Bella Italia

Three weeks ago I returned from an absolutely spectacular trip to Italy--my birthday gift to myself in celebration of my entry into a new decade of life.  Although this was my fifth visit to Italia, I decided to spend the bulk of my time in two familiar places, Firenze e Venezia.  

Florence is an incredible city, filled with art and culture.  Armed with a laundry list of things to do and see, I hit the ground running and packed my six days full of wonderful sightseeing and doing.  I walked, photographed, biked, cooked, read, studied, and sweated in this treasured Tuscan city.  Here are just a few of my photos from Florence...

The Dome of the Duomo...one of dozens of pictures I took of this church

The front of the Duomo without the Dome

No photos of Michelangelo's David in the Accademia are allowed, but this is a reproduction outside Palazzo Vecchio

There are no shortage of artists in Florence

Ghiberti's famous bronze doors of the Baptistery--if you look really closely you can sneek a peek of what's inside

The mosaic covered Baptistery ceiling--this was one of my favorite finds in Florence

The height of the flooded Arno River in 1844 at Santa Croce

Palazzo Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio--the bridge lined with gold shops

A black and white close up of some of the window shutters on Ponte Vecchio

Santo Spirito in the Oltrarno area of Florence--a stark contrast to the other churches in the city

Just for gross factor, this is Galileo's finger in the science musuem

An early periodic table in the science museum

This is what you see before a fresco is painted.  This was in San Miniato Church over looking Florence, a true gem

Amazing frescoes in San Miniato illuminated

A grey evening in Florence, but a beautiful overlook of the city from Piazzale Michelangelo

The Baptistery, Duomo, and Giotto's bell tower at twilight

 I managed to squeeze in two fabulous day trips--one that took me out of Tuscany and into Liguria for a visit to the Cinque Terre, and another to see Siena and San Gimingiano.  The Cinque Terre trek (yep, that's a hike) just about killed me and I was sore for days, but the five towns and spectacular views of the sea made the pain worthwhile.  See what I mean...

I love the beautiful terra cotta, yellow, and rose colored houses built into the cliffside

It was a grey morning, but the water still sparkled in different shades of blue

Soon these olives will be ripe and ready for harvesting

Proof that I survived the trek from Corniglia to Vernazza

Terraced landscapes

The five towns...

One of the beautiful beaches

Boats, boats, boats...and old guys sitting around talking about boats (out of frame)

The famous lover's lane, and the only paved part of our entire trek

Siena and San Gimingiano are quintessentially Tuscan.  I'd heard quite a lot about Siena, and had recently watched a documentary on it's famous Palio horserace that is held each July in the campo, or town square.  Each district enters a horse and rider and it's a battle to the death...okay, not really but it's pretty darn dangerous riding a horse bareback on sand-covered brick and an odd shaped track!  Sadly, I missed the race by a few weeks, but I did enjoy wandering about Siena and people watching in the campo.  San Gimingiano is known for its towers...and its gelato.  I enjoyed the latter more!

Beautiful Siena

A horse stable in one of the districts

The famous campo, or square, in Siena

A view of the Tuscan hillsides bursting with olives and grapes from San Gimingiano

One of San Gimingiano's towers

Ah, bella Toscana

This post is getting a bit long, so I'll save Venice for another time (soon, I hope!).  Ciao!

My New Little Rebel

This week I took the plunge and invested in a new DSLR camera.  What does that mean exactly?  Well, this camera is still digital and has a fully automatic mode, but now I can switch to a manual mode where I'll have to learn how to be a real photographer and do all of the adjustments myself!  I am just beginning to learn the language of photography so things like shutter speed, aperture, and f-stops are still foreign words to me but I think with some time to research and time to play I can figure out the basics.  Artsy friends, I'm counting on you for some guidance too!  Anyway, I took my shiny, new Canon Rebel T3i out of the box for the first time today and took a few shots in my parents' yard.  Here's what I ended up with!

The Close Up setting on my camera is so cool!

