Lunar New Year: Burning Festival 2013

Every year on the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar and the first full moon of lunar new year Korea holds a festival to celebrate. On this day, there are many traditions and customs performed to ward off misfortune and to wish for a bountiful new year. In the morning, people will wish for good health and fortune by cracking the shell of a peanut or walnut with their teeth. By night, Koreans like to share traditional foods with their neighbors and family.

When the moon rises into the sky (around 4:30pm) "Burning Daljip" happens. Diljip is a huge pile of straw and twigs. The burning of Diljip is a tradition to ward off misfortune and bring good luck. Then they will Jisin-balgi, the stomping on the ground to comfort the god of the earth.

There is also a tradition called "deowipalgi" which means "selling of heat". It usually involves a friend or family member by calling his or her name before sunrise. If they respond, they are then told "Buy my heat." Then the buyer is then responsible for absorbing all the heat the seller would have otherwise received in the coming summer.


                                                     

Sending my wish into the fire.

The South Korean President 

In Busan alone, there was 6 Daljip (huge fires) around the city. Bobby, a few friends, and I decided to attend the event at one of our favorite beaches. 

Here is a video of the fire.

Jestine's 24th Birthday

My birthday morning started out perfect. I woke up to Bobby by my side singing me happy birthday, and even got to sleep in more while he went to the gym. Then, since I had the apartment to myself, I prepared chips and spicy salsa with chocolate milk (my guilty pleasures) and watched the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy. 

A little while later, I got a Facetime call from Bobby's parents and one of my best friends from back home. It was a wonderful surprise. Once Bobby got home, we got ready to meet up with some friends to head to dinner and drinks. We decided to check out a new Brazilian BBQ buffet in Haeundae called Mercado.

It was a fabulous restaurant. We got all different kinds of quality beef and chicken, which is all hard to come by at a reasonable price in Korea. The servers went back and forth from the rotisserie-esque oven pit (I clearly have no idea what its called) to give us 8 different types of meat. There was a buffet full of fruits, vegetables and side dishes. We all ate plenty of food, but not so much that we regretted it or wanted to go to bed. Afterward, we headed to a brewery in Seomyeon called Who? to drink micro-brewed hefeweizen (also hard to come by in Korea). It was a low key day with some good friends and the love of my life. It was the perfect 24th birthday.

What would you call this?

                                  

I tried chicken hearts for the first time...

I wish I could have spent my birthday with all my friends and family back home, but it turned out to be a wonderful day here in Korea. CHEERS from the other side of the world.

Gaegeum COREM-Video Tour

I feel like this has been a long time coming.

So without further adieu, enjoy a tour of our school.

High1 Snowboarding

We had a five day vacation this weekend for Lunar New Year. Since this was the weekend between both of our birthdays, we decided it would be a perfect weekend to treat ourselves to something new and exciting - snowboarding in Korea!

We found a posting for a big group event to go snowboarding at High1 Resort near Gangwon-do, Korea. Home of the 2018 Winter Olympics Halfpipe competition. It was a package deal including condo, shuttle bus, rentals (board, boots and clothes for like $10, CHEAP HUH?), and a two-day snowboarding pass (including night skiing). It was the perfect deal. So we purchased our tickets and couldn't wait for the weekend to start!

After a 4 hour bus ride we made it to the condo. That night we met our roommates, who were awesome people! They all lived near Daegu but were from South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland and Canada. So Saturday night we all joined around a hookah and enjoyed each others company.

The view from our condo of the mountain

Another view from our condo. The hot tub is to the right.

Since it was Lunar New Year the slopes were pretty empty.

Our friend, Jesse.

Bobby 

The slopes were littered with huge billboards and loud music.

Nothing is better than the hot tub after a long day of snowboarding.

What a fun weekend! 

The weather was perfect, the slopes were fun, and we met some amazing people.

(Partial photo credit to Jesse Bellamy and Kailey Sargeant)

Christmas Time in Busan

I knew before even moving to Korea that the holidays would be the hardest part. After all, family is what holiday's are about. However, because I had Bobby by my side and skype just a click away, the holidays turned out just fine.

We started off our Christmas festivities with something called Santacon. During this event,  people were encouraged to dress up like Santa and spread the holiday cheer. We sang Christmas carols and caused a ruckus with our friends.

Next up was our Christmas party at work, which was also the same day as the presidential elections in Korea. The party started out great. We all grabbed a Cass or Hite beer, cozeyed up on the heated floors of our school gym and started to eat all of the delicious Korean food in front of us. We then started our secret santa gift exchange, where we had to guess who got us a gift. I got a beautiful chuck green scarf (perfect for the freezing winter weather) and Bobby got a jar of ginseng for good health.

Shortly after our gift exchange ended, the news announced the next Korean President, a women- Park Geun-Hye, and the cheerful atmosphere of our party took a 180. It went from people laughing with joy, to crying about their country's future. Korea now has the first female president in all of Asia. She isn't just any women, she is the daughter of Korea's assassinated dictator, Park Chung-Hee, who was a dictator for eight years. Many of our Korean teachers told us that they needed to leave Korea because they could not live here with a president like "her".

Moving on.. For the whole month of December we cancelled our Kindergarten classes and just practiced for our Christmas English concert, which was on December 22. The Korean teachers were very stressed out about the short time limit for the kids to remember all their lines, dances, and songs. The kids were constantly yelled at and were under a lot of pressure from the Korean teachers (and probably their parents too). We practiced and practiced and the kids did GREAT, we should have a DVD of the performance soon!

Here is a photo of me with Bee class practicing our song "What's the Time Mr. Wolf?"

Olivia and Sophie watching other classes practicing their play.

Younger brother and sister, Micheal and Kemi.

The COREM foreigner teachers before our first act in the Kinder Concert.

During the month of December, we also received a few Christmas cards which warmed our hearts. The first one was from one of my Saturday class students. He wrote me a card and gave me a very nice hand cream. Check out how good his handwriting is!!

Next, we received a few SUPER CREATIVE cards from my soon to be, brother and sister in-law.

On Christmas Eve we went to our friends apartment for a white elephant party. Everyone brought a silly or serious gift and no one knew who brought it. We all sat on the warm floor and played Christmas games and had a great time.

Before we knew it, Christmas day was here and it didn't feel like Christmas at all. We woke up, made some hot tea, and then sat down and skyped our family. First up, Bobby's family. Every year Bobby's Dad does a secret santa and we made sure we were included this year, even though we were on the other side of the planet. We got a big box in the mail weeks before, and had to wait patiently to open it.

 We were thrilled when we opened our gift! It was perfect.

Alex and Amy (I am assuming mostly Amy) made these cute elf ornaments for us. I think these will look very cute on our future Christmas tree when we move back home.

After our Skype date with our families, we got ready for our Christmas day in Korea. We had Tyler and Natalie over for an early supper before we got bundled up and headed to the Nutcracker at the Busan Cinema Center. Bobby and I hadn't seen the Nutcracker since we were kids, but Ty and Natalie go every year in Seattle. The highlights of the performance was pelvic thrusting rats, break dancing, random traditional Korean dancing, disco balls, Korean audience members clapping at any chance they got, and each performer bowing way too many times than they deserved. We all agreed the performance was entertaining and we were glad we got to experience it.

Even though we missed our family more than they could know during this holiday season, we were blessed with many fun experiences that we will never forget. One down, one to go.

Merry Christmas!

-Jestine