Korea

Hiking-with no snow this time

2009-03-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

I got out for a hike before our new term started. I headed to a different part of the same mountain area that I have gone to the last two times. I have been studying up on the different hiking areas and found that there are not many places to go that have long hikes. Most of them are just a few miles. So I decided to go to the same mountain but hike a completely different set of trails. These trails weren't as difficult as the other ones, and the longest loop to hike was about 9k. It didn't take long, but it felt great! The weather was wonderful. It was actually a little too warm at times for how I was dressed. Here I am at the top. The last photo shows the view from the top looking in one direction. From that ridge if you look in the opposite direction, the next photo is the view that you will see. I go to the mountains to get out of the city, and then the view from the top is of the city.
This part of the trail goes along the side of a rock. There are a few sets of these steps on the side of the mountain.
These next two photos are out of order. This was taken at the beginning of the trail. There is a funny story that goes with this. When I got there, I saw this greyhound (of all things) running around. People were just staring at it. The park rangers were yelling in Korean. I thought it belonged to them and it was being naughty and not coming to them when they called. It came near me at one point and I tried to sweet talk it to come closer and the rangers yelled something at me and motioned me "no". So I figured they didn't want me to touch it. I was headed into the bathroom before going up the trail, so I carried on with my business. The line was long in the restroom, so it took me awhile to get out. When I came out all of the park rangers came toward me and said, "No, No". So I thought I was getting kicked out for trying to pet their dog. Then, one of them who spoke a little English said, "No dog-Korea National Park". I still thought they were telling me not to pet the dog, so I said, "sorry" and was going to head up the trail, but they kept repeating themselves. Finally, they started gesturing toward the dog and me and pointing me out of the park. I realized they thought the dog was mine. There were people all around because it was a busy hiking day and everyone was staring at me! So I told them, "No, not mine!" "The dog is not mine." They didn't believe me at first. I had to convince them that the dog did not belong to me and then I just started walking. Phew! I was unnerved about the whole thing for awhile. It's amazing when there is a language barrier how a small misunderstanding can become kind of scary when people start yelling at you. : ) I just hope they didn't decide to take the dog home and eat it. There's not that much meat on a greyhound. : )
He's so cute! He reminded me a little of my sister's greyhound, but black and white instead of brown and white.
More view of the city.
More veiw...and there's still city in it.
Map of the trail. I did the outside loop.
Looking to the far right of all the other photos. This one was just mountains.
Looking to the far left of all the other ones.
Looking over the part of the mountain that I hiked the last few times I was out.
Another shot of the other side.
Feeling great at the top!
Interesting....
A veiw from the top.

Ppuri Park

2009-03-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

During our term break we did get out a little. The weather warmed up some, though not as much as we had hoped. We went to a park outside of the city called Ppuri Park. It is a park dedicated to Korean ancestry. There were little trails around and one small hiking trail. We got the kids to hike a little, and we saw lots of little chipmunks running all around. We were the only ones on the actual 'hiking' trail, so it was really nice. These photos are in opposite order of the day.

This photo was the end of our time there. We brought our little picnic lunch, but when we stopped to sit down we all got too chilly. So no one was really interested in eating much. Except Grace who was stuffing her face in the background.
This is the kids running down the trail. When they got to the bottom, they were so dirty. There was mud on the trail and they fell down multiple times. But they were having fun and we were glad!
We let them run quite a bit ahead of us because we were the only ones up there. They thought this was really cool, and tried to stay far ahead of us.
This was the lovely view from the little hike that we took. What you are seeing is the city of Daejeon (actually, only part of the city).
A closer shot of the city.
Here is Peyton in front of one of the Asian 'zodiac' statues. He didn't want to get too close to it. Can't say I blame him.
Overlooking the park from the top. The scenery isn't that great now, but when the leaves come out and the grass gets green it should be pretty.
Apparently a giant stone rabbit was less scary than the giant stone pig. : )
It almost looks like a cemetery when you look at it from this perspective. But each of the sculptures has writing on it, and they stand for all of the different Korean surnames. I believe there are 72 surnames.

Looking out from the gazebo.
Grace hammin' for the camera.
More Grace.
A gazebo at overlooking the park.

Peyton's Tux

2009-02-07T06:56:00.001-08:00

Tonight we went to do a fitting for Peyton for a tux. His friend Jane was also trying on dresses. They will both be in a wedding next Sunday. Isn't he cute in his tiny little tux? I thought this was a really cute picture of the two of them.
He was even getting a kick out of seeing himself looking like such a "dude". :)

I will post photos of the wedding after he does his part in it.

Kindergarten Program

2009-02-07T05:18:00.000-08:00

The kids had a little program at their kindergarten this weekend. We found it to be very entertaining-and surprising. Peyton usually tends to be the outgoing one of the two. He talks to strangers and loves carrying on conversations with anyone who will listen. Grace on the other hand tends to act more shy around people she doesn't know-maybe 'coy' is a better word for it.
But as you will see, when it's on stage, they have opposite personalities. Grace was very animated and had a great time and Peyton looked like he felt silly(like when you put clothes on a dog and they can't move) :) We were very entertained by this. The video quality isn't very good. I was all the way in the back and had to really use the telephoto. It's also pretty unstable because I was having to hold the camera up over people's heads.

