Busy street by downtown.
Some streets are very narrow when two cars are trying to go down at the same spot!

Beatiful picture of the boats.
Many restaurants require that you take off your shoes before entering. Then you sit on the floor to eat.

We ended up going out with Heather's co-workers tonight so I'll put on pictures in the morning.

My Side of the Story

I did turn 26 (in Korean years) on the 25th and I did eat chocolate cake with chopsticks (a picture was taken but I'm not sure when we'll get it). I work for a different school than Heather but I have to walk 40 minutes each way while Heather gets shuttled around. I like my school and on MWF I go to a shipyard 20 minutes outside of town to teach some of the workers. I work from 3:30 - 8:20 teaching kids and every night from 8:30 - 9:30 I teach an adult class. The adults always want me to go drinking with them (seems like a popular thing to do in Korea) so I'm sure I will once or twice or three times.... It sounds like our next two weekends may be full of adventure because the directors and some of the parents want to take us around the area (we'll be prepared with the camera this time). Tonight I'll take my camera to work and get some pictures of the city and my school. Check back in 10 hours!

Birthday Wishes

Today (the 25th) is Brandon's birthday. Although I told him I didn't have a gift for him, he was pleasantly surprised when he stopped by my work on my break and was treated to a present, a cake, and singing teachers ready to wish him a special day! My director, Mrs. Jung, bought him a very tasty cake, which was eaten with chopsticks :) I bought him a nice pair of leather sandals, as this is the "popular" thing for men to wear. It is quite hard to find a men's size bigger than 10 here!
I worked at the downtown school today, and all went well. I even have an adult class, which is so much different than the the younger kids. Tomorrow I will be downtown for the adult class, and then at the island school for the remainder of my day. I am told that since this week is a holiday week, the schedule is quite hectic and ever-changing. Starting next week, things will be more regular!
Brandon is always done at 9.30pm, and he is not yet home. All things are going well for us, and we are happy to learn that two couples that we know have recently gotten engaged! (Emily Schmidt and Trent Museus, Joelle Niggeler and Mitch Wyffels). CONGRATS friends!!!!

One Down...

Today was our first day of teaching. I was at the school on the island, and began at 2pm. I (H) started the day with young children, IE) 5-7, and progressed from there. I ended the evening with 14 year olds which, let's just say, are much better behaved than the 1st few classes! Tomorrow I will be at the downtown school and will have to learn many more new faces and names. All in all things will work out, but today was a bit overwhelming. I anxiuosly await the arrival of Brandon, as he left the apartment at 9am and will not get home until roughly 10pm....I have no horror stories to report, and the more I catch on the better it will be! Hopefully B will say the same!

The first four pictures were captured outside of our window! There is always something going on out there. This is a very busy port town. The large tan-colored building is a famous resort/condominium hotspot. Just around the corner is a beach and walking pier that we saw yesterday with Sammi. Finally, some of the money, with a US dollar for scale. As the money amount increases, so too does the size!

Great Day!

Today, Saturday, was an excellent day for us! We learned that Heather will be working between two schools, one on either side of town, that are owned by the same director. I was able to meet the director and see the second school. This one is on the island and I will either take a taxi or be picked up by another employee from the school. It turns out that this director, Sammi, is younger and showed us around town all day!
We started at a Chinese restaraunt that is owned by a famous Korean hairstylist. The four of us, (B, H, Sammi and her husband) were shown to a private area of the restaurant where we were served amazing food! We even used chopsticks. It turns out that Brandon is a natural but I didn't do too badly either! We spoke a lot with the couple and learned many new things.
Next they showed us their apartment, and it was great to see the inside of a "traditional" Korean home. It was quite lovely! We then visited the school on the island. It was very nice and should be great as we both start Monday (at different schools).
The couple proceeded to show us around Tongyeong, taking us to a beach, a temple, a park that overlooks many of Tongyeoung's 50 islands, and on many scenic roads. We even were treated to a popsicle dessert!
Brandon will meet his director tomorrow, and he is looking forward to it. We may turn in early tonight, as we are still adjusting a bit to the big time change!
We are sorry to regret that we have no photos to show of our amazing day, as we were unaware that we were going on a tour today. We will get them as soon as we can.

