--phone booth--

I'm not sure why but I really like this picture. I've never been to London but for whatever reason (the movies, pictures, etc.) I've always imagined all the phone booths painted red.
Every phone booth in Korea is painted this minty-tourquoise green color. Whether there is one, two, or ten in a row, they are all this color. This is probably a real boring picture for any of our friends in Korea, but here is just another feature of this country that I've found somewhat humorous. Plus the sailor, or whoever he is, makes the picture.

Art Park

We went to a Korean flavored art park to "enjoy" some of the scenery. I think this was Jake's favorite exhibit.



These stairs just looked really cool and Jake's a good photographer.


We were waiting at the bus stop when we saw this sign. Missionaries always make me smile :) And all the ones serving in Korea are actually here on an 'English teaching' visa. I'm amazed at how organized our church is, to be able to know exactly how to get our guys in and working!






....colorful


Now I know the white man looks big to the asian.... but THIS BIG?

The Big Story....

There are no pictures, thank goodness!

Jake came home early Wednesday morning. He walked into the house, not moving his upper body and escorted by a Korean lady. I heard the words, "I got hit by a car." I'm not exactly sure what he said after that because my head was spinning. Luckily, the hitter stopped (in Korea they say a hit and run is fairly common.) Ironically, the lady was on her way to work-- at an insurance agency.

Jake is OKAY!!!! He was hit in a crosswalk, the car coming from the right but landed hard on his left side. Since it's minus 1,000 degrees outside he was wearing a thick army coat and I think that acted as somewhat of a cushion. The first half of the bike went underneath the front tires of her 4-wheel drive monster truck. Jake flipped so that his legs flew under the car and between the front and back wheels. The car stopped so Jake's legs were saved! They are bruised, scrapped and sore. The bike is bent, broken and done for!

Landing mostly on his shoulder, we were scared that his collar bone or arm was broken. After 20 or more X-rays we were relieved that there was only a sprain. The hospital shot him up with pain killers and wrote a prescription for the next few weeks. He is attending physical therapy every day for as long as he needs, maybe 2 or 3 weeks. He is in a lot of pain and his arm isn't moving above his head yet or forward and backward, and he definitely can't sleep on his left side. The clinic wants him to wear his arm in a sling, but they don't have one his (American Man) size.

All in all....

Jake said that if he had to get hit by a car sometime during his life, this was probably the best he could've asked for. Plus he was wearing headphones the whole time, listening to music so he says he missed out on the worst part of an accident: the terrible screeching of tires and crunching of metal. He is a real trooper, getting straight back to work and now walking or waiting for the bus everyday. Our biggest concern won't be answered for months or years. Is there permanent damage? With Jake's love of surfing, we sure hope not!

More from Busan!

Here's another picture from another tower.... every city has a tower.... and we always bring our mate'

At the bottom of the tower was this awesome display of instruments from all around the world. It was really amazing to see hundreds of different kinds of instruments-- and from countries I've never even heard of! There were all sorts of CRAZY looking, noise making things! And, of course, Jake found the one upright that was there!

These kids were putting pigeon feed on top of another kid to see if the birds would start picking at him.

It kinda worked but as soon as the pigeons got close, other kids would run up to try and catch them.

We were just watching the pigeons in the park and, being the only white people around, we got attacked with a million "Hello's and How are You's?" Those asian girls are always after my blonde haired, green eyed man!

All over Korea you can see people playing this type of "Checkers" game. We have no idea how to play, but it's very popular with the old men in the park. There is even one T.V. channel that has this game on 24 hours a day.... It never shows people's faces, just the board from an aerial view and hands moving the black and white skittle-shaped checkers. They never even have commercials! It's the weirdest T.V. show I've ever seen.






























































I tried to sneak in the background of this pic!

Busan Trip

Jake and I treated ourselves to a little trip over our Winter Vacation. We went south to Busan, about 4 hours on a bus. Our plan was to take a ferry to Jeju Island where it's supposedly warm and beautiful. We were really excited-- only to find out when we got to Busan that the ferry takes 11 hours! That's right, we would leave at 7pm and arrive on the island the next morning at 6am! How could nobody remember to mention that to us before we got down there? ANYway, we were able to enjoy the beach off the south coast but it was definitely not even close to being warm.


