Mongolia Photo Story

rugged, vast, beautiful...

...Mongolia is a cool place.  We made it back to Korea safely--although much delayed (high winds delayed our flight 23 hours).  We'll be blogging about our trip in days to come, as well as, making a video of some sort that we'll throw up on here and on youtube.  We're both swamped with school work right now, so bear with us as it may take a while to post all our Mongolian-goodness.
Here's a preview of what's to come:

We are out of here

We are off to Mongolia for the next week. We will be sure to post pictures and videos of our little adventure when we get back. Here we go!

MU Alumni Dinner

On Sunday night Tom and I got to go to a great dinner (for free!!!) hosted by the Korean University of Missouri Alumni Association.   We ate like KINGS!!! It was awesome!  And we got to meet a lot of cool people in the process.  The current President of the Alumni Chapter here is actually a former congressman for Korea.  The Alumni Chapter is actually quite large too.  There may be as many as 1,000 Koreans that are MU Alumni!!! Why so many, you may ask?  After the Korean War, Harry Truman set up some sort of scholarship for Koreans to go to the University of Missouri.  As a result, the dinner was just with the Korean Alumni Committee and the Americans. We felt very blessed to be a part of such a great event.
Click here to see a Storybook I made with Pictures and Descriptions.

Make sure you check out the Storybook to see all the dishes we ate.  There were many courses to this meal--it just kept coming and it was so good!  Go Tigers!

bring on the sunshine!

This is the weather forcaste for Ulan Bator for next week.  It seems like the day time will be beautiful and night time may get a bit brisk!  It has rained almost every day in Korea since we've gotten here (or so it seems), so I am the most pumped for sunny weather!  Four days until our trip...!!!!

SEW part 2

Thanks to Barry Lawrensen for the photo.

SEW was fantastic!  We had a great time with our students and I think lives were changed in the process.  Like I mentioned previously, we had SEW teams and our teams made us shirts and capes to wear.  I think my kiddo-s did a great job!  Sorry I didn't get a picture of Tom's team shirt, but he would agree that it wasn't that impressive. :-)  Boys don't seem to get into shirt making like the girls do.  

We also had a band (see above) come out and play for us, which was really fun!  All in all, we had a great time hanging out with kids, getting out of our regular routine, and taking the time to reflect on life, love, and Jesus.  

We concluded SEW with a water fight! So fun!!!

Me drenching a student!  Photo by Barry Lawrensen.

Our teacher friend DJ launching balloons.  Photo by Barry Lawrensen.

Photo by Barry Lawrensen.

PS--I may wear my cape to see Harry Potter when it comes out in theaters in Korea.

SEW

Yesterday marked the beginning of a three day adventure called SEW (Spiritual Emphasis Week).  We shut down classes and essentially run a camp at our school.   Tom and I each have a team of students, I have a team of 11th grade girls and Tom has a team of 11th grade boys.  Yesterday we made team t-shirts and capes (pics to come of this later), so we had a lot of fun with paint!  So much fun that I somehow ended up with stars painted on my body, in particularly a star on my face. (The picture is of me and Jenny, a girl from my team. We both were unsure about the star thing.)

At one point during the day one of my world history students from last year came up to me and said, "Mrs. Meyer you look like a Communist!"   I was so impressed that she referenced historical knowledge that I wasn't even offended that she called me a commy.

Here's to another great day of SEW!!!

good morning

I may have blogged about this before but one thing that I love about our apartment is that we get to see some great sunrises.

Our morning view (and really dirty window).

new blog

I've started a new blog that focuses on educational topics.  It's called, Mrs. Utility Player, and you can read the first post to see the concept of the blog.

http://mrsutilityplayer.blogspot.com/

I've been itching to start a blog where I could express my thoughts on teaching and what I'm up to in the classroom.  So this past weekend I decided to go for it.  I'm not sure what it will mold into over time (will it even exist over time???), but I'm excited just to take a risk and go for it.

If you're not into educational topics then don't feel the pressure to follow it...I'm just throwing it out there if it's an interest you have.  I think sometimes the blogging experience is just as much for the author to process his/her thoughts as it is for readers to benefit.  For that reason I'm excited to reflect and to submerge myself farther into the blog world.

-Bonnie

Driving in Europe

Back in the spring and early summer when we would tell people that we were renting a car in Europe the general response from about 90% of people was something like, "really... oh... good luck with that." Or "wow, that could be risky." Basically it seemed like people thought we were crazy.

I will admit that it was a little daunting; especially when I started looking at maps of Paris, Rome, Florence, etc. They looked like piles of spaghetti. It appeared that most of Europe thought city planning was a frivolous venture. However, after we concluded the trip we were so pumped that we had taken the risk, thankful for the experiences it provided us, and grateful for the cash it saved us. For two weeks the six of us spent a little over 1500 Euros. Train tickets would have cost us over 3000 Euros.

Now that we are a month or so removed from the trip and I have had some time to reflect on it and drive in America and Seoul again, I want to offer some suggestions and tips to anyone else who would dare rent a car in Europe (in order of importance).

