merry christmas to me!

ok, so i take back what i said in the last post about not being able to post pictures, because i ended up celebrating christmas a little early this year! my parents decided they'd get me my christmas present here, which was (trumpet fanfare, chuseyo)... a digital camera! the met me this morning and said we could go shopping for one and that way they wouldn't have to mail me my christmas present, works out well for everyone.

anyway, we went to donghak-sa (the temple for buddhist nuns in gyeryong-san national park). my parents enjoyed the scenery, and it was a beautiful day for being in the mountains. boy we beat the crowd, though. we got there and it was just a few hikers here and there, then around 11 or so, the tour buses started pulling in so people were coming in droves. we came back, gave kimchi his lunch, then went to carrefour to do some camera shopping. i'm quite happy with the results- a 5.2 megapixel fuji camera that was only about $18 more than the camera i lost. and the camera i lost wasn't anywhere near as nice- it didn't have a lens cover or anything. pretty nice, thanks mom and dad!

kind of sucked that i had that "too bad i have to work today" feeling, especially because i don't teach until 5:30 on mondays but since they added the daily 3-3:30 meetings with 1 or 2 korean co-teachers, i had to go in even earlier and then knew i'd end up with some time to kill. would have been nice if i had remembered to tell the korean co-teacher last friday that i wouldn't be able to make the meeting today, then it sucked even more when i got there and she asked if we really needed the meeting because really weekly meetings are a bit too much. so, i did some quick planning and went back to my parents motel room and relaxed until i had to teach.

after teaching we went out for dinner- ssamgyeopsal- yum! i was actually surprised that my mom ended up liking the bibimbap we had for dinner last night more than this, because i really thought this was going to be a meal she was going to rave over. she liked it, just didn't get the raving i was hoping for. still, i left with my own stomach extremely content.

ok enough blabbing, i'm getting really tired and it's time to post pictures, per my mom's request:



my mom and kimchi


my mom playing tug of war with the toy she got kimchi- it's almost as big as he is



my dad making his best "blue steel"