Pastries and Donuts 
Pizza's and Hotdogs. 
Up close on the hotdogs.
Cakes.
Yummy! I forgot to take a picture of the cinnamon role I bought, I'll have to do that later and add it.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Went for a walk
Since Tim was still sleeping and I was borrred out of my mind! I decided to take a walk down to Paris Baguette, one of my favorite places to get coffee.
Pastries and Donuts
Pizza's and Hotdogs.
Up close on the hotdogs.
Cakes.
Yummy!
Pastries and Donuts Pizza's and Hotdogs. Up close on the hotdogs. Cakes. Yummy! 
Korean Commercials
I thought you guys might enjoy seeing what korean commercials are like, they're all usually pretty crazy and make me scratch my head...
Commercial for banana milk:
Cash loan company:
Soap opera within a bottled water commercial:
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Mood: Disgusted, appalled
I just had another WTF moment tonight, brought on by yet another astonishing korean exhibit I have come across within my 2 years time here. First of all, I want to start out by saying I am very reluctant in even sharing this with anyone because of just how completely bizarre and repulsive this absolutely is. but... I want to share the bad experiences of this place along with the good, so that you all may see for yourself every aspect of this wonderful place.
Anyways, I was looking through someone's blog and came across these pictures of a park here in korea called "Haesindang Park", that is very "questionable". Here's the story behind the park that I found on a korea tourism site:
"Haesindang Park has the nation’s largest theater aquarium, exhibits of folk materials showing the lifestyle of fishermen of the East Sea, an arboretum, and a park of sexual sculptures. There is an interesting bronze statue about a legend of a nearby village.* Legend of Aebawi and Haesindang – There once lived a young maid who was engaged. One day, the maid took her husband’s boat out to sea to harvest seaweed. Her husband dropped her off at a rock that was at a distance from the beach. After promising to pick her up later, he returned to the beach to do his work. Later, the weather changed, and brought with it strong winds and pummeling waves. The man couldn’t rescue his wife and she ultimately drowned. Since then, the village people caught no fish and some said that it was because of the dead maid. To soothe the spirit of the dead maid, the village people made several wooden carvings and held religious ceremonies on her behalf. After a while, the fish slowly returned and the villagers were able to live comfortably again. The place where the maid died was named Aebawi Rock and the building where the religious ceremony is held twice a year was named Haesindang. The ceremony is still honored today as a traditional folk event."
From what pictures I saw, the sculptures are just a bunch of giant male genitals, all throughout the park. Yuck. Who sculps genitals to honor a dead person? And the most disgusting part looking through the pictures of these sculptures, there are little korean kids sitting on top of the genitals and touching them. What is wrong with these people? Do they not have morals? What are their parents teaching them? It is soo sad. Children are supposed to be all innocent and protected from things like pornographic images. Anyways, I just thought I might share that thought and if you are interested in seeing what this park looks like here are the pictures: http://www.justenoughkorean.com/blog/2009/11/haesindang-park-penis-forest/ They are only scultures, don't worry you won't be seeing anything TOO graphic, but it is still very grose.
Anyways, I was looking through someone's blog and came across these pictures of a park here in korea called "Haesindang Park", that is very "questionable". Here's the story behind the park that I found on a korea tourism site:
"Haesindang Park has the nation’s largest theater aquarium, exhibits of folk materials showing the lifestyle of fishermen of the East Sea, an arboretum, and a park of sexual sculptures. There is an interesting bronze statue about a legend of a nearby village.* Legend of Aebawi and Haesindang – There once lived a young maid who was engaged. One day, the maid took her husband’s boat out to sea to harvest seaweed. Her husband dropped her off at a rock that was at a distance from the beach. After promising to pick her up later, he returned to the beach to do his work. Later, the weather changed, and brought with it strong winds and pummeling waves. The man couldn’t rescue his wife and she ultimately drowned. Since then, the village people caught no fish and some said that it was because of the dead maid. To soothe the spirit of the dead maid, the village people made several wooden carvings and held religious ceremonies on her behalf. After a while, the fish slowly returned and the villagers were able to live comfortably again. The place where the maid died was named Aebawi Rock and the building where the religious ceremony is held twice a year was named Haesindang. The ceremony is still honored today as a traditional folk event."
