South Korea: WINTER IN SEOUL

we bought sarah a fish for her birthday

So winter is definitely here....I'm ok with this, i mean yes it's very cold buttttt it's putting me in the mood for Christmas!!! although it will be very different to celebrate Christmas without my wonderful family but I am going with a bunch of friends to the Hilton for a huge WESTERN style christmas dinner...yayyyyy...super exciting cause this pic is of my thanksgiving...korean bbq...no turkey :(

so hmmmm update...not too much new here. work is good but it is starting to get very busy before break (two weeks from now) so it will be nice to be able to relax. luckily i get christmas day off but have to work the next day :( but after that vacation will soon follow cause im going to guam jan 17-23 with jen and ashley and then on the 24th my friend sarah and i are going to visit my dad in INDIA!!!! im beyond excited...i have wanted to go to India my entire life so I can't wait....

I'm applying to grad school right now so please keep your fingers crossed!!!!!

I finally was able to get to church today and it was great to find a new little community of foreigners :) Today was seriously probably my favorite day in seoul so far...went to church with my friend taryn, then got some starbucks (which of course is like 230958230958 won per coffee booooo), then met up with katie for lunch...then we went to another area of seoul and richie (my cousin) and our friend michael came and hung out with us...we seriously just spent 7 hrs in this restaurant and it was such a good day of relaxing, talking, etc.....

oh i had the most random encounter with the korean police on friday night...we couldnt get a cab home cause the cabs wouldnt stop for some reason (and the subway was closed) so the police tried to help by having us get in the car but then after 5 min of driving around kicked us out...it was completely bizarre...but now i can at least say ive been in a korean cop car i guess...this is not what i was expecting when we decided to brave the cold and get pancakes...needless to say, this whole situation annoyed me so i stayed home sat night and hibernated.....it was a solid decision for sure...

ok so these pics are kinda random...i forgot that i never posted any pictures of my school's sports day (like field day/gym day)...so here they are....aren't the kids sooo cute...these are all pics of the seventh graders...and the video is of the 9th graders...koreans loveeeeee taking pictures but get super shy...so thats basically why the girls are covering up their faces haha

oh and you should check out my video bar on the side of the page cause i posted a video of me and jen in the seoul subway and me and ash in gangnam eating some korean street food...but here are the links just in case you can't see the videos on the side of the page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK0nJbkQGM8&feature=channel_page and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBeld8GEaM&feature=channel

sooooo the rest of the pictures are from just hanging out with friends...except that the koreans you see are these really cool bankers we met and one went to temple university and the other lived in africa for two years...really cool, interesting people...and they speak fluent english...sooooo nice to not have to communicate via broken english

ok im very tired and i have work in the morning...

miss you all a lot during this christmas time....thinking of you all and i hope you are enjoying winterrrrr xoxoxoxoxoxo
much love
reen

sports dayyyyyyyy

he is always so lively in class...its great

they were insistent upon me taking a picture but got soooo shy

koreans always take pictures holding up the peace signs for some reason...how miley cyrus of them...

our school playground...the gym teacher in the red pants used to be a korean model...oooo la la hahaha

i got to wear sweats that day wooooo

my friend steven's bday...actually it weird that im holding a sparkler in this picture...they seriously scare me

my friend ryan

ashley, caroline, and sarah...ash is going to guam with me and sarah is coming to india!!!

our korean friends...oh we were at their weird costume work party which obviously explains the jumpsuit kahn is wearing....

so steven and i have been taking pictures of me covering his beard for months now and he finally cut it on his birthday wooooooo

so we always go out for wings on tuesdays and my friend rob decided to organize a wing eating contest...the winner ate 80 wings to win...and out of the 11 people that competed they consumed a total of 429 wings during one football game..that's seriously beyond disgusting