Snow!!

Finally two days in the snow! We spent two days at Elysian Resort. It was so much fun I was so happy to finally be riding! The resort was small like most things here in Korea but it was nice and not too busy. everyone at the resort was pretty much a beginner except maybe a group of 10 guys but pretty much all they did was bomb because there is no out of bounds and no trees and no park no nothing but the groomed runs. Matter of fact even if I wanted to go off the trail i couldn't unless I had hiking boots. There was no snow!! None at all! Just dirt and some trees. Pretty weird. Pretty weird indeed. Every time I got on or off the lift the liftys would just say hi! or Hello! Then laugh it was hilarious. Hi, hahahahaha. I guess they thought they were funny. The ski resort food is nothing like what we have in the states. Its noodles and weird pork stuff. Nasty, I did try some of the noodle soup stuff the first day for lunch and it was okay but really I'd only eat it again if I was starving. Which I'm not. They did have good ice cream though gelato and dip n dots, that we did eat. And they were good! It was a beautiful couple of days too sunny and no wind. Cold but at least it wasn't windy and snowing and cold. There were these 5 kids there on Tuesday that were dressed as animals. there was a bear, a dalmation, a seal, another bear, and I don't remember the other one. It was pretty funny. The girls dress like gangsters huge pants and hoodies and coats and hats everything is like 10 sizes too big. and the guys, well they're mostly normal except for the animal boys ha. Our condo that we stayed in, ok, so we walk in, take our shoes off, put our stuff down, Jae Eun walks into the first room and says ok, Brianne this is your room. I say okay and head in to a completely empty room. COMPLETELY! I mean nothing, no bed, no night stand, lamp, nothing. Then she walks across the hall and into another room and says oh just kidding you can have this room it has a bed. I'm thinking what? Where is your bed? what are you and the kids going to sleep on?! I guess its a traditional room, they sleep on these mats, that were hidden in the closet, on the floor. so i slept in a bed with a fantastic down comforter. ( I miss mine sooo much) and they slept on the floor. I felt a little bad but I did try to trade multiple times and they weren't having it so whatever bed works for me! And it was a queen so I slept so good! Sprawled out all over it was so nice! I really miss my bed, a lot. Good thing I take my pillow everywhere. I even brought an extra pillow case. New pictures!

Incheon-China Town

Friday I taught Daniel and Stella how to make fajitas. They LOVED them! Also on Friday I went to Hyundai Department Store, I rode the elevator to the top floor and rode the escalator all the way down. And I only bought two things, a curling iron and a sweatshirt, and they were both on sale! Today we went to Incheon, and to China Town. China Town was pretty sweet nothing like the one in NYC though, a lot of little stores with really random trinkets of which I did not buy a single one! And no little Chinese men sneeking up behind you whispering things like, 'Rolex? Handbags? Wallet?' When we were in China Town we ate lunch at obviously a Chinese restaurant, I had these noodles with green and red peppers and onion all fried together they were spicy and oh so good! I am going to learn to make them! While we were in China Town we went into a few museums that use to be old banks, mostly they just talked about the history of the harbor at Incheon. Then we walked up this hill to Freedom Park where there is this HUGE statue of General Megada... Jae Eun, when she was telling me that we were going to go to Incheon was trying to tell me about this American General that helped South Korea not be communist. I knew some Korean history from school but I had never heard of General Megada. So I Googled this park and Incheon after Jae Eun had tried to explain this to me, come to find out its General MacArthur not freakin Megada! haha After we left China Town we went to some island to see the ocean. I'm not quite sure why because right after we got there we got back into the car and drove back to the main land. . but the bridge we took on the way back is the longest in the world so I guess that was pretty cool. After we got home I met Jenny at Lotte Department Store, we walked around, talked and sat at Krispy Kreams for like 2 hours then I took a taxi home (pretty sure the driver was half asleep! he kept nodding off!! so scary)! And now I'm here in bed!

