Another Year Comes with More Adventures and More Wisdom!

"You can't expect to be old and wise if you were never young and crazy."

For the wondering minds... "Are you still in South Korea?" Yes, I'm still in South Korea, living good. I know it's been a couple of months since I shared a story... so, I'm going to share about my birthday celebration(s) for now. I'll fill you in on the past 4 months next time.

"Did you travel for your birthday?" Ummm... no, I didn't leave the country if that's what you're wondering. I've been lazy, and wanted to stay put; trying to do things locally.  Since my birthday is a national holiday in Korea, I decided to check off a couple places that I've wanted to go to while living here.

First, let me shout out my students for the love during the week of my birthday. Since, there wasn't any school on my birthday, students sang happy birthday to me on all the other days.  So, in some of my classes, I didn't give them work; I let them watch movies, and gave them snacks. (I felt like I shouldn't have been working "hard" during the week of my birthday.🙃) My students are thoughtful...I was given milk, pencils, and a sniper key chain as gifts.  It's the thought that counts, right?🤔🙃

Anyways, as an "adult," I didn't plan to go out on my birthday eve...just sleep. But, I was dragged out by my friend Matt. He showed me to this bar where I had some good cocktails (cause I don't do Korean alcohol), good music, watch the bar tenders put on a show, receive a free cocktail for my birthday and receive a lot of birthday love from some of the Koreans. 00:30 is way past my bed time.

June 6: My good friends, James and YunHye, spent the day with me as we ventured to different "museums" in the area. First stop,

Seogwang Tea Garden (제주 서광 다원)

I don't drink tea, but I thought would be nice to see one of the "most well managed and largest tea plantation(s) in Korea." It wasn't on my to-do list then, but I think next time, I'll make some natural tea soap and buy some tea for family.

Glass Castle (제주유리의성)

I always like to do something "memorable" for my birthday. Something I'd never forget and can always remember about my birthday. A friend told me about glass art, and how I could make my own glass art. So, I went to the Glass Castle to make glass art. (Technically, I just "assisted", but I did a major part in glass blowing.) Now, my art piece is glowing beautifully on my window stool as the city sits in the background.

Love Land (제주러브랜드)

And finally, I made it to the "famous" Love Land. But, I'm sure you already expect the unexpected from me. I said a while back after my visit to Penis Park I had to visit this one. It was my entertainment for the day. Lolz. It was good seeing other foreigners (and Koreans) laughing, joking around but most importantly, enjoying the museum and approaching it all with a mature mindset. I'll post only a select few pictures☺. Laughter is good for the soul! 

To close out my day, I took myself to the movies to watch Jurassic World. Funny thing, I'm that "extra" foreigner in movies while abroad. So, I try to avoid people who know in public places, especially my students. I saw one of my students near the concession stand. He didn't notice me. I walk in the theater, I'm sitting right next to him and his mother.😐 But, I did a marvelous job of not embarrassing myself and not showing out like I did watching Infinity War.🙃

Feeling blessed and thankful as always, it's good to see another year. I look forward to the many adventures ahead, while sharing my stories with you. 

P.S. Thank you to all those who sent me birthday wishes. I really do appreciate it!

Until next time, 

My Experience at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."                                -Muhammad Ali

 

I know as a child, we all at some point in time, have watched the Olympics on television and dreamed about being there because of the host country, supporting our country in particular events, and/or just wanting to see the Olympic experience. I've always dreamed of going to a summer Olympic games to watch track & field, beach volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, and see the opening or closing ceremony. (Also, because it's warm.)  I know in 2016, I was highly tempted to buy a flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil just to be in the environment. Well, I've fulfilled that dream, almost.

Living in South Korea, I got a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was able to attend the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.😆 Back in 2016 when I was deciding to teach overseas, I wasn't really pressed about the Olympics being in South Korea. But, after 2 months being here, I made a quick decision that I was going to go. I followed the websites and researched for the release date of tickets to the public and how to maneuvering through Olympic venues. It felt like I was working on a 10-month research paper. After months of trying to find someone to join me, my friend Liz voiced her interest in going to the opening ceremony with me. We were two of the lucky ones to get the cheapest tickets. (It wasn't until a month later I found out those sold out fast.) That was the only thing I had planned to see. Due to a change in travel plans home, I ended up having the opportunity to see other events. Like I mentioned before, I would have preferred the summer Olympic games, but since I'm living in Korea, I thought I could handle the cold and attend a couple of events at the Olympic games. I won’t lie, the only winter sport I’m ever interested in is figure skating. For all other events, I’m just just like "Go Team USA!" for the athletes (in spirit) to win in their event(s). But, this experience was different.

