This is my class. The girl in the front on the left hates to smile for pictures. They took a gazillion pictures that day, and she didn't smile for any of them. Before this picture, I took her aside and told her how beautiful her smile is, and that I really wanted her to smile for this picture. "Wont you just do it this once for Stacie Teacher?" I was so excited when I saw the picture and she was actually smiling!

I didn't post last week because it had been such a horrible week and I didn't want to tell anyone about any of it. Since then, things have been going much better. I am going to the church cafe on Wednesdays by myself now, which actually ended up being a good thing. I have gotten to know a lot of people from there. There is a real church that is associated with the cafe, but it is a long ways away and there is no easy bus route to get there. Last Wednesday I was told that there is a shuttle that goes from the cafe to the Church on Sunday morning! I went this morning and it is a good place. I met a lot more people, and hope that I continue going. Today the person driving the shuttle had to stay for extra activities a few hours after the service. I was showed where to get a bus and how to get home. It ended up taking 2 hours. Hopefully I can take the shuttle back again on most days.

I went hiking with a guy from church and his friend on Saturday. It was absolutely beautiful. The leaves are at the peak of color. Of course, I forgot my camera. Travis's friend (Travis is the guy from Church) is 76 years old. We hiked in the mountains for 5 hours, and he kept up like he was a young whippersnapper. I was very impressed.

Next Friday we will have our Halloween Event Day at school. All of the kids will be dressed up, I will be dressed up, and hopefully I will get a lot of pictures.

I appreciate all the messages from home. They really help when I am feeling lonely. Love and miss you all.

I was back at school for four days this week. I also started my Korean classes. My new Korean name is 이슬비 (Isil-bi). The first couple of weeks we are only learning the Korean Hengal symbols. This is the easy part, because I already taught them to myself. I'm not sure how it's going to go once we start getting heavily into vocabulary I probably only know about 15 words right now, and it has taken me a long time to learn them.

Namsangol Hanok Folk Village

Last weekend I went to Namsangol Hanok Folk Village. They have many traditional buildings that are fully furnished. The top two pictures are some of the furnishings. Since I went on Chusok, there were a ton of activities going on. All of the little kids were dressed up in their Hambaks. The picture on the left is a girl using a rope swing. The sign below is the History of the rope swing. Basically the rope swing was used by girls because they were not allowed to leave home, but the swing allowed them to see over the walls around their property.

These kids are helping to make rice balls. I’m not sure how they get this dough stuff from rice. I think that you cook it once, and then boil it again. It turns into this big ball, and they use these big hammers to pound it out.

North Seoul Tower

While at Hanok Village, I met a teacher from another part of Seoul who was also there by herself. We ended up walking up to North Seoul Tower together. It is on top of a huge hill. You can either walk up a gazillion stairs, take a cable car, or a bus. Of course, I chose the stairs. When you get to the top, there are these “lock trees” that people have left there locks on. There are also locks covering the fences everywhere. There have to be at least a million locks. I had to wait about an hour to go to the top of the tower, but it was definitely worth that and the 7000 won that I paid. All around the tower, the windows show how far away cities in that direction are. The views are absolutely breathtaking.

Chusok Break

We have a five day break over Chusok, the Korean harvest celebration. There was a celebration at school on Wednesday where we all wore hamboks, played Korean games, made Korean toys, and made Korean foods. Of corse, my camera ran out of batteries halfway through the day. Hopefully I will be able to get copies of the pictures the school took. Once I have those, then you can see me wearing my hambok. For now, I just have a few of my kids.

The top left picture is my class. There are eight students, six girls and two boys. They all looked so cute all dressed up that day. The top right picture is the kids making SongPyon, traditional rice cakes. This is something that families do together when they gather for Chusok. The picture on the left is the kids playing Kangkangsulrae, which is kind of like playing London Bridge is Falling Down.

All of the teachers were given a gift set for Chusok. A normal gift set consists of a lot of toothpaste, and soaps. I think that I am set for toothpaste until next Chusok when we get another set.

(This is the toothpaste) Thank goodness...... my teeth never were very good at math.

Over the break, I have had the oportunity to explore Seoul. The first place that I went was 창덕궁 (Changdeokgung palace and secret garden). In order to go in, you have to be on a tour. They have three English tours a day, and I happen to walk in the moment that one of them started. It was an hour and a half tour, and it only cost 3000 won, or about $2.40. The palace and history behind it is amazing.

I can't post all of my pictures, so I am going to pick and choose some. This is the throne room and the throne. The building looks the same on the outside as most of the other buildings in the complex. The picture on the left is under the awning. The spikes there are to keep the birds from building nests.

A couple of the buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1917. Now they have a fire hydrant in the middle of this historical complex. It probably would have come in handy ninety years ago, but it just looks silly now.

At the very end of the tour, there was a 750 year old tree. What I saw was not exactly what I was expecting. In minnesota, usually the older the tree, the taller it is. A 750 year old tree? I was expecting it to be hundreds of feet tall. This tree was maybe 25 feet tall.

I will tell you about more of my adventures in my next posts. Love you all. I am really missing my family and friends over the holidays here when everyone else is with loved ones.