In the first video of Peyton he won't do any of the movements. He hardly sang. Grace, though is overly animated.
The one of Peyton with the drum is a "traditional Korean" drum routine. He liked this alot more than the first song they did. :)

The latest...

2009-02-06T05:11:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been a very long time since I posted anything here. I have really struggled with getting photos uploaded to this page. Because of that I have been posting my photos to Facebook. It's really fast and I can email the photos to people. But beyond that, there really hasn't been much to post. We have been working hard and it's been too cold to get out and do much. I have gone hiking a few times and I'm looking forward to going again. I try to go once a month because it's all I have time for. I go during term breaks or three-day weekends. It's an all-day trip because of bus rides and so on. But it's really worth it to get out and see something besides concrete.

Also, if you haven't tried it yet, these photos enlarge to a huge size when you click on them. Some of them are hard to see at their regular size, but try clicking on them. You will see every detail. Some times more than you want to see. :)

Here are some photos of my last hiking trip. Basically the same as last time, but I took some different trails this time. I hiked 13 kilometers and went to a temple on the other side of the mountain that has been around since 7ooAD (I think that's right). I went by myself again and had a great day. I was exhausted at the end because the trails were very steep straight up and straight down the mountain, but it felt so great! (I don't know why this is underlining. But I can't make it stop.) :)
The photo above is on the top. It was really pretty with alot of fresh snow. (alot meaning few inches)

The photo below is taken from the Gapsa temple looking back toward the mountain with the hiking trails.

This photo is on the mountain looking back toward Gapsa. You can almost see the buildings through the trees.The main building of the temple area. Everything was really quiet so I didn't go looking in any of the buildings.

This is an interesting thing. I don't know it's exact purpose, but it looks useful.More of the temple grounds.
Lot's of firewood.

Many different buildings all around the main temple buildings.Here I am nearly at the end of the hike. This weird tree is my landmark on the trail. It's a good place to stop and drink some water and take some photos. There are nice benches there too.

Here is a map. I know it's really small, but if you can see it I went from Donghoksa Temple, past the falls and to the Gapsa Temple and back to Donghoksa.
On January 25, it snowed pretty hard for a little while. We thought it would be fun to take the kids up on the roof and let them play in it. Peyton is complaining because it's too bright. He does this alot. I think he is going to have my problem of having to wear sunglasses as soon as he steps outside. Poor little guy! At least I can identify with him.
Grace can't believe that it's really snow!

Shane is dressed for the weather. Shorts and sandals...
This shot is from the roof, but it's the view we have out our bedroom window. Isn't it lovely? You can imagine why I go a little crazy from time to time just being surrounded by concrete!!!???
Looking off a little to the left of the last shot.
The view from the front of the building.
This is the government building across the street. It's actually a complex that they have been working on since before we got here. One or two of the buildings are looking pretty close to finished. Of course this is only from what we see from the outside.

She wanted us to have a self-portrait together.

This is a photo of Peyton taken by Grace. She really enjoys using the camera. Maybe she'll have some talent if we let her keep working on it. :)
She wanted a good shot of our living room/laundry room. I'm sure she will appreciate having a dryer again when we get home too.

Gracie's self-portrait.
She wanted to have a photo to remember Shane in his most favorite position and pasttime.
Today I went out to lunch with some of my students. These girls are alot of fun. The one on the left isn't in my class but is friends with the other two who went. They are in my Level 1 class. They are just beginning to learn English and are having fun trying out their new communication skills.
Here are all of us together.
Another one. This is my favorite Korean restaurant. They serve bibimbop. It's a vegetable and rice dish that is really tasty. Plus, it's one of the easiest dishes to order and have no trouble with getting something to eat without meat.

Christmas

2008-12-25T03:43:00.000-08:00

I am again experiencing technical difficulities, so I will keep trying to post a photo here and there to try to finish this post. These two photos are of our little cafeteria area outside our door where we set up for our Christmas dinner.

This is the kids as we were getting ready to go out to dinner with one of our Korean students. We went out for Indian food it was good. They were excited.

Here is a clip of Gracie. I will be adding more as soon as I get my photos edited. I am having technical difficulties at this time. So I will at least get this up for viewing and add as I get things done.

