ok. so i'm at fred's island. after many many hours of travelling by train, bus and ferry.. i've arrived. and it is *gorgeous*.. i don't think any pictures or words i ever post here will be able to adequately depict the amazingness of this place. it's been raining, so i don't actually have any pics yet. but when i do, i will post them. until then, here are some pictures of my last bits of time in korea. in chronological order...

i went to visit the fortress in my city. it's basically a super long crazy cool wall that used to go around the city. it looks like something out of a video game. err.. things out of vid games were based on this? anyhow. i liked this. it was very.. mario brothers.


we had some fun with sparklers at the mud festival. my cam has a fireworks setting on it, which keeps the shutter open long enough to do some fun things. it's no comparison to picasso's bull, but it's kinda fun :D


we built a kickbutt sand castle on sunday. here is muddy me..


and here the triumphant builders pose by our creation. note the white flag of surrender, as the tide is coming in quite quickly!


i took a million pictures of my kids on the last days of school. this is my youngest student - 4 years old. she still walks like a toddler. can't tell from this picture, but she's a total hellion.


i had each of my classes write messages on the board so i could take a picture and have their notes.. they were very cute.



goodbye korea!


hello japan! this is from my first views of japan on the ferry coming in..


and this is matsue castle.. last wooden castle in japan. located in the port city near fred's island. one of the first places we went since i've been here. gorgeous, ne?


and with that, i am finished for today. it has taken me far too long to post all of this! more pictures will, of course, be up as i get them or decide to sit down to post. be well, and remember, "a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" ..

whew! i made it! after 27 hours of travelling by ferry, train and taxi.. i have arrived at fred's town in japan. well, actually. not quite. i'm in the port city that actually has things, before taking another ferry to get to the island fred lives on. i think we're staying in town till sunday.
i am very, very tired. tsukareteimasu yo. oyasumi! (goodnight!)

alright. so i know it has been over a week. it's been a nutso week. we went to a mud festival last weekend.. it was amazing. right now i am packing to leave korea tomorrow (eek!) for two weeks in japan (HOORAY!!). not sure exactly when i will be uploading more pictures.. give me time. i'll get there. i have a TON of new ones. for now, entertain yourself with this: transformers goodness from penny arcade.

wow. so, another crazy weekend come and gone.. here come the pictures!
saturday we went to a place called naminara island. it's an island in the middle of a river, with all sorts of fun paths and random little picture-perfect places.

this is probably my favorite picture of tim from this summer..


this path is super famous in korea. a movie was filmed on the island and the town nearby, and apparently they used images of the path a fair bit.


there were lots of these flowers around the island.


voltron in the gift shop?!


as we started travelling on saturday, michelle and i both bought new hats! yayy hats! the piles of rocks behind me are wish-piles. there is a korean tradition that if you pile rocks on top of each other like that and make a wish, your wish will come true.


as we left the island saturday, we saw a tethered hot air balloon.. it took me almost 10 minutes to finally catch it lit up. pretty cool.


neat little guy.


pizza dispenser in the bathroom? hehehe


i took a picture as we left sunday.. this is the hallway in our sketchy mc-sketcherson motel.


this would be me juggling on the spot where i qualified 5 balls!! yayy!!


we spent sunday hiking up a mountain to a buddhist temple. along the way were lots of gorgeous waterfalls and nature-y spots.






this is the grave of a famous monk who served at the temple.


and this is from the interior of the temple.


each one of these globes has a wish for someone's family to have good health for a year.




here are more stone piles of people's wishes.. so many wishes.. i added two.


sunday night we ate dakgalbi.. aka korean chicken bbq. it was quite good. the place we went is in a city that is famous for its chicken bbq - they even have a street dedicated to it.


and there you go! the weekend, briefly, in pictures. it's time to go teach. only one more week!

so the adventure for the weekend involves wandering (maybe biking?) around on an island and visiting a temple. yup, i will take lots of pictures, and yup i plan on eating yummy food. some korean tea perhaps? and all for around $100 for the weekend. man i love this place.

oh. and, of course, questing, for those of you who are involved with that ;) forge on, brave soldiers!

happy fourth of july! weird that there are no fireworks this year. i plan on doing an activity with my little ones about the 4th, involving lots of coloring :D i think our celebrations will probably involve escanaba in da moonlight and some japanese lime alcohol scott brought.

so, scott came to visit me last weekend! yayy!! for those who don't know, scott is a good friend from juggling in madison who is currently teaching english in japan. so he just hopped a plane and came for the weekend :D we had lots of adventures. first off was just finding him.. he had an adventure with the bus involving not being allowed to get off at the correct stop, getting off at the next one and taking a cab back to where he had already been. wasn't too bad though. i only waited about 10 minutes till he arrived. so we went back to my house, cleaned up after travelling, and headed out to suwon station for some revelry with my friends.



this is our bartender, unmi. silly girl! hehehe


scott brought me a couple of presents, one of which was this gorgeous yukata. freaking cool ^^


on saturday we went to the korean folk village with still more friends. we stayed for six hours, and i'm pretty sure i could do an entire separate post on all the cool stuff we saw there. among the cool things were...

this cool little statue guy. he got lots of attention from our group.


a rather ineffective looking table..


lots of gorgeous little ponds and watery areas.


very hungry horses.


a super fun board jumping game. picture me squeeking there.


pretty flowers in the rain..


exercises in squishing into small spaces.


and an oldfashioned korean jail cell.


saturday night we went out dancing in itaewon, but i don't actually have any pictures from that. sunday morning we went shopping for souvenirs and both had quite good luck :D

i think that's a pretty good deluge of pictures from me today. but always remember: take care the drop, and watch out your step, please.