Jaeyoun's First Attempt At Homemade Kimbap

She did great and this was her first attempt. I was really impressed. She said she had seen her mother make it a few times. The tuna was my favorite. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, which we spent with Billie and Alex eating kimbap and just generally being lazy.

Daniel's Birthday Party

Daniel's Birthday and Singing Room

This Makes Me Angry

Translation of the green sign.
Give notice of Withdrawal
Myung -bak Resign


I just found these via Naver. I was not going to say anything else about the meat protest, but I hate when priest get involved in politics. I shouldn't say that I hate when they get involved in politics, but more when they march with a crucifix and in full vestments, it sends a message that the whole Catholic church is wanting the president of Korea out of office. The image that makes me sick is the lead guy carrying the protest sign and the crucifix. I got to think about this a little more, but I still think that this is over the line.

**Edit**

At least The Korean Herald editorial staff feels the same way I do. Well, may not as strong, but still it is a step in the right direction. I can't link directly to the article, but it is named Priest's Actions.

**Edit #2**
GI Korea over at ROK Drop provides some background on why the priests were protesting in this post about moral cover. I know that the priest looked familiar. I just couldn't place his face. I thought for a second maybe he presided over a mass I attended.

Changes, An Important Update

The last two weeks have been a blur. I have been handling my regular workload and been working on some serious paperwork. I have traveled twice to Seoul on Friday mornings to visit the American embassy*. Jaeyoun and I are now officially/legally married. We got engaged during our vacation in North America. Soon after that, we started discussing what kind of wedding we both wanted. I was all in favor of having a Korean ceremony and another one in the Catholic church back home. For a few months, the plan was to have both, but Jaeyoun decided that we could save a lot of money by only having one. We decided to hold the ceremony in November of 2009 in my home parish church. . We are planning to move back to Mississippi and start graduate school at that time. Basically, now we are trying to save up as much money as possible, so that we will not have to work for the first couple of years of graduate school**. We also wanted to have her come into the states on a immigrant or permanent visa and not have to worry about things at the last minute. I also wanted the opportunity to teach some extra classes, i.e, legal private lessons. For these reasons, we went ahead and signed all of the paperwork to make us legally married. And of course we are madly in love and were ready to make the promise legal!!

Our parents have been great. My parents will arrive in Korea next month for a a week and half visit, during which we will travel to Jeju, so that they can meet Jaeyoun's parents. The really made Jaeyoun feel like a part of the family when we visted last year. Her parents have been awesome as well and have really taken me into the family. There is still a huge language barrier between myself and my new parents-in-laws, but I am studying hard everyday and trying to overcome my diffiuculties in learning a new language. I have been here for almost 3 years and honestly I should speak more Korean than I do. I pretty much didn't study for the first 2 years and have only really been studying hard for the past 6 months. I could kick myself for the vast amount of time that I wasted in learning Korean.

We are looking at spending 5-7 years in America before coming back to Korea. The plan as of now is for Jaeyoun to get her M.A. in Math and then to start working on a Ph.D and I will be working on my M.A. in Teaching Languages and hopefully will start working on Ph.D in Linguistics later.

We have almost a year and half to get alot of things done. We both have to take the GRE and Jaeyoun will have to take the TOEFL test. My mother, who works for the Church, will help with all of the wedding plans. It will be interesting to see how many members of Jaeyoun's family make the trip to Mississippi for the wedding***.

The next few weeks will be spent getting the apartment ready for my parent's visit. We will also be trying to figure out what we will do while they are in Korea. I have a list started, but there is so much that I want them to see/do. We will spend a couple of days in Jeju and then after that the schedule is wide open. We do have to make a trip to one of the large markets to have my parents fitted for their Hanboks. We will take a few pictures in Mississippi all decked out in the Korean traditional clothing before the wedding. I really am interested to see how my father handles the food. I think my mother will love all the seafood and spicey food, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed about my dad. I can't wait to show them all of things that I have written about in emails/blogs and spoken about on the phone. My dad is super excited about visiting Jeju and I think that mom will love all the shopping.

I also walked into a new apartment yesterday. Jaeyoun had the day off and rearranged the whole apartment. It looks great and I finally have a real desk where I can study Korean.

