Adventures with 토니! (Tony)

Pictures from all of Tony's visit HERE

We have officially hosted our first visitor! Tony came and stayed with us for two weeks, and being able to share Korea with someone on the "outside" was an experience I won't soon forget!

The adventures started on Wed evening, July 8th. After work I grabbed some gimbap and got on the airport bus for an hour to meet him at the airport. I was SO excited to see him again and I spent the whole bus ride thinking of all the fun things I had to show him about my new life here. I knew he would be just dead (as anyone should be after about 24 hours of traveling), but I decided I would force him to stay awake on the bus and tell me about his trip, etc :)

Since he was here for two weeks, I don't really remember a day by day, so instead I will just randomly tell you about everything as it comes to my mind, haha.

Tony was able to come to school with me quite a bit. I knew Froebel would be happy to have him for a day or two, but surprisingly they encouraged him to come as much as he could! The director of our school even sorta offered him a job haha. But nobody here loved him as much as the kids!

Tony was a BIG hit with all the kids. I even got a little jealous sometimes because they would get more excited to see him than to see me! :P During playtime the Elgar class would play doctor (mostly Monica) and give him haircuts (mostly Jon) haha. During circle time one morning all the 6 year olds swarmed him in a mob - it made for an excellent picture haha. On the couple days Tony didn't come to school, I had to hear "Tony Teacher where?" about a million times. One of the 7 year olds in cooking class pointed to us and said "married...you dance together!" to which Tony teased back "YOU'RE married" and she put her hands up and shook her head and said "No! I don't have boy!" hahaha maybe you had to be there but it was so great.

Tony had been following my classes through fb pictures and whatnot and was most excited to meet little Amy. She is the one in the cookie jar video I posted in March. It was fun to have him hang out during class because the kids got to use their English they've learned the past few months on an English speaker they didn't already know, and who wasn't their teacher. It was great to see how comfortable they were trying to ask him questions...the most popular of which were "do you like tomatoes?" and "do you like scorpion?" :)



Outside of school we were able to eat lots of great food including:

• 김밥 - gimbap - a popular Korean like "fast food" made from steamed white rice and various other ingredients, rolled in sheets of dried seaweed and served cold in bite-size slices



• 비빔밥 - bibimbap - a bowl of warm white rice topped with sautéed and seasoned vegetables and chili pepper paste topped with a raw or fried egg




• 삼겹살 - samgyeopsal - pieces of thick, unsalted bacon that you grill yourself on a grill in the middle of your table. You cook it Korean bbq style called 고기구이 - gogi gui - where you put the pieces of grilled meat into a lettuce wrap with garlic, onions, kimchi and other side dishes.







• A dish that was a live octopus put in a pan with other greens and red pepper paste and then cooked on our table

• 샤브샤브 - shabu-shabu - The dish is prepared by submerging a very thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in a pot of boiling broth swishing it back and forth several times. You also put in veggies to be cooked in the boiling broth as well. Once the meat and vegetables have been eaten, leftover broth from the pot is customarily combined with rice, making a porridge type dish to be eaten last.



• Korean sashimi
  


• 꿀타래 - kkultarae - a Korean royal court candy made in Insadong. It's made of fermented honey and corn starch, spun into tiny filaments and filled with chopped nuts. Very yummy!



• 떡볶이- tteokbokki - a broiled dish of sliced rice cake, meat, eggs, and seasoning bought from street vendors. We got a bunch of other street food that night and so our dinner consisted of varies foods from our street market!

We obviously ate lots of good stuff other than this but eating was one of our favorite things to do! We visited the aquarium, and walked around Insadong, which is a street with lots of fun shops/crafts/traditional tea houses, etc. Rach, Tony and I got tea at one of these houses and mine had flowers in it! I had ordered the chrysanthemum tea and the blooms were floating in my glass.

Also Tony was able to meet our Korean friends! On one of the best Saturday nights ever, we all went out with them to celebrate our friend Tylers last class (he is leaving for the states in a week after being in Korea for 2 years!). We went out for the usual stuff at Korean style bars. Tony got to try Korean rice wine, 동동주 (dong-dong-ju), and we also dined on pig intestine that night. We always get to try the fun stuff when out with the Koreans! :) It was really great for everyone to get together and meet new people and just share in life. Tony expressed to me that this was one of his most favorite experiences here.

I am so so so so so so so happy that he came! We had a truly amazing time and I won't ever forget sharing this experience with him. I am truly blessed to have someone like him in my life who would come see me and experience this with me and also Rachel. So thank you Tony for coming :)

Tony will also be writing a guest entry hopefully soon so keep an eye out for it! Also coming up in about a week we will be able to tell you all about our adventures in ประเทศไทย -Thailand! We hope to relax on the beach, go zip-lining through the jungle, explore the cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, see Thai boxing, eat some amazing food, get a thai massage (or 3), trek through the jungle on elephants, see traditional thai villages, and go bamboo rafting...just to name a few things :P

I (and I'm sure we) miss you all so, so much. It was officially 5 months on Tuesday...meaning we have a little over half-way to go! See you in a week lovely people!!!