Strawberries and other fun stuff...

Saturday I went to the Nonsan strawberry festival and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that many strawberries in one day!

My friends and I met up at the train station around 2 and went straight to a farm to pick our own strawberries. Basically it was $10 for all you could eat strawberries plus a jar of homemade strawberry jam and homemade strawberry soap to take home! We literally spent 30 minutes picking and eating every strawberry in sight and once we were finally full we headed to the actual festival.

I’m always surprised at how organized these festivals are! There are food vendors, live entertainment, and cultural activities for as far as you can see. It’s like going to the state fair ever weekend! My friends and I tasted strawberry makoli, strawberry slushies, chocolate dipped strawberries, and strawberry cake! We actually got to decorate the cakes ourselves, which was a lot of fun… and very messy!

Once we never wanted to see a strawberry again we headed to Daejeon for the night. We took up an entire floor of motel rooms and then headed out for dinner and drinks. I love how easy it is to go from one city to the next without any plans, definitely one of the perks of Korea.

Today is Wednesday, so my day off. I decided that the haircut last week wasn’t enough and I wanted to try dying it! I went for all over blonde highlights and I think she actually did a really good job. Again, no appointment, just walked in and she sat me right down!

Here’s a picture of my new color:

These albums are the strawberry festival and another festival I went to just afterschool on Friday. Technically it was over but you could still go and walk the grounds, which were really pretty so Rosemarie and I did that on my way home!

Strawberry Festival

Wangin Festival

xox

Strawberry Nails

Today is the Nonsan Strawberry Festival so I decided to paint my nails like strawberries! Here's a preview, I'll post about the festival when I get back!

xox

Haircut and spring plans

So I got my first Korean haircut today! The dry winter really damaged my hair so it was in desperate need for a trim. I went to the Mokpo facebook page and found a hairdresser that speaks English and used my Wednesday to walk over and find the salon. Her shop is actually right across from Rose Street so it was really easy to find. I planned on going in to set up an appointment for next Wednesday but she sat me down as soon as I walked in! I told her I only wanted a trim to get rid of split ends and give my hair a little shape but it turned out a lot shorter than I wanted. It probably did need to be this short to actually get rid of all the split ends though so it’s good for my hair.

Anyways, I’m really excited for the next few weekends! I have so much planned I’m definitely going to need a break at the end of it all!

This Saturday I’m going to a strawberry festival with my friends and then the girls are going to go off to Daejeon for a girls’ night!

April 21^st I’m going to a bullfighting festival and touring some wine tunnels and then everyone is heading to Gumi for the night, which I’m excited about since I’ve never been.

April 26^th my school is giving me a day off to spend as a cultural day so Rosemarie and I are going to a tulip festival near Mokpo!

April 27^th I’m heading north for my DMZ/ bungee jumping weekend. I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot of TaLK teachers on this Adventure Korea trip!

May 5^th I’m going to Everland, Korea’s version of Disney, for my friend Ariee’s birthday.

Then some unknown weekend in May I’m going to Jeju for Jeollanam-do’s cultural trip. This means at least 1 day off that I don’t have to make up and an all expense paid 4-day vacation in “Korea’s Hawaii”.

Needless to say, I’m having fun in Korea.

xox

Skyped into the party

It's Easter Sunday my time and Saturday night in the States. Tonight the Marsh family is together in Virginia celebrating my Grandpa's birthday and thanks to technology I got to see it! I wish I could be there in person celebrating, because nothing beats a Marsh reunion, but since I can't I'm going to post some of the screen shots I took while I was Skyped in!

Miss you guys!! Love that I got to see you!!

I also got Skyped into the hotel after party!

xox

Spring in Mokpo

Today we are finally starting to feel some spring weather!! I’ve been feeling a little sick this past week, no doubt from cramming 30 teachers into 2 bedrooms for a weekend, but I just couldn’t stay in bed today!

Last night my friends and I went to see the Hunger Games, which was as amazing as everyone has been telling me. I had one friend who was disappointed that it wasn’t exactly like the book but I thought they did an amazing job at getting as many details as possible into 142 minutes! Also, when we left the theatre I thought it had been a normal hour and a half long movie so that definitely says something.

This morning I woke up and had planned a day in bed watching TV and relaxing but as soon as I looked outside I knew that wasn’t going to happen. It’s about 60 degrees and sunny and since lately it’s been nothing but rainy and cold I knew I had to go walk around. I left around noon and walked to Rose Street, the main shopping street. It’s called Rose Street because there is a path down the center of the street lined with trellis archways and apparently when it gets warmer they’ll be covered in roses. I’m determined to walk there at least once a week until the roses bloom because I hear it’s really beautiful. 