Christmas Tree

2008-12-14T02:00:00.000-08:00

This is our little tree. There is a story behind this tree...We have been trying to find something for our little place to make it seem Christmas'y' for the kids. We have looked around, and there are little trees like this at some of the big stores already decorated and they cost over $30! There is no way I was going to spend that kind of money-especially when they are decorated already with decorations that I wouldn't necesarily choose. I've colored pictures of Nativity scenes and hung them and put some lights up, but I wanted something more. So, yesterday, I was going to buy some wrapping paper and make a tree to hang on the wall and decorate it. But I couldn't even find any paper that was good for it! So I went to this little 'dollar' store down the street and couldn't believe it when I found the same tree as in the big store, but it was one thousand Won, or in our thinking, $1!!! Then, they had little tiny strings of lights and decorations. I don't like just any decorations, I like things really pretty simple and kind of "country" style. But there has been nothing like that here in Korea. All the decorations have been really colorful and shiny. In this little store, there was a set of little pinecone ornaments...PERFECT!!!!! So, we decorated with one little tiny string of lights, pinecone ornaments and silver bows. I think it turned out pretty cute. The kids were so excited. And the whole thing cost me 5,000 Won, or less than $5!!! God is good! For the joy it brought our children to decorate it and have it up, I think was put in that little store just for me to find! The photo above is with the flash. The photo below is just the Christmas lights.

Here is the big picture. You can see how tiny it is on the television. Maybe I'll put a really big tree skirt around it to cover the TV since we never use it anyway :)

Here are the kids decorating it. They did a good job. I went back later and rearranged a little, but they didn't know.

Pictures of the River Trail

2008-12-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

I took photos when I went for my run at the river one day this week. I tried to put them on in the order that I usually walk, but I can never seem to get things right for putting them in order on here.
This photo is where the river meets another river and the trail goes underneath the overpasses. Not the best part of the trail.

These birds and others are part of what makes my time on the trail more enjoyable and sometimes endurable. If I focus only on them and their antics, I can forget that I am in the middle of the city. :)

Right now, the river is really low, so there are all these places where there are exposed rocks and "sandbars" around for the birds to hang out. This photo has a couple of little ducks and another little crane.

Here's another photo of a bunch of different duck and cranes. The river had just been lowered, so they are now able to eat off the bottom of parts where the water had just previously been 10 feet deep or so.

This is the same shot, but with the background in it. What you see behind is part of Expo park, kind of like a science center, and new apartment buildings. Behind me, where you can't see, is more apartment buildings than you can count!

This is one area where there was an inflatable "dam" that was about 5 or 6 feet tall. They let the air out and now there is very little water compared to what there was before. Usually there are bunches of birds here too, but they moved downriver to the place where I took the last photo above.

Another one of my 'beloved' cranes. They are really funny and shy. They fight with each other often.

This is another shot like the first one at the top. It's where the rivers meet. There's so little water flowing right now, you can't really tell there are two rivers here-or even one for that matter. I am guessing that they are controlling the water that is leaving the dam and just holding it back for now. I don't know all the whys or hows, just guessing.

This is a photo taken after getting out from under the overpasses. To the right you can see part of the neverending rows of apartment buildings. This little river has more dry ground than water right now, and it's pretty dirty, but it still has a nice walking trail that goes for a long way.

This is another shot from a different perspective of the Expo park area and the new apartments over there. We live on the side where the photo is taken from. About a mile or so from the river.

More birds in a now-dry section of river. The day they really dropped the water level, I went out and as I was jogging along the trail and passing newly exposed areas on the edges of the river, I would look down and see fish of all sizes that had gotten stranded. They were flopping around and had no chance of getting to water. It was awful to watch. At one point, I tried to step down the concrete walls of the riverbank and onto the riverbed to try to throw a few back to some water that was nearby. But when I put my foot down on the river bed it started to sink. I decided that wasn't the best idea. Good thing I didn't have my new running shoes yet! The smell of this river is really pretty bad though. Even before the fish started dying from being stranded. I had a sick stomach for the rest of my run because it was just really awful to see all those fish helplessly flopping around and 'suffocating' to death. The birds hadn't discovered this yet, so they couldn't even put the fish out of their misery by eating them. Uggghhhh! I am looking forward to heaven so that there will be no more suffering and no more death! Not even of the little fish!

This photo is taken looking down river from the area where I usually take off for my run. There's a busy road across a "grassy" area and up the hill to the right of here. That road runs all along the river on the right side. There is another busy road on the other side of the river as well. It drops down enough that you can't really here alot of road noise. If you just look down, you can almost forget where you are. Of course, all of the garbage and dead fish and birds that you see along the river don't make it the best scenery either, but I take what I can get.

This is one of the inflatable dams half-way deflated. I was glad that I got to see this process in action because when I went by the next day, it was finished deflating and if I hadn't seen this stage I would have thought it was just completely gone. But it's not. It's flattened out in the bottom of the river bed. You can barely see it unless you know it's there. In this picture you can also see the wall and the way the river area is dropped down from the road. The roadway is at the top of that bank on the other side.

Well, I hope this gives a good idea of what this area is like that I have been telling some of you about. I am thankful that we haven't really had typical winter weather because I have been going down there most days with jogging pants and a very lightweight long-sleeved fleece top. It's been very comfortable. On other days, it's nearly unbearable because the wind is so biting cold. But the good days have definitely outweighed the bad, which is unusual for the month of December. Who needs a white Christmas, anyway? I keep telling myself that. :)........

They're Eating It!!

