I am changing my blog over to a different site.

I just got a  wordpress account because I am told that it is better to have a wordpress account so yes... sorry for any inconveniences. The person who told me this knows a bit more about blogs so I trust her reasoning.
      Here the link to my new blog is : http://inkstroke.wordpress.com/
     I am currently working on having my blog caught up with the posts from this address so no real post for today, but I should be back to normal tommorrow, with lots more crazy pictures.

The Gyeongbokgung Palace

Well.... I had some fun today. I had  more fun then I can record in one post. When I say fun I actually mean...well despite the odds against this and my general temperament I actually mean fun. In the non-sarcastic sense, and why in the earth do I have to qualify the word fun.
         So I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I am was going to Sinchon on the subway. Later I decided against that. I realized that maybe it would be a better idea to go on a ride with less transfers. Also I wanted to go see the palaces, which I did, and I also explored the folk muesem. I have enough material to last me awhile. That and what probably adds up to 100 pictures. Literally.

   So this was one of the buildings in the palace. There were dozens of buildings like this, some smaller and some larger, and some in the middle of something like a maze.

This is more or less the first thing that I walked in on. Cool right. It was some sort of military procession re-enactment. Then I paid my 3000 won in order to get in and I wandered around what happened to be at least several acres. By the end of that time I had enjoyed myself thoroughly and could not feel my left foot, and my hands where losing some of their mobility. 

But I was able to explore allsorts of nooks and crannies where no one else was at that time. I am going to go back there when it is warmer and maybe a sketch pad, and an entire day and bag off water and food.

There was so many cool buildings there. I think if I where ever to develop an area I would base the buildings off these. 

I' ll post some pictures tomorrow to probably Ohh.... look did I mention that the palace was in the shadow of a few mountains? Well there are a great deal of mountains in Korea. Maybe I should go mountain climbing, when it is warmer. Anyway after that I went to the folk museum,  nearby. Then I went back into the subway, where a nice lady gave me her gloves because she thought my hands looked cold. End of story although I skipped quite a bit of it. 

Quick post

Tommorow I am planing to use the subway to get all the way to Sinchon. Ehhh...well. I have never been on subway before so let us see how that goes. Umm.... yes. Today is Friday so that is nice. We had pizza today and all I can say is that the Koreans like a lot of vegetables on thier pizzas. To be honest the pizza taste better than most of the American ones I have tasted. The have more interesting flavors and such.
                 Nothing new to see because my phone camera is not working quite properly. Anyway I should have tons of pictures for tomorrow after I come back form Sinchon.

The children

Well it is high time I talk about the reason that I am over in Korea, namely teaching young children. Ahhh... some of them are way to cute to be believeable. They have this drawly way of saying "teeeacheer'.  Gah, if you have watched any k dramas you may have an idea what I am talking about.  Anyway like I said they are way to cute.
         Although as with most kids they get less cute as they get older. Then you get teenagers. Personally I want to forget all my teenager years, well, no, just from 14 to 16, actually. I was such an angst bucket then. If I went back in time I would have kicked myself and later thanked myself.
           Thank goodness I am much more adult now (in case your wondering, kicking people is a perfectly adult way to handle things). Fine then maybe I regressed.
             Anyway the little ones are way to cute. One called Chloe has a really good accent and she is so serious that it is pretty funny. Then one of the mom's I'm teaching has a little toddler and he has the fatest little cheeks. It's pretty funny to.
              Although I was just banned from playing Hangman with the kids after we are done with thier lessons because the moms think that it is to violent.  I never thought of hangman as violent.  Although looking at my obvious maturity level you may know why.
            Hmmm.... maybe we should look at some of the computer games they are playing.
        Anyway I have no pictures, really because it seems slightly rude and unprofessional to start taking pictures of people during class.

This is another picture around the city.
 Anyway signing off again. Goodbye.

