Parents: I don't live with them, but I can't live without them!

warning: this post is fairly long with lots of pictures. I tried to be brief but I just had such a great time with the 'rents that I couldn't cut it down very much!!

Some people have the ambition and drive to travel for the sole purpose of escaping their family, especially their parents.  They can't wait to get out on their own so they don't have to answer to Mom and Dad; When they do move away, they call only every couple of weeks and are satisfied with the distance. While that is not necessarily a negative progression, I know that I don't have the same perspective.  I believe that I have the ambition, courage, and desire to travel because of my parents.  They are always so incredibly supportive of my decisions, even when it wouldn't be their first choice for their youngest daughter (aka moving to South Korea). In this case, not only are they supportive and encouraging, but when I got into the program to come here, my dad said, "Well, I guess we know where our next vacation will be!"

6 months and 25 days after I left them tearfully at San Francisco Airport, they arrived in Seoul for a 10 day vacation in South Korea.  It was like the night before Christmas to me; I couldn't sleep and was beyond excited to see them again!! Who knew parents could be so exciting?!  Needless to say, it was phenomenal to see them.  I'm not going to tell you moment by moment account of the trip (you're welcome) but I'll share some highlights and a few pictures to give an overview.  For a 10 day trip, they were able to see some key parts of Korea - Seoul, the capital and largest city for 3 nights, then Gyeongju, with traditional buildings, temples, and a beautiful lake for 2 nights, and finally, Daegu, my city.

In Seoul, we did so much walking.  Gyeongbukgong Palace, N Seoul Tower, Myeongdong, Chyeonggye Stream, and Namdaemun Market were just a few of the places that we walked through in our time in Seoul.   It was great to spend time with them as well as introduce them to the culture that I've been living in for the last 6ish months.  

Seoul Highlights:

• Being reunited in the hotel Friday night when I arrived after taking the high speed train (KTX) up from Daegu. That's a given.

• Beyond normal hunger one day, we went into a small 24 shop for their first Korean meal (Hilton breakfast doesn't count!).  I couldn't tell from the outside, but the tiny restaurant was packed.  The entire room watched as we crammed into the corner barstools and I ordered bibimbap.  Bibimbap is a common, simple Korean dish consisting of various vegetables, rice, this spicy red sauce, and usually a fried egg.  We had it dolsot which means it comes in a HOT stone bowl, so the rice gets nice and crispy. delicious.  The best part about meals in these little places is that it's cheap.  A filling meal was only $15 for all of us. Later we had kimbap from a place like this (think sushi rolls but with ham, radish, etc instead inside) and it was $7 for all three of us. amazing. 

• Beautiful weather.  It was warm, but at least it wasn't raining as we had expected! 

  

  Reunited!!

  

  traditional performance outside a palace

  
  
  

  

  cool dude. the statue guy...and my dad, of course!

  

  he's real!

  

  cute little girl in her hanbok (traditional Korean dress)

  

  doing what we do best...goofing off in a museum (can you find my dad?)

  

  First bibimbap!

  

  Myeongdong, biggest shopping district in Korea.

  
  
  

  

  random jazz concert in Insa-dong.

  

  View from N Seoul Tower

  
  
  

  

  precious.

  
  

  

  Love Locks!

  

  trying tteok bokki! (spicy rice cakes - street vendor food!)

  

  walking along Cheongyecheon

After a few days in Seoul, we took the KTX down to Gyeongju, a city that is known for it's preservation of traditional buildings. Originally, from 57BC to 935AD in the Shilla Dynasty, it had been the capital of Korea but as most powerful kingdoms do, took a fall and was not powerful anymore.  The city is often called a "Museum without walls."  I think we had the most adventures here - so fun.  