From what pictures I saw, the sculptures are just a bunch of giant male genitals, all throughout the park. Yuck. Who sculps genitals to honor a dead person? And the most disgusting part looking through the pictures of these sculptures, there are little korean kids sitting on top of the genitals and touching them. What is wrong with these people? Do they not have morals? What are their parents teaching them? It is soo sad. Children are supposed to be all innocent and protected from things like pornographic images. Anyways, I just thought I might share that thought and if you are interested in seeing what this park looks like here are the pictures: http://www.justenoughkorean.com/blog/2009/11/haesindang-park-penis-forest/ They are only scultures, don't worry you won't be seeing anything TOO graphic, but it is still very grose.
Korean Cuisine
Might as well start with the best part about this place....the food.
The Ribs place: Don't know the name of the place since the sign was in hangul, but this was one of our top 3 restaurants to go to. Sadly this place is now closed =( and we don't know why...I hope they just moved and maybe we'll find them because it's SO good!
In the picture on top: bbq ribs on the grill, you can buy a rack of ribs for ₩10,000($8)with either regular bbq sauce or spicy bbq sauce. The spicy is REALLY spicy. Along with the ribs you get a variety of korean side dishes. On the left is doenjangchigae soup, the stock is made with this hot pepper paste and soy bean paste I believe, mixed with water. and then it has onions, zucchini, chilies, potato, garlic, and beef. It's REALLY GOOD! Believe me... they serve this soup at just about any korean restaurant, and depending on where you go it can be very spicy or mild. The plate in the middle has shredded cabbage with some funky sauce on top, I never tried that.. but next to it is this corn/maceroni/crab salad. That was my favorite but they stopped serving it awhile ago. =(
Picture on bottom: close up of the doenjangchigae soup. and you can kind of see in the top left corner, spicy bean sprouts that they seasoned the same way you make kimchi. Not pictured: kimchi.
2 years down, 1 more to go.......I hope
We've been in korea for almost 2 years now! Crazy....looking back now it doesn't feel like it's been that long, but from day to day it seems to draaaagg...
Anyways, this last month has been hard. Tim was sent to WLC which is a warrior leadership course for soldiers in an NCO possition. Anyone who wants to be promoted to E5 has to go, now he just has to go to his promotion board and he'll be promoted. In fact, he got a call from an NCO in his platoon today trying to get him to go to the board in 2 days....yeah..right.. that's not enough time to prepare. He'll most likely be going in August though. Which is a good thing...he wants to go, just not when he's told only 2 days in advance and given no time to study. Anyways, he was gone at WLC for 17 days, it was like basic training all over again. He wasn't allowed to use his phone all day so usually called me after 7 sometime to say goodnight.
That weekend after he came back he was given the weekend off to recover so we took advantage of that and went to a festival and Luau that was going on at Camp Casey. Which i was really excited to go to, until we got there... We went at about noon and were surprised to see that the only thing happening then was their "yard sale" which was just two little areas set up with peoples "junk" scattered on folding tables, and a tent in the middle selling beer and liquor. When we checked the schedule for the events nothing else started until 3:30, so we weren't about to just stand around for 3 hours doing nothing while we waited for the concert of some guy we'd never heard of, and a "luau" hosted by koreans.....no thanks. The Luau might've been alright, but nothing compared to a real one in Hawaii, which we are going to Honolulu in 3 weeks..so I would rather experience one there. So that was pretty disappointing... it would have been nice if they had advertised the schedule better so that we would have known to go later in the afternoon.
Tim on the company's softball team, though he left for WLC right when they started having games so he's only been able to go to 2-3 of them. I've make it to 2 of the games this week to watch him play. They were saying tonight was probably their last game though..I don't know why.I hope not though, I enjoy watching my man play. =)
Next week Tim's Mom and Sis get here, on thursday morning. We're planning on taking the early bus to meet them, we'll arrive like two hours after their plane lands. It's okay though because they'll be waiting on a bus that leaves at 10 so we'll still be there before that, so either way they would have been waiting.