In town

Yesterday we voyaged into town to find food and supplies. We were able to communicate fairly well with the shop owners because most Koreans have had some English lessons in school. Fish markets are abundant. For lunch we bought some traditional, Korean, Ramen soup. We walked to our schools at 4pm and talked with our director and met some students. We learned that our roommate is only temporary and we will soon have this apartment to ourselves, as promised. Heather's director bought us a real Korean meal in a sit-on-the-floor restaurant. Unfortunately I'm (B) not a huge seafood fan but was able to mix and match well enough to fill-up. Things are starting to fall into place and we're thinking that this is going to be a very good experience. Updates later.

What we've seen so far

Smooth Flying

Well we are here in Tong-Yeong! Our director met us at the airport and we arrived at our apartment around 11:15pm. It appears we might be sharing the apartment with another guy but will find out more tomorrow. So far the only problem is that all of the signs are in Korean and we can't really understand what people are saying. Right now we don't know too much but by tomorrow night everything should start falling into place. Again, we are in South Korea! Thanks for all the well-wishing, Brandon and Heather Magnuson

Wednesday America, Thursday South Korea

Our flight leaves Wed. the 19th at 3:05pm from Minneapolis to Tokyo (NWA #19). 12 hours later we land on Thursday at 5:05pm local time and catch our connection to Busan at 6:15pm (NWA #29). Another two hours in the air and then we arrive at 8:30pm. The time difference is 14hrs ahead of Central Time. We appologize ahead of time for not being able to say good-bye to everyone but our time is stretched pretty thin. Please feel free to post replies on our blog or send us emails, we'll get our physical address out as soon as we know it.

Amanda, Heather and Emma. -The Heads-

The McCulley Family: Amanda, Heather, Emma,
Rodney, and Betsy.

Tara Schmidt, Heather, & Emily Schmidt (Heather's bestest friends).

Introducing: Brandon & Heather Magnuson

On June 23, 2006, Brandon and Heather were married at Gregory Park in Brainerd, MN. Heather's friends Tara Schmidt, Emily Schmidt, and Tanya Lauer stood up for her. Brandon's best friend Kurt Olson was there for him. It was a simple yet approproiate ceremony with Judge Casey officiating. These nice pictures were taken by friends and family.
On the 24th, we had a large reception at the McCulley household. The weather was nice and people enjoyed themselves with good food, laughter, dancing, and even karaoke. We were so happy and fortunate enough to see many friends and family.
We now move onto our next adventure, which is preparing to move to Korea for a year. We will be teaching in Tongyong, South Korea, a coastal town in the south-eastern part of the country. We have just been informed that we must arrive the week of July 17-21, so we have much to prepare for.
Thanks to everyone for helping us celebrate our special day :)

Union

In three weeks Brandon and Heather will be married and having their reception. Don't know about this? Never heard of Pillager, MN? Contact either of us with any questions or concerns.

What's next?

Tomorrow we both graduate from college and from there we can look forward to holding jobs all summer. In the fall, after we receive our diplomas in the mail, we are going to travel to South Korea to teach English conversation for a year. We will keep updates on our blog (unlike our friend Tara) but they will be fewer and farther between over the summer. As things settle down and we catch up we'll try and put some more pictures on too.

We've made it back to the U.S. this Friday evening with no hitches in our flight plan. We transferred at Chicago O'Hare and arrived at Minneapolis on time. Our friends Kurt and Brooke picked us up at the airport and we ate a great Cinco de Mayo meal in River Falls at our favorite Mexican restaraunt. There may or may not have been a few drinks involved too. Lots to get done before graduation and late June (if you know what I mean). We look forward to talking with everyone so feel free to call, email or post. Thanks for reading our blog and we'll put some more pictures on soon.

