mention that throughout the mountain, there are probably 100's and 100's of cabbage crops... just randomly up the mountain. sara and i fought the brush going up as much as we could, but we got to a point where we had to attempt a new route... off course. haha. and there... well there... my life was freakin' lit up! 

I FOUND SOME SWINGS!!! 

   

do you even have any comprehension of how excited i was? i felt like i was 4 all over again... i didn't have to share the swing with anyone (i could fight off any little koreans that wanted it...). that swing was MINE! wahooo! wahhoooooooo. wahoooooooooo!! wheeeeee! so friggin' awesome. 

BUT FINALLY. after about 3 hours going all the way around the mountain to get up to the top.... we found it!

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1. here it is. the view we were hoping for. the 3 hours of an attempt to hike that mountain paid in full. (i should also mention that the ladies at the bottom 'hoola-hooping'... those are HARD PLASTIC TUBES. they are not the tiny little plastic ones... they are ridiculous. koreans are crazy! get to the top of the mountain and hoola-hoop, do push-ups, have stretch stations... ha. they know what they are doing!)

2. this lady was hoola-hooping... her little hands were above her head and she was moving her hips as though she'd just been listening to a britney spear's re-make. it took a while, but i FINALLY convinced her to take a picture with me. she was so cute! 

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1.  i have this odd obsession with jumping off of things. it gives me great joy. and my adrenaline pumps insanely when i jump from high places...on top of mountains, no less. i WISH you could have heard how freaked the guys behind me were when i jumped. i think they thought i was committing suicide. hahahaha. oh what fun! 

2. i figured since the older people were trying this hoola-hoop thing... that i could most definitely do it. that puppy almost broke my foot when it came down. holy toledo. kudos for grams and gramps doing that... it ain't easy, folks! 

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1. sara and i on top of the mountain. you should go to her blog to see her "YES I MADE IT" face.. it was priceless!

2. A PUPPY CLIMBED THE MOUNTAIN. and my heart stopped. he looked just like b-man as a puppy. so i had to pay some extra special attention to him and his little t-shirt. haha. koreans do love their little dogs... it's the big dogs they eat. :(

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1. i forgot to mention, that all the way throughout the hike, probably every couple kilometers or so, they have a stretch/work out station. here you can do sit-ups, chin-ups, eat lunch, get your water refreshed, SWING, teeter-totter, and even... stretch your back. look to picture 2.

2. this was the back stretcher. all who know me know i had reconstructive back surgery two years ago... so this was quite the treat to stretch my back like THIS! haha. who does that? at the top of a mountain? really?? really?? 

so then. we decided we'd attempt the climb down... and experiment with a new route...

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1. we got VERY lost. we actually ended up on the exact opposite side of town that we needed. here, i think we found the only cow in all of tongyeong. bless her heart! i wanted to go up and scratch her head and tell her i loved her. 

2. this was the result of much MUCH delusion. 4 1/2 hours of climbing and getting lost... you'd get excited and make shadow puppets too! 

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1. the koreans would give sparky a heart attack if he saw how they wired things.... stay away small children, stay away! 

2. this was sara and my reaction to our 3 mile hike BACK to town after we found a random route down it that led us to the opposite side of where we wanted to be. but hey, we weren't defeated... because.....

ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM!!! 

everyone needs some ICE CREAM after a hike like that! 

so. that is my sunday in a nutshell. sleep in, hike all day, ice cream for dinner, it's life at it's peak! hahaha. it was a wonderful experiment. i do believe, however, that next time i will go with someone who actually understands the signs that probably told us "WRONG WAY STUPID AMERICAN"...haha. 

life here is still going wonderfully. i love it. i love my work. my directors. my co-workers. the food is growing on me, but i am saving my appetite for christmas, where i will go to seoul. sara and i, along with our friend amy who visited us a couple weeks ago, are all going to seoul for our Christmas vacation! woop! there they have AMERICAN Food.. EVEN AN OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE!!! HOLY MOLY! HERE I COME STEAK AND KETCHUP AND MASHED POTATOES AND KETCHUP... OOOH AND ROLES! AND DIET DR. PEPPER... OH ME OH MY MY MOUTH IS WATERING.... wahhhhh. haha.

okay. i should get ready for my day. i should also say that sara and i are official LEGAL tongyeong residents. we received our immigration cards yesterday, and also opened up a bank account. we are legit, baby! wah hahaha. and we are both awfully, awfully excited! my next blog i will update pictures of all of that goodness. 

until then my people. 

anyong,

-kam

my korean thanksgiving.

hello all! yesterday we had our korean thanksgiving. there were americans, frenchman, and canadians consuming the food. unfortunately, there were around 20 people, so the food we accumulated wasn't in extremes, but it was just right i'd say. poor ole' sara didn't even get any chicken. BUT. i made some KILLEr mashed potatoes! (sara helped) the following was my evening in pictures. 

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1. this is my christmas decoration! isn't he cute! i love him. and he makes my apartment smell delectable! 

2. me cooking my mashed potaotes. oh yes, even with a christmas mit. 

1.2.

1. mike and christine were nice enough to let us have it at their home - this was the view! SPECTACULAR!

2. and then there's elizabeth, my artistic friend who likes to clean. i say aside from the art degree, she and sara are one in the same with their anal cleaning. :)

1.2.

1. full house i'd say! full house! thank goodness for heated flooring!

2. it's not a korean thanksgiving without the rice cooker goin'...

1.2.

1. a little bit of sangria can make anyone's thanksgiving merry.

2. these are lauren's SWEET sweet potatoes! they were scrumptious... and even from looking at them you gain a kilogram. 

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3.

1. it is also not thanksgiving in korea if you don't take off your shoes before stepping in the door. oh yes. i like that! (but only when i wear my slip-ons)

2. going around saying what we are all thankful for (mom, i mentioned you and the family. and chums, i mentioned you as well)

3. a special cheers to the people who went back home (barb and greg)

1.

my thanksgiving was delectable. coke zero (zero, zero seven), mashed potatoes, chicken, and corn. (i couldn't afford to buy and ketchup... i know, i know. i am a cheap-o. but i DID pretend that there was ketchup on 'em)

and this was the beautiful beautiful view on the way home. the bridge lit blue every few minutes and the reflections on the ocean was something spectacular! 

so that, in a nutshell, was how i spent my korean thanksgiving. it was nice to meet some new faces from different countries and to show them how we'd usually celebrate our holiday. minus the whole, turkey, taking off your shoes, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream bit. it lasted for around 6 hours. the cooking, the eating, and the playing of games. everyone went out afterwards, but i was beat. so i came home, watched a movie, spoke to my motha, and slept 'til noon! wahoo! 

and now sara and i are going to go take on one of the numerous mountains! yipee-ky-ay-aye. 

much love,

kami