Malaysia Pictures!

At the airport getting ready to fly to Malaysia! Soooo ready to go!

Goofy me!

My handsome Squish!

Musicians with some really interesting instruments

Modeling the "traditional Malay foot wash" :D

Riding the train together into Kuala Lumpur!

Eating some yummy dinner together
One of the twin towers! Soooo tall!

Our first night in Kuala Lumpur!

A pretty fountain I really liked...then found out it lit up and changed colors at night! Win!

Squish and I

The beach at our resort. Love!

Peacock friend! They wandered all over the resort and were so pretty, babies and all!

One of my favorite flowers there

Serenity

I found a pretty flower up at the lighthouse and was then intent on making it stick in my hair!

Sweaty, lovely love. :)

The view at the lighthouse--phew, what a view after the hike! I was not prepared to hike through the jungle that day but I'm so glad we did!

Having fun in the pretty pool!

In the gardens :)

Handsome Squish in the gardens!

Crabby friend on the beach!

Pretty

Peacock friend! Imagine my surprise the first time this happened!Our chalet over the water, soooo cool!

A little peak at our resort, sooo beautiful!

Right before we headed out to the airport...oops, the tide was down...still pretty view though, ha!

Humid July in SK and Malay!

June was....odd.

The hard drive on my computer died so...had to go through a whole lot of hoopla trying to secure another one from home, getting the computer open, reformatting everything...and a vacation by my parents was stuck in between. So all in all, I was Jesse - computer = month of fastidious novel reading.

It was fixed but the irony of the situation is that I had learned to live without my computer by default, so I continued the fast for the most part, aside from talking to my parents and Patrick on it.

July came and it was time for the long awaited vacation with Patrick! Long story short, Bali had to be replaced about a week before departure, so we settled on a little town called Port Dickson in Malaysia. It was about an hour outside of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia and I enjoyed it. Bali had gotten to be too much of a hassle anyway and then the terrorist attacks against Americans in Jakarta made me quite happy to have visited Malaysia instead!

It was a wonderful vacation, so very relaxing, beautiful, and full of unique experiences, large and small.

I will edit this post and add in some pictures once I get them all edited. :)

The 4th of July was the least-celebrated 4th I've ever had. Next year I'm celebrating double. Actually, I'll be celebrating all holidays super-strength-style next year, you better believe it!

2 girlfriends and I are going to Shanghai, China this upcoming weekend. Surprise! It was a bit impromptu since we have a 5 day weekend and this will be the only time we can travel together. Alex and LeAnn found some tickets pretty cheap over the weekend while I was gone, and I bought my ticket on Thursday evening. We just booked a hostel this afternoon in a central location so I'm getting really excited! It is called Mingtown People's Square Youth Hostel, great location but not so great aircon, so it should be an adventure. :) We leave on Friday the 31st, so this definitely is my month of traveling, eh? That's part of the reason why I came to SK in the first place though, so I'm doing it!

I'll update more when I get some time...it's already intensives again, auughh. Tired Jesse. >.< BUT I'm doing it, I'm making it through and I have less than 3.5 months until I head back home and start the job search cycle, learning curve, and reestablish friendships and social circles yet again!

Updating on Jesselife

So I'll update you on the past month, sound good? A lot is going on, oy!

Week 1

Happy birthday Buddha! I missed the lantern parade in Seoul (dangit!) but here's a lantern....

The wisteria was blooming sooo pretty and smelled so nice! It was nice for shade but the bees loved it too...

Temple Stay: BUST. Well, not a complete bust but there were a few misconceptions about my trip... For instance, it was not a 4 hour trip there, it turned into an 8 hour ordeal. It took a subway, 3 buses, and a taxi to get me there. Oof! If I had been able to stay another day or two it would have been fine but I had to turn around in under 24 hours and make the looong journey back. It was very big and beautiful but they didn't know I was coming, didn't speak any English, and I didn't really learn anything (the communication barrier was the culprit but why did the website say English speakers were welcome...?). All in all it was relaxing for the short time I was there but if I go to another Temple Stay I will make sure it is nearby and with a big group!

Comfy but less than attractive garb for my temple stay!