 Gyeongju Highlights:

•  We went to the 2011 World Culture Expo and saw a few performances and displays.  There was supposed to be a light show to start at dusk.  As it was getting dark according to our perceptions at about 6:30,  we grabbed a cement square stone (it doesn't even deserve the name "bench") and began to wait. and wait.  About 7pm, the front of the building the light show was being projected on began to show designs and scroll something in Korean with the number 8 in it.  We jokingly said "wonder what that means, haha what if it starts at 8..nah haha" Yep, you guessed it, the show didn't start until 8.  We sat on a cement block for almost 2 hours for a 20 minute light show.  It was actually fairly good and provided laughter later.

• After a busy day at Tomb Park, Bulguksa Temple (where we had an amazing free English tour and saw a Buddha constructed in 700AD!) and Seokguram Grotto, we were inevitably hungry.  As we were in a touristy part of town and it was Chuseok (an important holiday similar to our Thanksgiving), we didn't have many options.  An old, eclectically dressed woman saw us wandering and beckoned us to her little restaurant.  Let's just say this isn't the kind of place we would normally go...Not very clean, little room, and we were all very hesitant.  However, we couldn't resist her excited waving, so in we went.  There was a man and his son sitting there and as we walk up he claps and while laughing, says, "congratulations!" to us.  We still have no idea why he said that, but he was so happy about it! Dad and I had the "Korean Dinner" which turned out to be a bunch of little side dishes and mom had bibimbap.  It was quite the experience and gave us all a little culture!

  

  their first ride on the high speed train!

  

  every time we saw a turtle, we took a picture for Sarah! (she loves turtles!)

  

  view from our hotel balcony in Gyeongju

  

  Observatory/building the light show was projected onto.

  

  festival kebabs! yum! mom's favorite!

  

  2 hours later... sweet light show.

  

  creative English...

  

  other direction view from our balcony.

  

  we had such good laughs on their trip!

  

  Tomb Park

  
  
  

  

  Bulguksa Temple, golden pigs are good luck!

  

  Amazing English Tour Guide

  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  very authentic dinner!

  

  Normal routine while waiting for us girls to get ready...

  

  attempting to skype Sarah on my ipod

  

  their trusty tour guide/translator/daughter getting train tickets

  Sadly, I had to be back to work Thursday and Friday, so we took the slow train to Daegu on Wednesday.  It was wonderful to not only do touristy activities, but really show them my life here.  I was able to show them my apartment, school, where I walk, favorite restaurants & coffee shops, even had them come to school with me on Friday, and so much more! It was a joy to introduce them to coteachers and friends while spending time with them.

Daegu Highlights:

• Friday, I wasn't teaching due to a singing competition, but they were able to come visit the school.  They met all of my coteachers, students were telling them hi with shocked faces, and they were able to see what life is like for me on a daily basis.  We watched the (long) singing competition and had a wonderful day.

  

  View from their hotel room in Daegu!

  

  parents are exhausting (in the best way of course!)

  

  Kimbap!

  

  Outside my school

  

  teaching them how to do real Korean BBQ - we had samgyupsal!

  

  On their day of adventures, they found "hardware street" and my dad was in heaven!

  

  we had weird power outages across the nation one day! - this is downtown Daegu

  

  visiting my school for the day

  

  School lunch - kimchi and all!

  

  co-teacher Amy who helps me with everything

  

  sitting outside after lunch, getting lots of surprised "hellos!" from students

  

  two of my favorites :]

  

  The bi-annual singing competition was held that day!

  

  so impressive (but sooo long and hot!)

  

  and the winners get.... correction tape!! (nope, not joking hahaha)

  

  Vice Principal giving the award to the winning class!

  

  2nd years who come and talk to me all the time - and made friends with my dad while my mom and I were in the restroom.

  

  Min and Bin are the shortened version of their Korean names

  
  
  

  

  Visiting the owner, Vivian at my favorite coffee shop, Ann&Andy's!

 Basically, I'm so grateful for my parents. There are so many more stories I could share about their time here, but I think this is enough to give a glimpse of our time together.  While it was hard to leave them at the hotel before they left to fly back to the US, it was so worth it to  have them here! It will only be about 5 months until I see them again!

 

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children.  One is roots.  The other is wings.  -Hodding Carter, Jr.

I'm lucky. My parents have given me both.