I had a remarkable experience from the start to finish. During my commute to my hotel, I met some Americans that live in Korea, as well, and are volunteering for Team USA. We were able to share our cultural experiences here in Korea as an expat, what we’re looking forward to experience during the Olympics, and they shared with me volunteer opportunities with Team USA and some benefits for future Olympic games. The OPENING CEREMONY: it was a very surreal moment once I got my ticket scanned to go into the Olympic Stadium. I felt like I had just walked into Disney World with so much excitement. We met up with my American soror to take pictures, and next thing I know, we were asked if we wanted to be interviewed by Craig Melvin from the Today show!! (My 5-second TV shine.) We heard we were supposed to get a blanket and hot packs to keep us warm but hadn’t received anything after walking in. Time was ticketing, so Liz and I headed to our seats. We got to our seats and found a 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic swag bag! Inside the bag were hot packs, a blanket (that I lost 😑), a raincoat, a North Face beanie, a seat cushion, a cultural drum, and a pen light. I immediately wrapped the blanket around my legs and activated about 4 hot packs. As you probably saw on TV, we were freezing. Throughout our excitement, we noticed these cheer squads singing songs and waving flags. The Korean guy next to me informed me that they were the North Korean cheer team and they were holding the unification flag. (I won’t lie; Liz and I tried figuring out what country was on the flag, but didn't know. It looked familiar, but unusual. The world views the countries separately, so when they’re actually one, it seems unfamiliar.) It was interesting to witness the North Korean cheer squad cheering on KOREA a section over from us. I won’t go in detail about the entire opening ceremony, but I’ll tell you my two memorable moments. 1. I got to see Team USA walk in and cheer them on as they walked along the path, and 2. I was very close to see the lighting of the Olympic torch. Those are 2 things I’ve always wanted to witness at an Olympic Opening Ceremony. With all the excitement, it wasn’t until the end I realized my toes were frozen and numb. On the bus ride back towards my hotel I ended up talking with a lady that participated in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Laurence Bonici talked about her experience as an Olympic athlete, director, and spectator. I was in awe!

#TeamUSA / #TeamCanada

Day 2: Figure Skating Practice. Figure skating is a very popular event, so tickets sold out fast for the competitions. To get some type of experience, my sorors and I decided to sit in and watch the Olympic athletes that were competing the next day practice their routines. From Team USA, we saw Chris and Alexa Knierim and Bradie Tennell do their practice routines; we saw French skaters, Vanessa James, Morgan Cipres, and Mae Berenice Meite practice their routines as well. While cheering on Team USA, we found other Americans near us cheering on our country’s athletes. After the events, we walked around the venues in Gangneung, touring the area before our departure. At dinner time, we sat next to and talked with Norwegian Olympic Athlete, Mons Roisaland’s family. The next morning, we had talked with a Canadian athlete's parents. We came to a consensus that a good amount of people staying at our hotel were parents of the athletes and the Australian Olympic team. We got a chance to hear from some, their perspectives of raising and traveling with an Olympic athlete, as well as, the sacrifices and things parents of athletes do/make throughout their child's Olympic career. I salute all the parents of Olympic athletes!

Frostbite for the Win! Our final Olympic event wasn't until later in the evening of our last day. We stayed in bed to get enough rest, so that we could make it through a long cold night. We went to the Luge competition to see Chris Mazdzer, Taylor Morris, and Tucker West.  Mother nature decided to freeze everyone out of the stadium that night. We were there for  part of run 3. By the time we got there, my fingers were frozen in my gloves, and I started to lose feeling in my toes. During run 3, we stood out their long enough to watch Taylor Morris slide by and a few other athletes. After that, we found a shelter house to defrost in. I sat right next to the heater, feeling pain as my toes started to defrost. I decided to stay for run 4, as I wanted to see Chris Mazdzer medal. I had enough feeling in my fingers and toes to see Tucker West's run and Chris Mazdzer get the silver medal! That was a memorable moment for me. After that I was out of there.

Chris Mazdzer's run to secure the Silver for Team USA!

Tucker West's final run!

For my first ever Olympic experience, everything was amazing to me. I enjoyed every moment! I will say that this was my first winter Olympics and probably my last🙄. That cold weather is something else. Living in Korea for the past two winters, I thought I could handle it. But, it could have been just the Korean winters that are unbearable. I wish I was able to see the US flag for Chris Mezdzer at the Awards ceremony the next night; I'll catch an award ceremony for the US athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics!😎

Thanks to my home state's news channel, KARK 4 News that's covering the Olympics, for a small story they did me. Click Here!

