The Pringle Effect

When I was home in April I hung out with a lot of friends old and new. One of them was Stormy. She was really interested in what I was doing all the way over here in Korea sooo I told her all about it and she decided it was for her! She arrived on Monday and we've been hanging out the past few nights, just talking about what she should expect and how to deal with culture shock and making yourself at home in Korea.

We happened to be sitting at one of the bars a lot of our foreign friends frequent with about ten people. All of us were talking about things that make you feel at home or what you did when you first came to Korea and how you felt, but I told them about my little theory... The Pringle Effect.

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Pringle's when I'm back home, but when I first came to Korea I went to the grocery store and bought like two cans of Pringle's because I knew what they were and I knew what they would taste like. When Scott came I noticed in his first week he did the same thing and we were laughing about how it was unusual for us to buy Pringles but they're comforting, like a little chip of home.

When I brought this memory up and my Pringle Theory, everyone at the table knew exactly what I was talking about and they all confessed that they too had bought Pringles their first weeks in Korea. I love it!

I've had some pretty unusual experiences over the last week that I thought were hilarious!
1. I bought some ear buds with a microphone for my iTouch at a shop in Seoul last weekend. I wanted these so that I could use my Skpye from my iTouch! When I opened them on Sunday I found a pair of gnarly used up plain ol' ear buds that someone had replaced the new ones with...EXCELLENT! No big deal, just $25 lost :(

2. Sunday Mark, Scott and I went to eat at an Indian food restaurant here in Iksan and an unusually outgoing Korean girl came up to us and told us how much she hates America because we think we won the Korean war for Korea and now we won't leave. This is really uncommon because even if they feel that way, most Korean girls don't just walk up to foreigners and start talking about just anything...really strange.

3. After dinner we decided we needed some Gelato!!! MMM! We went to a little place and got these huge, beautiful desserts and I went to take a little bite of what I thought was a maraschino cherry only to find that it was a cherry tomato cut in half. Thanks Korea! Scott assumes that they saw a picture of what they thought it should look like and opted for the tomatos over the more expensive cherries :)

4. Last night I was riding my bike home and was stuck on a street in traffic with no way around for 20 minutes! I say there was no way around because it is a one way street and there were people trying to go in opposite directions at the same time. Now picture this, on one side of the road there is a wall or boulders with some trees planted in at the top that line the parking lot of the hospital and on the other side of the road there is a drop off. There is no barrier wall, if you fall off this drop, death will ensue. I was caught between two parked cars (illegally parked I'm sure) trying to get around all the madness. An older Korean man came riding up on his bike and found himself in the same position. As we waited I became more and more impatient and decided to scale the boulder wall with my bike and leave from the hospital parking lot. I motioned my idea to the Korean man and he was totally opposed. But I couldn't stand to wait there any longer so I started climbing and he helped me get my bike the rest of the way up. After that I helped him get his bike up and we said our goodbyes :)

5. This one takes the cake. I found a human tooth in my apartment. Yes, a HUMAN TOOTH. I was doing a little extra cleaning on Sunday, just trying to get the little spots that are normally missed when I noticed the top of my refrigerator. I found the user manual for my fridge, a paper with Marcus' workout plan and a little white envelope. I was just going to throw it away, but I was curious so I opened it only to find a rotting human tooth! It was definitely a molar as it was about an inch long and thick! I immediately thought it was Marcus' because he lived in my apartment before me. When I asked him about it Monday, he had no idea. Creep-tastic! Oh Korea!

When you're on a holiday....

The past two weekends I have spend exploring a little of this great peninsula. Turns out there are a lot of islands to go stay on with some really great beaches!

First we went to Mokpo to visit Barbie and a few of her friends. Scott and I went down on Friday night, we took the KTX (train) and decided we could make the earlier train. So running like a couple of crazy people, we got a cab right outside out apartment (which never happens) and went to the train station. I have never had such a slow cab driver in my life!!! Traffic laws in Korea are more guidelines than actual laws, so we were surprised when he stopped at every red light and slowed down when people were entering and exiting traffic in front of him!

We arrived at the station just in time to literally run inside, get our tickets and run to our loading area! We agreed it was a good thing we've both been working out! :) The train ride is like butter so it's nice for sleeping, but we were pretty pumped so we just talked and looked at magazines. We bought some snacks off the cart - Starbucks and Beef Jerky. I wouldn't normally have thoughtmuch about my choices until I read the package of beef jerky and it said, "Western Meat Snack". Then I thought about Starbucks being western too and I realized I was fitting my stereotype to a T! Excellent!

In Mokpo, we met a couple of Barbie's friends at a foreigner bar and had a couple of drinks and went to bed. The next morning, we woke up early and got on a ferry to the island. The island was really tiny but during the summer months it has a salt water pool and water slides all for free! And the accommodations there weren't bad at all! So we had a great weekend in the sun, working on our tans and enjoying soju and mekju.



Last weekend I went with a couple of people I work with to Sun-yu Island. It's only about an hour from Iksan and amazing! It's a chain of islands all connected by bridges. It was a lot bigger than the island we visited near Mokpo and the beaches were even better, the only problem was that it rained our entire three day weekend on the island. GREAT!

SO what do you do on an island when it's cold and constantly sprinkling on you? You guessed it! Go rent scooters and see the island for yourself!!! :) Here are a couple of pictures from my tour around the island and a picture of our biker gang, yes I wore my helmet! Safety first people!










