Shalom, Israel!

Two months ago, I took a couple weeks vacation from work and met my parents in Israel. It was an amazing break from teaching and a great time seeing my family again. It had been more than 7 months since I had seen my parents (and brother, who came out for part of the time I was there) and 3 years since I had seen the extended family.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as hot as I had hoped for, but it was still enjoyable in comparison to the cold, Korean winter. This was my first time in Israel not during the summer. We spent most of our time in Herzeliya, some time in Tel Aviv, a couple days in Eilat and a day at the Dead Sea. Dale Chihuly (the man responsible for the blown glass ceiling at the Bellagio in Las Vegas) had an art gallery in Tel Aviv that we got to go to. His blown glass art is absolutely breathtaking. I hope one day I will be able to afford a simple paper weight. I also was able to soak up enough sun in Eilat to get a little sunburn and attempted to heal it in the miraculous minerals of the Dead Sea. I covered my whole body in the mineral mud, as I do upon every visit, and rinsed it off in the salty sea.

After a few days of bonding with my parents in southern Israel, I finished off the trip back in Herzeliya spending some time with my brother and the rest of the family. It was also my parents' 37th anniversary as well as a big birthday for my mom. I was happy to be there to spend it with them.

The food in Israel was spectacular... even better than I remembered: every kind of cheese imaginable, tzitziki, tabouli, hummus, falafel, Israeli salad, passionfruit, starfruit, etc! That probably has a lot to do with being in Korea for half a year. The produce and dairy products in Korea and very disappointing. They have such simple foods here and a very small variety of fruit and vegetables with little flavor. I've definitely been missing the food!

Before I knew it, I was back in Korea. It felt like I had been away for a long time, but it only felt like I had spent a short time in Israel. I returned to face the butt end of the Korean winter and the same group of Korean children I taught before I left. The twelve months I signed up for was then down to five and now just over three! Wild.

In five weeks, my sister will be visiting, and then a mere two months until I start my travels in Thailand. I can hardly wait!

We Are Trees - "Sunrise, Sunset"

Spring Forward...

I've been living in Korea for just over seven months now, and I know I've said it before, but every month gets busier than the last! To be honest, January didn't have too much excitement going on. Most everybody had "intensives," which is essentially a second job - winter camp classes every morning before going to our regular jobs. It is easy extra money though, and that's hard for most people to turn down.

I'm pleased to say I eased through the frigid winter, which in retrospect doesn't seem that bad, but who am I kidding? It was beyond frigid, not to mention it also came with bronchitis, tonsillitis, 21 pills a day for 7 days at a time, 2 shots in my ass, a sick day and at least 10 rough days at work. But, spring, I can feel you creeping up already.

February brought a lot excitement but took a lot of sleeping hours. The beginning of February was Lunar New Year, and an abnormally large group of us went to Hong Kong together. I really, really loved Hong Kong. I thought it was an amazing city with a ton of diversity. It was so refreshing to get out of Korea and see so many different faces and different foods from all over the world. It was also nice to get some familiar snacks and a lot of British snacks that my friends had been raving about. Korea can really start to feel like a little bubble world sometimes. I can hardly go anywhere without hearing someone uttering "wae-gukan" (Korean word for "foreigner") while pointing in my general direction. I definitely started to consider the potential of living in Hong Kong for a bit.

Lunar New Year there was also pretty cool. I did have a lot of friends that made it to China, which clearly can't be beaten, but I'd say Hong Kong must have been a good second - not close. There were thousands of people crowding around Nathan Road to watch the big parade. It was impossible to get a view without camping out there for hours, which we weren't going to waste. Luckily, one of our friends had a hostel room overlooking a great part of Nathan Road. We watched the whole parade from the comfort of their beds. The next night, there was a big fireworks show over the harbour. During the days, we made it to Stanley Market and Victoria's Peak. We didn't have enough days there, really.

One of the days, we also took a one-hour ferry ride over to Macau - basically Vegas hotels without the club scene. We did some gambling, partying, gambling, eating and I made $2000 HKD playing roulette. Then, unfortunately, we couldn't get a ferry back to Hong Kong until 7am the next morning, day of our flight. We had to take a nap at the ferry terminal, rush back to our hostels, take a quick power nap and head to the airport to come back to Korea. The trip had its drawbacks being there with so many friends and wanting to be a tourist while being with everyone and waiting for moves to be made... but it was nice, nonetheless. See some of the pictures from the trip. 

Next came Red Day, also known as Valentine's Day, where in Korean tradition, girls give boys chocolates. Somehow, I still got a good amount of chocolates from my students, which definitely made up for Pepero Day (11/11)! That weekend, we went on a snowboarding trip to High 1 Ski Resort - a mere 3 or 4 hours on a coach bus. We lucked out with gorgeous weather as the weekend before brought fresh powder. However, one of my friends had to show off his snowboarding skills, or lack thereof, and ended up in the hospital with a broken collar bone, or something worse. After being taken down the mountain zipped up in a body-bag, He then spent 3 nights in the hospital in Daegu after having surgery with an expected 6-month recovery.

That weekend was also my birthday weekend... nothing too crazy, but some friends did help make it a memorable one. After a couple frisbee games the morning after a night out, we had a chance to make it to the last few hours of a Trick Art Gallery that had been in Daegu for a few months. I thought it had also been gone for months! Check out some of those pictures as well.  It was pretty awesome!

There's too much  to catch up on now, but I'll do my best to keep up with it. I've also got a trip to Israel to post about!

I have way too many photos to choose from as is.... and this layout will never seem to do what it's supposed to do.

Machu Picchu - The Strokes (new album Angles)