We're really excited for them to get here =)) we'll have so much to do! I just hope Tim gets enough days off to spend with them. It just sucks because he is on night shift so when we do anything or go anywhere he'll have to pull an all nighter and just not get any sleep. And there is always the risk of being called in. EVERY TIME we try and leave Uijeongbu, especially when we try to go to Seoul he gets called in. I'm not exagerating in the least bit. Last time we went to Seoul, we were half way there on the train(which is an hour long ride incase you're wondering) and he got a call to come in to work. It never fails. So we'll be worrying about that anytime we go anywhere. It's not like he can put in a pass either, since he's "in system" it's the same as being "in the field" and they're not allowed to put in passes when they're in the field.
All day I've been looking at other people's blogs that are living or lived in the Seoul area to get ideas of places to go and things to see. I got to looking because I was trying to find how to get to Dobongsan Mountain and came across someone's blog that lives in Seoul. Then from there I just kept finding more and more blogs of people around here talking about the food and places they like to go. It's awesome! Made me realize I really should take pictures of seriously "everything" I see and do here, because I didn't realize til now how interesting it is... I forgot just how excited I was coming here and learning about their culture, now I'm so used to it, since it's now my LIFE...I forgot how interesting other people would find it. So from now on I am going to try my best to remember my camera and take pictures of my favorite places and things that we do from day to day. Maybe I will add some pictures to this post that I took when I first got here... I think I will. Actually I will make New posts specifically for those pictures since there are so many, but I will add a picture I found on someone's blog of the view from the top of Mt. Dobongsan.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
April 27, 2010
Spring is finally here!!! I've been waiting sooo long for that. =)
Okay, going to try and update the best I can but I know it's been awhile, again!
First of all, Tim and I are STILL in korea... Tim has been working craaazy hours and I hardly EVER see him, but we make it work and try to stay positive. He is now starting a new shift schedule and working 60 hour weeks instead of 44 so now I REALLy won't see him at all. So things are pretty stressful right now, but we are going on vacation in a couple months so that should really help!
We are planning a trip to Hawaii for the summer. June 24th-July 6th. Tim's mom and sister are coming here to korea to visit from June 10th-June 24th. Then the 4 of us will fly to Honolulu and meet up with Robins mom and Vicki. It should be an awesome time, but it's always stressful planning, since I have to wait on Tim's leave packet to be approved, and we all know how slowly the army moves, and there's no guarantee they will approve it so we can't really make any hotel or airfare reservations until that is done.
The last couple months have been pretty eventful I suppose. Tim had to travel to Camp Carrol which is about 5 hours away from here, to work for about a month. So since I wasn't going to see him for so long we decided I should fly home to visit with family and friends. I was home Feb 26th-April 2nd. It was a really great time catching up with everyone and doing some things that I can't do over here. There's sooo much shopping in America! =) Even going grocery shopping is sooo much better there then it is here. We are VERY limited on what we can get here. The best part of the trip was all the baby time I got with my now 1 year old niece! Since Margaret and Jamin were living at our parents while I was back, I got to see Elena pretty much every day. She had grown SO much since the last time I saw her in July! She's starting to walk a little, and she's imitating sounds.. we taught her how to tickle people and as she does it she says "tickle, tickle", kinda. She says, "dada", "mama", and she also trys to say "thank you", "hi","achoo" after she sneezes which is more like "choo!". I can't remember any more.. but it's really cute to listen to her try and talk. Her favorite things are going through mommy's purse (and pretty much everything else) and playing with every one's cell phones. She almost always had a cellphone in her hands! I definitely got my baby fix for a little bit! =)
I did a little traveling on the road while I was back too, my cousin Alicia and I drove 8 hours to Milwaukee to stay at our Aunt Vals, and from there took a day trip to Chicago. That was such a blast! It was a very spur of the moment trip, so we were really wingin' it. We got there mid-morning and started out just walking around and found a visitor center, from there we did a little shopping and found souvenirs. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at Gino's Chicago-style pizza, which was amazing! After that, did more shopping and made our way over to Sears/Willis tower and did the skydeck tour. They have this new addition where they built a glass floor that you can walk out on to, 1500 feet in the air! crazy scary! It was so much fun though. By the time we had made it to the Sears tower it was about 7pm so this was the last thing we did. I will post some pictures later from that trip.