We had a small barbecue before the rain really started coming down and the people who we're renting our rooms to us gave us an entire plate of fresh sushi!

Korea and Koreans are amazing about being giving, especially with food. If you're at as "service". Every time we get service, all of us remember how much we love Korea! The plate of sushi these people gave us easily could have sold for $30 or more. They helped us grill a little and made sure we had everything we needed. Having sushi that came straight out of the sea is AMAZING! It was so fresh that it didn't even have that funky fish smell! A little wasabi, soy sauce and a swig of cucumber soju and we were in sushi heaven!!!


Other activities that prove to be fun while it's raining and there's no where you would rather be than on the beach? Well, Tori made some cucumber soju which I found mixes splendidly with a little beer. So she and I decided to take care of almost a liter of soju and two or three pitchers of beer that night all while hanging out and playing board games! It was a lot of fun!

I would love to go back when it's sunny and plan on doing so. The hiking there looks amazing also! Hopefully I will have some more adventures worth blogging very soon! Take care!

Why my Mom would love Korea- Exhibit A

I just went for a quick little shopping trip alone and I went to a shoe store that I've been to a couple of times but never found anything that I loved...until today! I walked in and saw a pair of shoes I know my mom would kill for and they we're only 30,000won (about $25). If you know my mom, you know why this would be such an excellent place for her :)

Making Korea MINE

I have had a few more "firsts" in Korea lately and wanted to share them with you! Tonight during my dorms class, my students informed me that the university was hosting a concert and that they all wanted to go! Last time I gave into them I got into a little trouble... So I decided to only take the last 15 minutes of class time to go to the concert.

On our way there I noticed a lot of tents with students sitting around drinking Soju ( a rice wine that tastes like watered down vodka) and beer right there on campus! WTF? I guess I'm just used to the dry campuses in Oklahoma, what do I know. As we pass through all of these tents and drinking people I was reminded of the state fair and the smells were even a little the same because of all the vendors frying up food. Of course, this being Korea, they were probably just frying veggies and fish :) When we arrived at the concert I just wanted to dance it out! They were a pretty hard rock band and it didn't even matter to me that I didn't understand the words. I've been to plenty of concerts where I didn't know the words and I did just fine dancing around. But then there was a sudden change in the music and they started playing and singing this pop-ish music :( weak... SO I decided to leave.
Overall, I would love to go to another Korean concert!!!

I go to a gym here and it's a pretty average gym but what I like most is that they give you clothes to work out in. Everyday you just grab a shirt and some shorts and when you're through, dump them for someone else to wash :) I love love love it! I think someone back home should take this idea and run with it. It takes a lot of stress out of going to the gym. I don't have to worry about my work out clothes and it's just one less stress. I'm trying to get motivated for my "Get right for the summer" workouts but I've only managed to go like 3 times a week and I need to up it and do a little harder work outs. I have noticed a difference in my muscle tone, but that's about it.

Bike Wars- This is not Korean...This I learned from my Canadian friends. Apparently it's ok when you're riding your bike to crash into your friends and try to knock them off their bikes. When I got back to Korea I borrowed a bike to go have dinner and drinks with a couple of the teachers I work with. I was a little shaky at first because I haven't really rode a bike in a long time and especially not through traffic and tons of pedestrians.

On the way home, everyone was a little tipsy and Brandon brought on the Bike Wars. Kim is used to all the madness so she just took her shots when she saw and opening while Brandon kept trying to knock her down. He hit me a few times and I got a little confidence since I was able to stay up...and then it happened. I had the perfect opening so I sped up and rammed into him. What I didn't realize is that his super power is balance. I fell 90 degrees to the ground in no time. I was laughing so hard I forgot that it hurt. Kim band-aided my elbow and the next day I discovered a plethora of bruises...thanks Brandon. And kids, please don't try this at home.

Another great thing I have found in Korea are these ice cream treats. MMMM! They're shaped like a fish, the covering tastes like what a regular ice cream cone would taste like and the inside has vanilla ice cream and sweet red beans...that's right, beans and ice cream! They don't really make savory beans like we do in the states, they use them in donut and ice cream!

Check it out:




Oh in just in case you all were worried, I am representing for Oklahoma here in Korea ;) At the Jeonju Hash that I blogged about we took some pictures with a cowboy hat at the bar. It was a good time and my friend Greg has an amazing camera and skills with photography thus here is what a Korean Cowgirl looks like :)

Back to reality

It has been one month today since David's death. In some ways it seems like it happened ages ago, but in others it seems like I was just in Oklahoma. It's been difficult to deal with everything while trying to live in a foreign country with people who barely know me, much less the traumatic loss I have just experienced, but I'm making it work.

Today I started back with my full load of classes. I have all new people in my adult classes and they seem to be really outgoing and fun, so it should make for some great stories and an awesome semester. My kids classes will be the same for the next two weeks, then we will move up a level, but I will keep my same students and I really love them!

I made a new Korean friend. His name is Brian and he lived in Portland for a year and is planning to moved back the the US in September. He plays soccer with Scott and some of the foreigner guys in Iksan and he's so funny! I really like hanging out with him and his sense of humor.

Here's Brian! :)


I haven't blogged in a while sorry, I have just had a lot on my mind and have tried to stay busy. I will think of some new topics and begin writing again shortly. My mom tells me all the time, you should blog about that! So I will keep in mind some of the topics and get started this week :) Miss you all!