Here's a picture of Rose Street today:

Unfortunately, walking to Rose Street generally means I’m going to buy something and today was no exception. My first stop was to get socks. Korea has these adorable character socks and everyone here wears them. My kids get a kick out of me wearing them to school so I decided I needed to stock up. I picked out 10 pairs of socks ($1 each) and the lady selling them was so excited because I practically bought half her stock! Then I noticed she was also selling tank tops and I since I have to wear them under everything, so I don’t show any cleavage, I decided to buy a few of those as well. I only bought 2 ($8 each) but if they fit I’ll definitely go back to her for some more!

Then I headed to Dunken’ Donuts to get some lunch. I’m kind of addicted to these cheese bagels they have at Korean Dunken’ Donuts, they’re soft bread in the shape of a bagel but they’re hollow with cheese on top and a little in the hollow part. Next time I’ll try to remember to take a picture, and since I eat them every day before school I’ll have plenty of opportunities!

After Dunken’ I headed to a makeup shop called Tony Moly, which I believe they have in the US as well. A few weeks ago I got some colored eyeliner from the one in Gwangju and I liked it so much I went back for some more! I’m allergic to eye shadow, my eyes get really itchy and swollen and it leaves kind of a dry skin rash so when I found colored eyeliner that doesn’t affect my skin I was pretty excited! I have purple, pink, turquoise, black, and brown now and I’ve pretty much exhausted their color selection. I really love the pink though and I wear it on top of the other colors so next week on my trek to Rose Street I may pick up another one of those. Then I planned on going straight to Emart but of course another shop caught my eye and I ended up getting 4 skirts and 2 pairs of running shorts for $30.

After that I made myself go to the grocery store since I’m completely out of eggs and almost out of dumplings (my dinner almost every night). I splurged a little at the grocery store too but I figure since I’m staying in Mokpo this weekend I have a little extra money to spend. In addition to the mandoo (dumplings) and eggs I left with some camembert cheese, pepper jack cheese, and a bottle of Apothic Red wine (a favorite from home). Cheese and wine in Korea are pretty expensive, each cheese was around $7 and the wine was $17. In my mind, $30 for a wine and cheese night in is completely worth it!  

Now that I’m home and I’ve enjoyed the nice day outside, I think it’s time to catch up on some TV shows!

xox

Busan Pension House

This weekend my group of friends planned a trip to Busan, Korea’s second largest city. There were a little over 30 of us so we rented a “pension house”, which is basically just a rental home. We had 2 rooms, 1 giant bed, 1 bathroom, and a ton of fun!

I left my school at 4:00 on Friday and arrived at the house around 11:00. We went to a Mexican restaurant to grab some dinner since we had all been traveling and were starving by that time. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed so we snacked on some nachos and then headed back to the pension to meet up with everyone. Then we went to a nearby club and stayed out wayyyy too late. We ended up getting to sleep around 7:00 only to wake up at 9:00 the next morning!

On Saturday we started off with lunch because by the time all 30 of us had showered/woken up it was noon. We split up into groups and my group found an Irish pub with some amazing food! I had a burger, fries, and mashed potatoes and I will definitely be going back there next time I’m in Busan because it was delicious. Then we all headed to the beach to meet up with the other groups and after playing in the water/on the rocks by the ocean we decided to go to a Buddhist temple. It ended up being on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean and it was absolutely gorgeous. We walked around and relaxed on some rocks for a few hours and then headed back to the house. One of the girls who lives in Busan made us all dinner, rice and bulgolgi (beef in a sweet barbeque-like sauce). After that we had noraebong (karaoke) in the living room and then I went to bed because I had gotten all of 2 hours of sleep the night before and was so exhausted!

Sunday I woke up early and refreshed and a few of us went out for breakfast while everyone else was sleeping. We went to a Chinese restaurant and I had dumplings and omorice, which is fried rice covered in an egg. We went down to the beach to walk off our breakfast when we were done and then headed back to the pension to help clean up and pack. We were out of the house by noon but none of us were ready to leave this gorgeous city, or each other, so we decided to go to a fish market. I am not a fan of seafood but we ate lunch at a small restaurant in the market and they literally must have killed the fish moments before because it was the freshest fish I’ve ever had. We walked down rows and rows of streets selling fish, turtles, live octopus, eel, really any kind of seafood you can imagine! After walking around for a few hours carrying all of our luggage we decided it was time to split up and head home. It took me about 6 hours to get home and I arrived back around 11:00. Luckily today is my school’s anniversary so I have the day off!

I’m actually still in bed right now at 2pm so I should probably get up and start my day! Here are some pictures from my weekend:

Busan Pictures

xox