The Season of Giving

Like I mentioned in my last post, my favorite part of the holiday season centers around giving, so what better way to celebrate than to give presents, and hopefully some joy, to 70+ children.  Earlier this spring when Aimee, the founder of KKOOM, asked me to help her with the annual holiday part for Samsungwon, I had absolutely no hesitation.  This is the first year that Aimee wasn't able to be in Korea for the holidays since founding KKOOM 6 years ago; she was looking for support from the foreigners here to keep the tradition going.  I attended the Christmas party last year so after seeing the joy that it brought to the kids I knew I wanted to help make that possible again this year.   Unfortunately, the orphanage is currently undergoing construction so hosting a large scale party proved to be impossible, 70+ kids and volunteers running around a midst welding, sawing, hammering and other chaos didn't sound like the best idea. Instead, we decided to host an online gift drive, asking volunteers to support one (or more) children by purchasing gifts from their wish list.  We were able to get enough volunteers (some even sending money from the US), purchase the gifts and organize all of those sent from across the country. It was a bit of chaos for a few days as we sorted through boxes, wrapped, sorted and shopped but thankfully everything came together by 3pm Sunday afternoon. 

Finally organized, 70 some odd presents 

Upwards and Onwards

Thankfully the worst (or best, I still haven't decided) was behind us, leaving us with two relaxed days of biking.  Knowing we had less distance to cover on Friday there was no concern about waking up early for a fresh start but of course most of us were still up with the sun.  Sara and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked down to check out the nearby Watazumi shrine.  Probably the most interesting aspect of the shrine was that the tori (gates) were situated so that as the tide came in and out they changed from either submerged in water or on dry land. After a quiet stroll through the shrine and multiple pictures we made our way back to camp to enjoy breakfast before heading out for the day.  

Channeling my Inner Lance Armstrong

Despite the fact that I've only been back at school for just over a month I was more than ready for another vacation, thank you Chuseok.  Recently, the language barrier has been getting to me, mostly for the fact that I can't fully express myself to people around me to whom I've grown fairly close. I sometimes feel like an idiot when I just have to nod or smile as the words aren't there for what I want to say. I know this is a problem that is up to me to fix, and trust me I'm working on it, but it's a slow going process.  Another tic to my annoyance were Chuseok plans themselves, I dropped the ball on planning ahead of time which left me frantically trying to throw something together.  Thankfully I had a few friends in the same boat, both of which were up for anything, and Wink travel had something that caught our eye.  Fast forward a few weeks until 4am Wednesday morning, September 18th and you'll find Sara and I sleeping on the floor of the Busan train station, a small preview of what was in store for us. 

Lessons Learned ~ a Visit Home

It's summer which only means one thing: summer break aka Stephanie goes on on vacation while her poor students only have to go to school until 5 ~~ seriously that's not a vacation, but more on that later.  This year instead of using my precious vacation time to jet off on another adventure through SE Asia I decided to spend some time with my loved ones.  I was lucky enough to find a cheap airline ticket and the dates worked out wonderfully for seeing lots of friends, so I figured why not.  Also, Milwaukee summer’s aren’t too terrible: baseball, lake Michigan, festivals, beer, outdoor dining, ice cream, need I say more?  

 21 hours of airports and airplanes, bring it. 

DAM

A few weeks ago the country celebrated 현충일, also known as Memorial Day, and thus I was granted with a day off school.  It had been a while since Sara and I had seen each other so we decided a Daegu adventure was in order.  Our first thought was finding a good park or outdoor area to relax but upon noticing that the temperature were going to be in the high 80's we opted for a place with aircon.  The night before I was checking facebook and came across a post on the Daegu Art Museum and just like that we had a plan for the next day. 

Christmas in Korea

As the Holidays grew near I could sense more of my friends here feeling a bit down, missing family and things going on back home.  I'm not sure if it should make my family proud or sad to know that I didn't really feel too bad not being home for the holidays. I guess it shows that i'm independent enough to survive on my own and understand that I do have a great family back home who continues to support me as I explore the world.  I guess a big part of it too is that i'm loving my life here, all of the people who surround me make it hard to miss another place, I guess i've just always been one to try to live in the moment, my friends and family will always be there next year. 

Christmas Round 1

Last weekend was the perfect kickoff to the Christmas season as I celebrated the holiday with my first family of the year.  Saturday the 15th was the holiday party at Samsungwon, the orphanage i've been volunteering at for the last 8 months.  Volunteers from across Korea came to play with the kids and of course bring presents.  I was a bit surprised that I was one of two volunteers from the Gumi area, I really thought there were more people visiting the orphanage on a regular basis so i'm not sure why they didn't show up on Saturday, oh well, only makes me look that much more awesome.  Each volunteer was asked to raise 75,000 won which would be used for purchasing gifts for three of the children at the orphanage.  I was able to be matched with the three boys i've been working with and although they don't know the gifts came from me I had great pleasure in watching them open their gifts Saturday night.  

철수, I still might sneak him home ;)

Celebrate We Will

The temperatures are slowly dropping, thankfully a bit slower than back home, crisp fall mornings have begun.  The frigid air has added a new twist to my morning runs, although I do enjoy the head nods, thumbs up of approval and "초워요!!" coming from the soccer players.  I must admit I love the change of seasons: changing of the leaves, cute layers and snuggly sweaters, fall treats (okay this are kind of missing in Korea - pumpkin spice latte please?), and most importantly - the holiday season! To kick off the season we have nothing better than, my birthday of course!