Bathing Buddha

PIGGYFLU!: Okay, so when I brought up swineflu to my boyfriend he thought I was making a joke at first but yes, Swine flu has officially reached and is spreading around South Korea. An academy (hagwon) in my area has had some teachers who tested positive for the H1N1 virus. At least one school in my area (area being Bundang which has a million people) is closed for the week. Around 50 teachers are currently under quarrentine in my area and there is a rumor that new teachers to Korea may have to be in quarentine for their first 7 days in the country. It seems a little extreme but we shall see if it is true or not soon. My school has a new teacher that is arriving this Friday so we're not sure if he is really going to be able to teach next week or not yet!

There is a blog about the people in quarentine RIGHT NOW in my area started by this guy...he updates a whooole lot more than I do (of course he's sitting in quarentine :( so has more time to burn) so if you want to check into it, it is interesting to read!

http://underquarantine.tumblr.com/

Speaking of piggies, this is a picture of a cell phone store--do you see the real pig's head in the store--it's sitting next to a tray of ground pork....so strange! People were just chilling out and eating pork and watermelon inside the store at like 9pm at night.

I drank a concoction made out of this kind of snapping turtle...the man offered it to us and I couldn't say no to a gift. I took a little sip and felt like I had turtle in my mouth for the next half hour...it was made from turtle, eel, ginsing, tree bark, and who knows what else. Wow, that was....interesting...... >.<

Week 2

...life as normal.

I took pretty pictures of flowers!


I still think weeds are pretty :)

Patrick had his hand surgery and is doing okay. I'm dating my personal Terminator now. ^.^

Yeah, not too much happened that week and the weekend was rainy/gloooomy.

Week 3

The roses are blooming!

Garlic is in season, too

Korean Wedding: One of my old coworkers, Crystallina, was married this past weekend and several of us from work went to her wedding. I was especially curious since I've seen snips and heard stories about Korean weddings and this would be my first one! Crystallina is not in fact Korean but the man she married is so it was a mixture of Western and Eastern styles. My jaw dropped when I walked into the room she was in before she walked down the aisle; she looked like a radiant, sparkly doll! And when I say sparkly, the pictures really cannot do her decadent gown and accessories justice. I will post pictures anyway but wow, she was sparkling head to toe! Even her nails (fingers and toes!) were "bedazzled" with little colored gems. The dress and veil were incredibly detailed and custom made...and they suited Crystallina's style perfectly! Mom, I will never wear a dress like this, so don't start planning in this direction! :)

The beautiful bride looking just like a perfect doll!

Getting ready to walk down the aisle!

Standing at the altar with her STB hubby :)

My coworker Christine was the solo bridesmaid. Her not standing up next to the bride threw me for a loop!

Smoke special effects!

Crystallina and her family

And of course you know me, I stuck out from everyone else and wore tie dye! Look, I match with the bouquet!

There were some similarities and differences of the wedding--the singular bridesmaid was more for pictures than for honor, the weddings are held on the hour inside this 2 story part of a building called the Teddybear Castle, we ate buffet style and had little tickets to enter, people were chatting during the wedding ceremony which I found odd (we were sitting around circular tables) and the best part were the special effects--the light/chandeliers on the ceiling lit up like a spectacle event when important people were going to walk down the aisle and smoke even came out of the stairs to pool around the bride and groom from time to time! A plastic cake display and fake standard flowers made it seem a little like a LasVegas wedding in Korea but it makes sense to not have to plan so much for a wedding down to the very last detail. All in all, I'm not having a wedding like that but hey, I'm an odd bird as it is. I think this finally prompted me to designate my future wedding as a destination wedding.

They turned the fountains on! Pretty!

Korean nuclear testing: yep, NKorea tested another nuclear missile yesterday morning underground...life goes as normal here, no one really talks about it other than the weigukin (foreigners). Foreigners really are getting worried though....apparently more than testing is going on? I should go do more research.

I'm almost at 7 months--I will be on Saturday! It's hard to belive....yet feels like it's been a long journey so far. Things are changing and I'm doing alright though! Bali in 6 weeks and then Intensives will start the day I get back, yuck! He's starting it really early this year to screw us out of money. It's more than a bit disheartening but I can't do much about it. I'm just going to keep smiling and think about beautiful, exciting, relaxing Bali!

It is finally lushious spring!

