A long-term state of mind.

I think it's time for another countdown post.  We will officially be home in only 102 days!  102 days, can you believe it?!  Just yesterday I was thinking about coming home and the actual day that we will be leaving Korea and on the plane to LA.  I got butterflies in my stomach.  It was weird because I also was remembering when we left Spain and my feelings at that time.  When I left Spain, I was excited to come home (especially since it was the holidays!) and to see my family, but it was also bittersweet.  We both fell in love with everything about Spain.  The fact that we were so passionate about learning Spanish also made leaving the country hard because I knew I may never have the opportunity again to be fully immersed in a Spanish speaking culture.  Plus, I got to see Doug everyday in Spain, which was way better than a few times a month like during the school year.  And I was returning to UCLA, which was a lot more difficult than my studies in Granada.  Maybe something had to do with that, too ;)

But leaving Korea will be a lot different.  And that feeling doesn't mean I don't like it here-I know I will have moments when I miss Korea-but the circumstance is just completely different.  I think because so much has changed in our lives in this past year and we are excited to share that with our family and friends.  Maybe it is also because returning home means starting an exciting new chapter in our lives rather than returning back into our routines.  I feel like we will officially be starting our life together: getting an apartment, unpacking our stuff, decorating, getting a car, etc.  This past year (more like the past five years with school and moving around so much) has felt so temporary and being in a long-term place sounds so refreshing. I can't wait to actually live in a place for more than two years.  It'll be so exciting coming home after our first year of marriage and getting to start an awesome second year together with our families and friends so close by...

102 more days!!

Pippa's first hike.

Last weekend, we took Pippa to Mt. Taejosan for her very first hike.  At first, I was worried that the hike would be too strenuous for her.  I mean, it's not the hardest hike in the world, but it is very steep at some areas.  Well, we found out hiking is no problem for the Pippsta.  Maybe some parts of the hike were too strenuous for me (like when I had to practically crawl down a section due to it's steepness so I didn't tumble right on down the mountainside), but she bounced around that mountain like she'd been doing it her whole life.  Here are some of the highlights from our hike:

The bus driver wouldn't let us on without Pippa in a carrier, so we quickly tucked her inside our backpack.  I think she liked hanging out in there and she definitely had some admirers on the bus. 

Since the celebration for Buddha's birthday is next weekend, the lake and area around the temple on Mt. Taejosan was decoration with paper lanterns.

Everything is so green in Korea right now! I love it.

Here she is trying to steal a kiss from Doug.

These are some of the rock formations that are so common when hiking in Korea.  A friend told me that her co-worker said that they do it to be part of a journey together.  As you add your rock to the stack, you add your story to the journey, connecting yourself to the others who have passed that way.

After the hike we relaxed and enjoyed the temple decorations.  More people than usual were at the temple this weekend due to the holiday festivities.  Usually, it's pretty peaceful.

 If she isn't a model dog, than I don't know what is.  I'm  mean this amount of adorableness takes it to the next level.

This picture is way too cute for words.

We saw some of the very last remains of the cherry blossoms.  They have all completely fallen off the trees in Korea now and I haven't seen any blossoms scattered on the ground for a while.  Maybe a month ago, these pretty pink blossoms were everywhere.

We also discovered that Pippa loves apples.  She enjoyed taking a little apple snack break with us halfway through the hike.  

Happy brithday, Mom!

 

Happy (late) birthday to my wonderful mother. I miss you lots and hope you have a very special day today celebrating your birthday.  As you would say, I love you oodles of Korean noodles.

As promised...

Finally, here are our pictures from our Suwon trip.  I hope you enjoy!

 Here we are at the start of the day.  We still have energy and we are completely oblivious to the fact that we are about to walk the length of the city...like three times.

 First stop, lunch!  We ate at a little restaurant that is famous for it's mandu-aka dumplings.  Even though there is meat in the dumplings, I gave them a try.  I must say they were pretty delicious.  And I got to sit across from this handsome guy.. I'm a lucky girl :)

 

Here is our lunch.  I pretty much always order bibimbap when we eat Korean food (if I have the option).  It is easily made vegetarian if it isn't already vegetarian, it's filling, and it's fresh and healthy.  It never disappoints.  

 After lunch we headed towards the entrance of the fortress to start our tour.  Here, the boys, have already bought ice cream.  It seemed like these three bought some sort of snack every time we stopped.  Il Joon (left) and Yumin (right) are two of my very favorite students.  They're best friends and are precious. 

Here is a typical scene in any Korean park on a beautiful day.  A group of older men, called ajeoshis, or women, called ajummas, sitting around playing games, eating, drinking, and talking.  

 One view of the lovely fortress wall.  

 Typical temple and fortress paintings.

 Fortress flags that marked the defensive look-out places along the wall. 

Four of my third grade girls: Jenny, Lucy, Alice and Emma.  I love these girls.

 Here we are walking up to the highest point along the wall.  This was just the start of it. After this picture, some of the students seriously started to lag behind. 

 Isn't Korea beautiful?