The last weekend I was home, my mom had invited our family over for lunch and games. Family from Lincoln, and Milwaukee came, along with our family that lives close by. It was a really good time! That same weekend I also made it over to Tim's family gathering, all of his aunts/uncle and his grandparents got together for dinner on Sunday, that was really fun as well!
Other then all that, most of the time I just caught up on some much needed shopping, and hanging out with friends.
Since I've been back not a whole lot has been going on with me because I was really sick for 2 weeks. It all started on the 10th, my throat was really sore, congestion, and I had body aches and just felt completely EXHAUSTED. So I was in bed for 3-4 days trying to get rest and taking flu/cold medicine. I had a fever of of 102 one of the nights. after the 4th day I finally started feeling better and actually managed to get out of bed for a couple days but then on the 16th it took a turn for the worse, my throat really swelled up and hurt and white spots appeared, and I got a really bad ear ache, my congestion got worse, and my stomach ached as well. So I went in to the TMC to see a doctor about it, it was a complete waste of my time though. He took one look at my throat and was just like it looks like a viral infection, I can't do anything. He didn't even test me for anything or examine my body or anything. He wouldn't prescribe me anything for my throat OR ears. He just gave me naproxen for pain and sent me home. Well obviously that didn't help and I was getting worse, my fever came back so I went into the ER on Saturday. The medic there thought I might have strep throat, so he tested me but told me he couldn't prescribe anything until the results came back. So once again went home with no meds, but he did set up an appointment for me on Monday. So went back in to the TMC on Monday and this time actually got a GREAT doctor, she actually examined me and said she wanted to do blood work to test me for mono because the strep test they did came back negative. So they drew some blood. Then they hooked me up to an IV because I was dehydrated and they wanted to give me some steroids right away to get the swelling in my throat to go down. After giving me 2 bags of fluids for my dehydration she came back in and told me they looked at my blood work and saw signs of bacterial infection so she wanted to go ahead and give me a penicillin shot for that. (Hmm if the first doctor would have actually tested me instead of diagnosing me on an assumption then he would've known it was bacterial, not viral, and I wouldn't have been in pain for so long) After that I got 1 more bag of fluids since I was still a little dehydrated, and then sent me home with some medicine!! A couple days later, the swelling went down a lot and white spots went away..it's taken about a week for the swelling to completely go down but I'm much better now, still taking my medicine until it's gone for good. Praying it doesn't come back!
Since I've gotten better I was finally able to hang out with friends this weekend, Sunday we had people over to play rockband, and yesterday Tim and I went golfing with our friend Jared. I think today we are just going to take it easy and spend time just the two of us. These are the first days Tim has gotten off in over 2 weeks so we've been taking advantage of it since starting tomorrow he will be working 60 hour weeks.
Well, I think I got everything!! haha that was really long!
Okay, going to try and update the best I can but I know it's been awhile, again!
First of all, Tim and I are STILL in korea... Tim has been working craaazy hours and I hardly EVER see him, but we make it work and try to stay positive. He is now starting a new shift schedule and working 60 hour weeks instead of 44 so now I REALLy won't see him at all. So things are pretty stressful right now, but we are going on vacation in a couple months so that should really help!
We are planning a trip to Hawaii for the summer. June 24th-July 6th. Tim's mom and sister are coming here to korea to visit from June 10th-June 24th. Then the 4 of us will fly to Honolulu and meet up with Robins mom and Vicki. It should be an awesome time, but it's always stressful planning, since I have to wait on Tim's leave packet to be approved, and we all know how slowly the army moves, and there's no guarantee they will approve it so we can't really make any hotel or airfare reservations until that is done.