Trier and Koln

Yesterday, 2 May, we visited Trier. This is the oldest city in Germany and was quite impressive! There are many artifacts from Roman times, including the largest city gate left standing! We also visited a cathedral that was georgous and connected to it was the oldest Gothic church in Germany. We have never seen 2 massive churches connected before! Karl Marx was born here, and we toured his house that has been turned into a very interesting museum. The sun was out and it was about 70 degrees, the hottest it's been that we remember!
Today we checked out the town that we have been in for the past 3 nights: Cologne. The dom, or cathedral, is so huge and so great to walk around in. There were also city walls for us to see, although many seemed to be under construction so we couldn't get very close. We were also able to tour a chocolate factory/museum (Lindt Chocolate) and tasted the freshest chocolate available! The sun was out again today and was quite hot. We soaked it up while we could and ended the afternoon grabbing a few last-minute souvenirs to remember the town with. Tomorrow morning we leave in the AM for Frankfurt, which is less than 2 hours by train away. We fly out on Friday, and will be in the US about 18.30!

We went to Russ's game on Friday night and it was an excellent game even though Hamburg lost to a field goal with less than a minute left. Saturday we came to Cologne but the weather has been cold and rainy so sightseeing has been somewhat limited. Today we went to Aachen to see Charlemagne's capitol. All that remains of his palace is the church and its treasures which were very impressive. While we're here we want to also day-trip to Trier (Germany's oldest city) and maybe Bonn or Mainz, but there is a lot to do here in Cologne. Thursday we are for sure going to Frankfurt because we have to fly out Friday morning.

Hamburg, Germany

We arrived in this city this afternoon, and met up with Russ, Brandon's friend. He has been nice enough to let us stay with him at his hotel, the Holiday Inn, and we have been relaxing this evening. We were able to visit the U-boat, a huge submarine built in the 1970's, but got there a little too late to get to go inside! From the looks of the outside, however, that is quite alright with us! Brandon and I will see the town tomorrow in the day, and then head to the football game in the evening. There is a "friends and family" bus that will take us from the hotel to the stadium, so we seem to be set to go! The sun was out today and was a nice day, as we hope this will be true of tomorrow as well!! It's hard to imagine that we arrive in the States one week from tonight!! In two weeks' time we will also be college graduates! Quite exciting!!

Dresden, Germany

We are now in Dresden, and we arrived yesteday around 15.00. The train ride from Szczecin was fine, except that for 2 hours we had to sit in the smoking car, as the others were completely filled. The town is quite nice, with lots to see. We also are liking the hostel, as we booked a 4 bed room but last night did not have to share with anyone. It is always nice to have your own space! The city is preparing for a large festival this weekend, and we are a bit sad that we cannot stick around to see how it goes! The weather today started off cloudy and muggy, but the sun popped out about 2pm and never hid again! We leave tomorrow, Friday, for Hamburg, to meet up with B´s friend, Russ. On Saturday we are going to his American-football game, so that will be cool!! We watched our 1st full game of soccer the other night with Marta and Luke, and they were nice enough to explain the rules to us! It is such a huge sport over here! Otherwise, nothing much new. Hope all is well for everyone back home, and cannot wait to see you!!!! Tchuss (Bye in German, the cute way, pronounced chuuuse)

Sans Soucci

Brandenburg Gate

Berliner Dom

Caught in the Act!

