Joy to the World!

Dani said I should draw a tree, but I suck at drawing. So like a pure blood american, i used money to solve my problems and i bought a tree. Its wonderful. it causes me great joy to behold. its really christmas now! what a great day. (oh, and the whole thing, tree lights and decore only set me back 10$.) 

but ya, this has perk my spirits up quite a bit. also, i come home in 22 days. that also perks up my spirits.

Lame trip all around

It was a lame trip. It was for my providences cultural trip and we were going to go snowboarding. Ive gone once but never really had the urge to get into it but for some reason i wanted to go this time. I was getting myself all psyched and stuff.
First was the bus ride. and we were bored. (this is Janet, another talk scholar in okcheon. you know shes cool because of the faces.)

Then we went to a really lame museum. I took my camera and was very disappointed. This is the best that I got.

Super lame. Then we got to the resort town were we were supposed to get our rooms. But some of they guys, including myself, were supposed to have some rooms on the third floor, but for the place didnt have a third floor, so we spent the next few hours figuring out where we were going to sleep. Then I slipped while trying to put on my shoes (it was raining earlier, just so everyone knows im still really cool) and slammed my toes into the wall pretty bad so i ended up not snowboarding. I ended up just sitting in cafeteria area for during the ski time. Again, a pretty lame trip.

That was all very whiny, but really though. 

anywho, christmas is different when you have to make it christmas. Im not surrounded by it this year, its different. when i was here as a missionary youre still surrounded by it, but this time, living alone and stuff, its very much my own and i have to make it christmas, where usually it simply is. I kinda like it. i want a christmas tree....

We slept in a hobo den.

This last week was great. We had nine days off and we used every one of them for the purpose of joy and fun. First we went to Seoul for a lovely temple trip which was wonderful. There are pictures of that on the birthday one. Then Eric and I didn't have to work on Monday (most others did but we're cool so we didn't) so we hung out at my place for a bit and met up with this dude Carry (don't know if I spelled that right. Im sure he wont care either way.). Then Tuesday was the best day ever. I got to see songwon!!! She and her family were my first investigators on my mission and I've kept in pretty good contact with her and she became like a little sister to me. I love the girl. But when I met her she was just a little 10 yr old girl and now shes in high school. It was so stinking crazy.

Anywho, so we bummed around a temple in my greenie area and then fell asleep in an abandoned bus stop where we found the remains of a hobo bed, thus named the hobo den. It was creepy, but it kept us dry from the rain.
Then we went to Shanes town and hiked a mountain with a temple on it. Korea is so fetching green, I love it.

After that we went down to Andong for the annual mask festival. I heard about this thing since my mission and I only heard amazing things about it. Sadly, I was disappointed.  It really wasn't that awesome.  I felt bad because I convinced everyone to go. poop....
Anyway, here are a few pictures I like. There are more on facebook if you want to check it out.

She sang traditional songs for us and I love her...alot. 

I love Shane in this picture. Hes the yellow one laying down.

Eric being pagan.

HA! I love this statue and the woman checking out the bum

This is how we birthday

Dr. Pepper and Cookie Cheese Cake. All thanks to our beloved Ange.

Our new wonderful friend the wonderful Darcy and the previously stated and beloved Ange.

Look at Eric.

Can't decide which is better.

This is all some stuff at an art museum my old co-teacher and I went to for kicks.

Eh, some amusing statues outside an old Korean palace. They were out of place so I photoed them.

 Just a street, but its blue on one side and red on the other...don't know why. And the red isn't for the obvious reasons.

A cornucopia of love.

Shane decided to teach Alia korean. 

Ben is a good man. A very good man.

It was raining so Alia wore some of the sweetest rubber rain boots I've seen in quite some time, probably since Haylis been gone actually, but these were worn with socks. Anywho, this is mostly for Dani.

Oh, and for the record, this is our wonderful new friend Alia. She is a saint.

BLUE CATHEDRAL!!!

So I post here and on facebook and Ive been wondering if this is good or just repetitive. And Dani needs to tell me how to post these better so they're not just in a column. I fail at blogging. 

Water!!!

This is a wall that I thought the lighting was cool.

Water is so cool. So very cool.

So Dokko (the korean one) and I were going to go hang out with her coteacher, Janet but she ditched out because she wasn't hungry and eating is really the only thing you can do whilst hanging out in Korea. We figured there wasn't much to do in Okcheon, where I live, so we decided to go to Deajeon, the metropolitan city next to Okcheon.  It was a good time. Just chilled and got food, but then we saw this sweet riverside area with an amazing water fountain thing going on so we checked if out for awhile. 

The pictures are a bit blurry because I haven't quite figured out how to use my camera yet, and it was dark and I didnt have a tripod, but mostly because I haven't figured out my camera yet.

Teagu with the Shaners

These are some sweet old dudes I asked to take 

pictures with us. They thought we wanted them to take pictures of us, which would be lame. This is far better.

Shane with a cup

Its the train. Thats all.

Overall a good day. I went and checked out the branch over in Taegu and I really liked it. Its a pretty decent. Ill probably end up going there from now on. The rest of the day was spent just chillin with Shane bumming around Taegu for a few hours until our trains came. Good times were had