The last couple months have been pretty eventful I suppose. Tim had to travel to Camp Carrol which is about 5 hours away from here, to work for about a month. So since I wasn't going to see him for so long we decided I should fly home to visit with family and friends. I was home Feb 26th-April 2nd. It was a really great time catching up with everyone and doing some things that I can't do over here. There's sooo much shopping in America! =) Even going grocery shopping is sooo much better there then it is here. We are VERY limited on what we can get here. The best part of the trip was all the baby time I got with my now 1 year old niece! Since Margaret and Jamin were living at our parents while I was back, I got to see Elena pretty much every day. She had grown SO much since the last time I saw her in July! She's starting to walk a little, and she's imitating sounds.. we taught her how to tickle people and as she does it she says "tickle, tickle", kinda. She says, "dada", "mama", and she also trys to say "thank you", "hi","achoo" after she sneezes which is more like "choo!". I can't remember any more.. but it's really cute to listen to her try and talk. Her favorite things are going through mommy's purse (and pretty much everything else) and playing with every one's cell phones. She almost always had a cellphone in her hands! I definitely got my baby fix for a little bit! =)
I did a little traveling on the road while I was back too, my cousin Alicia and I drove 8 hours to Milwaukee to stay at our Aunt Vals, and from there took a day trip to Chicago. That was such a blast! It was a very spur of the moment trip, so we were really wingin' it. We got there mid-morning and started out just walking around and found a visitor center, from there we did a little shopping and found souvenirs. Then we grabbed a bite to eat at Gino's Chicago-style pizza, which was amazing! After that, did more shopping and made our way over to Sears/Willis tower and did the skydeck tour. They have this new addition where they built a glass floor that you can walk out on to, 1500 feet in the air! crazy scary! It was so much fun though. By the time we had made it to the Sears tower it was about 7pm so this was the last thing we did. I will post some pictures later from that trip.
The last weekend I was home, my mom had invited our family over for lunch and games. Family from Lincoln, and Milwaukee came, along with our family that lives close by. It was a really good time! That same weekend I also made it over to Tim's family gathering, all of his aunts/uncle and his grandparents got together for dinner on Sunday, that was really fun as well!
Other then all that, most of the time I just caught up on some much needed shopping, and hanging out with friends.
Since I've been back not a whole lot has been going on with me because I was really sick for 2 weeks. It all started on the 10th, my throat was really sore, congestion, and I had body aches and just felt completely EXHAUSTED. So I was in bed for 3-4 days trying to get rest and taking flu/cold medicine. I had a fever of of 102 one of the nights. after the 4th day I finally started feeling better and actually managed to get out of bed for a couple days but then on the 16th it took a turn for the worse, my throat really swelled up and hurt and white spots appeared, and I got a really bad ear ache, my congestion got worse, and my stomach ached as well. So I went in to the TMC to see a doctor about it, it was a complete waste of my time though. He took one look at my throat and was just like it looks like a viral infection, I can't do anything. He didn't even test me for anything or examine my body or anything. He wouldn't prescribe me anything for my throat OR ears. He just gave me naproxen for pain and sent me home. Well obviously that didn't help and I was getting worse, my fever came back so I went into the ER on Saturday. The medic there thought I might have strep throat, so he tested me but told me he couldn't prescribe anything until the results came back. So once again went home with no meds, but he did set up an appointment for me on Monday. So went back in to the TMC on Monday and this time actually got a GREAT doctor, she actually examined me and said she wanted to do blood work to test me for mono because the strep test they did came back negative. So they drew some blood. Then they hooked me up to an IV because I was dehydrated and they wanted to give me some steroids right away to get the swelling in my throat to go down. After giving me 2 bags of fluids for my dehydration she came back in and told me they looked at my blood work and saw signs of bacterial infection so she wanted to go ahead and give me a penicillin shot for that. (Hmm if the first doctor would have actually tested me instead of diagnosing me on an assumption then he would've known it was bacterial, not viral, and I wouldn't have been in pain for so long) After that I got 1 more bag of fluids since I was still a little dehydrated, and then sent me home with some medicine!! A couple days later, the swelling went down a lot and white spots went away..it's taken about a week for the swelling to completely go down but I'm much better now, still taking my medicine until it's gone for good. Praying it doesn't come back!
