day 1 of Seoul Vacation- Namsangol Hanuk Village

The first day of my vacation I took the train into Seoul and managed (successfully) to get a Metro Card and find my way to the hostel I was staying at. After dropping my stuff at the hostel and taking most stuff out of my bag I went on to the Namsangol Hanuk Village. I spent the day there wondering around the traditional houses and through the park beside it. There was supposed to be more going on in the village (straw sandal making, traditional village stuff) but they weren’t going on this Saturday. I’m not sure if it was because of the weather or if they only have it certain Saturdays, either way there wasn’t much to do in the village until the evening. In the village they had some traditional Korean games.

One thing I found out was that children feeding birds was a universal liking. I was sitting on some steps eating a snack and a family near by was finishing their lunch (some sort of rice thing). Birds were flying all around and soon the boys started feeding the birds leftovers.

One was played like a hackysack game where you bounce the sack on your feet and the other was a throwing game to try and get them into a standing pot with 3 compartments. With the hackysack game I could only bounce it once or twice before missing and with the other game I got maybe 1 stick in 5 throws into the pot.

In the evening they had more events going on. One house had traditional Korean clothes to dress up in and get your picture taken and another house had some Korean crafts for the kids.

The part I liked best in the evening was the musical performances. There was a group of Korean percussionists who played on various instruments and on the later part of the show they combined ribbon dancing with percussion. After the percussion ensemble they had a group of 5 people playing traditional Korean instruments (to nontraditional songs). They played non Korean classic songs and a few traditional Korean folk songs. After the Korean folk songs I talked with a few Americans I had met. The son was a teacher in Korea and his parents had come to visit him.

So that ended my first day. Overall it was kind of a boring day because the village didn’t have as much going on (and it was raining). For a large part of the day I sat under a pavilion and read while waiting for the rain to stop (or at least slacken).

To look at all my photos from today follow this link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037436&l=c4222&id=55500987

or this one

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037437&l=aac13&id=55500987

Summer Vacation

Summer vacation for my school starts next week and I will spend the first half of my vacation touring around Seoul. Here is my basic itinary for my trip

Vacation In Seoul
July 26- Aug 1
Saturday – Arrive in Seoul - Namsangol hanok village
Sunday – Yodio Full Gospel Church – Deoksugung Palace
Monday – Gyeongbokgung and National Folk Museum of Korea (1 day tour if time) Seoul tower in evening
Tuesday – Itaewon and go back to Asan last train leaves seoul station at 7:00 Pm

That is just the rough outline of the vacation and when I get back i will expand on it in further posts
Kay

New Apartment (complete with pictures of old and new)

Last weekend we heard a rumor that we would move into our new apartment on the 1st of the month and so we decided on Sunday we could pack our stuff the next evening (Monday June 30th). We were bored later that evening so we went ahead and started packing our stuff up and quickly got most everything packed. That is fine – it would make Monday evening even easier. Sunday night we got a call from the pastors wife (about 10:30 at night) saying that we were moving tomorrow (Monday). She was calling to tell us this so that we could have everything packed by 9 am the next morning *gasp*. Luckily (or God’s planning) we already had most everything packed and just had to pack up the last stuff (sheets, toothbrush etc) in the morning.
So we had everything packed and left as usual for teaching at the Kindergarten. We had our keys and tried to drop them off at the Pastors office but it was locked L We called around and were finally told that we were supposed to leave our keys on the kitchen table and the apartment unlocked. Someone drove to the kindergarten and picked up our keys. While we were teaching at the kindergarten and eating lunch they moved everything from one apartment to another and got it all set up for us (basically in 2 hrs). After lunch the pastor’s wife drove us over to the apartment to show is where it is and to see what it is like.
It’s a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment with the view of a mountain to the east (I think) and a view of the parking lot and other apartments in the complex to the west. My bedroom is about the size of the bed :P but that is fine. There is a little porch type thing at the end of my bedroom that my dresser and mirror are at that. One bad thing is that the sheets I brought from America were for a twin sized bed and the bed that I have here is larger (queen maybe). I will have to go to the E-mart and get myself a bigger sheet set. This apartment does have a washer and a drying rack on the mountain view porch.
Pictures

This is my old apartment. You can see the lovely bathroom with the shower basically on top of the toilet, the couches that came from the pastors office (along with the coffee table) and the bedroom with a bed (I also have a dresser and mirror but they cannot be seen in that picture)

This last picture is the front of my old apartment building with is lovely paint color (but it made it easy to pick out if I wasn’t quite sure the way home).

The view from my new apartment (east side)

The view from to the west

Bathroom (yes its all pink)

Bedroom (and my bed takes up the entire room)

Utility room (with a washing machine)

Living Room (couches from the pastors office)

Kitchen (small but it has everything needed)

Book shelf (only 3 books there right now but soon it will be filled)