I have rambled on for long enough and there is still so much I need to write about, but it will have to wait for another day. I keeping promising myself that I will be better about posting, but we will see.






*I also wanted to note that the staff at the American embassy was great and very helpful. They answered all of my questions and everything went smoothly. It helped that I had filled out all of the paperwork correctly before we arrived. They even commented that most people don't follow the instructions on the website. I hope that they are as accommodating when we apply for Jaeyoun's visa.

** We also want to have enough money to buy a car and to furnish an apartment when we arrive. We are also going to need to buy 2 new computers. My computer is 3 years old, slow and the Caps Lock button has broken off.

*** I can't wait to see how her parents and other family members take to Mississippi. I don't think they are going to enjoy the food. I am sure ,after a couple of meals of fried catfish/cornbread/grease and other fried goodness, they will be asking for some kimchi.

Fast Dial and other news.

I need to send thanks to A Geek in Korea for this post. I had seen Fast Dial on a list of add-ons that I had saved for later. I read his review and decided that I would go on and download it. I can't be happier. I am already in the habit of opening up blank tabs and this just make it a lot easier. Here is a screen shot of what it looks like.









I have been busy lately and have not updated in awhile. I have some pretty big news to report and will give a full update after I finish some last bit of business in Seoul on Friday!

Firefox 3.0

I just updated Firefox. If you haven't tried PicLens you should. Here is a screen shot! I think it may be one of those add-ons that you get tired of after awhile, but it looks great. It also works great with picassa!

Tomorrow

Jaeyoun and I are heading to the embassy and doing a little paper-work!

I'm addicted to mad cow

drama!

I am a regular reader of about 20 expat blogs and all of the English language Korean newspapers(I know that they are not the best source, but my Korean is too weak to read the Korean). I really don't know how this happened, but if I see anything about mad cow, I have to stop and read it. This has been really frustrating lately as the number of these articles as increased dramatically.

For instance check out this list from the Marmot's Hole: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Then you can check out Korea Beat: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Expat Jane is on the fun too. You can also check out A View From The Fence: here and here.
The Joshing Gnome got into the fray here, here, and here. Zen Kimchi didn't want to be left out as shown here, and here. Brian in Jeollanam-do jumped into the scrap here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The Metropolitician wrote here,and here. He and Jennifer commented at Bomb English. ROK Drop dropped in here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. USINKOREA writes here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Roboseyo joined the mix here, here, here, and here. The Party Pooper posted here. Gord Sellar wrote here, and here. A Geek in Korea posted here. Seoul Searcher also threw in his two cents worth here and here. The Western Confucian blogged about it too. They are even protesting in London. That's from London Korean Links. . Big Thoughts posted here and here. I Love Koreans wrote here, here, here and here. Ask a Korean got involved here. Kotaji has a couple of posts here and here. I even posted a little bit here and here.

If you have blogged about this and I didn't list you, please shoot me an email.

If you can stomach the cesspool of Dave's ESL Cafe you can read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

You can also read the KoreanBridge forum too.

You can move on over to YouTube watch here(English), here(English), here, here, here(English), here(English)(this is an apology for making fun of eating dogs), here and here.

You can read more at The Korean Herald, The Digital Chosun, The Korean Times, The Seoul Times, KBS News, and Oh My News.

The New York Times even got in on the madness. Along with CNN,

You can then check out the MAD COW BLOG run by an American lawyer. I haven't had time to read the whole thing, but something tells me it is not just for information. Wait, he is trolling for clients. Here is his official website. His firm specializes in food poisoning.

You can then check out MICHINSO.net. Oops that is a bar. I wonder if he is doing any business these days?

Somehow, I don't think this show with an English teacher named Michinso would still be on the air these days in Korea.

I for one will be happy when I can sit down with a nice rib eye steak, scan the internet and not see anything about mad or crazy cows.

** Edit CNBC and FOX News joined the fray.

Korean Folk Village Performers

A short video I took. I think that quality was lowered tremendously when I uploaded it.

Folk Village Part 2

I also added a large number of pictures to my Picasa gallery. You can click my pictures on the left-hand side to see the rest!