Since I've gotten better I was finally able to hang out with friends this weekend, Sunday we had people over to play rockband, and yesterday Tim and I went golfing with our friend Jared. I think today we are just going to take it easy and spend time just the two of us. These are the first days Tim has gotten off in over 2 weeks so we've been taking advantage of it since starting tomorrow he will be working 60 hour weeks.
Well, I think I got everything!! haha that was really long!
Monday, 21 December 2009
Christmas Time is here!
I know, I've been slacking again. It's been really busy this time of year with the holidays.
We had another big(ish) thanksgiving this year with friends and some of the single guys from Tim's platoon. There was lots of food of course! & I made my first thanksgiving turkey.. I think that's a milestone event isn't it? I had Tim carve it, he was afraid of breaking it *rollseyes* because it was so pretty, he's silly. Also made honey glazed ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, & pumpkin cheesecake.
Another thing that happened since I last posted is we got a beagle puppy, he was 2 months old, and very very cute! We named him Ralphie, like from "a christmas story". Well, things didn't really go well with that, turned out he had distemper..he died a week after we got him. =( That was really hard on us because it happened really fast.. He got sick on friday so I took him to the vet, they tested him and there was a faint possitive for distemper, they told me to keep an eye on him and if he gets worse to bring him back, Tim found him dead saturday morning. Poor little guy.. we know there wasn't anything we could have done, he had it before we got him.
Since then, nothing eventful has really happened. Tim's been working night shift this month, and this week he's working half days before he goes on christmas break thursday!
We're really excited for christmas! We plan on just staying home that morning and afternoon, just the two of us.. opening gifts and making dinner. Then our anniversary will be on the 29th, we're going to a korean movie theatre to watch New moon. =) We haven't been to an actual theatre in korea yet and we hear they are amazing, they're technology here is just so much better then in america, I guess we will be the judge of that! No plans for new years eve yet, probably will spend that with friends.. A lot of our friends leave the first couple weeks of January =( we'll only have a couple left after that.. our best friends left in october.
Anyways, nothing else really, I'll update again after the holidays!
Ruthy♥
We had another big(ish) thanksgiving this year with friends and some of the single guys from Tim's platoon. There was lots of food of course! & I made my first thanksgiving turkey.. I think that's a milestone event isn't it? I had Tim carve it, he was afraid of breaking it *rollseyes* because it was so pretty, he's silly. Also made honey glazed ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, & pumpkin cheesecake.
Another thing that happened since I last posted is we got a beagle puppy, he was 2 months old, and very very cute! We named him Ralphie, like from "a christmas story". Well, things didn't really go well with that, turned out he had distemper..he died a week after we got him. =( That was really hard on us because it happened really fast.. He got sick on friday so I took him to the vet, they tested him and there was a faint possitive for distemper, they told me to keep an eye on him and if he gets worse to bring him back, Tim found him dead saturday morning. Poor little guy.. we know there wasn't anything we could have done, he had it before we got him.
Since then, nothing eventful has really happened. Tim's been working night shift this month, and this week he's working half days before he goes on christmas break thursday!
We're really excited for christmas! We plan on just staying home that morning and afternoon, just the two of us.. opening gifts and making dinner. Then our anniversary will be on the 29th, we're going to a korean movie theatre to watch New moon. =) We haven't been to an actual theatre in korea yet and we hear they are amazing, they're technology here is just so much better then in america, I guess we will be the judge of that! No plans for new years eve yet, probably will spend that with friends.. A lot of our friends leave the first couple weeks of January =( we'll only have a couple left after that.. our best friends left in october.
Anyways, nothing else really, I'll update again after the holidays!
Ruthy♥
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