Just Kidding

Schloss Charlottenburg (Berlin)

Ruins of Kaiser Wilhelm Church

Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin Wall

Szczecin, Poland

We have been in Poland since Sunday, staying with my (H) friend Marta. We are having an excellent time as her and her boyfriend have been very helpful in showing us around the town many times. Yesterday we visited ruins from a factory that was used by the Nazi's in WWII as a work camp. It was quite amazing to see, and of course sad to think of the things that took place there. We have not been able to post on our site from here, so that is why we are delayed! Tomorrow, Wed, we leave for Dresden, Germany. Our free time is going quite quickly and we will soon be home!

testet

testing

testing

Poland

We spent Saturday walking around Berlin seeing what was yet to be seen (i.e. a flea market, Brandenburg Gate, Egyptian Museum, Tiergarten Park, and the Pergamon Museum [again]). Sunday morning we left, bright and early, for Szczecin, Poland to stay with Heather's high school friend, Marta and her boyfriend Luke. They showed us the town and we saw Match Point in English. Today we are bumming while Marta is in class adn when she gets back we'll probably go back into town after lunch. Tomorrow we may either stay here another night or move on to Dresden, Germany for a few days before meeting Brandon's friend Russ in Hamburg on Friday. We'll get pictures on today.

Potsdam

Today was our last day of class. We then went as a class to Potsdam, about 30 minutes by train outside of Berlin. There we visited San Soussi, a palace built for Frederich in the 18th century. The name means "without worries" and we got a tour guide who showed and told us many interesting things! After this we walked to a local German restaurant, to eat as a group one last time. On the way, we saw a very large protest, and found out that they are protesting a racially-motivated beating that occurred in the town on Easter night. The people in the community are quite distraught about this (rightfully so) and want something to be done. It was a peaceful demonstration, but cops were everywhere nonetheless. We also saw many videocameras from news stations. So, we did get to dinner and ate a nice schnitzel with potatoes and veggies. We were able to finish off with a lovely apple strudel!! It was so tasty, and it was a nice dinner all in all. I (H) am really excited to drink milk again when I return to the States. The milk that I have run into over here is kind of warm and quite thick, so I tend to stay away.
Anyway, we also purchased our train tickets to Szczecin, Poland, for Sunday. We are going to visit H's friend, Marta, and are quite excited!! Tomorrow we will see the Brandenburg Gate, the Egyptian Museum, and a few other sites before leaving in the AM on Sunday. It's hard to believe that we have only 2 weeks left...

Thursday

Wednesday we saw a restored Roman altar and a gate to Babylon (6000 years old). Thursday we went to Checkpoint Charlie after class and spent nearly three hours at the museum... and then we spent the rest of the night memorizing the countries of the world, the 12 most populated cities in the world, and 27ish paintings, artists and styles for our three tests today. This morning we had class, took our tests and then got the H out of there. We went to Schloss Charlottenburg, the local palace, and then to the Kaiser Wilhelm Church that has been left as it was after WWII. Tomorrow we have our last class and then we go as a group to Potsdam to see the palaces there and have a group dinner. Well get pictures online as soon as we can.

Berlin

We have arrived safely in Berlin, Germany. Our train ride was interesting yesterday, as we did not have reservations and the cars were PACKED!! I (H) spent 3 of the 5 hours sitting on the pull-out seats by the doors as there were NO open seats. B had to get his paper done, and luckily found a chair with a table. But, there were no big problems, and we found our hostel with no trouble. Today after class we headed to town, and made it to museum island. We visited the Pergamonmuseum. This museum houses very old and reconstructed artifacts from many hundreds of years ago. There are large exhibits and it was quite interesting there. We are staying very busy, as we have 2 large tests on Thursday, and will be studying all day tomorrow when we get out of class. We are enjoying this hostel as our 3 meals are provided every day!

Photos

The majority of these were taken in Nurnberg, Germany, but the ones of us at the Opera were taken in Praha, a few nights before we left!!! Hope you like them!! PS, dinner was very tasty at our usual spot this evening!!!

B took a photo of this tower, and this kid ran right in front of him at the the last second!! It was quite hilarious!! haha
Nice view in Nurnberg.

