Holiday season in South Korea!

Its that time of year again and I am more excited than usual about it this year!!! Just being able to be together, have a nice home, and live in such an awesome country. This has definitely been a great year for us.. excluding Zak's time in the hospital..!

Thanksgiving was spent with friends, and although North Korea tried to ruin it, our plans worked out and we had a great time. I have been wanting to put up the tree since..um.. the beginning of November but Zak made me hold off until after Thanksgiving and im glad he did. Often times people forget about Thanksgiving and move right into Christmas. So the day after Thanksgiving our tree went up!!! :) We haven't had it up in two years and every time I look at it I get such a warm feeling inside.

So lets rewind a bit to the weekend before Thanksgiving. We met up with our friends in Seoul and shopped till we dropped! Myeongdong is a whole shopping district with everything from shoe stores, clothing stores (even stores like H&M, Forever 21, and Zara!) By far my favorite part was discovering that they had a Lush store. I have never been happier to set my eyes on bath bombs and body wash! :) By about 4pm Myeongdong gets VERY crowded, when exiting a store you are in heel to toe walking.. its like black friday madness every day of the week!!

Here are some pictures we captured along the way!

Zak decided to try on some native wear...

(By far the funniest picture of Zak that I have!! Every time I look at it, it makes me laugh!)

And then came the arcade.. Korean arcades are far better than American! 

And of coarse.. Zak has to beat my high score ;)

The mall has a beautiful Christmas display outside, Koreans LOVE the holidays just as much as I do!!!!! 

So in all we have had a great week, still pretty busy learning the Korean language.. distinguishing between the "proper" way and the "known" way to speak. 

On another note.. our dog Pip is still a a crazy nut. She was spayed about a month ago and is slowly coming out of her "mothering" stage. We have put away most of her toys for now because she just protects them to much and I can tell she is unhappy feeling like she has to watch over them. I don't know where she found my cat ear headband from Halloween.. but she did.. and its fuzzy.. so naturally she thought it was her baby..

I hope you have a great week! We are spending next weekend at the Hilton Millennium in Seoul for my birthday, I am so looking forward to it and will take plenty of picture to share! 

Thanks for reading xxx

Finding the Beach in Korea!

I have been missing the water lately, and living on a peninsula I knew the beach couldn't be that far away! Zak and I found a strip of national beaches about an hour or so away, and with Pip in tow we headed out. The drive was not bad on the way there, but it is easy to want to drive fast on Korean highways and they have strategically placed speed detectors along the roads. So without a handy GPS that locates all the radars for us, we continuously speed up and slow down when I yell "CHECK YO' SPEED!" You see, in Korea no one really follows traffic laws, they are just a guide.. so if you drive slow you will get rear ended or get stuck behind the man driving a plow while everyone else is overtaking you... needless to say the purchase of a GPS is in our near future. :)

Upon arriving to where our directions landed us, we quickly deduced that we were in some sort of a fisherman's wharf/ boat dock.. not the beach! But we did walk out on the sea wall and get a beautiful view!

(Click to enlarge panoramic)

After leaving the first stop we drove a bit further north and the road ended at the beautiful Cheongpodae Beach. It was so cold out by the sea, I think in the low 40s with a nice wind chill! Pip was very confused as to what she was stepping on and decided to lick the sand to get a closer investigation... hmm not so tasty?? Here are some pictures from the beach!

I will definitely be visiting this beach again once the weather warms up!!! On our way home we thought all was swell, until we hit the dreaded traffic. Our 1 1/2 hour drive turned into 4 hours of stop and go! It was terrible, but we did get a few laughs when we saw vendors set up all along the route selling beer and food! 

Next week is Thanksgiving!!! YUMMMMO! Hope everyone enjoys their week!

PS. Want a custom coat like Pip's for your pup? Visit WarmWags , I highly recommend them for big dogs or small! 

Celebrating Zak's Birthday!

So this past Monday my wonderful husband turned 26! I am so thankful that he is healthy and we are enjoying our life, every time a birthday rolls around you can't help but think what you were doing this time last year. We were living in Pennsylvania in Keith and Julia's basement and Zak was getting ready to unexpectedly head to Afghanistan for the first time as a civilian. I remember thinking and wondering if we were ever going to make it out to Korea, and the thought of it just seemed surreal. And now, here we are in Korea! Most people I have met do not like it here in Korea, but Zak and I had a choice to come and we don't regret that choice at all. I grew up knowing that there was more to the world than the 48 contiguous states (and the other two.. as well) lol. I am so happy to share my love of traveling with someone who enjoys it just as much as I do. My grandma told me that when you look back on life you don't want to think "We should have done that" but rather "Maybe we shouldn't have done that!" ha ha. If anyone reading this blog ever has an opportunity to travel and experience a world outside of your own, I would definitely take that opportunity and enjoy it. Don't waste your time worrying about what if's, just do it!

Now on to Zak's Birthday... ! For a few weeks now Zak has been wanting to try making a quiche, and what better time to dirty up the kitchen than your birthday. We now call this, the birthday quiche:

It was filled with egg, cheese, potato, bacon and onions! YUM!

Later on in the evening I surprised Zak with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins! I love the Korean Baskin Robbins so much more than the ones in the states. They get very creative with their flavors and cakes!

The Panda cake was too cool to pass up!

So in all I think Zak had a pretty delicious birthday! Now we are getting ready for the holiday's and the weather is definitely starting to cool down here on the peninsula! Thanks for reading! :)

2010 Inaugural Korean Grand Prix!

This past weekend Zak and I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Korean Grand Prix. We had been looking into going before we even got to Korea, Zak is a big fan! For some reason life got in the way and we never got the tickets in advance (you know..hospital visits and stuff...) so by the time we realized the race was right around the corner..literally like a week out.. we checked the ticket prices and they were about 975,000krw (roughly $865) each. There was no way I was going to put out almost 2 grand, but luckily I had seen the USO advertising a trip to the F1 race and to my surprise the tickets including transportation, and seats in the grand stand were only $95 each! What a great deal, and big props to the USO for that!

