Feeling the Love

Hello there! This is Maria. We survived another week in Korea, and now our first day of a new one. We had a beautiful weekend with my co-workers on Saturday. Be sure to check out our pictures! They took us to Namwon...otherwise known as the city of love. There we ate a delicious (seriously) meal of fried mini eels and bip-n-bop (basically rice with vegetables). Then we went to the legendary site of an important Korean love story. The story is quite complicated, bit the grounds and replications of the ancient buildings were beautiful. As we were walking through the "palace" grounds Sunny, my boss, asked if I wanted to recreate our wedding traditional Korean style. Of course, I said, well..."of course!" The next thing we know, a man and woman are wrapping beautiful things around us. Then, the woman hands Ethan a pink fan and poses us for pictures. It was a riot! What a great time!

On our way out after touring the grounds, and learning about the ancient Korean love story, a man tried to stop us but we didn't know what he was saying. Then our friend Danielle said he was telling us there was a parade coming. We just happened to catch a really cool parade with dancing and drumming on our way out. Then we went to the top of Mount Chi-Ti (or something like that) where we had a great time of barbecue and laughter. It was so cold up on the mountain, so instead of sitting, we all gathered around and ate straight off the grill. Of course, Ethan happily assumed his position in front of one grill, Adam (my other boss of sorts) on the other. We ate grilled "black pig," which by the way, is better for health followed by sausage (including green ones that were my favorite), followed by sweet potatoes, then best of all...assorted shelled creatures of the sea. Conchs, scallops, and clams still alive were thrown straight on the grill. They were grilled to perfection, then we ate them straight off the shells. It was amazing! Very few of us withstood the cold for long enough to enjoy this final course, but it was well work the wait!

We feel truly blessed to have been placed with such wonderful people to work with and for. They have made such extra efforts to make us feel comfortable and accepted here in this foreign land. We learned a lot about them over the weekend, and we are realizing more and more what truly wonderful people they are. At my school my boss has made a rule that she and my co-workers must speak English at all times (except in the kitchen). Even though this is so difficult for most they are all making an effort to do it just to make me feel more welcome. They even apologize to me when they speak their language in front of me. Of course, this is anything but necissary. After all, I did come to Korea with the knowledge that yes, they do speak Korean here. But it really is awesome thatt that they are trying so hard to make me feel more at home.

Yesterday I was feeling under the weather, so we decided to take it easy and catch a movie. We saw Nanny Diaries. If you haven't seen it, it's about a want-to-be anthropologist who takes a job as a nanny as a sort of anthropological study of the peculiar family systems of Manhattan, NY. Before you get too excited (Carrie), it's sort of a frustrating and a bit mindless plot. It was a blast going to the movies here though. The popcorn is free, and we went up 5 escalators to get to our theatre (we rode up and down twice it was so fun!). It was also nice to have a temporary escape into an American teen movie. Ethan especially liked that.

Speaking of my darling husband, here he is for the long awaited Sports Report. I'm sure he's got lots of ground breaking news that you can't find anywhere else!

Well I thought that baby blue did not fit for the sports update. So I went with the green to represent the EAGLES, even though they blew the lead in the final two minutes. Well like I thought the Patriots are dominating and they are probably not going to lose a game all season. Monday night game should be good hopefully the Jag's can give the Colts a run for there money. Well the Red Sox did it and they came back to beat the Indians which means Rockies Sox in the WS. I hope the Rockies did not cool down over the long wait and not be able to hang with the Sox. I think that the rest will be better for the pitching and that is what is going to make the difference it always does. College football it looks like OSU and BC are at the top with LSU close behind but as everyone is saying it has been one of the craziest years ever. It was nice to see PSU back in the top 25. We have a huge game this weekend against Ohio State but it is in Beaver Stadium so plan for a white out. Can you smell an upset in the works. Well it would be huge and there would be riots in state college. Well if I missed something you all know what happened. Well if you need a more personal update we have skype now so give me a call and I will give you my picks. Talk to you later. Enjoy MNF it should be a good one. PEACE