Saturday, August 30, 2014

Cats the Musical!

Meeeeoooow!

Today I trekked north towards Daejeon to see Cats the Musical! Total travelling time was about 4 and half hours but it was so worth it. I remember watching Cats on VHS several times as a kid (and adult) and I am so thrilled to finally say I have seen it live. And I didn't see it live just anywhere--I saw it live in South Korea! Pretty extraordinary. Apparently this is the second time Cats has come to Korea. It is a national touring group from Australia. And my goodness, are they talented.
I saw the musical with a couple of friends from South Africa that I met about a month ago on my Adventure Korea trip to Mokpo. Annie and Alex are lovely people! It was great to meet up with them again.

The performance was incredible. I was smiling ear-to-ear the majority of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was in awe of the talent these performers posses. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed with Rum Tum Tugger and Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser. Their voices weren't quite powerful enough. However I loved Mr. Mistoffelees (Magical Mr. Mistoffelees was my favorite part of the performance), Munkustrap, Demeter, Sillabub, and Skimbleshanks. Grizabella had a lovely voice. The performance was in English with Korean subtitles but Sillabub sang one verse of Memory in Korean. The audience LOVED it. As far as we could tell, we were the only foreigners there. When she began singing in Korean, I could feel the audience's admiration.










Thursday, August 28, 2014

Quality Mexican Food in South Korea??

Yes, it is real! Right here in Gwangju, South Korea you can have a delicious quesadilla, chimichanga, burrito, fresh guacamole, etc! Tonight, Casey and I indulged in such delightfulness at Tequilaz, a foreigner-owned Mexican restaurant. It is so, so good.













Bonus picture: Casey and I went to a stationary store called Art Box afterwards and I found a hat that I'm really considering purchasing! It says "Okay the Paradise." I don't know why but it's really funny to me.


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Opening a Happy Package!

One of my friends from Colorado sent me a package that I received today! It had glorious cookie butter, peanut butter m&m's, and flamin' hot cheetos. Mmmm









Friday, August 22, 2014

First Mail from Home

Yesterday I received mail for the first time here in Korea! I got a wonderful letter from my dad and to make things even better, I got a package from him TODAY!


It's mostly things I took out of my luggage last minute, on the morning I left. My mom also threw in some stickers for my students.

Thank you, mom and dad!

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

My Great-Grandmother's Birthday

Today is my sweet Great-Grandmother Howell's 102nd birthday. Even though I cannot be with my family to celebrate, know that I love you all. Let's celebrate by having a happy day! 

Life is beautiful and precious, always cherish it.

Together on her 100th birthday in Hawthorne, Nevada

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I was nominated by Lindsey Lee to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! This is to raise awareness for ALS, a brain and spinal cord disease. You can donate money or get more information here. I nominate Carol Joy Atwater, Spencer Fuller, Julie Richards, Pam Sommerville, and Erica Garner to participate. They have 24 hours to complete the challenge or else they must donate money to the ALS Association. I plan on donating even though I did the challenge. It may seem counter-intuitive to have charity donation be a punishment or way to opt out but the main focus is raising awareness AND the ALS Association has been receiving increasing donations thanks to this viral challenge. Before this challenge I did not know the term "ALS" but now I am happy to be aware of this disease many people struggle with.


Monday, August 18, 2014

YSA Conference in Korea

This past weekend was so, so wonderful! I attended an LDS Young Single Adult conference. It was the best weekend I've had over these past two months of living in Korea. At first I was nervous, not knowing what to expect. But it was just what I needed. For any of my friends unfamiliar with the LDS church, this was like a retreat for men and women ages 18-30. We have religious seminars, eat food, and goof around usually.

I think most of my pictures are in this post but I keep finding more on facebook so I have a photobucket album I keep adding pictures to. Click here to see the album!