 One of the offensive towers looking over Suwon.

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 The dragon train.  I was praying that we would take this train down the mountain after we walked to the top.  I was wrong.

We made it!  It was such a beautiful day spent with the great company of my students, my co-teacher, and Doug.

Sunday in Suwon.

This Sunday, Doug and I went on a trip to Suwon with one of my co-teachers and 13 of my students.  Normally, I wouldn't be too excited about going on a field trip over the weekend.  Come Friday I am in dire need to not see an energetic, hormone-ridden teenager for at least 48 hours.  But, these students are pretty much my all time favorites, so I was pretty excited to get to spend the day with them.

I was also really looking forward to it because the students researched different parts of Suwon and acted as our travel guides throughout the trip.  They were the cutest travel guides ever. Period.  My co-teacher, Jasmine, even brought a little clip-on mic for them to wear as they acted as the travel guide.  Also, Doug was invited to go! So, instead of spending our Sundays apart, he got to come and spend the day with me and get to know my favorite students.  And of course, I love seeing how middle school girls act around Doug.  They get really excited and nervous to talk to him and it's so funny to watch.  I'm almost positive that my students were more excited for Doug to come on the trip than they were for me.

So, we went to Suwon, which is about forty-five minutes north of Cheonan by train.  Both Doug and I were really surprised to see how beautiful it was.  Since Korea is such a small country, a lot of the cities and provinces look similar and have the same attractions (lots of temples, mountains, street food and shopping).  But, Suwon is unique because it has the Hwaseong fortress with a 5km wall around it.  We ate a Korean lunch together of bibimbap, noodles, and dumplings and then walked along the wall stopping at different points to listen to our adorable tour guides.

What I didn't realize was that we would be walking the whole wall, which included going to the top of a small mountain.  I wore flats that day.  The flats aren't uncomfortable or anything, but they definitely are not Hwaseong fortress wall walking shoes.  Bad decision on my part.  At one point, one student said to, "Miss Kaitlin, your shoes, so hard."  My interpretation of that was "Miss Kaitlin, why are you wearing those shoes? You must be in pain." And yes, it was slightly painful.  But, even the lack of support from my flats couldn't ruin the day for me.

The weather couldn't have been better that day and we were able to get some amazing views of the city by walking to the highest fortress.  Doug and I want to go back soon to do some exploring of our own.  We got some really good pictures of the day, too.  Stay posted, I'll share them soon!

Meet....

Pippa!  I know many of you know already, but we got a new dog.  After some serious consideration, Doug and I decided that the best thing for us deal with the pain of losing Yeppi was to open our hearts to a new dog.  We will always miss Yeppi and she we always hold a very special place in our hearts, but we needed something else to love to distract us from the emptiness that we felt.  We ended up going to a shelter in Pyeongtaek, which is about twenty minutes north of us on the subway.  

When we got to the shelter, a woman took us to a room with about 30 available dogs.  They were all small dogs and there were several Yorkies, Malteses, black Poodles, and mixed breeds.  We weren't able to get any of the dogs out and play with them before making our decision, so we took some time trying to get to know the dogs through the cages.  We both knew that we wanted a dog that didn't bark, so we narrowed it down to the two cages that had quiet dogs.  I was trying to decide between Pippa and the little Yorkie or Maltese in the pictures below.  I asked Doug what he thought and he said he wanted Pippa. Since Doug was the first one to see a spark in Yeppi, I knew he knew what he was doing when picking out a sweet, lovable, amazing dog. 

Disclaimer: The pics for this post aren't that great because they were taken on our phones and the dogs were moving so fast :) 

She got Pippa out for us and brought her into the shed/office where she worked.  We filled out some paperwork and that was that.  We didn't even have to pay a fee to take her home.  I was shocked at how simple it was.  We basically pointed to the dog we wanted and took her home.  She wouldn't stop moving; she was so excited to get out of that cage and come home with us!

She was a little fidgety on the subway.  Doug and I joked that she is like a baby because we couldn't sit down but instead had to stand up and gently rock to keep her settled!  Now, she is much calmer so it must have been all the excitement of that day.  She is settling in so nicely after spending a little over a week with us.  She is so curious and loves just watching our every movement. Also, she is a great snuggler.

  

I think we are going to need to work on her "acting like a lady" skills since this is her favorite was to relax :) I think she would've gotten along good with her sister, she liked to lay like that too...

Time flies.

The official countdown to home has begun!  Only 4 months and 1 day left till we fly home. We have the tickets booked and everything.  I look forward in my calender and know that these months will fly by.  I can't even believe how fast these past 8 months have gone.  This is not to say that we aren't enjoying Korea right now.  We definitely are!  The warm spring weather, colorful, lush landscape, and new friendships have completely taken away the winter blues.  But, we still can't help but to be excited about returning home to beautiful California and seeing our families and friends again.

I mean, who couldn't resist these precious faces?!  Seriously, cutest boys ever. I am constantly looking at their pictures on my phone to keep me from missing them too much (though it may just make me miss them more!).