My life as of recently.

I have not updated this thing in a while! I'm sorry! I've actually been really sick since the third week of december and am just now starting to feel 80%. So basically my life in a nutshell since I last wrote has consisted off time of from work just hanging out in korea (basically sleeping because i was so sick), New Years, catching up with friends who went on vacay over chrismas, and this weekend i went with a travel group called Adventure Korea with a bunch of my friends to an ice fishing festival three hrs NE of Seoul. But I have lots to report so I'll get to it.
I guess i'll just start with the order the pictures are in to make it less confusing for you so here goes:

We went with Adventure Korea to an ice fishing festival in the eastern most part of korea. I paid for my trip a while back so I was debating to go or not since I have gotten sick since. But i was feeling a lot better at the end of this week so I decided to go for it. and im really glad i did! I met a lot of cool people and the festival was a riot. we went to this river in the middle of the mountains and i was expecting a good amount of people....well there were like 233048320 million people. we actually didn't catch the fish you saw in the pictures but they gave them to us to take pictures and pose for their website. it was hysterical. koreans love love love pictures. like they are always snapping pics with their camera phones at any possible moment. so after the pictures they gave us the fish so we went and got the fish sliced up for a buck and grilled it. but ours didn't actually die until it was on the grill so it was flapping around in the tin foil. i felt horrible. but at least we ate it all so it didn't die in vain :) there was also tons of other things to do like ice snowmobiling (looked wayyyy dangerous), an ice sculpture house (like a smaller one of the version johnny and patrick and the knipes and i went to in germany), sledding, etc. etc. etc....oh and bare handed fishing, which i didn't do cause i was sick. basically, all of the foreigners were given shorts and a tshirt to sit in this freezing cold water and try to catch the fish with their hands. i died laughing at all my friends it was so funny. so yea, after the festival we went like an hour drive away to our cabins. which, i was scared what they meant by this but the place was amazing. we were the only ones at this little place and we stayed in cabins (10 people to a cabin) that were so warm and surrounded this little frozen pond. there were like 150 total on the trip so we had about 15 cabins. so the next day (today) we hung around and then left to go back to seoul. it was a super fun weekend so im glad i was able to go. but now after being in the cold allll weekend im wayyyyy ready to go to guam in 6 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



our cabin #7 wooooo
dinner at the cabin mess hall thingy
snowmobiling on the ice. it looked entirely way too dangerous.

snow sculpture
grilling our fish!!



i actually licked it...don't ask me why i do dumb things like this. needless to say it was disgustingly slimy.

the festival.
bare handed fishing! i was freezing in like a million layers, i cant imagine going in that water!



jen and katie






ok so these next pictures are of getting a fish pedicure a few days ago in seoul. I've actually gone twice. its 2 bucks plus the price of whatever coffee you get. it feels like it hurts at first but then you get used to it. anyways, they eat the dead skin off your feet and it actually works a lot. but i mean it should, sooo many little fishies attack your feet as soon as you put them in. kinda gross...actually, the concept is very gross. but these fish are called dr. fish and this particular place is a coffee shop and you just get your feet eaten in the middle of the coffee shop and everyone thinks its completely normal and don't even look at you. its weird but an experience. and it makes for a cheap, nice pedicure so i think i'll go again this week before guam and india.




New Years!!!!!!!!!!!!! really cold but worth it. they have a celebration kinda like new york times square. except they ring the bell at this palace at midnight. not as crazy as the last few new years that i spent in copenhagen and prague though.

on the subway at new years
lighting off roman candles in the street.
traditional performances before midnight.



we went out for indian food at the beginning of the night. we eat a lot of indian food cause like everybody loves it.
good friends

sooooo thats my life as of recently. I won't be able to talk to you on the phone after this Saturday (jan 17) cause i'll be in guam and then im going to india with my friend sarah to visit my daddy!!! I'm super pumped for india cause my dad has planned all these cool activities for us anddddd we get to visit this traditional party at his work where everyone at the plant gets to bring like 4 guests and there is a dinner and dancing and tour etc!!!! there will be like 600 people and this is our first day so it will be so awesome to dive right in. he's also arranging some tours etc. for us and getting his friends to show us around. im very lucky to have such a supportive, nice, and genuine familiaaaaaaaaaaaa!! i love you all!!!

johnny is in his pediatrics rotation right now and loving it. patrick is deciding on college etc and will be going to prague in a few weeks. while he is there my mom is going to hang out with my grandparents in florida. my dad just got back to india after being in the states and i will be seeing him in Pune in 12 days! then i go to DC and chicago on feb 14!! the next 6 weeks will be super busy and full of travel but so worth the vacation. the job is going well, teaching winter camps right now since the kids are on winter vacation. its nice cause i teach classes of 17 which seems like 5 students after teaching 40 per class usually. but winter camp is so much more fun to teach than regular school. on wednesday the kid's parents can come observe us if they want...which they definitely will. stuff like this doesn't bother me so I probably wont even notice them in the classroom.

oh before I go i will leave you with a new story. I was going to work on the bus this week and it was packed as usual. well this old woman literally pushed me out of the way as the bus was coming to a stop and i feel down the stairs and got trapped between the windshield and the door. i was screaming cause i honestly was crushed, it was way scary. and as the bus driver tried to get the door unstuck the lady just pushed it harder so she could get out. i was crying and super scared and extremely annoyed! needless to say, i was not happy with korea this day not to mention i had a big debacle with being sick and the hospital later that day. yada yada yada stuff like this happens here in korea so im used to it but still, it was kinda upsetting.

buttttt luckily all is well and i had a great weekend and i have great friends and some fun vacay just around the corner yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wooooooooooooo

xoxoxoxo take care, love you all, stay warm, go see slumdog millionaire!!!!
maureen