Hiatuses & new beginnings:

How do I come back after a five month hiatus? What excuse do I have? What pleas do I make? Well, I guarantee you I have a fabulously mitigating reason for my absence...

Laziness. Pure, unadulterated, unremorseful laziness, with a side of life-altering changes

But let's let bygones be bygones and I will give you a crash course of the last five months (shudder). Are you ready? Here we go!

Remainder of May & the entirety of June...and July 4th, 2015:

I discovered that our building has an accessible-to-the-public roof, with a rather lovely view. I have also discovered that I like high views, a lot. And, I have somewhat of a green thumb. Only one fourth of my plants have died thus far in Korea :]

I took a visit to SM Town in Gangnam (SM is the company that produces/manages Shinee & many of the biggest Kpop acts in Korea) and I fangirled real hard. Real hard.

I went to the Seoul Pride parade, and participated in their march for equal rights for all orientations, genders and sexes. It was a fantastic experience, and I wish I had written about it sooner, so I could remember more details, but again, this is a crash course of the last five months, so I will have to simply quickly touch on each event, even if it was major. I do remember that the march (of over 50,000 advocates) was full of happy, loving people, who's joy easily drowned out the hateful jeers and slurs from the religious protesters. I was so glad to be representing the loving, peaceful, non-judgmental sect of my religion. And though an equal number of protesters and participants were predicted to attend, in the end only 4-5,000 protesters were present, and they were hardly noticed, thanks to the awesome jobs the police did to keep the event safe. I was thoroughly impressed and pleased with the humanity I saw inside the parades fence :) Also, the parade was timed wonderfully, just a week after the US legalized marriage for all orientations.

And of course, the main event of any post in Korea; the kiddies! My kindergarteners have become the best, tiny mood-lifters and joy-bringers I could ever ask for. I love so many of them so much! There have been field trips and parents meetings and song and dance contests and new classes and new kids and a whole slew of other, great experiences with these little ones and I sometimes feel like I'm actually related to them. I may still not be sold on having any of my own ever, but boy do I like these little guys enough to happily be an aunt to some one day.

 

On the Fourth of July weekend, I went to Muiido Island (just outside of Seoul) with some friends. Boy was that an experience! A fun one, but also strange, as you can see above...life outside the city is a wee bit different. But the views, ocean, nature and clean air sure were amazing and I am planning to go back with Laura again :)

 

And the last event I will talk about (for this post, at least) is the Boryeong Mud Festival. It is one of the biggest festivals Korea has every year and was my second time outside of Seoul (much further out than Muiido Island). We stayed the night with a group, and I made some awesome friends (especially the lovely Rosy above) and learned of all the great effects that mud can have :P It was a blast being with such an international group! With everything from South African to Australian to German to South American in the trip-group! It was amazing to be able to go to such a neat event and meet such nice people. There was mud soccer and mud races and mud fights, all along the beach so you could rinse off whenever you pleased. Boryeong is just a tiny little city, but (much like Grand Haven) gets invaded by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year during their 10-day-long festival, and I was quite happy to be a touron for once :D

Next post will cover July, August, September and....the most epic part of Korea so far (by some standards) the Dream Concert I went to! The largest Kpop concert in Korea, which I had floor-standing-room-you-can-touch-the-stage tickets to! Can you hear the squealing from the other side of the world? Because I squeak every time I think of that awesome experience!

More to come...and I promise to be more punctual :)

All of my love,

Tea