It's Officially Summer in Korea!

Well hello, again! :)

As promised, I am back with some fun stories to share. This past Wednesday was a holiday in Korea, so we had no school. This meant we had the day to do whatever and I chose to hang out with a few good friends, Pete and Fritz. We went to the park by my apartment, laid on a blanket in much too tall grass and ate ice cream for a while. Then we went grocery shopping with Pete’s car. I must say, it’s quite nice going to the grocery store knowing you don’t have to carry everything back home. We brought my stuff home and met up with Birdie at a new coffee shop called Treatti. From there we headed to the Gwangyang World Art Circus Festival!! :D The four of us met up with Kerry, Nikki, Ki Nam, Toni, and Paul. We went and watched one of the performances there called Karma. This particular one has a Cirque Du Soleil feel to it and is performed by Koreans, Chinese and a Russian girl. I note this because on the festival’s website it mentions that it’s an international performance made up of Chinese, Korean and Russian performers, but there is only one Russian. I thought that was funny!

The show was pretty interesting. I’d never been to anything like it. It started off with the Russian girl on a pole doing some really artsy pole dancing. Then they got into the story of Karma and someone else whom I don’t remember. Haha From there some fun acts were on like the boys juggling their hats, another great one with boys and teenagers flipping through various sized hula hoops (sadly no pictures of that) and some little kids playing in there tubes. They weren’t playing, but they made it look so easy! All in all, it was a great show, and definitely worth going to see.   

Enjoy some pictures below:

At the entrance!

Waiting for the show to start :)

Excited with our not so yummy popcorn! haha

Fritz after the show with a few of the performers

The highlights of my last few weekends include:

·         Going to our usual Korean BBQ place with Lizzie, Pete, and Fritz where we ate and drank and then invited the owner over to join us. He’s a really nice guy, who talks to us in English sometimes.  He got us playing the game Titanic, where you take a shot glass and place it in another glass already half full with a chaser like Coke. Then you go around the table pouring soju into the shot glass and whoever makes the glass sinks has to drink it. It’s a fun game and he kept having waiters bring over more and more soju and cola. It’s disrespectful to say no to an elder, so we weren’t really sure how to get out of the situation. Needless to say, we stayed there until 1:30am before heading to a norabong (singing or karaoke room) for a while longer. It was a fun night with good friends. :)

·         Meeting up with Kate, Matthias, their friend Christian, and Fritz for shabu shabu followed by drinks at MiniStop, String and then to a noraebong for a bit.

·         Shabu Shabu again last night with Kate, Matthias, some of their friends, Kate, Rhonda, Lizzie, Pete and Trey followed by String for an Open Mic Night.

I feel I’ve used too many words again, so let’s let the pictures speak for themselves!!

At the Korean BBQ Restaurant!!

With the owner

Matthias cooking shabu shabu for us

Kate cooking too!

Kate and I at a MiniStop after dinner

Noraebong!! :D

My next post will be about my students! We celebrated two Kindergarteners birthday on Friday so I’ll tell you about that and a bit more!  

Getting Fit

I have been really slacking on writing on this blog lately. So sorry!!! I promise to do better! I don’t have any real excuse either. Haha I’ve been working as usual. Dan hasn’t been here to distract me on Facebook or Skype as much since he’s usually asleep when I’m on my breaks during the daytime. The only substantial change in my day-to-day routine recently has been exercise.

Please note: This post is about exercise, not teaching or fun places to see. However, I’ll include posts on both of those things very soon. This Wednesday is a holiday, so I’ll either be checking out the Gwangyang World Art Circus or the Yeosu Expo with some friends (think lots of pictures ;)!).

Since I came to Korea, I’ve been more and more conscious of healthy eating and living. It is extremely rare to see an overweight Korean. This is due large in part to their culture and general way of life. Koreans are very active. Even the smaller cities, everything is set up to be easily accessible, meaning you can walk or bike to almost anywhere you want to go relatively easily. Obviously there are times you need a car, bus or taxi, but when it comes to most day to day needs, like getting to work, the bank, grocery store, bar or out to eat, you can usually get there by foot. On top of that, the food they eat tends to be much more organic than what we have back in the States. Where we have a lot of processed food and soda, they eat fruits and vegetables, rice, and tea. They do have a weakness for coffee. There are coffee shops on practically every street. They also LOVE greasy fried chicken. They have a convenience store here called MiniStop and most locations have at least a small section of chicken cooking right at the register counter. I’m not trying to be stereotypical in any way. I’m just pointing out the things I’ve noticed about most of the people I see and meet here.

Before coming out to Korea, I spent the four years prior in college and I lived on campus for all four years, so I was used to walking around already. However, I rarely used the fitness center or took advantage of the sidewalks for jogging and running purposes. I have never considered myself a terrible eater, but I’ve also not put too much thought into what I put into my body. I like most “healthy” foods so I always made sure to eat them, but I also ate pizza, ice cream, whatever sounded good. I still have those things sometimes, but I have certainly cut back.

Nine weeks ago, I decided to start being more active, on top of just walking to school and other places I needed to get to in town. That first week, I ran a few miles on four different days. The second week, I did the same, trying to make running enjoyable by listening to music and trying to run at different times of day, like on my lunch break, as well as in the evening and nighttime. I also did sporadic P90X workouts during those two weeks. Then that third week, I decided to start following one of the P90X programs.

Since then, today being the end of the seventh week, I have successfully kept up with the exercise portion of the lean program. I bought weights from HomePlus and do everything in my apartment. I didn’t buy the vitamins or protein powder. I know that stuff is important for your body and I will start taking something, but I decided to wait on that until I got home. As for the diet portion, I haven’t even looked at their diet guide. I am just living off what I know I can find here, in my city. I eat A LOT of fruit and veggies. I also switched to whole grain pasta and bread, though I don’t have either very often. I have sort of become obsessed with making smoothies too. I make them with fruits and vegetables, yogurt, oatmeal and juices. I usually make at least 10 at a time so I can freeze them in small sandwich bags to drink later. My favorite one is spinach and strawberry. I also drink tons of water. I’ve always been a water drinker, but I never realized just how much you’re supposed to drink, so I’ve been trying to get in the full amount each day too. I have lots of lean meat, like chicken breasts, and oatmeal too. I still allow myself to eat other foods that aren’t as good for you and I’m sure I’ll continue to wean myself off of those, but for now, I’m very happy with my progress.

I noticed changes in my body after the first week and I’m already so much better at the workouts, and most importantly, I enjoy them! I feel good when I complete my workout for each day and when I notice improvement in my ability to complete the exercises in them. Doing this has been a big commitment, but I am determined to stick with it. I have just six more weeks till my 90 day mark is up, but I’m sure I’ll continue with it after that.

The whole reason I started doing this in the first place was because I wanted to build up good habits in both my diet and lifestyle before I got back home and had all of this temptation, mostly with food haha. I knew a decent amount about food and fitness before starting this, but I’ve already learned so much and I can see the proof of my hard work. I heard that I would start to crave the healthier foods I was feeding my body, and now I’m actually doing that! It’s so strange! Haha I used to be a HUGE chocolate eater, and I still let myself indulge, but that too has been cut back a lot, whereas before I’d eat 8-10 Dove squares and some 15 kisses, I now eat just one serving worth once or twice a week.

I’m sure this post is pretty boring to most of you, but I’m very proud of my hard work and I’m really glad that I have found something that works well for me. :)

If you’d like to hear more about this, or see my progress following the 90 days, let me know and I’ll be sure to include a follow-up on that!