If you look closely, you can see all the girls walking on the sand in their heels. Image, and especially first impressions are very important in Korea.

Cody at the beach.... not her scooter.

We actually got to see people surfing! But unlike Hawaii, they were covered from head to toe in wet suits. That just doesn't sound like much fun.
We also went to the fish market. No matter how dead everything is at these places, everything always seems so bright! Well, other than the black & white picture we took!


Once again we come upon the LIVE squid. I asked some of my students if they like eating it (because it's expensive and "delicious") and of course they do. They told me that they drink soju (the traditional korean alcoholic beverage) first, because it makes the squid taste very good. Now I probably just interpreted them how I wanted and figured that people who like eating the live squid get really drunk first, and then they can handle putting those wiggling jiggling pieces of sea life into their stomachs.



Jake also made a new friend.

A fisherman's boat.

A fisherman.

For the bus ride home we stopped to get some travel snacks. I bought a Korean drink called McCol, thinking it would taste something like Cola. It's always an adventure with these types of things so when I cracked the lid on the bottle I made a joke. At that same moment something started to smell like refried beans. I said "I hope that's not my drink that smells like beans!" Jake and I laughed and then I took a drink.... my drink tasted EXACTLY like refried BEANS! I got through half the bottle before I admitted that it just wasn't worth the dollar I spent.

And after a big trip with little showering, Jake's hair becomes very manageable. Like play-doh.

New Year's Eve

We took the bus down to the subway station to see if anything awesome was happening for New Years. Seoul may have been throwing a bigger party, but that would've required us to stay overnight in some overpriced ghetto motel. Plus, most Korean parties are the same wherever you go.... everybody is drinking like a fish. At Suwon Subway Station they had a stage set up and we were able to watch some break-dancing and a garbage can drumming band. Everyone counted down from 5 in Korean and then all the locals shouted something (I assume meant Happy New Year) and Jake and I shouted out in English! I hummed Auld Lang Syne while we waited for something else to happen. Nothing did. Korea celebrates the Lunar New Year in February more than they do the calendar year.



By the way, it was FREEZING! When we decided to leave it seemed like a good idea to try and catch a taxi farther up the road where nobody else was standing. Well, that concept doesn't work. We ended up walking a mile or so before we could catch a ride. We really felt Jack Frost nipping at our noses and toeses. But the up side to that tragedy was that we were able to see some big fireworks being shot off along the way. Fireworks are always my favorite part of any holiday where it's kosher to shoot big exploding things into the atmosphere.

*CHRISTMAS*

On Christmas Eve our ward went to a nearby orphanage to deliver blankets we had made and toys that we were able to purchase through a fundraiser we held earlier in the month.


Our local missionaries dressed up as Santa and His Elf to help pass out presents. Each child's name was called and they had the chance to go tug on old Kringle's beard.



This is one little girl that did a very good job at waiting patiently for her turn with Santa.

There was no way for anyone in our branch (other than the 1 Korean lady) to actually communicate with these children. So I thought to myself, "what was I into at this stage and age of my childhood?"
The answer came in quick hand jives. We communicated with smiles and I taught them to count "1,2,3" with each slap of our hands.


This kid got an awesome tonka truck.













These kids got some cool magnetic toy thingys.

There's a nice man in our ward who had to spend Christmas without his family this year.... military life. He told us that every year his family eats mexican food for their Christmas Eve dinner. Since Taco Bell is the only restaurant in Korea that remotely represents mexican food, he mentioned that he will be there on Christmas Eve, eating a burrito, thinking about his family that is so far away.

Well after visiting the orphanage, the entire branch decided to surprise this brother with our company for Christmas Eve dinner. We all went to eat at Taco Bell on the military base. (Our ward is all military-- it's the only branch within 1.5 hours traveling distance that's english speaking). Being invited onto base was so nice. I even got a little choked up when we walked into the "food court." It was like a miniature America in the middle of this completely foreign country. I'm not sure if any American truly realizes how much they love their country until they are outside of it's coastline, trying to survive somewhere else.

This was us, sleepy, Christmas morning. That big thing in newspaper-- well that's my new yoga mat :)




Jake got some spices. He's my personal top chef... and we love that show too!