Photo of a photo taken in a church in Nurnberg, what it looked like when the Nazis ruled. Quite eery.
H by the river and the German houses.
A photo of a photo, when we were visiting the Nurnberg Trials courtroom, 15 April. Those were the 21 defendents present. (3 were absent).
B and H in front of the castle, Nurnberg, 15 April.

One of the tower walls, in Nurnberg, Germany. (15 April)
Heather, Brandon, and Kelli waiting to see our 1st real opera, Carmen.
B, H, Kelli, and Mindy outside the Opera House.
Does that say One Fart?? ha-ha

Oustide the Opera House, waiting to see Carmen!

Well the weather was fairly gloomy today so it turned out to be a laundry and homework day. Tonight we will go back to the same restaraunt we've eaten at for the last two nights because it is, as H would say, "quite tasty". Zur Wilden Sau it's called but neither of us have been brave enough to try the wild boar, yet. Tonight we'll walk along the city walls while they're lit up and then get some sleep for our train ride to Berlin. Hope everyone had a good Easter and while we'll be envious of any ham dinners we're dreading the day when we won't be able to find a real brat stand in an old city market. Have a Merry Easter and we'll see you soon!B + H

Well if you ask us if we like Nuremberg we'll gladly show you the 250 pictures we took today, but not now. We don't have internet on our computer so no pictures till, hopefully, Berlin. We may squeeze in a trip to Wurzburg tomorrow but, as everyone know by now, we have a lot to get done. Happy Easter to everyone, we'll be having sandwiches for our dinner because absolutely nothing will be open.

flooded on the tracks

We have arrived safely in Nurnberg, Germany. We left Praha at 9,15AM today, and had been on the train for 2 hours when the ticket guy told us that we had to get off and hop on an 'autobus' as he called it. we were confused, but complied. It turns out that the tracks were flooded, so we took a bus around the effected area and got back on a new train 30 minutes later! It was a bit unorganized but we finally got on the correct part of the train (it split at a certain town) and we arrived here without further incident! We are staying at the same hostel for 3 nights, as we have lots of homework to finish. Our last week of classes start on Tuesday, and on Friday we are done with classes! It is hard to believe that the semester, our final, is coming to a close! We are greatly anticipating our free travel, and are making arrangements to visit friends who live in Europe!! (H has been in contact with Marta, an exchange student from Poland from back in the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
It's great to back in Germany, as although the language is still forgein, it is recognizable for us and very comforting!! Time for dinner, Guten Nacht!!

View from old fortification
Church of Our Lady
This guy didn't want to talk to Heather either

Church of Our Lady
Gun Powder Tower
Old Town Hall with Easter Tree

I tried putting on some pictures but there seems to be a bug in the server. We went to Carmen last night and were quite impressed. It was interesting to find that we recognized some of the songs in an opera we knew nothing about. We bought a guide that gave us the gist of what was happening so we weren't completely lost. Today is kind of dreary and thus fitting for our trip to the Communist museum. We saw a video of the Communist occupation of Czechylslovakia that showed a lot of the protests here in Prague in some of the same places we've been. Heather was taken aback by the violence of the police and military on the crowds but minus a few tanks and add a college university and it didn't look any worse than the Vietnam era in the US to me. Maybe I'm a tad cynical though. We were able to catch up on a lot of homework over the weekend but still plenty left. We leave for Nuremburg of Friday where we'll for sure stay for two nights and play Sunday by ear.

We got lucky for the first few days here, and had a nice internet connection...but that wasn't meant to be! We lost that connection and have since been scrounging around, so thus the reason for the sporatic posts. It's hard to believe that we will be leaving Praha in 5 days, and heading onward to Berlin for our last city! The time is flying more than ever now!
Today is a day of more homework for us, but we do get a treat tonight in that we are going to the opera, "Carmen", with two of our girlfriends. It should be an excellent time and I even bought a cute outfit at a 2nd hand store for a few bucks!! On Monday we will visit the Communism Museum as a class, and then Tues. we will be in class all day. Wed. we will be visiting a palace with a large selection of paintings, and then Thursday we have our 2nd test for class. Friday we leave Praha already!!