Youngin Folk Village

I finally made it out to the folk village in Youngin. Honestly, I was hoping that it was going to rain, because I really wanted to go to COEX. It was crowded, but the performances were great and I had some great food. The lines for the food houses were extremely long though. I had to wait about 30 min. for my kimche jiggae. These are pics of the performers on the see-saw and of the tradional band. I will have to take my parents here when they arrive in July!

Protest Photos

I found these online after looking around for some decent photos of the protests. My parents are coming in July and I just wanted to show them what is going on in Seoul>

Check out the site for a few more larger photos!

Stare Down!!!

I borrowed this from the Digital Chosun. The new general of U.S. Forces Korea visited Panmunjom village on the DMZ. That would be a North Korea solider starring down the newly in charge General Walter L. Sharp.

Teachers Send Their Students Home!

Just read this in the Korean Times

More than 800 teachers, mobilized by the education authorities, attempted to send home their students participating in the rally against the U.S. beef imports at Cheonggye Plaza, Saturday.

The teachers were there to ``guide'' the participating students to go home at the instruction of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. The education office said students could get hurt in the crowd if they are involved in a clash with police.

I like the word guide in quotes. I am not really sure what exactly that means though.

Lazy Sunday

I just got back from watching a one man protest near my apartment. Apparently, a customer at a restaurant near my house had a problem and decided to destroy everyone of their plastic chairs outside. With all of the bad weather we have been having, I thought the noise was coming from transformers exploding, but it was only him smashing the chairs into little bits. He wasn't happy with just breaking them. Oh yeah, this was in the middle of the pouring rain too. The police finally showed up and now all the excitement is over.

In other news, my package from my mother finally arrived and it was filled with some great things. I have fully supply of taco seasoning and Chex mix and stickers for my kids. She also sent me a new razor and some blades. The best were the Yankee candles.

Shrimp and Beer

I didn't have any crab boil, so I had to make my own.

I couldn't live in Korea without Tony's

The finished product.

Jaeyoun enjoying them; notice the gloves!

If you visit this blog regularly, you have seen that I have not been that diligent in posting. I was spending too much time here and actually was spending too much time on the internet itself. I found myself being drug into hours of looking at Korean blogs and basically wasting a lot of time. In the last few weeks, I have fallen in love with google reader and now use it to read all of my favorite blogs. This has cut down a considerable portion of my time on the net. I have also been trying to convert more of my free time into study time. I am still working on the Sogang series and am a few chapters into 1B. I also picked up a couple of other books to use for supplements and review.


I really can't believe that it is already May. My parents are coming in late July, so my dad and I have been busy trying to find the perfect flight for them. We will be spending most of their visit in the Suwon/Seoul area, but will spend a couple of days on Jeju, so that they can meet Jaeyoun's parents. Jaeyoun will be coming to Jeju for the first day, but will have to leave early the next day due to work obligations. Her departure will leave me without a translator and her father has already announced that I have 2 months to study and that I can translate anything he needs to say to my parents.(If you know my Korean level, you know how funny that is) This has been one of the main motivators for studying. Every time I think I am going to surprise him with my improvement, he stumps me on the phone with something that I know, but that is phrased in a different way. 아이구.

I also found a couple of videos on youtube that really want to make me study harder. I am regular reader of his blog as well.

Children's Day!

Near Seoul City Hall, The restored Cheonggyecheon creek in Seoul. I left Dongtan with one of our new teachers, Alex, and we headed into Seoul for the day. I didn't think it was going to be this crowded. We headed for Gangnam first and then over to Seoul City Hall. We also ran into Roxy, who I haven't seen in a long time. I also have a great story to tell about the kid who tried to bite me on the subway!(Look for that in a later post!)

Mikeal's Mom came to visit and we went out for dinner and drinks. I don't have any good pictures though and will try and get some tonight when we all have dinner again.

English Park Part II

One of the missions that the children had to complete.

I have no idea who they were supposed to be.

If you speak any Korea, you will know why this was funny.

Dinner for working overtime.

English Park Part I

In The Dog House

Picked this from some Korean user submitted site.