2008-12-11T01:48:00.001-08:00

As I have shared with many of you, I have had a really hard time getting the kids to eat much lately. They just aren't hungry for the good, hearty food that will help keep them healthy and growing.
But I decided to take on the task of making a good vegan pizza. Of course, to make it really well, I decided to make two different kinds of "cheese" sauce. I make the kind that is shreddable and the kind that is spreadable. I made a whole wheat crust and covered it with all kinds of veggies.
I didn't know how well it would go over with them...
This is the pizza in the oven.

These are the happy kids eating the first pizza that came out. I had three very small pieces of this pizza, and they ate over half of it in one sitting.

I think they liked it. We've decided this will be a once a week thing. Maybe we'll get Peyton's cheeks to round out again!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-11T01:31:00.000-08:00

We had ourselves a nice Thanksgiving meal on the Sunday after Thankgiving. We had friends come to our home from different schools in different cities as well as many friends from the same city-Daejeon, but different SDA schools. There are 4 different schools here in Daejeon.
Don't know who took this shot or why, but it shows the action in the kitchen anyway.

Here's me looking over the spread checking to see if there is anything missing and taking a deep breath before everyone digs in. :)

Here is all of the food. Looks good! No turkey, much to the dismay of a few. But I made them some vegan loaves to take the place. :)

Here is the group we began with. More people joined and trickled in for the next hour or so.

This is Moises, Winston, Shane, Mary and Gracie.

Here are the cooks(and Grace).

Enjoying the meal and the company.

More friends, and good food!

Enjoying the good company!

We had a really nice time and enjoyed the time to fellowship and have a "traditional" American meal. We missed all of our friends who had originally planned on coming and had things come up at the last minute, but we understand that those things happen. Hope to see you all again soon!

More bread and a Juicer!!!

2008-11-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

Oops, I forgot to rotate this photo before I posted it. This is the two loaves of bread I got to bake this time with my new baking pans. The really big loaf is from the new pan I got at a kitchen supply store. It's actually a buffet "serving pan". It makes a really huge loaf of bread! I am so excited. I got it for only W5,ooo! About $5... I can make two loaves and it should last a week or more! This is the pan all by itself!

This is our new juicer we got from Costco this week. It's not as impressive as I was hoping for, but we knew that for $100, we would get what we paid for. It doesn't pull as much juice from the fruit as it should. I feel like it wastes too much. But it is really good for getting the kids to get more fruit (and veggies) in their diet and they don't even know it! They are just excited because they are getting juice. Now we just have to keep enough fruit in the house to make the juice.

Bread Pan!!!!!

2008-11-17T01:35:00.001-08:00

Since finding good bread is nearly impossible here and when we do it's over $4 a loaf, I decided to start making my own. With the cost of whole wheat flour I guess is probably costs 1/3 or 1/2 the price of buying it, but I am really having fun making it. Today I got a really good deal on some whole wheat flour. I got 4,250 grams for $12. Actually, it was W12,000. :) Anyway, I have been adding many things to my bread. I have been grinding my own flax seed, millet and brown rice. The brown rice is a little corse, but it works in the bread. I also have been adding soy bean powder, and pumkin and sunflower seeds. Millet grinds pretty nicely and adds a nice nutty flavor. The bread is really hearty and heavy. We really like it. This is a photo of some rolls of dough that I baked in a nice round cake pan. In my later morning classes I have many ladies enrolled. I have been asking them if any of them have seen bread pans in the stores because I have had such a hard time finding them. So far I have been unsuccessful, so all of my loaves turn out wide and kind of flat. Today one of my wonderful gals brought me a bread pan and this round cake pan. They are really great! I came right home and baked a batch this afternoon! The pans are amazing! The silver one doesn't seem to be teflon, but the bread came right of it! It is my prized possession right now. I asked her where she found it and she said, "Near my home." But didn't offer up any other information. I will work on getting more info out of her later. For now I am taking her a loaf of fresh bread to show my appreciation.

This is the lovely and amazing bread pan before I even took the tag off. I had to take a photo of this momentous occasion. :) It looks smaller than a normal sized bread pan, but it's not really.

A view of Daejeon from Above

2008-11-09T04:54:00.001-08:00

This Sabbath, I got together with some teachers from another one of our schools here in Daejeon. Their church took us out on a little outing. We were supposed to go hiking to some mountian, but there were too many of us to fit in the van, so we ended up going to this hill behind the Pastor's apartment building. It was a short hike, not what I was hoping for, but the view from the top was interesting. This is looking down one side of the mountain. These are the miles and miles of apartment buildings. And this is just one part of the city where we live. Remember, most of those tall buildings are nothing but apartments. Again, I get claustrophobic just looking at the photo! This is Fred, one of the new teachers at Seodaejeon. This is his first term in Korea. He is a funny guy!

This is me...

Here is the view of the other side of the mountain. I like this one much better!

More of the other side. It's still city, but nothing like the first photo!

