Miscellaneous pictures and stories!

So I take some random pictures from time to time.  The stories behind the pictures are not enough for an entire post but its not that I don't want to not share them.  The same is true of some stories of what happens from day to day while in Busan.  Therefore, a post of randomness :)

They posted in reverse order of when they were taken.  But its already random so I guess it doesn't matter.  They start at the end of November and go back through the beginning of October.

These are some of my favorite pictures and there is no filter.  Japanese maples near by house with absolutely gorgeous leafs!  They are some that are deep red and others that are more orange.  The sun is shining on them in the late evening when I come home.  They are beautiful! 

My school has a baseball team.  They practice after school every day.  I think  the number of days they have not practiced since I moved here is less than 10 and quite possibly less than 5.  However, on this day they were actually playing a game in the evening against another school.  I snapped a few pictures since it was such a rare occurrence.

Hiking with Nicole on Nov. 16th we were coming back just as the sun was setting.  It was also when the moon was rising high in the sky.  The pictures just don't do the scene justice.  The moon looked huge and was bright hanging just above the buildings where I live.  I wish I knew how to take awesome pictures that show the moon much more like reality.  But for now, this is what I've got for now.  Still pretty.

My co-teacher helped me find some gloves when it started to get much, much colder.    I would have put them in my bag and went home and probably used them on the way home.  But they gift wrapped them for me.  Here you can get a lot of things gift wrapped and they are beautiful!  I love the free gift wrapping here especially as I prepare for Christmas!

As you can tell my my foot in the picture, this was several weeks ago when it was much warmer since I was wearing sandals.  On the way to church in early October, I looked around me and I was the only person on the bus.  It hasn't happened since but and the bus was empty for several stops.  I was quite surprised.

Korea's National Day (similar to our July 4th) was at the beginning of October.  It was obvious that the holiday was approaching because flags went up on every store front and light pole around the city.  They were every where and it was beautiful to see the city celebrating this wonderful country.

My Korean class is in a building where they also have weddings.  Every Saturday as Nicole and I go to the elevator there are several Koreans headed to the third floor for a wedding.  We always feel underdressed.  One of my first weeks at class outside the building was this limousine that was decorated for the new couple.  I have seen a limo one other time but there are weddings every week!

I got off the bus one October afternoon and turned the corner to head up the hill towards my apartment and was shocked.  There were wood tables and wood craved and painted giraffes lining the road.  It was complete with a string of lights in the evening.  NO ONE was around selling them.  Instead there were a few signs on some of the tables with a phone number.  I'm assuming you would call the number in order to buy one.  The next day the giraffes were gone but the tables were still there.  They stayed for 3 days and then disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.

Hanbok is the traditional Korean dress.  Each week on my walk from school to Korean class, I passed several buildings that host weddings.  The men wear suits but most women wear hanbok.   Many times the little girls also wear hanbok.  But I haven't gotten a picture of that yet.  I got this picture while I was waiting to cross the street.  I try not to be too obvious when taking pictures of those around me.

Lotteria is the Korean version of McDonald's.  There are McDonald's here as well.  This is the only Lotteria I have seen with its own building and I was surprised to see how similar its shape is to many McDonald's back in the States.  This one is really close to where I take Korean class at.  That walk each week has provided many random pictures :)

Yep, we have fall in Busan.  This was early October.  I thought this might be the peak of the leaves.  However, the last few weeks have provided some vibrant leaves in the trees that line the roads that my buses travel too and from school and Seomyeon.  They are beautiful and yellow.  But they will show up in another post soon :)  Oh and you can't forget about the Japanese maples at the beginning of this post that I snapped just last week.

I love getting mail.  Getting a package of warm clothes is AMAZING!  Thanks to mom for this package that also included Halloween candy and fruit snacks!  When I get a package, the security guard calls my apartment.  I have no clue what they are saying but on the third call on the day I got this package I heard "box-suh" and so I went to the security guard building to find out what it was.  I was thrilled!  Now, I know what they are calling about and I love to get a phone card from the security guard because it means I have a package from home!

It's field trip day!  For one day in October, all of my students were gone on field trips.  This day there were charter buses lined up on the field in front of the school before work as grades gathered to leave on their field trip.  Sixth grade left at 7 that morning and went on a three-day field trip to Seoul.  What that meant for me, 3 days of no teaching!  The day they were all gone also meant that my co-teachers and I also got to leave campus for lunch.  It was a great lunch as well!

I love Harry Potter and the fact that it was on one of the cards for the 5th grade textbook made me smile.  I've seen students reading Harry Potter in Korean.  I hope to one day be able to read Harry Potter in Korean and understand it.  That would be amazing.  But for now, I will smile at the Harry Potter card and teach my students the key expressions that including watching Harry Potter :)

And....a "what you learn from experience" story.

My apartment is heated by ondol floor heating.  It's wonderful.  There are water pipes that are under my floor and as hot water moves through them they warm the floor and that in turns heats the air and as warm air rises all the air in the apartment gets warm.  And your feet are always warm.  I really do enjoy it.  I even sit on the floor a lot to just stay warm while doing work on the computer.  Well I learned from experience to not leave my purse on my floor when the ondol heating is on, especially when it has chocolate in it.  Melted chocolate in my purse was not a fun mess to clean up :)  But you know, live and learn and laugh along the way.  It's all part of the experience.