A Brief Hitory of May (Part 1)

Well, the most important thing to mention is that it is finally starting to get warm here. FINALLY. I walked home from knit night tonight with bare legs and was totally comfortable and not even a little cold. That's pretty remarkable for me since I have somehow turned into that person who is always cold.

Pretty, pretty Spring flowers.

Next most important thing to mention is that Ryan's little sister came to visit us along with her wonderful friend.

Ms. T is going to not like me much for putting that Dunkin' Doughnuts picture up but really, how could I not? It would be a crime, I tell you. Too cute.

We did all sorts of crazy stuff with them ...

We went to Jinju to see Korean bullfights.

Which, just in case you are wondering, is an extremely humane sport. I was expecting the worst since Koreans are pretty well known for how poorly they treat animals. I once was at a festival petting zoo where there were two rabbits, a skunk having a panic attack, a tortoise and the saddest monkey in the world all in the same cage. It was heartbreaking. I have have teared up a bit and run away.

Anyway, this is how it works: they bring two bulls into the ring and put them face to face. If it looks like one of the bulls is just going to run away, they call the fight and move onto the next match. When the bulls do fight, they just sort of rub their heads together until one of them gets tired and turns tail. The most exciting match we saw was the first one and those two bulls kept taking breaks to give each other kisses. Not to mention these bulls are some of the healthiest looks animals I've seen in Korea. True story.

But enough about Korean bullfights.

Green tea fields. Purdy!

We also took them to the green tea festival in Boesong. If you are ever in Korea and want to go to a festival, I would tell you to come to this one. It was the most un-Korean festival we've gone too since we got here and therefore was the best. Because I am a lazy blogger and Ryan does all the heavy lifting when it comes to blogs you can check out his post here.

We also spent some time on an Island called Namhea-do (I think. But that's probably wrong. I can never remember the name of this place. Hopefully Ryan will blog about it soon so that you can have accurate information) that was caked in fog the entire time we were there. But even covered in fog the island was beautiful.

Roman candles

In Korea beach = fireworks at night. So we did as the Koreans do. In fog of course.

Sparklers

On this island there is a German village, populated by German speaking Koreans, and an American village, populated by Koreans who lived in America and then moved back to Korea to live in stucco houses next to the ocean and make tons of money by having home stays.

And who also happen to be Redskins fans.

We saw some beautiful rice terraces.

In fog.

And drove up the steepest driveway ever ever EVER to see a really interesting monastery all decorated for Buddha's birthday.

Nice view, right?

By the end of our time on the island we were all starting to wonder if the rest of the world was covered in fog. Good news though, the world is not covered in fog. Hooray!

Part 2 is coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Anatomy of a Night In

My nasty cold has turned into a truly nasty cough which kept me in tonight despite the fact that my boyfriend and my friends are downtown at this moment drinking St. Patty's Day beers and enjoying their evening. But I stayed home because I wasn't really in the drinking mood and also because my pharmacist friend from university has told us many times about how taking cold medicine after a night of drinking is like dropping a bomb on your liver.

Not like I'm doing my liver any favors with the amount I'm drinking these days anyway, but I choose to ignore that fact.

Back to the point. I spent my evening:

Wasting time on the internet. Also, my new internet obsession is Pintrest. You can find me here. This website is pretty much the coolest (and prettiest) website ever.

Boiling water for my Theraflu and letting the kettle whistle just a little more than normal as a thank you to our neighbors for that time this afternoon when someone stood outside and rang their doorbell non-stop for about 10 minutes. We can hear everything that goes on in the hallway.

A cup of medicine and a good book.

Snuggling under the covers on the futon. I have been kicked out of the big bed with Ryan until I can make it through the night without waking up coughing like I have TB. And believe me I am looking forward to moving back in because our neighbor in the building opposite ours leaves their light on full blast all night long so that when I wake up at 3 every morning the room looks like this:

No joke. The only nice thing about it is that I can be sure that no monsters are climbing out from under the bed. It's like the biggest night light ever.

PS - I forgot how much fun it is to take pictures that are black and white or sepia.

PPS - Just in case you were curious I wrote this post about two months ago and yes, I am just posting it now. It's partly due to not thinking about it and also partly because my Macbook got very sick and erased everything on my hard drive including all the fun pictures that I had been taking for posts like this one.