1. Make sure you know EXACTLY what size car you are getting.
2. Get a GPS. This is HUGE! They are smart and full of all kinds of useful info.
3. When you go to a big city stay at a place that has parking even if there is a charge. Then when you are in the city leave your car at the hotel and take public transit anywhere you need to go.
4. When you stay at that place ask them if there is free parking anywhere nearby. You'll save 8 or more Euros a day if there is any and the bellhop may freely point it out.
5. Drive the speed limit. There are speed trap cameras everywhere and you'll get a random credit card charge from your rental car company when they get the ticket.
6. Know each country's regulations. Several places require stickers to us the Autobahns (Austria,Switzerland) or have restricted traffic zones (Italy).
7. Visit Germany. No speed limits = fun, though it can lead to poor fuel economy.
8. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just pause and wait for the GPS to fix it.
9. Visit small towns off train routes. Less tourists and so cool.
10. Don't leave anything in your car to tempt a thief. Take everything out of your car when you get to your hotel. We didn't have anything stolen but we also cleaned the car out all the time.

That's all I've got for now. If you have any questions feel free to let me know. I highly recommend driving in Europe. It is well worth it.

it is finished

It's taken me over three years, but I have finally finished reading the entire Bible from the beginning in Genesis to the end in Revelation.   It was a good experience, and I've never been so excited to read the New Testament in my whole life.  It took me over two years just to read through the Old Testament because I got bogged down in some of the "slower" books like Leviticus and Numbers so I was ready to hit the NT and hear about Jesus.   I'm obviously pumped to have done this because the Bible is a great, life giving book, but I'm also really excited to have completed this because I (or more likely God in me) didn't give up and I finished my goal.  

Did I ever think it would take over three years to accomplish this goal? No way.

Am I slightly ashamed it took me this long to do it?  Yeah...a little.  I feel like the slow kid in gym class that was the last person to finish running a mile. 

None the less, it is finished. 

people

We've been blessed to live around a lot of cool people since coming to Korea.  A week ago we got hang out with quite a few folks from school at our annual "Acro Park Party."  On the 9th floor of Acro Park (our apartment building) there are four apartments and all of them are occupied by couples from our school (Tom and I being one of those couples).  So we put tables in the foyer area between the apartments and host a potluck.  It's always a great time.  Here are some pic's from the event:

My friend/neighbor Kim and I showing off left over treats from the party.

Julia (our HS secretary) and I.

Lauren, Laura, and I...more great friends from GSIS.

Over the past year we've not only had great friends from school, we've also had quality experiences with the Andy and Lindsey Patton.  Last weekend we went to visit them (they came to visit us the weekend before) at their Korean home of Gangneung on the east coast.  We've been there before and always love visiting at their place because it such a relaxing get away!  Their town is quite a bit smaller in population than Suwon (Suwon is one million, Gangneung is about 200,000) and its nestled next to the sea.   Below is a little strip of restaurants along the coast and Tom on the beach.

We actually did not get a picture of the four of us together, but I managed to take a picture of our shoes.  It's a cultural habit to ALWAYS take your shoes off when you walk into someone's home (or even at certain restaurants).   I took this pic because I thought it was funny how much Chaco (the best sandals ever) action was going on.

Here's a picture outside their apartment...so different than us in Suwon! I loved it.

We're really going to miss Andy and Lindsey (and Gangneung) when they leave at the beginning of October.

Lastly, I just got an invite yesterday from the MU Alumni Association that they will be having a dinner event in Seoul next weekend!  AND it's FREE!  How cool is that?  Tom and I are going to go and meet up with some other cool Mizzou people.  We'll make sure to post on the blog how it goes down.

Pumpkin Duck

Last weekend Bonnie and I went to visit our good friends Andy and Lindsay in Gangneung. When we were there we experienced, what we have determined to be our favorite Korean meal in our 2 years here. It was called Pumpkin Duck (no clue what is it called in Korean). It looks like this:
This is a generic picture from the web.
We had to have a Korean friend call in advance to get it going. They take a squash (pumpkin in Korea), cut the top off, and scrape out the seeds and gunk. Then you stuff it with duck. Finally you smoke it for like 2 or 3 hours. It was absolutely amazing. The squash soaks in the roasted duck goodness. Oh I wish you could smell it and taste it as opposed to just read about it. I wish we knew where we could find it in Suwon.

Remembering Germany

So I am in grad school this weekend from 6-9PM Friday and 9AM-5PM Saturday. This happens twice a month for me. All that to say I get off task very easily when trapped in one room for that long so I will probably be posting some random blogs throughout the day. Like this one:

Last Saturday morning I was getting something out of our cabinets and one of our souvineers from Germany caught my eye. I just had to use it. Bonnie thought it was humorous so she snapped a picture.
This was a delicious stein of chocolate milk. And no I did not fill the whole thing up. A liter of chocolate milk would be delicious but devastating.

Typhoon Kompasu

I never would have guessed at any point in my life that I would experience a typhoon before I ever experienced a hurricane, let alone a tornado. But as fate would have it on Thursday morning from around 3AM to 8AM Typhoon Kompasu rolled directly through the greater Seoul area.

Where we live there was not much big damage. We saw a bunch of leaves and branches on the road, a couple of trees blown down here and there, and a window that got ripped free from its hinges and crashed to the ground 15 stories below at our apartment complex. That was about it. I heard some stories of more costly damage being done to some areas farther to the north and tragically there were at least 3 people that were killed from typhoon related incidents.

The extreme wind speed was the primary thing we noticed. It wasn't very rainy. Watching the clouds cruise through the sky was the creepiest thing to me. They were moving pretty dang fast. Rumor has it there is another typhoon headed toward Korea next week. This could turn out to be an interesting fall...