The Adventures of Kristen in Korea: Getting used to the city... but still miss all that corn and blue skies!

I am super tired right now and ready for bed, but I am going to suffer through for all my fans out there. I feel like it has been awhile since I have written. School has gotten underway and so has the lovely workout routine called Insanity. It is a crazy cardio and strength workout that about 10-15 of us teachers do at 5:45 in the morning. It is great to get a good workout in (and trust me...it is insane, just youtube it) and it is also great to share the hurt and soreness with fellow teachers and friends. As my friend Misty put it, it has built a little community up. When one of us doesn't go, usually an email is sent out saying they are sorry. We all feel responsible for the group and we don't want to disappoint each other. Between school, that and coaching and running cross country in the afternoons, I am usually wiped out by the end of the day.

Last week we had class retreats. I was lucky enough to share a senior homeroom this year, so I got to go on a two-night trip. Whoo hoo... it was fun, just overwhelming. We went to a camp outside of Seoul about two hours. It was up in the mountains and it was gorgeous. It was so nice to be out of the city and in fields again. Made me a little homesick. That night (last Saturday) Colleen and I went out in Itaewon and tried to do a little shopping. I think the emphasis needs to be on tried because all the clothing stores have VERY small sizes. So, the only thing I ended up getting was a t-shirt from North Face. Bummer. That next morning, before church, we took a bus to go to Costco. It was raining when we left but it looked like things might clear up....boy were we wrong. We get outside with out huge carts of food and it was POURING. Needless to say, no cab wanted to pick us up, especially with all our stuff so, we waited for 45 minutes under a little cover area while the costco traffic man hailed us a taxi. Craziness... Sunday night the school took us out for a very nice traditional korean bbq dinner. It was delicious!

Fast forward a few days (and I am now no longer writing this at bedtime, but instead on Saturday afternoon)... Wednesday rolled around and so did the word typhoon. Now, last time I was in a typhoon I was 3 or 4. All I can remember was my brother leaving me at the neighbors while the power was out and falling asleep from crying so hard. That was also 23 years ago, so I'm not exactly sure on the details, but it kind of scarred me. No, I have no fear of storms, but that's just the memory I associate with asian storms like typhoon and monsoon. So this massive storm hits on Wednesday night and when I woke up on Thursday morning it was still going strong. I tried to go out on my balcony to see how strong the winds were but the door flew out of my hands and I was pelted with rain so I quickly ran back to my bed and skipped my insanity workout. When I awoke just a half hour later, I found out that school was cancelled. I'm used to snow days, not typhoon days. The typhoon left just a few short hours later but the damage was enough to close down the city. Lots of subways weren't able to work and trees and limbs were down. I spent the day doing errands and then hiked up the mountain with Misty. It turned out to be an amazing view! The typhoon cleared the smog and the sun was out and you could see for miles! WOW.

This morning I woke up at that ungodly hour to do insanity early so I could hit up the flower market with the other high school art teacher, Rosalee. The flower market is in Namdaemun. This is a more tradition market area with different shops and stalls with good wholesale prices. I would love to spend the day there but after flower shopping, we had to get those babies home! I can't believe how cheap the flowers were. Two bunches of lilies, sweet peas and these weird brain looking flowers for 12 bucks! Just got back from the art store and am going to make dumplings at Colleens house tonight. Great weekend so far!

Bonus question: who knows the name of these brain flowers?

PS- Somehow the pictures are backwards in the chronological order thing...

Sweet Peas?