Until the next adventure,

My First Ski Trip was at an Olympic Venue!

“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” - Ellen DeGeneres

 

It’s crazy to say that I went skiing on the slopes next to the ones that will be used for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. But, like my grandmother said when I told her I was on a ski trip, “You’ve never been skiing a day in your life!” I was gone learn that day!

So, here’s the story… my friend, Dom, and I decided that we wanted to do a ski trip as my going away celebration. We’re both from different areas of the U.S. where skiing is not available. Heck, there would barely be enough snow to build a snowman. As I mentioned before, the 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. We thought it would be a smart idea to spend time in the area before everyone else makes there way up. We stayed at the Yongpyong Resort, which I highly recommend, and had several activities and opportunities to do things. Mind you, we’re travelers on a budget. About two weeks from our trip, we spent hours trying to figure out transportation options to and from the destination that would be cost efficient and excursions that would be cheap, so we could enjoy our time not worrying about money. [If ever traveling to Pyeongchang Olympic venue, the closest bus station is Hoenggye (횡계).] Neither one of us had ever gone skiing before, so we thought about taking lessons. We looked online and saw that English lessons were about $300.🙅‍♀️  That’s a negative. We saw an option for group lessons, 1:7, for about $70. We decided to go with that. We get there early Saturday afternoon, to plan out our time and search the area. We found so many Olympic souvenir shops, that we had to window shop to make sure were saving our coins for the other purchases we needed to make the next day. We had been planning to go bowling for the longest, so we decided to do some late-night bowling games and called it a night.
 

Sunday, the day we were going to learn how to ski… EPIK FAIL! We wake up around 10, because the afternoon sessions start at 12:30, to get prepared and get some type of food in our system. Come to find out, breakfast ended at 10:30,😑 so we had to order lunch. We were content with our meals and ready for our skiing adventures. We get there a little before 12:30 and was told to wait a bit. We saw others waiting as well, so we were so excited to join a group. 12:30. We get to the counter and was told that we were on a waiting list and to come back in about 45 minutes; we come back, as was told only three people signed up so they had to cancel. 😣I looked in the corner of the sheet and saw that she wrote “English lesson” in Korean. AHHHHHH!! I don’t understand why it’s not understood that we were not about to spend extra money for broken English. Since we missed about 1.5 hours for the afternoon ski session, we decided to go to the night session. Let me tell you, YOUTUBE works miracles. 🙌

We get back to the room and watch YouTube videos on “learning how to ski.” We watch about a good 45 minutes worth of lessons, so we felt a little confident. Since we had to wait til 18:00, we decided to go into the city and check out the nearby venues, souvenir shops, and search for the Olympic mascots in the area. We found this frozen lake and was brave enough to walk on part of it.😅 Because we saved an extra $70, we went Olympic souvenir shopping. We may have gone a little overboard on the shopping. 🙄But, who cares. I think we will have some of the good stuff before everyone else comes over and snatches it up. Walking around the city (Hoenggye is very small), we started to discover the Olympic mascots around by accident; it turned into a game of iSpy, to see how many we could find before the end of our trip. We found a lot!

 

Fast-forward past dinner…18:30. We got our hot packs, gloves, thermal leggings and shirt, googles, boots, rented our ski gear and pants. WE READY!! (This is the part of the story Dom and my grandmother found hilarious.) I got all my gear on, quicker than Dom, and were on the ski lift. WE MADE IT TO THE TOP! I’m trying to angle myself on the slope, because we learned from YouTube to stay in “the pizza stance.” I was in a narrow pizza stance and next thing you know, I go flying down the slopes not able to stop myself. My life flashed quickly before my eyes. I literally threw myself backwards to fall so that I didn’t crash. Literally everyone was watching, even instructors… 😒. NO ONE tried to help me. Dom came scooting along laughing, trying to help me up. I lost my ski pole and one of my ski. I was sliding like crazy trying to connect my ski to my boot; it slid down the hill. GAHHHHH!! I took off my other ski to make it easier to get the other one. Dom got my pole for me and I was set to try this thing out again. FAIL! AGAIN! I went flying down the slope and somehow my ski detached from my boot. Fast-forward to after my small tutorial from Dom. I KNOW HOW TO SKI and control my speed and direction. The other 3 tries were 100% successful. I do say I was proud of myself. I think the next time I go skiing I may do some lessons.

 

Next time, I’ll be closing out chapter 1!