"Hiking at Donhoksa"

2008-11-09T04:27:00.000-08:00

Last Sabbath was our last day to rest before this new term started. This term is a very busy one with no days off, and only two weekends without duties. So we decided to head to the mountain for some relaxing time hiking and being out in nature. Boy, were we surprised when we got there and had to dodge people all the way up the trail. It was like being in an amusment park with no rides. The "line" never ended! But the scenery was really beautiful and we got to see a Buddhist temple that was started in the 6th century! There were buddhist "nuns" there and everything. They shave their heads, so the kids kept saying, "What is he doing?" everytime one of them walked by. We also saw people who came there to worship. They were really bowing down to idols in the temple. It was a good lesson for us to share with the kids. Most of these photos don't really need much explaination...

Under one of the eaves of the building...

This is the temple where people were worshipping.

This was some of the beautiful fall scenery we got to see. What's amazing is that there are no people in the photo!

If you look carefully there are people in this photo :)

By this point I had carried Grace on my shoulders for quite awhile and we were debating whether to keep going because the trail got steeper and it was large rocks that made up the path. But not only that, there were still so many people to dodge! And they didn't move out of the way for me even when I had Grace on my shoulders. They just pushed right through and I was going uphill! And, there's no 'right side' when you are on a sidewalk or stairs or hiking trail. Everyone walks where ever they choose.

This one gives a good idea of what it was like all the way up and back! It makes me claustrophobic just to look at this photo!

This was over the path at the beginning where the trail was still really wide and paved. I thought it was really pretty with the trees all around it.

Playdate for Peyton and Ice Skating

2008-11-09T04:15:00.000-08:00

Two of the other ladies from my religion class had kids who are around the same age as Peyton and Grace. We decided to get our kids together and go to zooland. Gracie had a really rough morning that day, and so she lost her chance to go. I took Peyton and we had a great time. Grace stayed home with Daddy and had a good nap and a good day with him.

This was a sign at zooland that I just had to take a photo of. If you are a "preson" who is "Prednant", you should take note!

The bear had a Dunkin doughnuts box(?)

He got to ride a few of the rides. I enjoyed the animals, but I think he preferred the rides.

This was the first Sunday of our term break. We went ice skating with one of the church members and her daughter who is a little older than Peyton and speaks really good English. Her and Peyton get along really great. I didn't get any photos of Peyton or the little girl because I was so busy doing what you will see in the next photo...

I spent the entire time with one or the other of the kids. Shane had never been ice skating before, so he was still learning too. Peyton and Grace couldn't even stand up on the ice without one of us holding them up. I was exhausted at the end of the time there.

A Day Out With My Students

2008-11-09T04:02:00.000-08:00

Some of the ladies from my religion class wanted to take me out to see some of the interesting sights. They knew that I like the history, so they took me to this traditional village. It was moved up on this hillside when the Daejeon dam was built. It had been in the bottom of the valley next to the river which is now underwater. It was really interesting! This house is the house that the women lived in. In the traditional homes of the upper class, there were two main houses. One for the men and one for the women. This included the grandmother and grandfather and so on. After seeing the set up, I thought it was kind of a cool idea :)

This was fed by a natural spring. The Koreans just go up and drink out of the community cups. I don't think that is something I will be doing, but each to his own...

Here I am in front of the gate into the courtyard of the traditional home. Each family's area is enclosed and has sheds and alot of space for all kinds of stuff. The homes were heated from underneath they built fires and the heat would travel in tunnels under the floors. Pretty cool!

This little stove was in the blacksmith's shop. He still built traditional tools and made many different things in his little space there. I thought this stove was really cool.

Here we are!

Tofu and Applesauce

2008-10-22T05:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I got to go to the agricultural market again. I got myself quite a bit of produce for not very much money!!!
The other day, I made some homemade spaghetti sauce and realized that now is the time to get tomatoes here in Korea. First of all, I surprised myself by making the sauce. I used to make my own sauce quite often, but I guess it's been awhile, and even though I have the right ingredients here, I seem to forget about making some things because of the price of the produce. What ever, good, healthy food is worth the money...So anyway, I made sauce and decided that I need to make some more and freeze it. When I went to the market, I found tomatoes and green peppers and good mushrooms and so on. We are in business for making sauce.

I also found some more millet and rice. But this time, I found something very precious and exciting for us...pinto beans!!! At least I think they are pinto beans. I brought them home and cooked up a batch. They taste like pinto beans. I am so excited about this! I got a nice little bag of them from home, but I haven't cooked them yet. They were too valuable. I was hoarding them for something special. Now I can cook beans! I know, it probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but we have found some tortilla shells and chips at the Costco here, and we would love to be able to have burritos, enchiladas and haystacks. We had found some canned kidney beans, but it just wasn't quite the same and they were a little on the spendy side as well. So, I had burritos for lunch today!

