Hyundai Sorak Condo Sokcho

... is not the only holiday for lovers to celebrate.

There is Valentine's Day, which is about the same as it is in the US, except the girls give presents to the boys - the guys are not obliged to do anything BUT

On March 14 (a month after Valentine's Day) The guys are supposed to give the girls a present...normally chocolates or flowers

But wait, there's more....

April 14th is "Black Day." This is the day where ...

... different from mine, so are their "appropriate" conversation topics. You could tell that this guy was not trying to insult me or intimidate me - he was genuinely excited and earnest in his quest to "help me."

Anyway, so after putting on my shoes and socks again, he led me to the stationary bikes, put me on one, set the difficulty, and told me to stay there for 10 minutes. At this point I had seen my friends, Allyson and Rob, down by the free weights, and wanted to go say hi ...

... doubt when I took the 30 minute bus from Sokcho to the National Park entrance - it was akin to seeing Oasis at Knebworth! I couldn't blame the people though, as I caught early glimpses of the array of colours on show - simply stunning. I'd never been in Asia before during the Autumn, and so this feast of colour was new to me. I was happy to just wander around and have a close look at the beautiful leaves - get my bearings, as it were. I knew that Sunday was going to be my hiking day ...

... br>
With my soup/pancake/makali belly still protesting at the presence of my waistband, it was off to dinner, which, true to Korean style met me with about 20 side dishes. After managing to arrange myself on the floor (feeling like a walrus) in front of the low table, I couldn't help but nibble on a few of the dishes, (when everyone around you is busily chatting in something that could be gibberish as far as you're concerned, it feels nice to have something to do with your ...

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The most common procedure is some nasty sounding one, where the corners of women's eyelids are cut open to make their eyes "more western" aka "more beautiful." The emphasis on appearance is pretty extreme, and can be really frustrating. My co-teachers will have long talks discussing what is wrong with their faces (both of them are beautiful by the way), and when I say something like, your faces are fine ...

I don't know happened to me. I used to be extremely open minded about most foods. Despite being a vegetarian, I'm real open to trying new foods, and most of the time I love everything that I eat. So Koreans love seafood, and since I'm living on the coast, it's even more prevalent, which initially seemed to be a huge plus. Sure the experience with the raw squid was a little overwhelming, but that's what I'm here for right?

OK. Well I don't know when it happened, but one day ...

... unknown, but fateful, reasons, the only seat open was the one directly behind me, so Minion jerkily got himself directly behind me, where I would be most vulnerable. I tried to do the sort of eye lift, wave, and then look out the window, but Minion had other plans.

Immediately there was a hand on my shoulder, and I sort of grudgingly yanked the ear plug out of my ear. I tried to start in with something casual, maybe get him distracted:

Me: How are you?

Sokcho, Korea Rep. maryberry

... kind of disability which requires him to use a crutch to get around. He also has a lazy eye, and a pretty poor grasp of the English language - although a speech impediment doesn't help. He is, however, completely undaunted by this, and talks to me from across the bus (whether we are sitting near each other or not). It's quite a process, and he will slowly work his way closer to me - always a nerve wracking ...

... boring, but the kids treat me like a rockstar which really livens things up - everytime I walk down the hall I have to say "hi" about 30 times. Also - on the bus sometimes I see my students and they ask me to sing for them and I'm like . . . I'm pretty sure the ENTIRE Korean army that is on this bus would not appreciate my rendition of Rihanna's Umbrella right now. Also sometimes my students ask if they can go to my house and I'm like . . .maybe tomorrow. . .

... the appropriate paper like "How do you get to Seorak mountain?" in Korean and show it to gas station attendants, hotel bellmen, cab drivers, whoever we could find, and shove the GPS at them with a lot of pointing. Then they would program it for us, and we could get to our next destination. Very few people spoke English outside of Seoul and many menus were totally in Korean with no pictures ...