So the day of the race Zak and I woke up very early to head on post and get to the bus that took us down south to the Korean International Circuit in Yeongnam. This trip was supposed to be 4 hours each way but you add in the traffic of over 170,000 people attending the race it was easily 12 hours round trip... not the ideal situation but hey..$95 dollars people! ;)

This was my first ever visit to a race track of any kind, and I am definitely a fan of Formula 1 racing now! We were rooting for the Brits driving the McLarens, Button and Hamilton. Here are a few photos of us arriving at the race track:

And all the drivers arriving to the pit area:

I was also able to get some footage of the opening ceremony:

The race had a delay due to the rainy weather, and then went on to have about 20 safety laps, and finally the race began! There were a lot of wrecks on this track, which was pretty intense. We had our fingers crossed that our guys would wreck and they didn't! Here is a photo of my man Lewis Hamilton being pushed to his starting block:

Zak enjoying the race:

With a sudden turn of events the Ferrari team ended up winning and Hamilton came in second, which we thought was pretty awesome considering a lot of cars didn't even finish!

Here is a photo of the the awards ceremony and of me representing my roots:

We had an awesome time and can't wait to go again next year!

A crazy trip to the zoo!

Zak, myself, and one of his friends Ben decided to take a trip to the Zoo, and we all agreed that this was by far the BEST Zoo we have ever been to! The zoo was just south of Seoul, and pretty tricky to get to by train (meaning we would have had to take a train to Seoul and then had back south on a subway to get there) so we decided to drive! It is not too difficult to find your way around Korea with a car, you just tend to get stuck in a lot of traffic.. I mean the whole country is the size of Indiana and there are over 48.6 million people living here.. your bound to get stuck somewhere! We managed to get to the zoo in a little over an hour, which wasnt bad at all. Upon entering we quickly realized that this is a HUGE zoo!

 It housed every animal imaginable even the fennec fox whom we concluded is a close relative to Pip... (notice the size comparison in the ears.. LOL)

The primate exhibit was my favorite, these are not your average orangutans and baboons!

 Unlike America, Koreans find it extremely entertaining to feed the animals. And I had to agree that it is pretty funny seeing monkeys catch shrimp fries! Every animal was up and moving around as opposed to be lethargic, and they all gave quite a show! Somehow these monkey's got a hold of a mylar balloon and were playing 'monkey in the middle' with it...

Zak and Ben's favorite exhibit were the Kangaroo's. We were able to go inside the pen and feed them and pet them!! Here is Zak while we were waiting for the Kangaroo pen to open up, can you sense his excitement? LOL

Ben had a goal to hug a Kangaroo, and im pretty sure he succeeded. Although it was not photographed we witnessed him hugging not one but two kangaroos! Here is one of him feeding a 'roo!

And me:

After walking around the Zoo and eating waffles filled with jam we stumbled up the bear show.. apparently Korean's are all about training bears to do tricks!

And for the grand finale: A crazy monkey with a mohawk in the nursery:

Thanks for reading! 

Hiking Trip in Pyeongtaek!

This past weekend Zak and I met up with our friends Brett and Kathy and went on our first hiking adventure in Korea! We went to Buraksan Park in Songtan. Throughout Korea there are many areas to hike, and most are set up with work out equipment in different areas.. as you will see in our photos. We had the motivation of an all you can eat meat buffet at the end of the hike! Score! Here are some pictures:

Zak on a workout machine before we started our hike!

And Brett doing the same... lol

While hiking in Korea you will find these pile of rocks all along the trail. You try to stack the rocks as high as you can without letting them fall! We saw some very high stacks along the way!

A view from one of our stops

Zak doing his famous "K Kick" lol

Brett and Kathy hiking.. see the cool workout equipment? 

And a video to show you how to use the equipment.. please note the awesome stretch being demonstrated by our fellow Korean hiker..

Thanks for reading! ;)

Pip's first bike ride.. and house hold goods! YAY!

Zak and I have been super busy lately! I feel like I have been doing school work non-stop...well... because I have been. And Zak is busy with his crazy work schedule at the moment. We did however manage to find time to take our little Pip on a bike ride with us down by the river here in Pyeongtaek. I wasn't sure how she would react to being put into a basket on my bike, but she seemed ok with it and I felt comfortable enough to bring her with us. It was such a beautiful day and the weather has cooled down so much. I fear that before I know it it will be snowing! Here is a picture of Pip enjoying her ride:

And Zak while we were taking a break:

I am so happy to announce that Zak and I are no longer sleeping on the couch! Our house hold goods have arrived!! It has been such a mess the past couple of days but we had to kick it into high gear because Zak invited some friends over for the weekend, and I wanted our home to be presentable! I didn't think we could do it judging by the disaster we started with:

But we did! Our friends came over and we enjoyed lots of food, drinks, and played on our Playstation Move. Take a look at how pizza delivery boxes come in Korea! Ribbons and all!

  I still have a lot of work to do sorting out the bedroom and all of our clothes, but it will get done and it is soooo nice to have everything here.

 I have a mission this month, to figure out what to do on Zak's birthday! He said all he wants is for me to take him somewhere he hasn't been to before in Korea, so I need to get creative! His birthday is November 1st, so I have a few weeks to decide. 

Did I mention that I am soooo excited that the holiday's are right around the corner? I am currently burning my spiced pumpkin candles mmmmm they smell so good!