It's the time of the Season for Change

The past few weeks have probably been the hardest on me yet. It seems like a little bit of everything slowly ate me. It started with the sadness of more of my co-workers leaving. My boss left, whom I was close with (who I found out later also screwed me over with vacation days. Sneaky snake), one of my closest friends here in Korea, decided to go behind my back with a couple of things (and chose a guy over our friendship...sadness), and so many of my friends just all left at the same time. Not to mention the Italy drama I've been dealing with. The Italians sure don't make it easy for people to live there for more than 3 months. Uggg. So granted to say, a little bit of everything creeped up on me, wore me out, prevented me from sleeping for months, and eventually gave me lymphangitis (which I didn't discover until I had a big lump on the side of my neck which scared the bejezus out of me). A mix of all, also creates for a bit of homesickness. I hate to use that word and I hate to say that i miss home...however, I think I do. I miss little luxuries of home like bathtubs, ahi tuna tacos, and frozen yogurt.
Even though, I'm in a low (hey i'm a poet, and i didn't even know it...and a nerd), I've still manage to have some fun and meet new people :) A few weeks ago, I heard of a Russian ice skating show that was in town. I knew that after all my 'girl-drama,' that an ice skating show was just what I needed. I had also recently met a new girl in town (literally new to my small town). So I spent the day with her showing around and my new Korean friend Suzie (the girl I met on the bus on the entry below). Suzy is a 20 y.o Korean student who wants to move to England in December for school (and boys). She's very cute. We spent the day having sushi, exploring the beaches, and ended with the Russian ice skating show. Half the show was a ballet and the 2nd half was a cirque de soleil type of show with lots of acrobats. It was very different from what I expected but VERY good :) Besides the ballet, they did ice dancing, men and womens singles, group performances, they had arialists, ridiculous hula hoopists, a guy even performed a fire show on the ice...again, I've never seen that before. It is amazing how no matter where I am, ice skating always makes me happy. I really hope in the future I can do more with it. I left very happy. Liz's Korean co-teacher, Michelle was also at the show with her family. It was a great surprise to see her there. We had a great day.

Another fun/cultural experience I've had recently was learning how to make Makali. Makali is the Korean rice wine. It can be delicious or gross...kinda an acquired taste, but I enjoy it. We took the cable car to the top of Geumjeong Mountain/Fortress. I had never been up there. It was so beautiful. There was a short hike (hard to miss all the Koreans in bright neon clothes in full hiking gear), and we arrived at the top. We were picked up in a van and taken to the location. There were some little villages along the way. I'd never guessed there would be. It was so quiet, so surrounded by nature, and quaint. Very lovely. When we arrived, we were in the middle of a farm like area. There was a big tent with a small pool kinda area. We were told that we could put our feet in...it was a hot day, so some of us did! And it felt amazing. It was kind of a random spot for just a big tub of water. We weren't sure what to think, but no questions asked. Our 'sun-sang-nim' aka teacher, didn't speak English, so we had a nice Korean girl with us to translate. The teacher started off by giving us all a bottle of his own makali that he is famous for making. It was very different than we were used to (no carbonation) but very fresh and natural. So we learned that at first they take the 'nudo' (that's how it sounded like it was pronounced. I think it's rice that's been soaked in water for a bit and grain/wheat) and mix it with other stuff... and then you step on it to mush it together... as demonstrated by the nice Adjumma here. She said she was very famous for her makali and been on TV before. She was so funny and cute. We were all a little bit turned off at the idea that this alcoholic beverage, which is commonly served at many Korean restaurants, was made by feet!!! (however we realized that grapes are usually stomped for wine as well... some things are just
better left not knowing). However, when given the chance, I did it as well. We rinsed off our feet before taking the plunge into the unknown. It was so sticky and gewy feeling between my toes... but almost therapeutic at the same time (i know, i'm crazy). It got to be more and more sticky vs. grainy. When it was at the perfect consistency, we had to shape it into pizza pie type shapes. We had a contest for the perfect shape... I thought mine was good, but I didn't win :( Turns out that our teacher, also was a Vetenarian and made/sold pottery... a man of many talents. Very interesting person. He gave a piece of his pottery away to the winner. OK... Once the nudo has been in the closet a few weeks, it gets hardened... then we put it in the big bowl and pound it into powder. That big stick thing was pretty heavy. Once the powder is all crushed up, we use it as a filter... and out comes makali! :) Oh the wonders of the world :) Very interesting. Our teacher was a very interesting man. He made pottery, he was an animal doctor and he put on this show playing a korean mandolin type thing. It was very beautiful. An amazing cultural day :) I really enjoyed it.

Another newbie in my life is Ms. Yeboni (Yeboni means 'pretty' in Korean). My friend Dominique is leaving Korea to go home to South Africa for a few months. She is planning to come back in February. She had 2 kittens. So I took one and my friend Katie took the other (she named her Saja). Katie lives really close to me so we sometimes get the cats together to play. But they're about 3 months old...still pretty little. So cute. Yeboni definitely brings liveliness back into my apartment. It's nice to come home to her. She's very active and very cuddly. :) Makes me miss my Lila so much.

So a few weeks ago, I went with a group to Hobakso Lake...aka Pumpkin Lake in Miriyang. There was supposed to be a lot of cliff diving and natural rock water slides. It looked amazing. It was sponsored by a church group so I got to meet a lot of Philippino missionaries who were really so nice! Their english was perfect. Just very sweet people. We took the 'scenic route' which involved a mini hike up a mountain to see the 'freezing place.' a random glacier area. It was a VERY hot day. The higher we went on the mountain (and we didn't go very high), the cooler it got. We arrived in this area that was gated off and it was just freezing!! It felt incredible! REALLY it felt great! Then we hiked back down, drove about 4 minutes and we arrived at Hobakso. It was really beautiful!!! We were planning on cliff diving in the big lake (in the background), however the 'korean version' of a lifeguards kept blowing their fog horns at us... yet they wouldn't motion or say anything. Just blow the horn. Ultimately it got annoying, so we had to stay out of that area. We found out it was because that area was very deep. Most Koreans can't swim very well, if at all. So they don't allow swimming in the deep end. At least there were some other slides there and other smaller cliffs to jump off of.

OK I gotta go to bed... i'll finish later :)