It's been a while!

I feel like I have been horrible at blogging. My last blog was about three weeks ago already. Time has been moving very fast here. I am already about 6 weeks into my exchange year!  I am staying busy with school, meeting new friends and celebrating holidays! This past weekend was Chuseok. Sort of like Thanksgiving but it lasts 4 days. We started the celebrations on saturday. my Abba's family came over to our apartment to spend the night. We made tons a rice cakes and other foods which we used for the alter that was set up for my host father's father. I wasn't allowed to participate but it was a really cool experience to watch how they pray for their loved ones that have passed.  The next day we headed to my mother's side of the family's house out in a smaller town and spent two full days eating, hunting for pam (a sort of nut, super yummy) and watching lots of TV. I also went to my first norebang! It is like karoake only you go into a little room with your small group and sing...or scream... I had a super fun time, and it doesn't matter how bad of a singer you are either.

Now lets jump back, two weekends ago I went to the ING conference (International next-generation global leaders conference). That's a mouth full. It was 5 nights and 6 days of mostly speaking english. I met some pretty amazing people while I was there. Some were rotex who were on exchange  2-6 years ago, some were locals and some were just there because their english was really good and from places around the world like Malaysia, Germany and Russia. During the conference we did a whole bunch of interesting things. We were split into 3 groups. I was in the Environment and Science group. The two other groups were human right/politics and culture/art. Each group was told to create a presentation that would be given at the end of the week on a subject that fit within our topics. My group ended up talking about alternative energy and the future. I was elected to talk because my english was the best out of the 6 or so of us that worked on 5 of the 15 slides. I am not the best public speaker, my knees like to shake... but I made it through alive. Some of the other things we did were touristy. We went to a traditional "castle" in Suwon, then went shopping. I got some super cute socks with giraffes on them! We also went to Seoul for an evening. Given free reign we ended up staying in Gangnam the whole time to do some more shopping and sticker sajin (a shop dedicated to little photobooths with different themes and editing options that make your eyes huge and your skin lighter). I had sooo much fun. And I danced to Gangnam Style in Gangman station... No biggy or anything... Let's see, what else did we do? Oh yeah,   I saw North Korea. We didn't get to go to the actual DMZ because of time limits but we went to another place where you can see NK over a river. I think I will get another chance to go to the DMZ later this year on a Rotary trip. We spent one day listening to some speakers talk about different subjects. I got a few naps in that day. All in all it was super fun and nice to meet some new faces from all over the world! Who knew that Canadians could be so cool?? I also learned all of the faces that korean girls make in pictures... I'm sure they will pop up in a lot of my pictures through out the year.

                                                               
My host family has been wonderful. They are so caring and treat me like their daughter. We eat almost every meal together, even breakfast before I go to school. My omma wakes up with me and sits at the table with me while I eat my cornflakes. I want to tell her to not wake up so early but I think she feels like she has to, just to make sure I have everything I need and that I make it out the door in time. They are very protective, even with their own kids they are very protective. Omma always watches me when I am trying what she made for dinner to make sure it tastes okay. It seems like we are always eating something new when she cooks and she always watches me take my first bite to see if I like it or not. Sometimes I usually say "oh yummy!" but other times she can tell by my face that it isn't my favorite. I would say that 50% of my meals are at home and the other 50% are out at restaurants. I think I have eaten out enough in the last 6 weeks to last me a year. Korean meals are very different from American meals. There is always kimchi and usually some other little plates of bean sprouts, or other varieties of kimchi , of course rice, and then one big plate or bowl in the middle that we all eat off of.  Usually when we eat out or if  a lot of family are over we eat sitting on the floor by a low table. I am still getting used to sitting crossed legged for so long but I am sure by the end of the year it will be easy as pie!

A few weeks ago I went to my first rotary club meeting. My rotary club is mostly made up of men, with one woman and the district governor who is also a woman, came to this particular meeting. I gave my  introduction in korean. (My Omma helped my write it). Then the questions started, in broken english; Do you have a boyfriend? What are your hobbies? Do you like Korea? Do you like eel?. That last one confused me quite a bit until I realized when we pulled up to the restaurant after the meeting that we were having eel for dinner.  I was a bit nervous to try it, I thought it would be close to the texture of octopus but it was actually pretty tasty! It is pretty expensive to eat so this may have been the only time I eat it. If you ever have it sitting in front of you for a meal don't be scared to try it! I had a great time talking to the men that sat around me. One of them, and older gentleman who is a doctor, is learning english. He worked very hard at putting together sentences. He was so cute and he said some really hilarious things! I think his favorite is "bottoms up!", which he said every time he and the other rotarians would drink.

What else haven't I talked about? The weather here is getting cooler but the leaves haven't changed color yet. I miss all of the oranges, reds and yellows of the leaves back home but I am sure they will start to change here soon. I am getting so happy that it is getting cooler, any one that knows me knows I love winter!! I met a boy at school who lived in the US for 6 years up until last year and he skis and an english teacher at my school told me that there are "ski clubs" that go skiing every weekend. Maybe I can get in on that? I will have to see how much it costs.  Hopefully I can make at least one or two trips out to the mountains to ski... I don't know what I will do if I don't get to ski this year!!

In the next few weeks I only have a few days of school. I don't have school until Thursday this week, then Friday I leave for a rotary but trip to Seoul. SOOO EXCITED!!  Back to school monday and tuesday then mid terms start wednesday and we aren't "allowed" to go to school while they are testing, so no school until the next tuesday. I will still have University in the afternoons but I will have lots of down time and will blog again after I spend the weekend in Seoul and the next weekend out in the mountains with my host family who are playing in a golf tournament. All in all I am having a wonderful time and learning so much about myself and how this new culture operates. I can't wait to see how this year pans out.  Until next time!

                                      My cousins thought photo booth was the coolest thing ever!

                                           NORTH KOREA!!!

Making rice cakes!

eating kimchi pancakes with my little cousins! and of course watch Kdrama!

                                         We squeezed almost 10 people around this little table.