As for the following photo. I had to show this tofu! This is half of the tofu I bought yesterday. I put it next to the packaged tofu to show the comparison in the size. Those two packages are regular sized packages that we buy in the store. As you can see, one of those pieces is the same size as two packages. One piece is about $1.00, or 1,000 won in Korean money. It is perfect for sauteing or baking. It's very firm and good textured. The last thing that I really wanted to find at the market was a good price for apples. I found an ok price, but I was just happy to get a better deal than the grocery stores. Shane has beenmissing applesauce-especially on Sundays when we eat pancakes. So I really wanted to get enough apples to be able to make a decent batch of applesauce. I was able to make what you see here in the following photo. It's about three quarts. I am going to freeze this also. That's the only way of storing things for me at this point. There are no canning supplies around. I have seen nothing like that. But our freezer is decent-sized and I will just stuff it. I plan to go back and buy more apples. I made this during my free time this afternoon. I missed having the apple peeler/corer, but felt a real feeling of satisfaction when I had a big pot of apples simmering on the stove. It felt like fall should feel. It was even a dark and drizzly day-perfect for cooking!

Church Picnic and Activity Day

2008-10-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

This is a shot of one of the walls on the walk down to the river trail where our picnic was held. I wanted to get a little bit of the autumn color. The colors are starting to come out here, and there are some places where there are more trees and it looks pretty. This is me in a pile of us. It was like a three-legged race, but they had us tie four people together and run it that way. We got going a little too fast and crashed. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't get up.
Here is Peyton's group in the same race. They also crashed, but I didn't get a photo of that.
A group of kids from the church. These are some of the friends Peyton and Grace have Sabbath school classes with.

This is actually part of the warm up and stretching exercises that they had us doing. But Brianna thought it would be good to have a photo to show how strong she is. She's a little thing-and I'm not!
Not much to comment on this one. Just Grace being Grace.
Peyton thought the idea behind this game was to use the long balloon as a sword, but the goal was actually to steal or pop the other person's balloon. We didn't find this out until the game had started and Peyton swung his balloon. The little girl grabbed it and eventually popped it. We were all a bit surprised. Oh well, it was all in fun! And Peyton still had fun!
He just handed it right to her-she had to be wondering what he was thinking!
We all had a fun day and it was nice to hang out with some of the church members outside of church. We enjoyed the good fall weather and getting out for the day.

Airshow at Osan Air Base

2008-10-22T05:04:00.001-07:00

A few Sundays ago, on the 11th, we went to an airshow at the American Air Base. We have some friends who went and invited us to go with them. We first rode a bus for about an hour and a half to a city we hadn't been to yet. Of course, I don't remember the name, because they all sound alike to me still. But I think the name was Suwon. We took a short taxi ride from the bus terminal to the base. This is the kids on the city bus in our city, Daejeon. We took this bus to the Express bus terminal here in the city. They each got a donut because our friends brought them for us. Gracie is still enjoying hers at this point. Peyton's was long gone. At this point we are about halfway through the line to get into the base. You can see the entrance way up there. It was a very long line. We had to have our passports and ID with us in order to get in.
One of the many aircraft that was out for viewing. Peyton was really excited about all of this.
We had a front row spot for watching the show. It was really pretty impressive. I think I enjoyed it as much as the kids did.
Peyton got to go up and talk to a pilot in this jet. He thought it was pretty cool!
It was a good day, but a really long one. We got back and found ourselves locked out of the building. We didn't get through the doors until 9:30 or so. Of course we had to clean up and get everything ready for the next day. That was a really difficult Monday, but it was worth it. We got to see some beautiful countryside and experience something that we haven't seen before.
One thing I found pretty exciting was knowing that I could walk up to anyone of those military guys or girls and speak to them, and they would understand every word I said. I was tempted to stop someone just for that reason, but I didn't. I didn't realize how much I would appreciate that until it was gone!

Birthdays and Bread

2008-10-10T04:48:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday we celebrated Peyton and Shane's birthdays. Actually, Shane's birthday was on Monday and Peyton's was on Tuesday. But we knew that during the week it would be hard to get all of us together and have the time to celebrate. So, I bought the only cake mix I could find that had directions I could read and made them a small cake. Since only four of us would be eating it, that was a good thing. Peyton got to blow out the candles. The cake wasn't big enough to hold all of the candles we would need to put on it for Shane. :) So here is a photo of the cake....Here is Peyton getting ready to blow out the candles. (Gracie is still working on finishing her salad so that she can have a piece of the cake.)
Here is the younger birthday boy. He just couldn't wait to get to those gifts!
He's getting into all the new pieces of his construction set.
Gracie was lucky enough to get some little gifts too(thanks to friends and family at home!) She was very thankful for this. :)
Later in the week, I decided to finally try to make some bread. We have been looking for a bread-maker, but haven't been sucessful in finding one. So, between classes one day, I just decided to "go for it". I got it all going and went back to class, leaving the dough to rise. I got to my class and said something about having dough stuck to my hands. I was telling my class about making the bread and looking for a bread machine. One of my little younger girl students asked me, "How do you make bread?" I told her about putting the ingredients in and as I was listing them, I realized that even though I knew I needed to put salt in, I had forgotten to do so. Ooops!
So when I got back, I ended up having to put salt in and knead it again. This caused me to have to let it rise again, and it made the texture a little different. I also had to leave it too long, because I didn't get a chance to come back for some time. Anyway, on top of that, I discovered that I didn't have a bread pan. So...I ended up putting them in the form of rolls and baked them. They turned out really good. Our oven is very small, and I have one small baking sheet 'pan'. So, after the rolls were done, I put what was left in this "french bread" shape. I decided to take a photo. It's not very pretty. The rolls looked better, but they all got eaten up before I could take a photo. It turned out very tasty. I decided that I want to keep making it. It would be easier with a bread maker, but it didn't take that long. Now I can't find a bread pan anywhere. I guess we will just be eating it in the form of rolls and french bread. So here's my funny looking loaf...

