Kids, Cherry Blossom Festival, and such.

Disclaimer: I started this post two weeks ago and am just now finishing it.

And now I'll try to catch up a bit with our recent happenings.

A few weeks ago it was Maria's birthday. Maria is Jackie and Minki's daughter and she's the one with pink glasses. Yuni is the other little girl and the little boy is Johnny. I try to name as many students after people I know... so far I have a Johnny, Alice, Cindy, and Jessica. Korean students only like a set of about 30 names, so they don't usually agree to my suggestions. Anyway, I think Maria turned eight (in Korean years). Koreans count age differently, but it usually means they are a year or two ahead. I think she is actually seven. Who knows really. So on her birthday we ate Hello Kitty cake, black pepper steak chips, Korean Bugles, and drank milk. And we didn't have to do any class work! They don't actually do much class work anyway, but on birthday party day I didn't even have to try to make them do the little bit of work that I normally do.



Wow, wasn't that fun? Okay, now let's look at pictures from from our little trip to a town called Jinhae. We went to Jinhae with Jackie and Minki for the Cherry Blossom festival. Things to know: Cherry Blossoms only bloom for about a month. The Cherry Blossoms in Korea were all planted by the Japanese during the occupation. Cherry Blossoms are nice to look at, but give me terrible allergies. Now here are some pictures:

This monk wouldn't give Scott the paper he was handing to everyone else.

Minki is a great dad. We walked up a ton of stairs and he carried Maria up.

Here's some of the view from the top... look at all those Cherry Blossom trees!

Ohh, look at that fine piece of meat! No, no, not Minki, the chicken, I meant the chicken.

I like to take pictures of other people taking pictures. I like to imagine it starting some chain reaction that we can't really detect now, but will eventually end in the creation of a black hole somewhere. I call it the black hole effect. I've already started a screen play that I'm hoping Ashton Kutcher will someday star in.

Here we have two people wearing the same shirt (and possibly jeans). Couples outfits are pretty popular in Korea (mostly for the young lovers). I'm trying to catch as many as I can on camera. Oftentimes, this involves making Scott stand near them so it doesn't look like I'm just taking their picture.

And yes, I have already explained to Scott that we will start doing this at some point. In the States you have to wait until you're a grandparent, but in Korea we can start right now!


So, this guy basically caramelizes some sugar, makes a flat pancake shape, and stamps it in the middle with a really simple shape (star, butterfly, etc.). Then people come over and sit down, use a thumb tack to try to break out the simple shape and if you succeed in removing the shape (without damaging it), you don't have to pay for your caramelized sugar wafer. Both Scott and I failed. Caramelized sugar is so brittle!

This is deok galbi, it is seasoned beef that is cooked over a flame. We ate it for lunch.

Later we all got some snacks and Minki went for the corn dog covered in french fry pieces. Haha.

We ended up driving to another part of Jinhae and these are some more of the Cherry Blossoms along the way.

The place we went was right on the ocean. I think it was a Korean military base, but I'm not really sure. I haven't been sure about anything for a little over two months now. Anyway, here is Scott looking at the ocean, thinking about how he really wants to buy a puppy but I won't let him.

I love this photo of Minki and Maria.

I'm pretty sure something different happens when you take a photo of someone you know taking a photo. Maybe a wormhole? I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Up close and personal with some Cherry Blossoms.

This photo was actually taken in our town, but it is going with the Cherry Blossom photos for obvious reasons.

Well, that is the end of this post. Now I've got to start another one because we've done and seen many exciting things since this one.