So I haven't posted for a while and quite a lot has happened, too much to remember and write. But here is a general recap of the highlights aka the things that I can remember off the top off my head.
Since my last blog post, I have...

- climbed two mountains, one (bukhansan by name) which made me actually fear for my life to the point of almost kissing the ground at the end of the trail and the other (considerably smaller moutain in incheon) of which was accompanied by the melodramatic musings of TW. His repetitive (and grammatically incorrect) exclamations merited an english lesson courtesy of yours truly. "No no no, TW. It's not "My die!" but rather "I am going to die." See, "I am going to die, We are going to die,  etc." TW begins getting creative: "We are going to the die!!!"

-I got incredibly sick with a cold. This was probably exacerbated by the fact that my family took me hiking on the first day when I began feeling terrible. Despite my not so subtle hinting that maybe we should reschedule our hiking plans... after two weeks of faucet nose and rattling coughs, I'm feeling somewhat better. However, considering that right now going to bed at seven seems appealing to me, I might not be 100 percent well quite yet.

- visited the big orthodox cathedral in seoul. I was hoping to attend the service for the protection of the Mother of God but unfortunately there were no services that day. The cathedral was open so I went inside for a little.

- cut off quite a lot of my hair. I was pretty nervous about getting a haircut, having heard horror stories about the experiences of other foreigners. Surprisingly, I got one of the best haircuts of my life for about one fourth the price i usually pay....

- went to Jeonju!!
This was a NSLI-Y monthly excursion. We did a two day, one night stay there. It was such a refreshing change of scenery. The weekend's adventures included kimchi making, soft serve ice cream, exploring the traditional village, ordering and eating an obscene amount of japchae (glass noodles), and the best meat I have eaten thus far in Korea. It was seriously fantastic meat. I don't know why it was so amazing but I would travel three hours back to jeonju just to eat that bulgogi.
Unfortunately....the weekend was not all a lovely getaway but in fact kind of spoiled by the fact that we had to take the TOPIK exam on sunday. And of course, since we all roomed together at night, none of us were particularly well rested. I caught myself falling asleep during the test.
The train ride back from Jeonju was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The scenery was calming and accompanied by a gorgeous sunset. I would love to take a week or two to live in the countryside of Korea.

- Had a samgyeopsal party at school this past Friday! Basically, all the students got into groups and were handed huge plates of raw meat... which we then cooked together and devoured. It was fantastic. We sat outside in the cold eating straight off the pan.

...somewhat caught up

Labels: food, jeonju, korea, NSLI-Y, school