ceramics festival / a view of Icheon, our new home

We went to a ceramics festival here in Icheon on the weekend. It was a lot of fun. There were so many good artists displaying and selling their work. Juli and I ended up buying a couple of tea mugs for brewing single cups of loose leaf tea. They are beautiful. We went with our friend Andre and our roommate Sophie. It was a blast.

Some cool stuff found at the festival, including chopped wood made into a perfect cylinder and a really creepy family made out of ceramics.



Sophie and Andre came to the park with us! good times.

Cell phone charms bought at the festival... very Korean.

Views of Icheon from the park near our home.




The cherry blossoms open and looking amazing!
A sculpture at the park.

a day at the ceramics festival

view much bigger and in much better quality at: http://www.vimeo.com/11269872

Cherry Blossom Video

A short video of a cherry blossom festival we went to in Seoul. I forgot to do it in HD but it is still decent quality. View it at vimeo here...

http://www.vimeo.com/11200404

trip to Seoul, and photos from the roof

We took a trip to Seoul with our friend Ashley, and the only thing i took photos of was our mexican food. We did a ton of stuff, but I forgot about the camera except for when were about to eat. Korean food is fantastic, but when we get the chance to have mexican we jump on it. The other photos are taken from the roof of our building. I found out how to get out there, its great. The photos are of the street in front of our place, on a market day.

Jina is coming soon and we are very excited! She was going to visit at Christmas time, but the weather here is pretty snowy and we wouldn't be able to show her much. She starts school soon and will have no other time to come, so she is coming at the beginning of April. It should be a lot of fun! We can show her what we know of Korea so far.

Out and about with our Korean friends

We went out for dinner and kareoke with some of our Korean co-workers this weekend. Then some of my City Hall students took us to the Sansayu Flower festival. It is close to Icheon and is a small festival for a yellow flower that only blooms for a week or so. It was a lot of fun.

King, Denny, and I at the sansuyu flower festival.

fun games!

a traditional korean game.
The sansuyu flowers.


The Koreans ordered Juli a nice noodle soup, and they ordered me this dish... It is organ stew, pretty much pig gut soup. The broth was good but i think the rest of it is just to put hair on your chest.
This type of makoli is made from some sort of root. It tasted earthy, almost dirty... but was very delicious.

My student King serving us makoli. It is a type of rice wine drink, sort of. This type was made from the Sansuyu fruit that grows on the sansuyu trees. We also got some of the fruit dried for making tea.
This is a really some really old tree. I asked my student Denny why it was filled with concrete, and he simply said "surgery".
Mascot at the Sansuyu Flower festival.

Ashley and Erin singing kareoke in our private kareoke room.

This is a Korean teacher, Erin. She is a lot of fun and really cute. She is also a little older than I am, so i have to use two hands to fill her glass while she can hold hers with only one. She was being pretty funny here.
Juli and I out with our co-workers for a nice dinner!