This is Home Part I

Where your heart is...

It is a both beautiful and sad thing when I foreign country becomes a home to you. It's wonderful because it means that you were able to adapt well, and that you learned enough about the culture and were able to accept it. It means you're pretty strong. But it gets sad if you stop noticing the beauty of your surroundings. If the temple on the hill loses its mystery. If the gorgeous view from your school becomes too normal to stop and stare in awe at.

The view from a school building. Our house would be just out of the frame on the bottom.

Anyang. The other view from the top of one of the school buildings.

If you forget how insanely cool your living situations is... around 20 foreign exchange students in one house, making it exactly like a sitcom.

My room! My bed's the messy one, haha.

When the experiences you have start to run together, and when you see gorgeous places so many times that you don't even think to take pictures anymore, then you stop bringing your camera.

The statue of King Sejong in Gwanghwamun Square

The temple just a minute down the road from our dorm

Thankfully, this country hasn't lost its magic for me. It's still beautiful and I still notice the differences, though the things I see everyday don't make me think "I'm in another country!" anymore. I'm home. A second home, that is. :-)


I bring this up, because everything is changing soon! This is final's week, and soon half the people here will leave. Some of them will return, some of the will not. It's sad :'-( We've become a family in the past four months!


But a fun four months it has been! Below is pretty much all of us... We went to Anyang Art park with our Korean class because our teacher is awesome! We played yutnori, a traditional Korean game.

Only the best cheerleaders EVER!

"I say 'Woo', you say 'kuh! Woo!"
"KUH!"
"Woo!"
"KUH!"


So the boys organized a soccer team, so of course the girls took the cheerleading to the next level. We made a sign for every boy and screamed nonstop for the whole game! Our cheers were like the above, and they included "I've got the moves like Jari, got the moves like Jari, got the mooooooooooves like Jari!"

Nanji Han River Park

Turkey Day! (And I don't mean Thanksgiving)


Our resident Turkish guys took some of us out to experience some Turkish culture! We had Turkish ice cream, food (I had lamb, mmm), and some tried out shisha (hookah to us).

Cooking and the American Pastime!


Oh, sorry, I mean the Korean Pastime... since we're not in America, baseball can't be the American pastime. But anyway, in the morning the whole Korean class went to a cooking class to learn how to cook Korean food! Bulgogi and japchae! Then we went to a baseball game where they gave us free food to cheer for their team! Haha, bribery...

Seoulland! Ahahahaha


The laughter is for how lame it was... hahaha, but the people made it fun! And the little boy who croaked like a frog at me, and then tried to get me to cut in line with him. 

My Korean Family :-D
I got to meet my family again!

Is this really camping?


One of the lovely buddies, Jenny (Yea Jin in korean) planned a camping trip for us girls one Wednesday night! We decided to bring along a few boys to do the heavy lifting, so we ended up with pretty much all the girls and 4 boys coming with us.


Camping in Korea... is different. At least, it's different if you go with friends to a park on the bank of a river in the middle of Seoul. Ya see, there is a convenience store right at the entrance. And not the "camping" kind. Its the normal kind. And people go camping to drink alcohol! And they don't sleep! Haha, it was an experience. We ate Korean barbecue, sat on the banks of the Han River for hours, and finally attempted to sleep in our large 20 person, permanent tent.