**photos for my brother, KP

Sorry, I do not have many abstract photos, but please let me know which ones you are interested in. Have a great week!

a precious welcome home gift

After over an hour car ride to the airport, a 14 hour flight from Korea to Chicago, one night with my parents and then, a six hour train ride to  Michigan, a special someone gave me the most heart-warming gift.

My niece, a princess and an artist, did such a great job!

Spending time with family <3 was the perfect way to end my J-term break.

my lovely host family

T h e y   w e r e   g r e a t .

Mom, they loved the scarves!

My host family was sweet and loving. I couldn't have asked for more. The language barrier was difficult sometimes, but most sentences ended in laughter. My home stay sister is an English teacher in an elementary school. She became the translator between her parents and I. Soeun, my Korean sister, and I spent many nights talking and giggling late into the night. We talked about everything: school, God, friends, shopping, family, work, sports, music, fears and more. She also enjoys traveling and hopes to come to Chicago soon. So Great!

This is my home stay sister, Soeun. She was great and we got along really well from the start! I will miss her. While this picture looks graceful, it took a lot of work to capture it.  Below are the pictures that we took in an attempt to capture this picture. Enjoy.

"Say kimchi!"

I love soccer.

World Cup Stadium?

Y e s ,  p l e a s e . 

I love how easy it is to find soccer fans in other countries.It seems like people who don't even really play soccer still have at least some appreciation for this beautiful sport. This is not the case in the United States. Think about it. It's common for parents to register their children in little league soccer around the United States. However, despite the amount of mini-soccer-letes, many Americans would not label themselves as soccer fans.

You know the ones I'm talking about, right? The devoted fans that wake up in the middle of the night to catch international premier league games, watch each soccer game with friends and family like its the Superbowl, plan their daily schedule around a good match, and manage to juggle a soccer ball and stretch in their spare time.

Check out NPR's What Kind of Soccer Fan are You?, an interesting post that helps soccer fans find the category they best fit.

Thankfully, we had a couple of soccer fans on our Korean team and, as a group, we decided to go to one of Korea's World Cup Stadiums.

I t  w a s  a w e s o m e! 

the stadium with snow covering the field.

We took the subway and got off at a stop that highlighted the city's soccer team, Seoul FC. There were tall pillars with pictures of individuals on the team's starting line in a hall way that led to a long escalator. At the top of the escalator, was the stadium. Not many people were there, given that it was super cold and snowy, but this did not phase us. Our mission was to see the World Cup Stadium!

Where's Messi?

We walked around the stadium and found a really neat soccer museum. It started with the history of soccer, highlighted some key people from around the world and major moments in past World Cups, and entertained visitors with virtual soccer games and goal keeping drills. A tour guide volunteer accompanied us through the museum. Then, he gave us an awesome gift: an inside look at the stadium.

Outside the Coaches' lounge

Walking through the players' entrance.

The Press room.

We were excited just to see the stadium in the first place. We were not expecting to actually be allowed in it, through it and under it. This was just too great!

We saw the main field, over 8,000 seats, players' locker rooms and showers, training room with turf, coaching lounge, press area and the players' benches on the sidelines. Like I said, it was awesome.

In the press room, we watched a video that highlighted the national S. Korean team. It recapped the country's excitement and emotion during the recent World Cup. Before the summer of 2011, Korea had not won a game in the last five World Cups. However, this summer marked the team’s progressive change. Take a look at some of Korea's strong finishes during the World Cup.


After a good scoring streak, the Red Devil's fans went crazy supporting their country's team in song and cheers.

As we listened to the South Korean fan song play during the museum's video, we realized we had heard the same song once before. In fact, we danced to it the one day we exercised with YPC's Handicap Ministry. The ministry's leaders played a video with people standing in a line doing the same choreographed dance to this song. It reminded me of the Cha Cha Slide, but with a faster rhythm. The leaders told us to just follow whatever the dancers were doing in the video. We gave it our best effort, smiling the whole time as we tried to keep up with all the steps. I think the ministry does this exercise every day because most of the people surrounding me were so on beat. It was fun and I loved it! Actually, I may or may not have asked Dr. Chang if we could do it again. (He laughed and said, "Yes, lets do it again!").  When the leaders said we were doing it again, a good portion of my team immediately looked at me. They knew I had to be behind it.

 

People can have their weddings in the stadium . . . what?!

They were definitely right. Yep . . . Guilty.

 

Eight college students and one aquarium filled with mostly parents and children.

starfish

We went to an aquarium in the Coex Mall, the main venue for the G20 Summit held this year. For the most part, we saw marine-life in action, but we also saw prairie dogs and spiders behind the glass windows. Interesting, right? The aquarium was crowded with children and parents, and our team of college foreigners definitely stood out. This did not bother us, though. I'm pretty sure we were just as excited to see the sharks as the running little boys, who were racing to see the shark tank.

In our eyes, spending the day at the aquarium was a great way to have fun . . . and stay warm.

We saw some of the cutest kids and funny-looking fish in the aquarium.

The puffer fish, also known as "blowfish" in Korea, was probably one of the funniest, but in a cute way, of course. Little did we know that it would be the main ingredient in a future meal: dinner. The cooks at a restaurant fried and breaded it. They drizzled mustard and a sweet sauce over the fish for the final touch.

I couldn't stop thinking how cute it looked in the aquarium.
Here are some more pictures from the day at the Aquarium: 

Petting the fish

shark

I just had to take this picture. They were playing soccer!
(Well, the effort was there)

ESL?

just before nap time

Considering teaching English as a Second Language . . .

       (it would be a good international experience)

Thoughts?

Much appreciated, thanks.

We visited a university's day care and a public elementary school, and learned about the importance of English classes in Korea. Look how cute these kids are.

lunch time

one public school's classroom

meeting with the public school's head staff

look what I found, mom and dad

so many violins in the daycare . . . love it