Made In China

I didn't write yesterday and today will be short as I have had a pretty uneventful couple of days. Yesterday I just taught from 9-6 came home had dinner and went to bed. Oh but I did take my first ever taxi ride all by myself, which was a little sketchy because I had to pretend that I spoke Korean when I told the driver where to take me. Don't worry we made it! Today I taught for 4 hours and made fried rice for the fam. Onions, garlic, eggs, shrimp, pepper, soy sauce. It was pretty good. Way better than my failed attempt at brownies. Then it was off to the show Ballerina who Loves B-boy. Yeah, the title should probably be The Ballerina Who Loves a B-Boy, but what can ya do? It was pretty good. I was really impressed with the b-boys. Not so much with the ballerinas but the rest was great! The story was a little hard to follow but the dancing was incredible! Makes me really wanna see the Jabbawockeez when I get home. Then it was home and time for ice cream and bed. I had to order a movie for one of the girls I'm teaching we are reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and watching the movie along with it to point out differences we ordered the movie last night around 11:00 pm and got it today! Shipping here is so fast! But I just figure it's because it's all made in China so they just have to hop on their little boats and pick it up. Too bad our mail system isn't that good in the U.S.

Thank you very much!

Today I went climbing again it was so nice! And it gave me a reason to eat ice cream! Taught English to Minseo and Geeheo. After we decided to go to the Coex Mall and to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I had really spicy soup and some spicy noodles and rice it was so good! After we went on an adventure to the mall. I thought the Hyundai Department store was huge, so was this place! Massive! It was such a cool mall. I wish we would have had more time to shop, I'll have to spend a day there when I have some time! So on the way to the mall some drunk guy came up and was talking to Eric and Minseo and kept saying thank you very much to me. I guess thats all the English he knew. Thank you very much. Then on the way home we ran into another drunk guy on the subway who was talking to the kids and kept pointing at me I guess he didn't know I was with them haha. Jae Eun told me that the old men were talking to us because she has a 'special' family hahaha. Mostly because I am with them I guess that makes her family
'special'. Well check out the new pictures.

Zeebra Leggings

Today was FREEZING! Even more than yesterday I think. Today with my first group of students, Eric, Violet and Eugene we attempted to make brownies. Mind you I have been searching all week for ingredients! Simple things like powdered sugar, vanilla, real butter, ya know things that when we run out at home we just run to Millers, Matthews or Griffiths for. Yeah not here in Korea. Finally I did find what I needed. well kinda the vanilla was in powder form and the powdered sugar was in a bag that was about a half cup and when I got to the house we would be making them, yeah no measuring cups or teaspoons! Good thing I have made the stupid things enough to know how they're supposed to taste before they get cooked (in the random huge square pan) the batter tasted pretty good and we baked them the only problem was that the oven was 1. not level and 2. cooked uneven, but that could have been due to the whole not level thing. the brownie part tasted pretty good but the frosting was bad! We did end up finding realish butter for the batter but only had crisco butterish stuff left for the icing. It was horrible! and the powdered sugar was grainy! But they seemed to like them. Sadly I was not satisfied. So next time hopefully I can have some of the necessities imported by my mother courtesy of Macey's. Korean's clearly are not bakers! At Esther's house today I told her that I would teach the kids to make chicken fajitas on Friday and that if I could find vanilla and dark corn syrup that maybe we'd try for some oatsies. I asked her if she had a measuring cup and she laughed and pointed to a Pyrex glass measuring cup that sits on the sink and holds utensils. (very common here random jars that hold forks spoons and chop sticks instead of putting them where they go in the drawers, which they have places for ha).  So Ester and I laughed about it for a minute and she told me that its just easier to buy stuff she doesn't like to bake. Where is the fun in that? Nowhere that's where! When I got home from teaching today we had dinner Coogoogi but curry this time. It was yummy I didn't take a picture cuz it was mostly gone by the time I got home so just imagine yellow rice with pork, carrots, and onions. After dinner Minseo and I wrote a letter to Sean Choi. Minseo decided that she wanted some cute stickers to put on her letter don't even worry that it is around 12 degrees here and windy so freakin freezing! But, we went out anyway. She was all ready to go in her snow gear, pants and all and I in my sweet 2 dollar zeebra leggings and jeans! Off we went! My leggings are sooo stinkin warm! they are my new favorite! We ended up with some cute robot stickers and some bear stickers! Mineso was right they were just what the letter needed. Hopefully tomorrow isn't as cold!

