The Walk to School

We have about a 15 minute (there and 20 back home, because it is all up hill) walk to school every day, and we see some spectacular sights! It is always interesting being a foreigner in another country, especially when you stick out so much. People say "hi" and giggle because that is the only word they know, and Krista gets waved at sometimes by kids on busses.....

Its always an adventure, and Korea never fails to surprise us! Enjoy some of the pictures of our walk to school.

This one is just down the street from our apt. It is a view of Suri San (We found out San means mountain). From Geumjeong Station take either the 2 or 3 bus up the hill and stop by Koklan Jungehakgyo.


Krista



Jon walking by the corner store, that everyone affectionately calls "The Sexy Lady" Store, not exactly sure why......



Here is a mechanic shop, there are 2 on our street!



The trucks always make me laugh, they are so little



The time that we walk to school, the other schools in the area are just getting out so we get flooded by young Koreans in their school uniforms.



Alot of students, they all have about the same outfit on, they only thing that really changes are their shoes! No, the students at our school don't have to wear uniforms.



A mountain shop on the corner, they have a sale everyday and we can't wait to get more mountain climbing gear.



More students



Waterfall on the corner



The bus coming to pick up students





2 girls buying some Ddeokbokki. Ddeobokki is sold everywhere it basically consists of rice cakes (not like western rice cakes, they are very doughy) in a very hot sauce. Most of the kids in school will come in with a little dixi cup full and eat it with a toothpick. You can tell who likes ddeokbokki because their fingertips will be red! A little dixi cup portion is 500W.



The big Catholic Church on our walk to school



This is a fire station, for emergencies in Korea dial 119! Our gym is located behind the fire station.



Side view of our gym, Dream Center



Crossing the street





Right where the orange sign is is the entrance to our school! Incase you are wondering, yes, they do drive scooters on the sidewalks sometimes!



We made it!

Saturday Surprise!

After climbing Mt. Suri-San for the second time this Saturday we decided to stick around the apartment for the majority of the afternoon. However, we did end up on our way to a local market to pick up a few veggies for supper. On our way to the market, we came across lots of tents and shops set up on the sidewalk. We took a look around and found everything we wanted to pick up and more and only about 4 blocks from home!

For about 9000W $9 we picked up 24 eggs, a bunch of bananas, a bag of garlic cloves, a package of mushrooms and 4 small packages of tiny mushroom heads with long stems.. mushroom sprouts or something.



The best find were the extendable walking sticks. We were thinking about trying to find some of these earlier in the day while hiking - everyone else seems to have one too. They were just 5000W $5 each!

Good ol' Home Cooking!

So being over here in Korea creates an adventure not only for ourselves, but also for our palates! Everything over here looks like a culinary creation straight from Top Chef (how many times have you eaten quail eggs?) but it doesn't always taste very good.

As you have seen with the pictures from E-mart, that shopping here is sometimes very difficult and just being able to see the food isn't the worst part! Reading labels and figuring out what the vegetables are, to where is the rice (you would think that it would be clearly marked seeing as everyone eats it all the time, but it isn't!) is a challenge and an adventure.

We are managing pretty well, and are trying all kinds of new vegetables (yes Jon is eating vegetables, but only select ones..) like the many varieties of mushrooms, bean sprouts and peppers. Warning if you do not like spicy food stay away!

Here are some of Krista's culinary creations, or see how many different ways you can make rice a main dish....any and all recipes are welcomed!

Here is one of our first meals, like our dishes and mixed matched glasses? The green bits are peppers and they are spicy, much more spicy than a jalapeno, 1 is enough to overpower the entire meal, I have learned to dice them up really fine and then sprinkle them in, then the flavor is evenly distributed.

Yum, this one is one of our favorites! Krista's variation of Spanish Rice with tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, chicken bullion, peppers, onions, garlic, ham and bean sprouts. We love our beans, they are the magical fruit!

The menu at Jackie Chan's restaurant in the COEX Mall. We had awesome dim sum!

The menu just down the street from out school. The food looks awesome and so realistic! The sushi here is called kimbap and it usually has ham in it or just rice and vegetables in it instead of raw fish. We haven't eaten here, but drool over the plates.

For Chusok we each got a Spam and Canola oil gift set, and have grown fond of Spam and eggs!



We will keep you posted on any and all other wacky food we try!

Hiking Up Mt. Suri-San - What a View!

On Wednesday, October 3, 2007 we summited our, Mount Everest. We were told that it was just over this over pass, and to take the path on the right..........which is right when the path diverges in every which direction?

We took the middle road, and at times seemed to carve our own path up Mt Suri-San.

We really need to learn Korean.....no clue what the signs ment, but we hiked on!

The way up was filled with dirt pathes, a resemblence of stairs, boulders and steep unforgiving rock .

I know it appears that the entire way had stairs, but we can assure you that it didn't. Some places were so steep that there was a rope railing to pull yourself up the rock face!

Almost to the top!

Sanbon, Gunpo-City, Gyeonggi-do Korea

"I'm the King of the World!" Jon exclaimed as we summited Mt. Suri-San.

We passed many people coming down off of the mountain, and many people passed us on their way up. Towards the top it was a struggle, and we were both a bit light headed. A very nice man gave us some Twix bars, and showed us where the best view atop Mt. Suri-San was and we enjoyed the view together.

We could see almost all of Sanbon, even E-Mart!

We can't wait to come back and take more pictures, hopefully on a sunny day!

Helicopter landing pad

There were many people picnicing on top of the mountain, most of the picnic baskets consisted of some kind of meal, and alot of beer! We couldn't believe the amount of little kids at the top, or on the way up! When we were going down, an easier path, we even saw a mother carrying a toddler on her back!!

Which way would you take? We definately took the long way up, and the short way down, the way down was just as scary as the way up!

Tokin' Turtle

Many people had brought up water jugs to fill them with this great mountain spring water.

Crossing back over the overpass

Thats our building over there!

View this video with caution!! Next time we'll take better photos at the right places and more (with less shake) video.