Books and Boarding Passes

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Oh snow!!

Pork roast, grilled sweet potatoes, peas, &
some au jus with onions & carrots to got with.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, America. We hope everyone had a delicious feast. We surely did on Saturday night. It wasn't anything like we'd have at home but it was a lot of goodness. A friend let us borrow her crock pot for the weekend. In case you forgot or don't know, we only have one burner & a weak microwave. No oven. No toaster. No crock pot. But we have fantastic friends! We made a delicious pork roast in the crock pot. We ate almost all of it in one night but we did get pretty full from that & other food we made. We hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as our late night dinner. We missed seeing y'all.

Not a whole lot going on this week. John's been doing English "interviews" at work for the students. This is to see how much the students have improved their English speaking skills since their last interviews a couple of months ago. Nicole finished up the last of her report cards until the end of the school year. In Korea, the end of the school year is the end of February; the beginning is March.

Nicole's school also had picture day this week.

Thursday morning view from our apartment

Walking to the bus stop

This week Daejeon really had some snow. It snowed most of the day on Wednesday. First it was raining really hard. Then it turned to sleet/freezing rain. Then it was just snow. From about 10:00am until the evening time it was snowing. The grounds were covered; trees were covered; cars were covered; mountains were covered. It snowed a bit on Thursday again but it was all gone by Saturday. It warmed up quite a bit over the weekend. Upper 40s (Fahrenheit) most of the days. The snow motivated us to get some boots. Nicole got hers last weekend & John got his on Thursday. Good deals too! We are both now 100% ready for winter... clothing-wise, that is. Winter is the only season we've yet to experience in Daejeon. Meaning, we've been in Korea for almost 9 months!

Thursday morning view from Nicole's classroom

In case you haven't heard, we are planning on getting laser eye surgery in January. Nothing has been officially planned because we're still doing research but we hope to schedule consultations this week. We have several reasons for doing this in Korea. First, the cost is less than half of what it would be at home. Second, it's something that both of us have wanted to do for a while. Third, surgery in Korea is top notch & we've found several people who've had the surgery done here. We are still trying to decide between getting the surgery done in Daejeon or going to Seoul. Will keep you updated as we go.

Right now we are focusing on staying warm & our trip to Japan. Christmas is now 24 days away, which means we will be in our hotel room in Kyoto, Japan in 23 days! We already have a few sights in mind to definitely see. We will also spend a few days in Osaka before returning to SoKo. Any suggestions are welcome!

Happy December everyone!

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Pepero (빼빼로) Day!

Our pepero gifts.

Giant pepero boxes; about
half our height.

A couple of weeks ago, on November 11th (11/11), Korea celebrated Pepero Day. What is pepero? The picture above shows an assortment of pepero. There are different kinds & sizes. Basically, pepero is a stick with flavor. Sometimes it's covered with chocolate flavor or strawberry or chocolate and almonds or mango or cookies & cream... and so on. Pepero Day is celebrated on this day because it is 11/11. It's the "stick" date. Our own pictures we've taken show special gift baskets &giant pepero boxes. Nicole got A LOT of pepero from her students that day. She received 3 giant sticks, a typical box of pepero, some Ferrero Rocher chocolates, & a chocolate bar from her co-teacher. John also received a box of pepero from one of his students. In short, the day is like Valentine's Day (which Korea also celebrates), but with pepero.

Pepero & teddy bear gift baskets

Entertaining clothing sign at Costco.

It feels like we've had an eventful month but we can't think of too much exciting news to share. Each weekend this month we've discovered new places; a couple of stores & a delicious brunch cafe. Other than that, we're just in our daily routine of work & workouts.

Snow outside of Nicole's classroom. The kids were thrilled.

Pikachu just roaming the
streets in downtown Daejeon.

In other news, Daejeon, Korea had it's first snow of the season! It was on November 18th. Nicole can't believe that she got a little excited. But then, after about 10 minutes she was over it. John was not excited at all because it snowed at the exact time he was walking to the bus stop to get to work. Most places it didn't stick & we haven't seen any since then which we are pleased with. It's going to be John's first winter! And Nicole's first in two years. We have prepared well so far. Maybe a few more scarves, hats, & boots to buy this weekend. It's surely going to be a long winter!

This week we hope our friends & family have a fantastic Thanksgiving Day. Eat plenty of food for us! We will both be working on Thanksgiving Day but we are planning on making some Thanksgiving comfort food this weekend to celebrate too. We will miss each & every one of you!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Jombies & Swords!

In Korea, the 'z' sound doesn't exist, so their word for zombie is actually jombie (좀비). This year, Daejeon held its first ever 5k "Daejombie Runpocalypse" on October 19th. Mostly put together by foreigners! It was to raise money for Daejeon Paws, the animal shelter here. There were 200+ people who signed up. There were 50 zombies & approximately 170 runners. Before the run got started, there were 8 of us jombies that did Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' dance to get the runners hyped up & to let the rest of the jombies to get to their zones & await their time to scare. The dance was fantastic! (See video below.) Everybody was really excited & we were all happy it went well. As you can see from pictures, the make-up was done very well too. We had so much fun that day. The race even made its way to the local news that evening!

Ninja!

Peter Pan!

So, our first Halloween costume, we were zombies. The following weekend was the big Halloween weekend. We went out with our friends to a new place called Traveler's. It's officially our new favorite place to go! That weekend, John was a Ninja & Nicole was Peter Pan. We had a lot of fun getting into sword fights with our friends Zorro & the Lumberjack (except, he had an ax). That night was a good introduction to the new bar & one of the best Halloweens we've ever had. Also, that weekend, Nicole attended a Tea Party hosted by one of her ex-coworkers. It was a lot of fun & she got to meet a few new people.

All of us with weapons ready for a throw down! (L-R: Zorro,
Peter Pan, Ninja, & Lumberjack)

Peter pan can surely take on Zorro!

Queen bee stole Lumberjack's ax & is ready for Ninja attack!

Ninja vs Zorro!

Skeleton games

Nicole made special ghost krispie
snacks for her coworkers.

Halloween day! Nicole's school had a Halloween event so all of the teachers dressed up. Nicole's 3rd Halloween costume this year was a minion (from the movies Despicable Me & Despicable Me 2). That day, Nicole learned that her students actually call that movie 'Super Bad'. That irked her quite a bit but thankfully, there were a few of students that called the movie by its actual name. It was a fun day playing games & passing out candy. The students had a lot of fun & looked adorable in their costumes.

Minion costume = success!

Happy Halloween from the foreign teachers!

Nicole's class: 4 princesses, 4 witches, Batman, & Army man

Ready for some trick-or-treating!

We saw Thor: The Dark World on Halloween night... it was amazing!

Having fun at Traveler's

After our Halloween weekends, we had a friend's birthday to celebrate. We returned to Traveler's & managed to get some food this time! We got fried pickles!! And some bacon & cheese fries. All of us are beyond excited about this place. We see many dinners happening there in the future.

Seoul Lantern Festival

We also went to Seoul to see one of John's old friends. Someone he hasn't seen in 6 years! He was in the country for business & had Saturday evening & Sunday free. We went out to see the Seoul Lantern Festival on Saturday night & then to Western Bar. We had other things planned but we made friends with the bartender & found a moose we named Stanley. On Sunday we all visited the Namsan Seoul Tower. The Teddy Bear Museum was updated from the last time we went. Of course, there was a Psy teddy bear... that was hilarious.