The End of June

Wow!  It's so hard to believe it is the last day of June already!  After it seemed to take forever to get through the month of May, June has seemed to zoom by before we can even blink!  And the best part is it means we have survived one month of summer!!  Only two or three more of those to go!  This weekend was probably the hottest it has been yet but just like last year it's really just the humidity that  is the worst.  Even though it feels like we live in a rainforest it's been bearable!  We were able to spend some time at home with the air conditioner on this weekend which made things nice!  We also relaxed by watching some movies this weekend.  On Friday night we went to the theater to see Man of Steel and I must say we were both thoroughly disappointed!  Saturday was shopping day.  Eric did the Costco shopping and I went to the bakers market to stock up on a few necessary baking supplies.  We also bought a little charcoal grill a week or so ago and tried it out a couple times this week and weekend with some hamburgers and BBQ chicken.  Next weekend we plan to have a BBQ in honor of the Fourth of July so we wanted to test out the grill beforehand!

Tomorrow is the first of July which means the public school summer vacation is coming soon and Eric will be taking a trip to Thailand at the end of the month.

 I had an interesting conversation with a diverse group of friends this weekend about stereotypes in Korea and around the world.  It raised some interesting thoughts and perspectives in my mind that I will write about one day this week.

Poker Night

Saturday was poker night at the Zander house!  We invited some former coworkers over to play some poker late into the night and had a great time!  Eric was the only one that really knew how to play so he taught the rest of us and after a couple practice rounds and with our cheat sheets in hand, the betting began!  We used a mixture of 100 won coins (worth about 10 cents) and skittles (which were exchanged for real money at the end) as our chips.  I must say the beginners luck worked quite well for me as I was the biggest winner making an 8000 won profit by the end :)  Eric predicted ahead of time that he would fall victim to everyone else's beginners luck and he was very right!  It was a great night though and we all decided it must become a monthly occasion so stay tuned to see if I am lucky enough to be the winner again next month! :)

Sunday was spent sleeping in and doing some work around the house.  Our week days have been filling up with a lot of work and such so we enjoy relaxing on the weekends when we can.  The weather continues to be hot but not unbearable yet.  At least that's what we tell ourselves since we know it's going to get worse.  It's actually only been in the low to mid 80s but for some reason that feels ridiculously hot and sticky compared to 80 degrees back home!!  I guess the combination of humidity and dirty, stagnant city air results in that.  Our air conditioner has still only had limited use though so you know it can't be all that bad quite yet.  :) 

 My poker money

 Eric had his poker money strategically organized.  This was before he lost all of it.

I also must say I made the most delicious lemon squares this weekend!  They were a huge hit with my friends and the cream cheese brownies weren't bad either for our poker party.

Birthday Weekend: Nanta

Saturday was my birthday so to celebrate Eric took me to a show I have been wanting to see for a while, Nanta.  It is the longest running show in Korea and popular with foreigners since there is almost no dialog.  It is a comedy show focused around four chefs who are trying to prepare a wedding meal by a certain time due to the demand of their manager.  It was SO funny and we both laughed so hard through the whole show.  It is definitely something we would like to go see again!  After the show Eric had made a reservation at a very fancy Italian restaurant at the Seoul Plaza hotel.  We ordered ourselves a six course meal to share and it was very delicious!!  Bread, pasta, meat, salad, dessert... so good!  It was definitely a great birthday (not to mention it was a Saturday so I didn't have to work either!)!  As much as I wanted to take pictures of each course we enjoyed for dinner, I thought it might be highly frowned upon at such a nice restaurant... but here are some other pictures of our evening.