Life and laundry as we know it.

2008-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post a photo of what our building looks like from the outside.
We live on the top floor, but we live in the back of the building, so all of our window look out the back and the sides.
This is how we dry our laundry. Most Korean apartments have 'verandas' or porches off of their apartments where they hang their laundry to dry. But we don't have that luxury. So ours hangs in our living room on a drying rack. We can't seem to get all of it on there at once though, especially if we wash two loads in a row, so we did what you see in the next photo.
We hung a clothes line from the pipes that run along the top of the walls. Once we get everything hung, we blow the fans on it and that helps speed the process. It's an eyesore, but it works. It also keeps the apartment very humid. We don't need any help with that during the summer or warmer seasons, but as it starts to cool off, I think the humidy might be a nice benefit of drying our laundry in our living room. :)

Teacher's Retreat at the English Village

2008-10-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went on a teacher's retreat. It was at a place called the English Village. The town is called Yongpeong. It was about two hours on a bus from our place. What a beautiful place. From what I understand, this place was built and funded by the Korean Government, but they have the SDA Institute running it for three years. Other than that, I don't know much. It was made to look like New England in the colonial era. It is out in a much more rural setting, and it is really clean and nice. This is the building you first see when you come in. The lettering doesn't really go with the rest of the motif, but it does get your attention. Here is a vew of some of the dorm housing and some nice green common areas. The telephone booths are an interesting thing. They look like something from England in the 50's or 60's, not colonial New England-but, what ever. :)
This was the dorm house we were staying in. It was so spacious and clean! We enjoyed it. Even the bunkbeds were acceptable when the place was that nice.
Here is Peyton in one of the phone booths with all of his friends he made while he was there.
There are many farms along this same area. This was a farmer on his tractor taking city people out for a ride. They come to the farms on the weekends so that they can see what the rural life is like. I took this photo because I thought the tractor was really unique and interesting.
We were trying to work out some of the extra energy by taking Peyton down to the soccer field and getting him to run for awhile. It worked. He was having a really good time. He had more fun when some of the 'big kids' came down and played too.

Gracie wasn't feeling very good. She had a mystery sickness while we were there. She had a fever for three days with no other real symptoms. But it really wiped her out, so we didn't try to run the energy out of her.
Here we are. She was playing with the camera and taking lots of photos, so I helped her take one of us together. Her arms aren't long enough to do this kind of shot. :)
Looking up at 'the village' from the soccer field. It's nearly sunset.
Looking in the opposite direction. There were hills and mountains all around us. The air was crisp and clean. And, when the sun went down-it was cold.
I went out for a hike with a group of people on Sabbath afternoon. Shane and the kids napped, but I was up for an outing. This statue is at the beginning of the trail. I thought I would be funny and try to do the pose too. I hope it doesn't mean anything wierd! :)

When we got to the top of the trail, there were all of these little stone piles. Then, a little further and we got to see a real, live Buddhist "monastery". It was really interesting. And the scenery was so beautiful!
Here is the entrance. The big building right there is the actual temple. I wasn't supposed to take photos of the inside, but didn't know until I had already taken them...oops!
I thought this building was really neat. If you've been reading these blogs, it's pretty obvious, that I really appreciate the traditional designs of these old places.
This one was a bit further up the hill. Right behind it is a hillside with lot's of flowers and trees. It was really beautiful. There was amazing woodwork on this building-carvings of flowers and birds in the doors and all over the walls. It was very cool!

A Visit to Expo Park

2008-10-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

A few Sundays ago, we decided to walk to Expo Park here in Daejeon. It is a nice walk, not too long, but definitely a walk. On our way there we saw this really strange thing. This is on the top of a restaurant. I just thought it would be interesting to share. We have no idea what the meaning is, or even how it goes along with the restaurant, but it's there. Here is a view from the other side. You can see the restaurant building in this shot.
Here is Peyton at Expo park. A nice man came up to him in this section of the park where there are a bunch of different small animals to look at and put this parakeet on his hand. He did it to Grace first, and she kind of freaked out. She got so scared that she squeezed the poor little bird's toes. The bird then got a little scared and was trying to bite her in order to get her to let go. That only made her squeeze harder and squeal at the same time. Eventually I pried her fingers open so the bird could get out. This was a very good-natured little bird, because it was perfectly happy to go to Peyton after that traumatic time with Grace.