In exciting news I am doing a temple stay during this long weekend on Monday night! It is about a 4 hour bus ride there so this technically can be called an adventure, right? The place is called Jirisan Hwaeomsa (sa means temple). One of my Korean friends helped me figure out the website (the English website wasn't working) and signed me up! I also am doing this all by myself so I think I can officially call it an adventure in anticipation. ^________^



This is a quick picture of the temple when I googled it. I don't want to look at too many photos of it because I think I want it to be a surprise! :)

It's a gloomy day outside, so how about I post some pretty pictures of spring! Like my mom, I looooove flowers. So...that's what you're going to get! Most of the pictures are from my walk to work. I'm very lucky to have such a beautiful 25 minute walk every afternoon!

Update. Stat. :)

Wow!

It turns out I am moving Saturday evening! The new guy at work (Ben) is moving into my apartment that night....they can't get John gone and me into the apartment fast enough, it seems like! It will give me a day to settle in on Sunday though so that will be nice. Tomorrow and Saturday morning will be jam packed with packing and organizing! The new guy seems nice, he was a little jet lagged when he came to the office this evening--and you know me, super perky and smiley. :D I hope I didn't scare him too badly! :)

I also decided to post some pictures since I've sadly neglected doing so for....almost my entirety of my stay here. I've been trying to center myself this week, changing my diet a little bit, reading some spirituality texts, and trying to release some guilt I've been harboring (thanks for helping me out Momma!). So, I will hopefully be on the fast track to getting organized, healthy, and happy around the time of this move. :) I know there will always be stress in life but instead of letting the "woe is me" attitude take over, I'm going to stay my cheerful-Jesse-self. :)

How about some random pictures from Jan-Feb-Mar! I'll add pictures from Patrick's visit in the next post. :)

Students from my 2-S2 class. :) This was in February right before about 5 of them leveled up (doesn't it sound like I'm in a video game?!) My class is still huge, I have more kids now (must remember to take more pictures of my newer classes).

These are students from my 2-P1 class. :) Don't they seem...err....sweet?!

Korean blizzard at the end of January...harrrr...!

This picture is from Alex's (pictured here) birthday celebration. To make a long story short, the BBQ chicken from the street vendor should not have spicy sauce added. My laughter at my friend's pain and torment ensued for the next 10 minutes. Also, I was able to capture this amazing photograph!

I took a trip to Myeongdong (a shopping district in Seoul) with LeAnn! It was really cool and had all kinds of shopping, tiny street vendors and random racks of belts, shoes, shirts, scarves, sunglasses, and sparkly bangles squashed between loads of people haggling and sifting through the mounds of items to find a hidden jewel. It was so fun to look and watch people as well as look all the different stores from around the world. (I picked up a couple of presumptuous sundresses at a Western store--my first time in a normal fitting room in nearly 5 months!)

We got hungry and stumbled into a side street with a cute restaurant wedged between a greasy spoon kinda place and dull eyed cigar smokers. They had different kinds of kimbop, sushi, and soup....decorated very uniquely! >.< What a find! My yummy "salad" kimbop. Mmmm, I'mma eachoo!

Work birthday cake, mmm! The nifty "happy birthday" candles were arranged by the lovely Heather and Monica (some of my Korean teacherbuddies!). Hehe, I swear they love me!

Birthday cake #2! This was given to me by my friend Karen for my birthday party...it's an ice cream(strawberry and chocolate) cake, my first one ever! I seriously want ice cream birthday cakes from here on out. From Korea. Stat. ;)

March is over, hello April!

It turns out I'm unable to get out of the country for my 4 day weekend, quite unhappy about it but I'll just do something in the country. We didn't know about our extra day off until all the airline tickets had already been eaten up by other Koreans. Apparently this 4 day weekend is super huge for them to travel. Sad panda.

Maybe I'll go down to Busan to the beach or do a 2 night stay at a temple somewhere...or the combination of the two?! That would be exciting. :)

Found some mold in my apartment. Okay, a lot of mold. My apt is practically infested in it and my boss doesn't understand that this is why I've had so many health problems during my stay here. Moving on Monday but I don't know if I'll get to stay in the apt for more than a month. Men trump women, even if they aren't Korean here (which I knew coming in but it seems moronic to make me move twice just because someone else wants the apt because of the "view").

I'm just happy I'm going to be healthy.

Started another health kick with my diet as of....yesterday, so I can't tell you how it's going so far yet. Ask me as of May 1st. :)

I'm going to be busy this weekend getting all my ducks in a row with getting packed and such this upcoming weekend! Work is a blur when I'm there, sooo busy all the time. That's a good thing in itself though in a way.