On Friday morning, I traveled from Gwangju north towards Taean on a bus with other YSA members in my area. Friday was Korea's independence day so luckily I didn't have work--yay! A girl from my ward, Seungeun was so sweet to me the whole time! She translated for me, made sure I understood what was happening, and encouraged me to learn many Korean words and phrases.



One of the first things we did was take our bags to our rooms in the hostel we stayed at. When we opened our door, I freaked out for a minute because I walked in with my group of 7 other girls and just saw a small, hard floor. I was worried because I thought maybe I was supposed to bring bedding--there were no beds!! I relaxed when I saw one of the girls open a wardrobe full of blankets and pillows!
 
 

The next thing we did was an ice breaker activity! I was of course nervous since I don't know much Korean. Everyone was so patient with me though AND sooo many people spoke English very well. Many of them know English well from serving a mission or attending school in the States. It was fantastic!

The theme for Friday was dating and marriage. We were paired into couples and pretending to be engaged, planning and budgeting a mock wedding, listening to seminars about successful marriage, etc. We played the game where your partner has to identify you by only seeing one part of you (foot, hand, etc). Some people pointed out that my partner and I had an advantage because I'm white. True as that is, he didn't guess my hand correctly! I'm white but some Korean girls are paler than me...




The food I ate was especially delicious. I spent three days eating nothing but Korean food and I loved it. Every meal was rice, an assortment of side dishes, and soup. Yes, even breakfast. The first breakfast was difficult and I really wanted to eat french toast instead of rice. But now that I'm home, I miss it already!


Also, both nights we had a "night snack." At YSA conferences in the States we do this too but usually it's like fruit snacks and goldfish crackers or something. Well, in Korea they ordered fried chicken at midnight hahaha. The second night we had pizza. Koreans don't merely "snack," people.

Anyway, on Friday night I got the worst night's sleep ever! Maybe it was the fact that we didn't get to bed until 2:30...or because I had just pigged out on fried chicken...or because I was in a strange new place...more than likely it was simply the rock hard floor! All I had was a comforter-like blanket to sleep on and a tiny pillow and another blanket to cover me. It was awful haha.

The theme for Saturday was LDS Temples. We had some great seminars. Seungeun translated for me! This was the day we played on the beach and IN THE OCEAN. I'd never really played in the ocean before and I was actually really nervous right before going in--the ocean is kind of scary! We played some fun games in the water.


After getting cleaned up, we had a DANCE!! LDS conferences always have a dance. Always. But here's the thing: Korean LDS dances are sooo different from dances in the States. Dances in the States almost have a "club" feel, right? The lights are down, pop music is blaring, and everyone free-styles. Oh, and most of the YSA dances I went to, we wore casual clothes.

Welllll in Korea we were taught moves for dances. Yeah, we did the cha cha and waltzed and dressed nicely. No free-style dancing. And I could actually see the faces of the guys I was dancing with and hear them--that doesn't happen at dances in America! As much as I enjoy dances in Colorado, it was a nice change.

On Sunday we had testimony sacrament meeting before heading home. And of course we took plenty of group pictures.






On the way home we went to a rest stop for a snack. It was strange to see everyone buying stuff on a Sunday... Seungeun and I got a treat that I can't remember the name of. They are little hot dogs and rice cakes called tteok. The sauce on them was super tasty. We also got walnut cookies. They don't have walnut in them but they look like walnuts and are filled with red bean. I didn't get a picture of the actual cookie pastry but I have a video showing how the vendor's machine made them. You can see it pop out a couple at the very end of the video.








When I got home it was nice to lay down at take everything in. I wish I could fully express to you all how incredible this weekend was for me. I made many new LDS friends, which means a lot to me. I felt so spiritually uplifted. I'm not positive whether I will stay in Korea longer than a year but I have made a note in my heart to look back and remember this weekend when I make that decision months from now.

Love you all. As always, thanks for reading!


Music I listened to while writing this post: Today's Alternative Radio Pandora station