A little culture...and a new toy

Hola!

This has been a fairly eventful past 2 weeks.  Both of us (Mike way more than me ;) ) have been busy with work & the normal hustle & bustle of life but fortunately we both could make time to go to the Lantern Festival.  I've wanted to go for now 3 years but we've never had the opportunity.  They put on the lanterns and festivities for about a week, covering Buddha's Birthday, May 17th.  On that day, you can go to any temple and they serve free lunch (just your basic rice with red pepper sauce and mixed vegetables aka "Bee-beem-bop".)  We didn't go on that day but the weekend before.  We went to the local temple in Seoul.  I posted pictures of that one a few months back.  Here's a few shots of the evening...

It was really neat!  We stopped at one of the local cafes on the way home for a coffee and headed home.  I'm glad I could cross that off of my small bucket-list of "Things to See" before we leave.  Mike liked it..but..on the way home he's like "Ok, well, that's done" HA!  It was really tired that day because he had worked till like 3 AM for about 7 days straight.  The life of a soldier ;)

On to the new toy...I finally lost the 4 year battle with Mike.  He has been eyeing this bad boy for sometime now and we just went ahead and took the plunge.  What do you think?

No, I will not be riding on the back until 1) At least 1 year of driving experience and 2)  We are the HECK out of Korea!  It is way too dangerous here..which is why the furthest I've driven in 2 years and 7 months is about 1 mile each way.  My blood pressure would be out of this WORLD..and my gray hairs would grow even more plentiful than they are now.  But he loves it so, Happy Birthday Mike for the next 10 years!  And yes...it will be coming with us to Germany.  

So, I have a funny story.  The other day the Korean woman who I work with & also tutor her daughter, asked me if I wore deodorant.  So instantly the first thing that comes to mind is "Umm, doesn't everyone?"  Although, I'm sure we've all experienced people around us or shoot..even when just walking into a store and BAM..someone is stinkin'.  It is always just so obvious.  Well..the more I had thought about it, there really isn't many worse smelling things in this world than a sweating Korean.  Because, well, let's just take a moment & think about this.  They eat fermented cabbage, TONS of seafood (like squid, and other unidentifiable things), seaweed, tons of whole clove garlic..and so much more that's just not even worth mentioning.  So I reply yes and she follows with: 

"Does it make to not sweating?"  

Yes..the English is word-for-word how I am typing. 

Me:  Well..I guess it "reduces" sweat but...we mostly wear it to help not to smell.

Her:  Oh, we no care bout da smell.

YOU ARE TELLING ME.

Me:  Yea, that's pretty obvious.  When we boarded the subway the other day it smelt like a truck of rotted onions.

Her:  BUSTED out laughing

Can you tell that it is time for us to leave?  I have practically a zero filter at this point so fortunately..she found that funny.

Ohhhh, the memories we will have of living here.  SO irreplaceable :)

Hope you all have a great, happy weekend & we will chat with ya soon!

I came across this quote on a hilarious blog I read...definitely food for thought.

"Let go of the comfortable and embrace the strange and the change. Because every experience you've had in your adult life that made you stronger required you to choose to be uncomfortable."

Love you!