This one is my favorite!!

I was shooting these photos at twilight, so the light wasn't great, but I'm really impressed with the sharpness of the details in my photos and I'm excited to start playing around with the other pre-set modes to see what they'll do.  I've also started looking at lenses, filters, and other fun accessories.  I can feel a new obsession coming on!!  Hopefully I'll have time to take some more pictures around Junction City before I head back to Korea in August.

The Year in Review

Another school year is in the books!  That makes seven total in my career as a teacher--one year at Lewis and Clark HS, four years at Ferris HS, and two years at Seoul Foreign HS.  In my mind, the last day of school is a bit like Christmas.  It is always much anticipated and filled with special gifts (hello, no more school until August) and special friends.  As we celebrated the end of another successful school year, we also said final farewells to cherished colleagues and a good deal of "see you laters" to the friends who will be heading off to spend their holiday in many different corners of the world.  


About this time last year I anxiously awaited my departure to China with my friend Erin.  Now that I think about it, I've covered quite a lot of ground this year....
So, here's the year in review:


June 2011--Finished first year of teaching abroad, whew!  Flew off to China for a fun week in Beijing and Xian.  Returned home to Oregon.  Mom & Dad move to Eugene.  Daniel moves into his first apartment.


July--Visited friends in Spokane, WA.  Jetted off to London for a week of sightseeing before spending a fabulous week in Oxford learning about Jane Austen.


August--Back to Seoul for the start of year 2!  Rain, rain, rain...work, work, work!  Joined a bible study full of lovely ladies to study the Tabernacle and a Woman's Heart.


September--The James family visits Seoul...lots of sightseeing ensues.  Work, work, work!


October--I honestly have no recollection of anything exciting happening in October.  Work, work, work?!  Oh wait, the first of two high school theater productions debuts.  Shakespeare in Hollywood, what a treat.


November--Off to Hong Kong to celebrate Thanksgiving with Rebecca.  Hong Kong Disneyland!


December--Back to the States for Christmas.  Logged a total of 50,000 miles flown in 2011 which scored me gold status on United (that means I get to travel with three 70 pound suitcases--when you live overseas, this is a big deal!).


January--Froze my buttocks off in Seoul.  Work, work, work!  Enjoyed lunar new year in Seoul!


February--More freezing, more working (can you see a theme here?).  Saw Notre Dame de Paris, the first of three musicals this year.  Scored tickets to see my second musical this month, Mamma Mia! entirely in Korean and loved it!  Saturday yearbook sessions go down every weekend.


March--Daniel visits during spring break and we take a trip to Tokyo!  Tokyo Disneyland!


April--Spring has finally sprung!  Cherry blossoms are in full bloom!  Back to the 80's school musical.


May-- Finish this year's Yearbook and get it off to the printer by some miracle from God.  Discovery Week Venice finally happens after months of planning.  Venice was absolutely fantastic!!  My second year IGCSE students take their science examinations (fingers crossed that they'll get good results!). 


June--See my third musical of the season and it was Wicked!  Finish my 7th year of teaching!


When I first moved to Seoul I made it a point to get out into the city much more.  This year I felt like I had so much more work to do and much less time for exploring, but as I recap the year I guess I did manage to get in a bit more fun than I thought.  Three musicals, two high school theater productions, one yearbook produced, three overseas trips, 66 students taught, hundreds of papers graded......the numbers make my head spin.  All-in-all, it has been a really good year and I'm looking forward to what the future holds!

Mamma Mia!, here we go again...

"What a night..." :-)
When I arrived back in Seoul after the summer break I saw posters advertising a run of Mamma Mia! in Seoul and, after seeing the live musical for the first time in London just a few weeks prior, I knew I had to get a ticket.  Fast forward a few (okay, more like six) months...


