Today Nick and I woke up to a glorious, sunshine-filled day. We could barely contain ourselves with our excitement. Spring is here! As you could see from our last post, all the trees were full of blooms and the air was warm and fragrant with the scents of blossoms and fresh grass. We got up, got dressed, and hopped onto the bus to go down to Seoul.
We shared a burrito from Tomatillos for lunch (had to get our Mexican fix!) and then wandered down the major street to check out the outdoor wicker displays that were at the Sejong Cultural Center. They had HUGE wicker statues and sculptures. They were really neat and we had fun photographing them.
The park was set up and new flower beds were put in. Instead of last year's intense floral arrangement with no room to walk in between, they had the park set up with large lawns and then small flower beds bursting with tulips, peonies, daisies and more. It was nice to take off our shoes and roam in the grass barefoot. We stopped at each bed of flowers, taking extreme close ups and practicing with our new camera.
After spending ample time on the lawns we meandered past Gyeongbukgong Palace and went to the gallery district. Nick bought me some gorgeous jewelry for my birthday that is in a few weeks. I felt so pampered. I showed him a place where I liked some of their pieces and he brought me inside and told me to pick out anything I wanted. I got a multi-chain braided necklace with purple Swarovski crystals and a matching bracelet. It was so nice and made me feel so special!! Then, as we were walking back from the first jewelry store, we saw another small place that had funky necklaces and earrings. Nick picked out a pair of purple and blue feather earrings that perfectly matched the dress I was wearing and got those for me too! I felt very loved. :)
The afternoon sun was so nice and we weren't ready to go home quite yet. We entered the Palace grounds to check out their cherry blossoms, which are in full bloom. Nick took some pretty pictures of me sitting in one, wearing my new earrings. After a while just enjoying being outside we decided to head back to Hwajung.
By the time we got back Nick had a serious hankering for a smoothie. We decided to buy ourselves a small blender (like a Magic Bullet) and load up on bananas, strawberries, pineapple, oranges and apples. We sweated through our workout, which was one of the most intense cardio sessions yet, and then I whipped us up some tasty smoothies. Later we had stuffed bell peppers for dinner with some spinach and then our friend came over and we watched a movie. It was a perfect day!
After work tonight, we came home and kicked our butts working out with our INSANITY videos. We are proud to be through Day 4! Already we can tell that our endurance is getting better. Today was mostly stretching and yoga, called Cardio Recovery, but it was still intense and made us sweat.
We decided to grab some BBQ at one of our favorite places afterward, and we took the camera because we wanted to stop in the park and check out the trees that are all blooming right now. We are so happy that spring is finally here! Winter was really starting to get to us. We can now go outside with light jackets, or even no jackets! We wanted to try our hand at taking photos at night with our D90. We enjoyed our meal and then spent an hour just out in the fresh spring night air as we played with aperture, lighting effects, color filters, and our ISO levels. We really need a tripod to get the shots we want, we are going to start looking for one that is small and easy to tote around. We got a few cool shots though, and I thought it would be nice to share.
Our poor, broken bodies...
Today Nick and I started a serious new workout regimen. It is called INSANITY by Shaun T. It is a 60 day cardio workout routine. It rocked us. We started with a fitness test today, and I thought I was going to die. I've lost weight while I've been here, eating healthier and riding our exercise bike with some regularity, but I decided that I wanted to look better and feel better. Also, having my dress fitting helped motivate me a lot. Nick was also in the mood to tone up and get in better shape, so we decided that we were going to try something extreme and stick with it. We are good at challenging ourselves, and it looks like INSANITY is going to be incredibly challenging. I hurt so badly right now I feel like I can't walk. But I am looking forward to seeing results and I'm proud of myself for committing myself to this completely. Shaun T. is also a really good motivator and we enjoy hearing him push us as the videos progress. We are cutting out sweets and snacks during the day and I've upped our veggie intake during our dinners and lunches. We are looking forward to being skinny and fit!
What a day!
The director was wonderful to all the teachers and staff at our school and sent us all on a trip to Everland today! Everland is a big amusement park a few hours away from Hwajung. It was much more extensive than Lotte World, the park we went to a few months ago. We had so much fun with all of our friends!
We went on a few great rides, including the world's steepest wooden roller coaster! It was a ton of fun. Nick and I love going on rides that flip us upside down and make our hearts beat. We goaded a few of the more timid teachers to join us and we all had a blast on each ride. We munched on delicious churros and had a nice lunch all together, also courtesy of the director. It was very generous and a great time.
After lunch we managed to catch their parade, which was surprisingly full of Caucasian dancers instead of Koreans. They also had creepy masked creatures dancing up on these pedestals that lifted up on poles. It was interesting and fun. Then we walked over to the massive tulip gardens and played around taking lots of photos with the flowers, the statues, and all the water features.
Fun photos accomplished, we decided to check out the zoo that was also part of the park. We were a little sad by some of the displays, which had no vegetation for some of the animals. Others were impressive - especially their monkey house, which was full of different types of primates. A chimp was very interested in Nick, and would mimic his faces, sticking his tongue out at us and wiggling his eyebrows. It was funny.
We walked around the zoo portion for some time, checking out the baby tigers, polar bears, lions, tigers, and seals. Then we went into their main Africa house and saw some hyenas, a few wild birds, fed a bunch of parakeets, and then saw the baby lions. One baby was VERY interested in Nick, and came up to the glass and was licking it, with Nick's face squished up on the other side. It was very cute.
We ended our day with a few more rides and then took the bus back to Ilsan. Nick and I grabbed some delicious pork bulgolgi on meat alley and then went home completely exhausted.
Hooray for field trips. They give us a chance to play away from school and also a chance to take loads of photos with our new camera.
Today we took the morning classes to a random farm in the middle of nowhere. We all hopped into the buses with our classes and drove forty minutes into farm country. We went to see a kiddie-geared tomato farm with lots of beautiful covered gardens and places to picnic and play. The kids got to run around and be outside in the gorgeous spring weather and we got to play, too. We took a little tour of the tomato fields and got to feed some fenced-in chickens and a rather fat rabbit.
We all sat down at picnic tables and had a delicious and incredibly healthy lunch. The school provided great packaged lunches that were made by caterers. We all got some baked chicken wings, cherry tomatoes, loads of gimbop (which is mostly vegetable sushi with some small slices of ham; lots of carrots, cucumber, radish and mushroom sprouts), a tangerine, a banana, and grape juice boxes. It was awesome.
After our wonderful outdoor lunch we had a talent show on the little stage that was there. Each class has been practicing something to show off to the other classes. My class sang "Witch Doctor" and did a little dance. Nick's class sang Mr. Sun and also did a dance. All the classes were super cute and it was a lot of fun.
When each class did their part in the talent show the kindergarten classes went to make topiaries. We were given a little kit with eyes, a nose, a mouth and "ears" made out of balls of mushy plants and sod that had metal spikes sticking through them. Each kid was given a small mountain of more mushy plants and they had to beat them flat. Then a sprig of ivy was placed in the middle and we formed our "mat" of mushy plants and dirt into a ball around the ivy. We used some twine to ensure it would keep shape and then decorated our ball with the previously mentioned eyes, ears, etc. When we were all done and our hands were nice and dirty we had mouse-y bear shaped little heads made out of plants. It was sort of cute, but overall a frustrating activity to do with six year old children. By the end of the activity I had heard "Teaaa-chhuhh help me!" too many times and I was ready to go home.
