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!

I Hate Good-Byes

After returning back to Seoul from Tokyo, we still had Friday and most of Saturday before Daniel was scheduled to fly home.  Friday was a low key sort of day, thank goodness!  We both slept in, unpacked, and attacked the gigantic pile of laundry that always comes with the end of a vacation.  Daniel was very happy to pack clean clothes in his suitcase rather than dirty ones and I was happy to give him a lesson on how to properly do laundry (using half as much soap as usual)!  To finish off the night, we walked through Yonhi Dong to Pizza School for some delicious cheese pizza and brought it back to the apartment so we could finish our marathon watching of Chuck season 1.  


One of Daniel's favorite places to eat in Seoul from his visit in the fall was La Celtique, a little creperie in Sinchon, so before he caught the bus back to the airport we walked over for lunch and it was delicious!!  I could eat crepes every day:).  Before long, it was time for Daniel to grab his suitcase and walk down the hill to the 6005 airport bus stop.  I have to admit, I hate seeing people leave--it breaks my heart and I've cried a little on and off all day.  I'm not sure why I have such a visceral response to parting, but needless to say, it really sucks!  After having a constant companion for the last week, it was really sad to walk back up the hill to an empty and very quiet apartment.  Thank goodness for my lovely friends who were available to  talk and catch up!  Daniel is such a good brother...he just accepts me for me and allows me to be the neurotic, overprotective sister that I am.  I truly wish he lived in Seoul too--I think we would have lots of lovely adventures together.  Maybe someday we'll live in the same city again!  Thus ends our spring vacation and in a day's time it will be back to work for me and school for Daniel.  I've been counting the days until I get to board a plane and make the same 12 hour flight back to the US.  At this point I'm down to about ten weeks--time that will be filled with end of quarter grades, lesson plans, labs, tests, bible study, review sessions, IGCSE exams, discovery week (only 7 weeks until Venice!!), graduating seniors, a Korean wedding, and many more good-byes as everyone goes their separate ways for the summer break.  I imagine these ten weeks will fly by and before I know it I will be seeing family and friends again.  I can't wait!  Now, off to tackle the giant pile of grading waiting for me before I head back to school on Monday morning!!

Sayounara Tokyo

We were scheduled to leave Tokyo on Thursday evening after nearly five days spent exploring the city.  For some reason, Daniel and I both found ourselves still exhausted (perhaps it was because we stayed up late the night before watching the first episodes of Chuck and writing postcards!) but somehow we managed to check out of the hotel right at 11am.  We left our luggage behind and went out for one last adventure in the city.  We decided to visit the Hama Rikyu Gardens in the Ginza area of the city and catch a waterbus for a cruise down the Sumida River.  A subway ride later we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory.  Thankfully, Daniel can successfully orient and read a map, a skill that I am still working on:).  We walked for about ten minutes before reaching the garden and took a nice stroll through what we would refer to as a very large park.  There are indeed flowers, but sadly it is still a bit early to see many things in bloom.  Regardless, there were some nice pictures to be taken...

It seems that the city is awakening after a long winter as there were LOTS of people out at the park just taking in the sunshine!  I can just imagine how beautiful the garden, and the city, will be when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom!  

To get back to our hotel, we took the waterbus to Asakusa, the same area we visited on Wednesday with the historic temple.  The ride was obviously very relaxing, because I think I snoozed through a great deal of it...I guess that just goes to show you how tired I was!  We did see a couple of bridges and some cool buildings before disembarking.

Back at Ueno Station, we made one final stop at our favorite haunt--Starbucks!  Daniel and I both enjoyed a mango blended cream frappuccino for the walk back to our hotel.  Mmmmmm.....I hope these make an appearance on the menu in the States this summer!

We grabbed our luggage and found a cab to take us back to the station where we caught the Skyliner directly back to the airport.  Check-in was a little anxiety provoking as it seemed we made two mistakes, 1) Our suitcase was overweight by 0.6 kilos and 2) we didn't bring Daniel's flight information for his return flight from Seoul to the States so the agent hassled us about Dan not having the correct re-entry permissions.  Despite this, we both made it through security and spent the next couple of hours enjoying our last taste of tempura and noodle soup (or McDonald's in Daniel's case--he wanted to test out the hypothesis that the burgers taste different in Japan) and browsing in the numerous duty free shops.  The two hour flight back to Seoul was uneventful and we caught a cab back to Yonhi Dong, arriving a little after midnight.  While I headed straight to bed, Daniel stayed up to watch more Chuck:).  And so ends "Daniel and Colleen Take Tokyo"!  We've already started scheming up ideas for next spring vacation--Thailand is at the top of the list!

Old and New Tokyo

Daniel decided that being a guest blogger was too much work to do while on vacation, so while he camps out elsewhere, I'm back to the computer.  We got a very late start today--both Daniel and I decided that we needed to sleep in and let our very sore leg muscles rest.  Gosh, we must be getting old!

We had planned on being up and out by 10:30, but fast forward 4 hours and we were finally on our way.  I'll take the credit for delaying our departure...I just could not coax myself to get up and ready to go!  Anyway, by 3:00pm we were muddling our way through Asakusa trying to find Sensoji Temple, the oldest in Tokyo.  We managed to make our way there, but Asakusa truly is old school as none of the signs on buildings or streets are in English (everywhere else we've been, signs are in both English and Japanese).  The hoards of people were our first clue that we were headed in the right direction.  As you can probably tell from our other posts from Tokyo, this city is PACKED full of people--natives and tourists.  We took a quick look at the temple, then headed down Nakamise Shopping Street to try and find some fun, authentic souvenirs.  What we encountered were TONS more people.  The street was packed to the point that all you could do was follow the flow.  We stopped for ice cream and were scolded multiple times for trying to walk and eat--I was barked at for stopping to pull out my water bottle.  Being resourceful humans, we hid out in an abandoned alley way so we could finish eating without getting into more trouble.  Here are a few pictures of the scene...

As chaos ensued around us, we walked up the other side of the shopping street back toward the temple.  Daniel found a few fun things to purchase along the way.  Approaching the temple was very cool--there are giant lanterns hanging from the main gate and the winds that had kicked up were making them sway.  It looked as if the sky was about to open up on us, but thankfully we made it inside one of the main temple buildings first.  This temple is truly incredible!

I took this shot with the panoramic feature on my camera.  Pretty cool, huh?

On our way back to the JR, Daniel was on the lookout for just the right lantern to bring home.  We came across this talented man who was painting customized lanterns and Daniel found one that was perfect!

One very long ride on the JR later, we made it to Harajuku for a bit more souvenir shopping and some people watching.  We headed straight for the Oriental Bazaar which has great items made in Japan.  The real gem of the trip, however, was Kiddy Land, a three level toy store packed full of all sorts of childhood goodness.

Harajuku is a colorful and lively area of Tokyo.  Teenagers into Manga and Anime hang out here, although we didn't see many as we walked about.  It's definitely a picture of New Tokyo.  Here's another interesting shop we spotted...

As the evening crept on, we decided to grab a bite to eat before making the half hour commute back to Ueno.  We stopped at a little cafe filled with Japanese folks and another foreigner or two and enjoyed paninis and sodas as we watched Harajuku bustling below.  Daniel really enjoyed watching the plethora of expensive cars roll by.  On our way back through Ueno station we did a bit of exploring and found so many amazing bakeries and cake shops.  Mmmmm....pastries!  We secured breakfast for tomorrow (blueberry and panda croissants) and walked back to the hotel.  Tonight we are packing our bags and getting ready for our last day in the city before we fly back to Seoul in the evening.  This is about how we looked at the end of our day today:).