My name is Brian. B-R-Y-thenumber7-theletterQ

Well it was an uneventful day here in freakin freezing Korea! I got up went to church met two new people that are close to my age that speak English, one just got back from Orem where she spent the last three months and the other I'm not quite sure. The one that just returned from Utah, her name is Quwon like Q 1. She is really nice and hopefully will be someone to do things with on slow days. And the other, her name was Jenny. She was funny they were both cute girls and amazed at how tall I am. Other than that nothing exciting happened today. It was -11 all day and currently is -14 Celsius.. which sounds way colder than Fahrenheit so we'll go with that. Today has been the coldest day of the season and tomorrow is supposed to be colder! Jae Eun says it's Global Warming... um its not warming.. IT'S FREEZING!! She made coogoogi for dinner with rice and of course Minseo and I had to have our ice cream (Hagen Daaz from Costco) It was quite fantastic, despite the current weather. Sad to say it but that is really all that happened today, I caught up on some much needed sleep and do nothing time and just kinda lounged around all day.

Misplaced

Yesterday Esther, Stella and Daniels mom, took Jae Eun the kids and I out to dinner. We went to Outback Steak house and ordered family style so I got to try a ton of new stuff instead of the usual Victoria's Fillet. Other than that yesterday was really quite uneventful. Today however was not. It started out at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, it was quite a drive and its set back in the mountains it was really cool and there was a lot of really neat art. The best part was there was no gift shop so I couldn't even spend any money! On our way home we stopped at Costco again, I guess we really like cheese and tacos, oh and ice cream of course! After Costco Jae Eun and I went on an adventure to the Hyundai Department Store, its like the Neiman Marcus of Korea it was somewhere around 12 stories and it had 5 basements, soo it was huge! One day when I have lots of time I am going to spend the day there. We went to see if we could find powdered sugar and vanilla because not even Costco could supply us with the things we need to bake. Who would have thought it would be so hard to find common baking goods! I guess Koreans don't bake! The powdered sugar I did end up finding only has about half a cup per bag! so I had to buy quite a few. Jae Eun need to get back home so I told her to go and that I could find my way back on the subway by myself. So after she left I did a little exploring and went to a store next door to see if they had baking goods. Well they did, kinda. Like I said the powered sugar was about the same amount per bag that you sprinkle on top of a bunt cake. And vanilla extract, YEAH RIGHT! I'm stuck with vanilla powder. Wish me luck with my baking class on Monday, I have a feeling its not going to quite turn out how I'd like it to. Anyway, after I somewhat found the things I needed and Jae Eun had left I went back to the Hyundai Department Store and had dinner. Trust me when I say trying to order food in Korea when you don't know a lick of Korean is hard! I got a pretzel because how can you mess up a pretzel, that's right, you can't cinnamon sugar amazingness! The woman behind the counter said something to me and I just kinda nodded and pointed to the one I wanted and handed her my credit card, she smiled and I walked away. That wasn't too bad I thought so I moved on to something a little more complicated, a sandwich. Which if you know anything about me I eat my sandwiches pretty much plain, turkey, cheese, olives, and on occasion oil and vinegar. Lucky for me The 'Best Turkey Sandwich' place was out of turkey so I had to settle for a Philadelphian so I pointed to the menu then pointed to the sandwich on display and pointed to the tomato and said no, the lettuce said no, pickles, no. Finally the cute ladies realized what I was trying to tell them and I ended up with just what I wanted, Yummy cheese, green peppers and garlic steak. It was fantastic, but it would have been even better with a rootbeer which I don't think I'm going to see again for 80 some odd days. I made it back to the subway just fine which wasn't a real problem since the subway station is connected to the department store, the problem was after I had gotten on the train. Jae Eun had told me something about how the number 5 train had two trains on the same track but the track split, and to make sure that I got onto the right train. Well I thought I was on the right train, the sign outside said that I was going to the next station which was on the way to Dunchon Dong, turns out that is where the track splits and I was on the wrong train! So I just got off at the next stop got on the train going the other direction, got off at the following stop and waited for the train that was going the right direction on the track that splits! Jae Eun was so worried about me I think she called me five times in ten minutes. I wasn't worried I knew exactly where I was and where I was going, I just made a simple mistake, not knowing the language will do that to a person! But her sweet worried little self picked me up right outside of the subway station by her house so I didn't have to walk home. Which was so nice since it is only 5 degrees here! And I had the worlds worst headache! So you see, I only misplaced myself for a moment and I didn't know I was lost.