We went into this dinosaur exhibit. They had these big models of dinosaurs all the way through. They moved and made sounds. The first one we went past that started to move was almost too much for Peyton. You could see the color drain out of his face, and I thought that Shane might have to pick him up off the ground. We kept trying to talk him through it, but he really had a tough time. In one part of the exhibit we went into this dark building and it was made to look like a rainforest. There were smaller moving dinosaurs and they also made noise. The kids both had to be carried into this part. Eventually we got them to relax a little, but not fully. Shane and I both were pretty entertained by this. They were pretty funny. It took alot of coaxing to get Peyton to stand in front of these dinos, even with Shane standing behind him. These one's moved and he was afraid that it would eat them.
There was no coaxing Grace for this photo, I had to just pick her up and take her over there for this shot. She was not happy with me at all!
This is shortly after Peyton saw the very first moving dinosaur in the exhibit. He looks awfully pale. :) But he did put on a smile for the photo.
This is at the entrance to the park. Most of the exhibits were closed down, but it was interesting to walk around and look at things. One nice thing was that there weren't alot of people to have to get around. It was pretty dead.

A Visit to a Korean Shrine

2008-09-20T00:06:00.000-07:00

Today, the same elder who took us out to see the dam, took us to another great place...
This is called Suwoongyo Cheondan or (Shrine). It's not very old, but it is traditional, authentic Korean design and construction. It was constructed in 1923, and it a symbolic building established by Choe Je-u, the founder of Donghak (religion), for the worship of heaven. This was a little information board with English and Korean writing, so we knew what we were going to see. :)

It was raining really hard and the skies were pretty dark, so the pictures are pretty dark. We were walking around with umbrellas, and there was thunder and lighting all around. I thought it was pretty exciting, and didn't mind getting wet. But some others weren't so happy about the rain or the lightning. One bolt flashed not too far behind us as we were leaving. We saw the lightning and immediately heard the thunder. It was right there!

Anyway...here are the pictures! :)
(If you click on the photos, you can get a bigger view and see more of the details.)

These little figures sit on the tops of the buildings. They are supposed to give protection from fire. So if you don't want your house to catch on fire, go buy some little monkey figurines and perch them on your roof! :) This building is the entrance gate to the area. This view is from the inside of the gate.
This is also the inside of the gate. That is Peyton and me standing there.
This is the underneath of the entrance, looking up. There is alot of writing and amazing amounts of artwork and carving. It was really beautiful. Oh, I just noticed, that green is the same color as all of our furniture. hmmm.
This is the view of the gate from the outside. Those paintings in the center are actually two traditional 'solder'-type men.
Once you get in the gate, this is the view. This building is still used for people who come to worship. Apparently there are all different kinds of idols inside and people go in and worship them. We didn't go in, so I don't know what it looked like. This building also had amazing artwork-carvings, paintings and other stuff. It also had the little figurines sitting on the rooflines to protect from fire. Not that there was any chance of that in the downpour today.

Looking out and away from the buildings. Some of the scenery around the area. It was absolutely beautiful-even in the rain! Especially after being in the city all the time!
Here we are with the temple building behind us.
An up-close shot of some of the artwork around the building. Ok, so they are dragons and that's a little creepy, but I was so excited about seeing something in real-life that I had only ever seen in photos and documentaries.

Photos of our apartment

2008-09-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Some people have been asking what the rest of our apartment looks like after seeing the photos of our crazy bathroom. So after things were tidied up a bit the other night, I took some photos. Here it is...

This is a shot looking into Gracie's room. It was supposed to come later in the order of photos, but I didn't get it there. This is another angle looking into our room.
This picture is when you first walk in the door. To the right is the shoe rack, as it is the custom to remove your shoes at the door and put on some slippers. Straight ahead is the kitchen table (which will be replaced soon, as one leg falls off). Our cooking area is pretty small, not much counter space, so I do alot of preparations on the table. As you walk in the door, if you look directly to your left, you will see this. It is our living room. The shelves are very nice, and the chairs aren't so bad either. But the couch is an eye-sore, which is why it has a blanket on it. But even with the blanket, it's still an eyesore.
If you walk toward the kitchen, there are two doors on the right. The first one goes into Gracie's room. This is looking straight into her room. She has the nicest bedspread of everyone. It was here when we got here. We are still looking for some for the rest of us.
I had another angle of her room, but I didn't get it on. oops.
The next photo is looking straight into our room. Our door is at the edge of the couch, if you look back at the living room.

A little bedside table. I had to buy a table lamp so that I had something to read with. There are no other lamps in the whole place. I would go out and buy more, but don't want to spend the money. But it would be nice to have one in the kids rooms, and on the desk...

This is looking into Peyton's room. He also doesn't have a bedspread yet. It is really hard to find bedding like what we are used to here. Most bedding is very feminine, and it's very hard to find real sheet sets and plain blankets. Don't know why???
This is another view of his room. The green thing is felt. Someone was using it as a "blind" to make the room darker. It works I guess. The tall thing is a wardrobe. We each have one and all are that same color of green. Popular color here. :) At least in this apartment.

The floors all look like hardwood, but they are really linoleum type of stuff. The floor underneath is concrete. It looks nice.