The weather goes back and forth between springy and below freezing, I just want to get outside one morning and not be chattering!


Things are beginning to bloom now though! I'll take more pictures this weekend of the pretty buds and tiny flowers starting to come out. :)

Off to work!

March 09

Believe it or not, the best way to sum up my past 2 months (other than the 2 week hiatus while I had a great visit with Patrick) that I've been ridiculously busy with nothing in particular.

Work has been all consuming at times. First it was intensives in January and the beginning of February, then we were catching up, then preparing for the Korean school year to begin in March…now it is nearing the end of March! Whoa! Things have been changing a lot! As I said, the Korean school year begins in March instead of Sept like the states so we started several new classes at my hagwon and had about 50 new students enrolled. O.o There are so many students in my classes now! I’m enjoying them now but it has taken about 3 weeks to adjust and get everything in order. I don’t like having my life revolve around being sick and my job but I guess that’s life!

I’ve been here almost 5 months and don’t imagine things are going to change too much more now though. Well, except for staff perhaps? We had 3 men leave, received 2 guys (friends from Orange County, Cali) to replace them and had an old teacher come back, then another teacher resigned at the end of February so he’s leaving at the end of next week. The replacement is a guy from Boise, Idaho and that's all we know!

In recent developments I may be taking over his apartment here very soon. I looked at it this morning before work and it’s much nicer than my apartment but I’m still trying to figure out whether I want to move or not.

Pros: fantastic location between Sunae and Sohyeon overlooking the park, walking path right out my doorstep, farther from work (so I don’t feel so sectioned off), right in town, close to my friends, more updated, more spacious, and more storage, building security, doorbell and camera for my front door (right now I have no way to know who is at my door or to look out of it), increased social life, close to transportation for the busses and subway, the doctor, etc.

Cons: I would have to pay 200,000won/month extra for rent, around 50,000won for extra utilities (building security, etc) adding up to around 2.1mil extra ($1.6G) over the next 7 months out of my paycheck. It seems pretty steep but it is much nicer and great location. Farther from work (I would get my exercise…yet monsoon season is coming up), and I’d have to figure out how to move (though I figure I can do it for around 30 bucks using a cab twice since I don’t have to move any furniture), closer to shopping boutiques = more temptation of extra shopping ventures, possibly nixing China (??)

That 2.1mil could be used to pay for my China/Japan trip. I feel a bit frivolous even considering taking the apartment (see economic crisis) but I really am tired of my tiny, old, odd-layout of an apartment stuck on a remote hill that no one ever visits me on. So far my friends and boyfriend think it would be a good idea for me to take it, for comfort and mental health sustenance. We shall see, I have to make a decision THIS WEEK. >.<

I have a 4-day weekend coming up at the beginning of May that I’m quite determined to get out of the country to do some exploring for! It will be 6 months at that point and starting the downward slope of my contract! That will kick off my traveling! I have been good about saving so far and want to either go to Japan or the Philippines for the long weekend. I don’t know if I’d go to the Philippines at a different time if I don’t go now but I remember stories of mom telling me it wasn’t so nice when she was there 7 or so years ago.

I’m going to Bali, Indonesia (I’m pretty sure) in July for one week of my vacation with Patrick when he flies out here again, then will take my second week of vacation to go to Cambodia or a joint Cambodia/Thailand trip in the fall after their monsoon season ends. After I get done with my contract is my possible China/Japan adventure I want to take a week or so to do. That will put me back in the states in early to mid November! The national holidays in Korea aren’t working in my favor this year, it just so happens most are falling on the weekends and you don’t get a Monday thrown in for the sake of a holiday here. So my only 4-day weekend I’m getting is the one in May so I really want to use it! Don’t worry; I’ll still have money saved Momma!

In other news, I’m almost 23! Whoa! I’ve been saying I’m Korean age 24 since January so I think I’ll transition well enough. I have had fun teasing Squish about being so much older than I am for a month and a half though (an archaic 26 compared to my current 22)! ;)

I will upload some pictures of what's been going on in my next post!

In conclusion, I think I've hit the homesick-ish stage but have decided that no matter whether I move or not, I'm going to make at least SOME changes in my life, the weather is supposidly warming up (though the clouds spat some snow at me while I was walking to work today), and it's almost time for spring and summer and beautiful weather!