International Food & Wine Festival (and more)

We've been living in South Korea for almost 7 months now! These last couple of weeks have been crazy busy & the craziness shall continue throughout October. But we're very excited about this because it mostly has to do with Halloween!

Birthday boy!

Yummy cake!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated John's 27th birthday. He mostly celebrated by eating copious amounts of meat. Nicole made him delicious burgers on the day of his birthday & we went out with a few friends to one of our favorite Korean barbecue buffet restaurants. Our friends also got him a yummy chocolatey ice cream cake. That was a nice surprise. We all enjoyed devouring it in our own private room at a bar. It was a great 27th. Also, special thanks to John's family for sending 2 giant bags of gummy bears!! :)

GUMMY BEARS!

Food display... don't touch!

Exactly one week after John's birthday was a Korean holiday: National Foundation Day (개천절 - Gaecheonjeol). Because it was a holiday we got the day off! Also on this day began the 4-day long International Food & Wine Festival. That Thursday it was open from 1pm to 6pm. We arrived just after one o'clock. When we got there we got wine glasses for the both of us, $3 each, & then entered into the glorious madness. Inside there were booths set up for each country to display & serve wine. We first saw Australia & New Zealand. Only managed to get a couple of Australian samples because the lines for New Zealand were already 5 minutes long. We walked around some more & tasted wines from Germany, Japan, Italy, Austria, France, Hungary, Czech Republic, & more. Our favorite wines came from Germany & Japan. We tried a Mozelwein from Germany. It was very crisp & sweet. We also really enjoyed the rice wine we tasted from Japan. Later in the day we went back to both of those booths but they were closed.

So many Australian booths!

Much love for the Kiwi wine!

Christmas wine!

More food display

After going around to all of the booths, we went to another section. It was a large area full of shelves with wine. It was self-serve. Nicole found a Spanish wine she absolutely loved: Estrella Frizzante Vino de Aguja. We remember this because the bottle ended up coming home with us. Around 3:30 we decided to get some food. There were many choices but the food wasn't free. We ended up eating a whole deep fried (twice) chicken. It was worth the 20 minute wait. After that, we ventured back into the self-serve wine area & drank some more. We ran into a few more friends & by 4:30 it was packed with people. It was impossible to move without touching someone. We ran into some more friends & sort of made new ones. At 6:00 it was time to leave. We left the building but were talking with people in the parking lot for almost another half hour. When we left that, someone was selling some light-up toys that caught our eyes. John got a sword & Nicole got a wand. Then we had to ride our bikes for 25 minutes to home. It was an interesting ride. It was a fantastic day. Probably one of the best days we've had!

Nicole's favorite

Beautiful wine display, Japan.

Bike riding over the bridge after work

Soju, Beer, Whisky, & BODKA?

We don't understand... these
signs were EVERYWHERE.

Nicole's kids on Sports Day. Go Red Team!

Such a beautiful day.

A couple of days later (on Saturday), Nicole's school had "sports day". It's a big event every year. This year it was in a large grassy area right next to the river. From 1-5 the kids were playing. There were a couple of people there to coordinate games & activities for the kids & their parents. We were even in a race for our team. There was red team & white team. One of the last events was a team race. For each team there were 2 male students, 2 female students, a male teacher, a female teacher, a mom, & a dad. We both ran for our red team. It was a long, but fun day. After it was over we all went to dinner at Shabu Cook (paid for by the owner of the school). We weren't very hungry after all of the food that was given to us from snack time but it was a free dinner... & a delicious one!

At H&M in Cheonan. It took a few
looks before we saw the first 'S'

Burger King logo on the
ceiling. It changed colors too.

This past week Korea had another holiday on the 9th - Hangul (한글) Day, celebrating their language. We spent the day shopping with a few of Nicole's coworkers so that we could get John some clothes! He was in desperate need of new pants. At the end of the day he had 2 new pairs of jeans, a pair of workout shorts, a nice button up shirt, & 2 long sleeve shirts. Nicole got a couple of shirts too & part of her Halloween costume for work. It was a successful day of shopping.

Interesting art

Later that evening we had dance practice. Yes, dance practice. We are both going to be participating in the Thriller dance for the 5k Zombie Run happening on October 19th. Nicole had never been to any of the practices before so she had to learn the dance all in one day! But she managed & that night we all did the whole dance together! It was pretty awesome. Now we just have to keep practicing until we get it down. Now less than a week until the run! We will also be doing it for the Halloween party at one of the foreigner bars & possibly again on Halloween night. We're having a lot of fun.

He had a great day.

Happy Birthday to this
awesome student!

Went to watch the sunrise on Expo Bridge. This is Smart City.
Oct. 12

Panoramic

Hello, sun!

Yesterday we went & discovered new territory - a beautiful place called Techno Valley. It's just north of the city we currently live in. We've discussed working & living there next year. (Don't worry, we still plan on returning to the states before we sign on for another year of teaching). There are several English schools there & it's a smaller community, thus a much cleaner one. We walked around for a couple of hours & enjoyed everything we saw. We are going to actively try to make connections there & see what we can find.

Thanks for reading!