 

Pretending we are Nanta chefs

Before the show started

 

My friend bought me a birthday cake when we met Saturday morning

 

  Flowers and chocolate from Eric :)

Busy Weekend in June

We stayed pretty busy this weekend and some great times with some great people!  On Saturday, I had some of my friends over for a rooftop BBQ.  It was a very warm day but by evening it was a perfect time to be on the roof to enjoy the breeze, the company, and a whole lot of food.  Even though he was surrounded by several girls, I think Eric had a pretty good time too.  We really enjoy having people over to our house to just hang out together.  That seems to be a rare thing in Korea as the houses are all so small and most people just gather together at a restaurant for a few hours instead.  But we are glad we have had the opportunity to share our home (and roof) with others.  We hope to be able to do it some more but we have to wait until fall now as the summer weather has definitely arrived...

Today we got to meet up with two of my former kindergarten students and their families at Children's Grand Park near our house.  I guess two of my students from last year, Tommy and Elizabeth, are always telling their moms that they miss me and want to see me.  Hearing that sure makes a teacher's heart happy :)  It was so fun to meet them at the park today and spend a while with them and their families.  It was 90 degrees today and I told Eric as we were walking to the park that I'd sure like to go swimming.  Well we did end up going swimming, or at least getting plenty wet!  They had a wading pool area for the kids at the park so we took Tommy, Elizabeth and their siblings to wade in the water.  It was the perfect way to cool off, even if I did get much wetter than I had planned thanks to the kids splashing me plenty!  We had a picnic lunch together, enjoyed visiting with their moms and playing with the kids.  I'm so thankful they have been staying in contact with me and it's such a great feeling to know the kids (and parents) still think about me and miss me, just like I miss them!

 We had so much playing with these kiddos today!  Elizabeth, Tommy and Tommy's brother

We took this picture after she said "Stephanie Teacher hug me please!"  So sweet!!

Eric's Birthday

Eric's birthday was this last Thursday so to celebrate we had dinner at our favorite restaurant, Ashley's buffet, and then went to the new Star Trek movie, which happened to come out here on his birthday (he was very excited!!).  We ate way too much food at the restaurant but it was delicious.  The movie was good too, even though Eric says it was very similar to one of the movies in the original movie series.  (I got him the original motion picture series on Blu-ray for his birthday so we have started watching those together this weekend!)  I made him vanilla cupcakes for his birthday dessert which were pretty tasty too.  It was a nice evening and we love the fact that the hours of our jobs for this year allow us to have a date night during the week when we want it! 

On Saturday Eric actually had to work at his Friday job to make up for a holiday we had on a Friday in May.  While he did that I met a friend for lunch and went to Costco.  I realized how much I hate pushing a cart through Costco by myself (usually Eric does it) because the very aggressive Korean ajummas push their carts wherever and whenever they want leaving me to fend for myself! (Ajummas are a stereotype in Korea for the middle-aged and older Korean women who all look the same because they all have the same hairstyle and basically get whatever they want.  They cross the street whenever they want, pay whatever price they want at the street markets, and run over everyone else with their shopping carts at Costco.)  Sunday we had a more relaxed day.  I went for a walk at the Han River and played with the camera a bit while taking some pictures.  It was close to 90 degrees so it was pretty hot and sweaty but still a nice walk.  So far we have only had the air conditioner on one day but it is supposed to stay warm this week so we will see if we can keep it off or not!  We figure it will feel more refreshing if we keep it turned off until we really need it!!  (If Eric doesn't really need it yet you know it can't be too bad :) )  But now that it is June we know the summer heat is coming quick!  At least this year we will be a tad bit more prepared and expecting... 

Here are a couple pictures from Eric's birthday.  Apparently there is a size limit on the amount of pictures you can upload on Blogger and we have reached the limit :(  So right now I can only upload pictures I take with my phone since they are a small file size, though I may go through and delete some older pictures on here so I can upload again.  For now be sure to check out our Shutterfly site for all of our recent pictures!!

 

He was happy he got his steak :)

 

 I used Angry Birds wrapping paper :)

 View of the Han River from outside the restaurant

We walked through the zoo near our house on Saturday evening and the baby rams were ramming each other... so funny!!