Sea Weed Soup

Well... I suppose I can not share something new every post.I mean I am spending 8  hours a day in a class room and another hour walking back and forth.
                 Anyway Rose edited one of my drawings to make into a cover of one the books that I have written and am planing to put on create space.
               Anyway the drawing itself was pretty cool, although it was slightly unfinished. Rose just added what it needed

It looks really cool, like I said, however, I am not completely certain that it fits the story..

Anyway  I guess I shall post some pictures of modern Korea, instead of the cute farmhouse that am going back to on a warm pretty day and sketching it, with my new watercolour pencils. 

 This is a grocery store slash everything else store that one of my co-workers took me too the day I got here. I just need to find it again, since it was pretty inexpensive.

The city. I do not know if you can tell here but it is so colorful.  I mean I have been in pretty big cities before but it seems that these people like thier color a little more than most of the places I have been.

I just made seaweed soup, because it is supposed to be good for you, that's why they traditionally serve a seaweed soup to mothers after they have given birth, for a month. I did not make that soup since I added every other kind of vegetable that I had in the house. Although it does taste strange, it does not taste bad.  

I consider that a triumph, although sortof fishy.

 Well let me see, nothing too exciting today. I had to do some paperwork for getting my visa card. That was fine but not exciting. but I am making spinach pancakes for dinner. See look aren't they so .....hmm...green?
          Well since I have no oven, nor microwave, I am mostly going to be eating food made over the stovetop.
             

               Actually it tastes pretty good with a little  soy sauce.
               Anyway like I said nothing to exciting really happened today, except the spinach  pancakes, which I found exciting, even if you all are to good for them.
               Ohh... I saw an American today, that was pretty wild. Although it was at the immagration office. So does that really count? Or is there some problem that whenever I come across anyone taller then me I feel like staring at them? Seriously I have seen a grand total of three americans since I have come here. That is not a problem for me, but it is strange when you do see one.
                     Ohh... only one was taller then me. Honestly sometimes I feel huge here. Not fat so much as everyone is shorter then me. But that is not true, one Korean guy was a little taller then me at a stoplight and he was wearing high heel boots, for a little bit I was not sure if he was a guy or a gal.
                When I got a closer look at him, he was a guy with awful strange colored hair, which some may call blonde, but I thought was closer to orange.  I figured if he was a danger to me, which he wasn't I could always kick him and run. There is absolutely no way he could overtake me in his ridiculous boots, even if I would wait at the stoplight.
          But everyone has been very kind here so I can not complain.

Underground Grocery Store

             The cheapest place to buy anything in Korea seems to be the basements. I just went to an underground food market, where the food especially the vegetables was really inexpensive, whereas fruit is prime robbery, it is practically everywhere.  So vegetables soup and orange juice. Oh there was shelf devoted to sea weed. But anyway  I probably bought two and a half weeks of food for 29,000 won or about 27. 50.
                             ....and I was going to take pictures of the store  but I forgot.
                              Also I forgot to bring my duffel bag so I had to carry a fifteen pound cardboard box of food for about a mile and a half, grinning like a maniac.
                   Hehehehe..... That must have been a sight for the passerby's. Probably they were thinking  'stupid blonde American'. Which would be a fair assessment of the situation, although I was smart enough to find an underground grocery market.  Trust me, the people there seemed a little bemused to see an obvious foreigner in the store.  
    Although, I must say this before anyone gets worried. Underground markets are legal, they just happen to be under the ground. It has nothing to do with the black market.... unless...
                         Actually now that I think about maybe there was a reason they checked everyone for firearms on the escalator.
                    ......and that would explain the bomb threats.
             Now let me see what photos I should post. I have a week of them  that I need to catch up on and well here they are.

This is just a random tank of of squid on a nearby street corner. I do not even know why I took a picture of it other then for the fact I have never seen that down in the u.s.

 .

      Remember  that Totoro shop I mentioned briefly two posts of ago.  This was the most prominent thing in the store.

The cakes in the cake shops are too ridiculously pretty, that there is no way that they can actually taste good, right?

Look you can see the buildings in the background.  That  is the proof I have that this picture was not taken two hundred years ago. Well other then the fact that they did not have color photography back then. 

Meh...details.

Signing off for now.