My Berfday and HalloSCREAM!!

I had no idea how Halloween was going to pan out here in Korea, knowing it's not a widely celebrated holiday but it certainly turned out to be a huge event! A local bar here in Jeonju has an annual Halloween party that is pretty popular amongst the foreign people here. Little did I know it was also very popular amongst the Koreans as well! I didn't really know what I was going to dress up as. Luckily there is a party/costume store up the street from me and I decided to take a gander to see what they had available. As soon as I spotted the fake ears and the "nerd glasses" I knew what I wanted to be! Not only was going as a nerd financially friendly but it was a huge hit! Little did I know that I'm a pretty damn good nerd....(please keep all comments to yourself). My good friend Shay had told me ahead of time that he was going as Mr. Bean but I had no idea how funny his costume would be. Shay had the mannerisms down to a T and the mask, well as you can see is absolutely hilarious! Jay, the guy, well woman in the other picture is another friend of mine and when I saw him walking up in his costume I honestly had to ask myself, "who's this girl" and Jay is not a really attractive gentleman. He pulled that costume off amazingly well. Steve decided to go as Wolverine from X-Men and he nailed that one too. He cut his beard and made some fake claws out of chop-sticks and silver tape and it came together really well. We all had a blast and it was a great week!!!

My birthday was a great time had by all. Unfortunately it was on a Sunday this year but that didn't stop the festivities from taking place. I honestly wasn't planning on doing a whole lot for my birthday. Just hanging out with some friends, having some drinks, and relaxing would have been fine with me. I'm not the type of person who openly announces that my birthday is coming up. I find that to be a bit corny but the morning of my birthday I got a phone call from one of my Korean friends named Takyung. She's the same woman who organized the Korean cultural day, took a bunch of us to a Buddhist temple, and just an all around very nice woman. She called and said, "so what's going on for your birthday?" I had mentioned to her that I really wasn't planning anything and just wanted to have a nice relaxing Sunday. She quickly followed that up with "that's ridiculous and not going to happen. Where's a restaurant that you've wanted to go to and haven't been to yet?" I knew there was a TGI Friday's here and that's the first thing that came to mind. The next thing I knew she was on the phone and texting all of our friends letting them know to be at TGIF's at 8pm for my birthday. I was extremely flattered and it really turned out to be a great time. Everyone slowly showed up but we all had a great chat around the table. The Korean "birthday song" is legendary! As you will see in the video below, they really go all out for their celebrations! We liked them so much that we insisted they play an encore! The cakes here in Korea are unbelievable!! As you can see in the picture, not only does it look delicious but it tastes even better. I don't know how they do it, and I'm not normally a fan of cake, but I LOVE the cakes here in Korea. I also want to thank Mrs. Doris Wells, a wonderful woman from my church back home in Orlando, for donating flowers to the church in honor of my birthday. My mom sent me the bulletin for that Sunday and printed in there was this information. I was very flattered and I really appreciate the thought to donate a great gift. Thank you Mrs. Wells!!

WAYYYYYY TOO LONG!!!!

So it's been yet another long gap in time since I've posted anything so now is no better time to update everyone with some happenings that have taken place recently. About 6 weeks ago Korea celebrated Chuseok which is the Korean holiday for Thanksgiving. We had Friday off of work and a bunch of friends and I decided to go to the the mountain for some camping. The weather was just beginning to turn to the chilly side which made the days absolutely perfect with the nights just touching the "a bit too chilly" temperature. We were pretty much the only ones in the entire camp site and we picked a wonderful spot to camp. Within a minutes walk was a beautiful, natural, mountainous spring that we swam in a few times throughout the entire trip. We spent the day time hanging out, drinking some beer, and just taking in the amazing sights that Jirisan had to offer us. We were camping right next to a Asiatic Black Bear rehabilitation sight and the director came to our campsite and asked up if we would like a tour of the facilities. We took him up on his offer and it was really cool to get to experience that side of the Korean wilderness. They have a huge area where the black bears can roam around and we had the opportunity to see a few bears up and close in person.

There is also a very popular Buddhist temple within 15 minutes walking distance to our sight and we wanted to take that in as well. This was the 2nd temple I've had the pleasure of visiting and it was amazing! This temple was very big and one of the top 10 temples in all of Korea. As we were walking around and admiring all that the temple had to offer we were able to see the monks taking part in a Korean game called "Cho-kook". It's a mix between soccer and volleyball with the same rules of volleyball but you can only use your feet or your head. My friends and I play this game quite often and it's a lot of fun. There isn't a lot to say about the temple so the pictures have to do the talking for me :)

1st, My friend Ian was trying to "acquire" some firewood from the "restricted building" on Saturday night and when the man came out flashing his flashlight Ian took off running and tried to jump a fence. Here's his explanation of what happened :)

2nd we have one of the black bears getting a little scratch after his morning breakfast.

3rd is as you can hear, The House of 1,000 Buddha's. You can kindly hear Ian say "you're blog's boring" in the background haha.

4th we have a rundown from the group to see what their favorite part of the trip was!