Kawi. Bawi. Bo.

Kawi. Bawi. Bo. Rock. Scissors. Paper. Used to settle disputes ranging from kindergarten to business meetings. Literally. Popular game. But it stands. Sometimes my kids will be in tears over who gets the power-ranger pencil. I'll say Kawi Bawi Bo. They play. The winner gets the the pencil and the loser doesn't cry.

Friday. May 14th. 2010. 6:30 pm. After work my co-workers Lach and Jason and I were enjoying a cold beer on the patio of the convenience store at the entrance of our apartment building. I was spacing out and thought to myself, "huh. Does that much smoke usually come from over there? NO! THAT BUILDING IS ON FIRE!" So I made the announcement and we all turned to look as the giant warehouse that is literally 20 yards from my front door burst in to flame. In less than 20 minutes the warehouse was destroyed and the shops in front were in serious danger. Luckily the fire went towards the street instead of towards my house. Cars melted and were destroyed. There was melted glass around my door. Devastating.

These are some firemen fighting the fire in hopes of stopping the spread to the shops. I thought the smoke surrounding the top of the dude was kind of cool.


20 minutes until total destruction. Hot hot hot.

From where we were sitting. Seeing the building. Debating whether I should run in and grab my passport at least.

Monday. May 17. 2010. We took a field trip to the Horse Track. We had hoped that we would have the chance to teach the kids about odds and risks. But they just played on the playground, took pictures in some flowers, and then rode a pony around a ring. They loved it. And it was a beautiful day!

7 year olds. King class and Robot class.

Kimbap. This is rice, crab, fish, spam, radish, egg, carrot, unidentified fish stuff wrapped in seaweed. It's delicious. And it's a snack, lunch, breakfast, dinner here. It's what Korean's eat on the go instead of french fires.

Thursday-Sunday. May 20th-23rd. Muuido Islands. Buddha's Birthday. Thursday after work we went to the Inchon Airport in hopes of getting to the Island real early. We sat there from 11 pm til 7 am. And didn't even get on a plane. Frustrating and in hindsight, unnecessary. But you live and you learn. At 7, we got in Taxi's and went to the ferry. Then we took a 7 minute ferry ride to the Island. And hung out in beautiful sunshine on the beach all day Friday. We climbed rocks, played frisbee with starfish and invented Shell hole. A game I'm pretty proud of. Its corn hole but with shells and holes in the sand instead of beanbags and boards. Extremely entertaining. We slept in these huts. 8ft by 8ft boxes on stilts. 30 bucks a night. Pretty cool. Saturday it was hazy and a little chilly. But I was still outside on the beach all day. Loving life. Sunday it was rainy but we stayed and played and hiked a little til noon. Came home. Passed out. I need a weekend to recover from the three day weekend. Some quick points of interest from the weekend. *The tide literally went out a mile. Mud flats. Crazy cool. *I was wearing a Wooster hoodie and guy asked me if thats where I went. He went to Hiram, a school in our conference where I almost died Freshman year after swimming the 200 meter fly. *A guy introduced himself as Fritz, from Wittenberg. Our rival school. * Then, a guy came up to me and said "Aren't you Katie Dale, the swimmer from Wooster?" I said uhhhh nope. Turns out we graduated together and have mutual friends. Pretty small world.

Sunday mini hiking trip. BeBe, SaraBrown, Jason, Louis.

The huts. They fit 4 people comfortably.

"Adventures from the Annex to Asia" continues with SaraBrown playing Shell Hole on Muuido Island in South Korea.

We drank luke warm beer all weekend. Hite is my second favorite cheap beer in Korea. I usually prefer Cass. This starfish was a frisbee before it got to pose with the beer. I just think it's a cool picture.

Me and Jason after exploring the rocks of Muuido. So happy to be on the beach, outside, in a suit, with no shoes, for three days. I think I hate living in a city.

One year

One year ago, almost exactly, these were the people I spent the most time with. They saw me up and they saw me down. I couldn't have made it through Wooster without them. Now, the class of 2010 is getting ready to walk down the aisle. And I'm hanging out with these yahoos who don't speak English. Now that its sunny and warm in the mornings, they come to school with way more energy and volume than I am prepared to handle at 9am. Who would have thought that this is the direction that life would take me? Not I.

This is myself and my Robot class on our field trip.


This is Rex. This child is insane. Sometimes so sweet and just wants hugs and sometimes he hits me and kicks me. Sometimes he has tons of friends and sometimes he leaves a path of tears behind him. But he showed up for field trip day with this sweet leather jacket and orange aviators and posed for pictures like it was his job. I think the word I use the most each day is Rex. Rex...don't do that...come on buddy...sit down...eat your food...sit properly...and so on.

And this gem is Alex 2. Also in Robot. He comes in each morning with a huge smile and says "Good morning Teacher! I'm fantastic!" When he's up, he's so up. But when he's down, he is so down. We have days where he cries 6 times. And when Alex 2 cries, it breaks my heart. His bottom lip sticks out, his eyes shut and the biggest tears I have ever seen just pour out. So cute. So sad. But he's a pistol.

Also, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

21!

The amazing blossoms at the festival... and a string of kites.

Those of us supporting Jason and his choir. Sara (wooster) Louis (canada) Yvonne (Ireland) Etaoin (Ireland) Martha (Chicago)

Me in the War Museum,

How you shoot a lot of arrows at the same time.


Tomorrow is Travy's 21st birthday. WOAH. A couple of weekends ago we went up to the Cherry Blossom festival in Seoul. We went to the wrong place though and only saw trees with dead blossoms. So that was sad, but we had a frisbee and it was nice out and we played next to the Han River for a few hours. It worked out well, but the blossom thing was a joke. This past weekend we had to work Saturday morning at Kinder Olympics. It was just a day for the families to come run around. It was a beautiful morning and it ended up being pretty fun. After that I went up to Seoul with the intention of seeing Jason's choir concert. But we were early so we went to the Korean War Museum. It was free and gigantic! It covered every war that Korea has ever been involved in. There was a pretty huge part about the Korean War that we were involved in. We spent about an hour there which was a good amount of time. But I think it was the kind of place that you could spend all day in if you wanted. Then we got some dinner and went to the concert. It was 2 hours of Latin Churchy stuff. It was good. The money goes to bringing music to orphanages, so I'd say it was worth it. We had Wednesday off for Children's Day. Basically kids get to do what ever they want, so no school! I went shopping in Seoul. Finally got a purse that has a world map on it. Then we went to a Mexican Restaurant in honor of Cinco De Mayo. Pretty successful day off. Don't have plans for the upcoming couple of weeks, but I'm sure they'll be jam packed with excitement!!