So it has been a few days but like we said in our other postings we are staying a little more grounded here at the hotel and aren't doing as much sightseeing as we are trying to do homework, with a few sidetrips to the market. Saturday the group went on a walking tour of Prague and that was really only the second time we'd been away from the hotel so we brought the camera but pictures were a little rushed so we could stay with the group. We spent the rest of the weekend studying for our test on Tuesday and writing a small paper... and going to the market. Tuesday we took our test and after 6 hours of class we had a group dinner at a downtown brew pub (the beer was excellent and we rather liked the food too). Today, Wednesday, the group took a guided excursion to a concentration camp/Jewish ghetto in the town of Terezin, 40 minutes from Prague. Terezin wasn't a death camp itself but thousands did die there and most of the rest transported to Auschwitz for "the Final Solution". After the Soviets "liberated" the area, the town was repopulated by the original townsfolk even though it was the sight of disease and death. We had a very informative tour guide but like most tours we were rushed around and that takes away from the atmosphere and being able to soak in what you hear and see. It was a good experience and much different than Dachau. We have opera tickets for Sunday night (Carmen) and might also go to a matinee on Saturday (The Magic Flute). Class all day tomorrow, some museums to visit Friday and plenty of homework to fill the gaps. I've also confirmed that we are going to go to Hamburg for a few days during break to see my friend Russ Rabe who is playing football for the Hamburg Sea Devils in NFL Europe. We are going to see the Hamburg v Amsterdam game.

So it has been a few days but like we said in our other postings we are staying a little more grounded here at the hotel and aren't doing as much sightseeing as we are trying to do homework, with a few sidetrips to the market. Saturday the group went on a walking tour of Prague and that was really only the second time we'd been away from the hotel so we brought the camera but pictures were a little rushed so we could stay with the group. We spent the rest of the weekend studying for our test on Tuesday and writing a small paper... and going to the market. Tuesday we took our test and after 6 hours of class we had a group dinner at a downtown brew pub (the beer was excellent and we rather liked the food too). Today, Wednesday, the group took a guided excursion to a concentration camp/Jewish ghetto in the town of Terezin, 40 minutes from Prague. Terezin wasn't a death camp itself but thousands did die there and most of the rest transported to Auschwitz for "the Final Solution". After the Soviets "liberated" the area, the town was repopulated by the original townsfolk even though it was the sight of disease and death. We had a very informative tour guide but like most tours we were rushed around and that takes away from the atmosphere and being able to soak in what you hear and see. It was a good experience and much different than Dachau. We have opera tickets for Sunday night (Carmen) and might also go to a matinee on Saturday (The Magic Flute). Class all day tomorrow, some museums to visit Friday and plenty of homework to fill the gaps. I've also confirmed that we are going to go to Hamburg for a few days during break to see my friend Russ Rabe who is playing football for the Hamburg Sea Devils in NFL Europe. We are going to see the Hamburg v Amsterdam game.

Cheap Praha

We are enjoying Praha (Prague) but have not had a chance to see many things as we had 7 hours of class today! It's an interesting class, so that's a plus! We already have our 1st exam on Tuesday! We were able to find an outdoor marketplace, where they have clothes, shoes, souvenirs, food. It's cool cuz you haggle with them for the best price, and we have gotten some cheap items! B got a new pair of shoes, as his were leaky. Actually, the city of Prague is preparing for a large flood to hit the city. It is not certain yet that the waters will rise so as to create the flood, but it seems that everyone is preparing. We will keep you posted! Tomorrow the class will do a walking tour with a native of Praha, so that should be fun! The rest of the weekend will be spent doing homework and then more homework.