A Preview of My YSA Conference Weekend...

Friday: I finally got paid my 300,000 won entry allowance. So, naturally, I bought a chocolate chip cookie mix, two ice cream bars, and went to a movie.

Wish me luck with translating the directions... And I'm really crossing my fingers that my toaster oven will work. Ah...warm chocolate chip cookies sound so amazing right now...

Eh...the ice cream was okay. The cone one, at least. This bar thingy was absolutely disgusting. It was some fruit flavor that I have never had before and the center was a grainy, yucky fruit goo. It made its way down my sink after a few bites...

 Before coming to Korea, I'd have never thought it would be acceptable for me to go to a movie theater by myself. That kind of thing relegates someone to the bottom rung of society, right? Yeah...well, that's probably still true in Korea...so, it's a good thing I'm not Korean...

I was the only blonde in the whole theater. But, the movie was in my language, not theirs. Hmph. ;) So I was right at home. (I saw Maze Runner: Scorch Trials.)

Before the movie and the checking of my Korean bank account and the splurging on sugar, I walked around a cultural festival near the Chuncheon train station. It wasn't terribly exciting. But I did get this picture of some awesome mushrooms: 

So many mushrooms. Some were huge, too. Ah, if only I had taken my "Plants and Fungi" class in Korea... 

 Saturday-Sunday: YSA Conference in Seoul

This weekend turned out to be so great! I was able to meet about 25 Young Single Adults (mostly Americans) living in Korea. A handful of people are in the military and most everyone else is teaching English in some form or another. Some of the YSA have been here several years. Such a stellar group of people, though. Really fun and friendly. 

A brief run-down of our weekend schedule:

• We met for breakfast at Brother and Sister Tollett's house in Seoul (they are members in the English branch).
• We went to a park for a service project, which was serving food to old people. We just had to walk around and distribute already-filled trays to them. The excitement happened when we were serving dessert (traditional rice cakes) and all these old people started fighting to get theirs first. And they all kept putting their plates out for more, even after we had given them huge piles of these rice cakes. Haha...the impatience was quite entertaining.
• We hung out at the park and got to know each other a little. And then we split up in groups of 4 or 5 for a photo scavenger hunt around Seoul. Pretty awesome: how often do you get to do photo scavenger hunts in Seoul, South Korea?! My group was awesome. We got pictures of Seoul Tower, World Cup Stadium, Haneul Park, and a Jehovah's Witness missionary (you got points if you happened to run into any missionaries...and, well, they didn't specify what religion...haha). Half my group also got pictures with some LDS missionaries, but I was in the other half that returned early so we wouldn't be deducted points for being late.
• We went back to the Tollett's for dinner, which was amazing and American: barbecue chicken, baked beans, potato salad, pasta salad, rice krispie treats, no-bake cookies, key-lime pie...we were in absolute heaven.
• The branch president gave a mini-fireside address. Um, I maybe don't remember if it was good or not because I had taken some Benadryl (stupid, but I was desperate for some cold/congestion relief and my cold medicine wasn't working) and I was crashing hard...I barely stayed awake.
• We watched a slide show of all our scavenger hunt photos. My team ended up winning, by the way, because we got photos with 3 different sets of missionaries (they counted the Jehovah's Witness, because we did missionary work and gave her a pass-along card...hehe).
• We went to individual homes where we had been assigned to stay. My new friend, Jackie, and I stayed with a cute family of four in their super nice apartment. We slept in the toy room on air mattresses, haha.
• Breakfast with our host family! Mm, bacon and eggs. So delicious.
• Church and a special YSA Conference meeting 2nd hour.
• Lunch after church and mass exodus to the subway to catch our transportation home.

I don't have all the pictures collected from friends yet, so this is just a preview of things I saw and did:

This was at the park where we had our service project. We were hanging out near this field and an old couple came and started a game of croquet. The old lady was so funny. She would barely miss the wicket (I thing that's what it's called?) and yell and stomp her feet in frustration. And, then, when she would make her goal, she would cheer and taunt her opponent. She was the cutest. Almost like the Korean version of Grandma Workman.

Seoul Tower in the distance:

Haneul Park and views from it: 

Those mountains in the distance reminded me of Utah mountains...aww...

Incredible view of Yeouido. You can see the National Assembly Building that I visited last week.

Haneul park is known for its "silver" grasses. The pictures don't do it justice, but it's amazing.

Ahh, gotta love the shoes here!

This was on my way home in Chuncheon last night:  

He's in the neighboring building. He was whining because his owner was leaving. I want a dog. If only I had a backyard. (A backyard in Korea?? HA!)

I will post more pictures of my weekend as soon as I get them from the YSA group. :)

So, Chuseok is this coming weekend. My principal gave all of the faculty this gift today:

A premium gift set of pure canola oil. What I'm going to do with all this canola oil, I have no idea. A lot of baking, I guess...in my...toaster...oven...

Gifts like this aren't customary for principals to give their staff for Chuseok, but my principal is just a super nice guy. And so nice to include me in his gift-giving! I have been so warmly welcomed by [most] of the staff at my school. :)

Oh, before I forget to tell you, lunch today was terrible. The fish soup was okay, but I couldn't stomach the kimchi radishes...and then we had soggy, cold, slimy, spicy eggplant. Ugh. So gross. I couldn't do it. I felt bad, but it just wasn't going to happen. Especially not after my spoiled weekend of American food...