Jeju (재주), the Schmidt and the Museus

Our four day excursion to Jeju Island was just what we needed. We packed as much into every day as we could. Lots of waterfalls, palm trees and volcanic formations. It's hard to get tickets to and fro because travel agents buy all of them and then sell tour packages so we were forced to return early Sunday morning but all we had to do was kill the day in Busan and wait for the Tara and Emily to arrive. They walked out the gates at 9pm and we were off to Tongyeong. They're gradually getting the feel of the city, people, culture and time zone. Everyone wants to meet them so we're all getting a lot of free meals. This weekend we'll head to Seoul and the DMZ.

Briefly

Over the weekend we ventured up to Seoul, the four and half hours feel shorter every time, for the Birth of Buddha Lantern Parade. The parade was Sunday night so we spent Saturday and most of Sunday exploring. We met one of Brandon ex-coworkers for lunch and did some catching up. The parade was unlike any we've seen in terms of size and theme. For two hour solid lines of people marched down one of Seoul's main corridors carrying lanterns with larger lanterns on wheels interspersed amongst them. The monks and other marchers were all smiles and the street crowd cheered, clapped and occasionally got sucked into the parade.

We leave for Jeju Island bright and early Wednesday morning so we're busy packing and cleaning and won't get pictures on for at least a week (we had to take the night bus home so we got home at 4am Monday morning, cutting our prep ane recovery time short). The Schmidt girls have less than a week before they meet Asia and Heather may be just as excited as they are (Brandon doesn't get excited). If we get internet service while in Jeju we'll post and try to slip a pic or two on here.

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The group from "Hero" Taekwondo school. Some of the little guys were testing for their 3rd degree belts!


B and I awaiting our birg test. Notice the sea of white in the background!

Since the last time...

After our trip to the English Village Brandon got pretty sick, he missed a day of work and went to the hospital twice ($35 the first time, $15 the second [total: drugs and doctor visit]). They said he had bronchitis/acute tonsilitis but apparently that's what they tell everybody with a fever. The next weekend we tried to go to a Buttterfly festival a few hours away, but we made the mistake of going on Children's Day so we saw a few hundred thousand people and a dozen or so butterflies. We didn't stay long because the lines to the exhibits were huge and just trying to walk around took a lot of effort and patience.
Last weekend we devoted to Taekwondo and tested for Black Belts. Saturday we trained for three hours, making sure we knew our Poomse (choreographed movements) and sparred for a few minutes. Sunday we started at 10am with more review, then we had lunch and headed to Jinju where the testing was taking place for all of Gyeongnam province. We had to wait our turn amongst the other 6,000 people taking tests so we didn't get in until 5pm. It looked like an army of children in white uniforms. We'll get pictures on a little later. For the test the judges picked one of four Poomse and we had to do it, then we sparred with a partner for about 30 seconds just to prove that we were willing to kick and be kicked. We won't know for sure if we passed for a few weeks but our fingers are crossed. Neither of us really wants to go through that again, it was pretty nerve racking to wait seven hours in anticipation and you can believe we were the only foreigners around so all eyes were on us.
A few more days and then we'll be back in Seoul for Buddha's birthday, there will be a big lantern parade through the streets Sunday evening. A few days later and we'll take a trip down to Jeju-do for an island getaway. We'll be there four days and then come back to Busan to meet our friends Tara and Emily at the airport. They'll be here about 10 days and we'll do our best to give them as complete an overview of Korea as possible.
We've got just two months left before we come home. We'll stopover in Tokyo and look around the largest megalopolis in the world for a week. We've got a visit to Mt Fuji planned and expect to have a very memorable experience. We'll get back to MSP on July 18th and probably be stateside until September, when we'll come back here for another year. So anybody who didn't get the chance to come has another opportunity to expand their horizons. That's all for now, we'll get those pictures on ASAP.

Ansan English Village

This past weekend we traveled with B's school to an English Camp. We took 25 elementary-aged children, and the bus ride was a long 6.5 hour ride! Once we got to the camp, it was pretty interesting. We ended up being assigned 6 students to care for. Mine were older and quite well-behaved. B's, on the other hand, were a bit too rowdy for their own good. He spent the majority of the time keeping them out of trouble or apologizing for their mis-deeds. The older girls walked away with some good memories and learned some important things along the way.

We got home Sun at 10pm, and the next day B wasn't feeling well. Tonight (Wed.) he had afever of 102.8 so we figured it was time for a visit to the hospital. Roundtrip it took us an hour, and we learned that he has an acute case of tonsilitis, for which he received 2 shots and a bunch of pills. Total cost: $30, including the taxi rides. His temp has already dropped 2 degrees and it's only been an hour.

Here are a few shots from our Ansan Adventure!

B's boys working on a science experiment.

Amy, Lisa, Lucy, Lauren, H, Victorie, and Michelle.

B and Emily, his most playful student!