I had my first musical theater experience in Seoul two weekends ago when I went with some friends to see Notre Dame de Paris--the English version.  The show was great, but definitely not the Disney-fied version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame that we all know and love.  If you've never read Victor Hugo's novel about the Hunchback, the be prepared for a spoiler...everyone dies at the end.  It's quite a tragic story, but lovely when mixed with song and dance.  Seeing this show motivated me to finally book those Mamma Mia! tickets.


I should probably mention that Mamma Mia! was not the English version, so I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be engaged in three hours of dialogue delivered in Korean.  Boy was I wrong--the show turned out to be fantastic and absolutely hilarious!  I went with my friend Erin, who like me LOVES the show, and we had a blast.  I'm almost 100% positive that we were the only waeguks (translation=foreigners) in the building, but that just added to the fun.  When we stopped to take pictures with the cardboard cutouts of the characters, our Korean counterparts followed.  Here are a few pictures of us playing around before the show...

Because we knew the story so well, it wasn't hard to figure out what was going on in each scene and we were both quite amused just watching the actors deliver the dialogue we know so well in Korean.  Essentially we giggled our way through the entire show and discovered lots of non-translatable words--dancing queen, chiquitita, Sophie (pronounced as Soapy), and mamma mia!  In case you're wondering, yes, the songs were also sung in Korean...by spandex wearing, booty shaking Korean actors and actresses.  This was strange at first, but by the end of the show I was really enjoying hearing the Korean versions.  I wonder if ABBA ever could have imagined that their famous lyrics would be translated into a language as foreign to us as Korean?!  I'm sure you're also dying to know that I was the bad foreigner who sung along with all of the songs...in English of course, but rather quietly so as not to disturb my neighbors with my horrific singing:).  Lucky for me, the finale song Waterloo was sung in English and I was out of my seat singing at the top of my lungs and shaking my booty too!  As we left the theater I thought about what fun it must be to perform such a great production night after night in front of a lively audience.  Maybe I need to work harder on my Korean so I can audition for the next run...hehehe!

Spring...Finally!

After a long and cold winter, spring has finally arrived in Seoul.  La Primavera!  Yay!  One of the best parts about spring here is Cherry Blossoms!  The buds first began blooming a couple of weeks ago, but being busy it actually took the promise of rain to get my butt out of the apartment to see these beauties in bloom.  Last Friday after school I put on my sneakers and headed out for a short hike--skirting around the mountain you'll eventually end up at a nice little area with a water wheel, pond, stream, and lots of beautifully blooming trees!  Lucky for me, I ran into my neighbor Bridget right before the walk and she agreed to join me with camera in hand to document the blooms.  


It was a sweaty walk--in fact, it was feeling much more like summer than spring.  As we walked, we captured lots of blooming things...and a giant gold Buddha (cool, right?).  We saw bright, bloom shaped lanterns strung about, all in celebration of a tiny white and pink flower.  I loved every minute of it.  I also enjoyed the chance to catch up and chat with Bridget, who will sadly be leaving for Jakarta at the end of the school year!  


Here are some of the lovely images we encountered along our hike...

The hillside of Mt. Ansan bursting with puffs of pink

The Golden Buddha 

My favorite blooms of the day--the magnolia trees are absolutely stunning!

Blossoming lanterns

Tiny viola flowers

We found some SFS friends along the way!

A blossoming walkway

Seodaemungu

We weren't the only ones out enjoying the cherry blossoms!

Bridget and me

Hiking back to school

Truly Asian...a lantern amidst the blossoms

As you can tell by my sad lack of blogging, I haven't been out and about in the city much this year.  I suppose last week's hike was a good reminder that I need to make time to get out and experience the beauty of Seoul, especially since all I really need to do is walk out the back gate and I'm in Mother Nature's backyard!  The rains came and went and it appears that some of the blossoms managed to cling to the trees, but more often than not we see them raining from the branches with each gust of wind.  And thus my second spring in Seoul is here, with summer hot on its heels.  Ahh, summer....well, I guess I shouldn't get too far ahead of myself and instead I should focus on celebrating each lovely spring day and the promise of a bright and beautiful tomorrow!