Wedding Ducks

Easter traditions: I went shopping a few weeks ago to pick up a few things for Easter. I got a kimchi pot as a basket and I also got some traditional Korean wedding ducks. 

 Thanks Mom for the Easter candy, it really made Easter, Easter. I love you!

Korean wedding ducks are given to a bride and groom from a hand picked carver. The carver can only carve one set of ducks in his life. He must be rich, healthy, no divorce in his family, have a  good wife and many children. It isn't the quality of the carving but the purity of the carver that is thought to bring love in the marriage. While he makes the ducks he prays for the couple receiving them and it is said that part of his spirit goes into the ducks and that spirit makes the couple happy.

The beautiful clothe the ducks are wrapped in represents peace, many children, and no separation. The couple is to always keep the ducks in their home. The positions in which the ducks are placed is also important. If they are bill to bill (nose to nose) it means they are happy together. If they are tail to tail or if the noses aren't facing each other it means they are having trouble in their marriage.

At the wedding the ducks are thrown to the bride. If she catches them they will have a boy first, if she doesn't they will have a girl.

I loved the ducks and thought it would be awesome to have them in our house..

So looking at the picture above can you tell which duck is the female one?

Anyways moving on to later in our Saturday....

Adam, Shae, Nick and I went on a hike/walk this afternoon. Adam and Shae have been wanting to take us to the reservoir for sometime now but we waited until it was warm outside. Today was such a beautiful day and the walk was beautiful as well. All of the trees are in bloom, and everything seemed extra amazing. I think this is the prettiest stretch of Korea I have seen since we have been here. Take a look at the pictures and I think you will agree with me.

 We got there and stopped at a little waffle coffee place for something cool to drink. The view was so breath taking we stayed for a little while to soak it all in.

 As we were walking back we walked up a steep hill to check out a cute little cafe called cafe pine and found this awesome bike. A Boss Hoss with a V8 engine, in Korea how odd is that?

The river was lined with cherry trees and as I walked I thought of my grandma and how much she loved beautiful wildflowers and nature... and how much my feet hurt. Six miles later we returned home and ate some tacos for dinner. We so grateful for everything that Heavenly Father has given us.

World Travelers

       Nick and I have decided that we want to travel the world, Why stop at Korea? To help us reach this goal we put in play another idea. Pinning places we have been on a map and therefore see the places we want to go. A while back we bought the two maps below for that purpose. We are not really suppose to put things on the walls so we had to get creative. 

 Step 1: purchase a lot of cork board pieces. 

Step 2: hooks with the sticky pad that when pulled on comes off.

 Step 3: Add maps with cute push pins

 Step 4: Add pins to the places that Nick and  I have been together.

Step 5: Hasn't been completed yet but we hope to add pictures and things so it doesn't look so boring.

We plan to add a lot of pins on this board before we leave Korea.

Okay I know it has been a while since I have written a blog but we have been busy. I feel like I don't even have time to clean my house...I have to schedule weekends just to get it done. We have been here over four months and it feels like time is really flying! Before I go I will share a funny story with you.

     Last Sunday my visiting teachers from church gave me a clear zip-block gallon bag full of homemade chocolate chip cookies. My back pack was full and I didn't want to crush the delicate cookies before they were dunked in milk and devoured. So I carried them in my hands on our trek from church to the bus station. As we finished climbing our way out of the subway we were approached by a very old man who had no teeth and walked funny. We are used to Korean being friendly, but I could tell immediately something was up. He pointed right at MY cookies... MY PRECIOUS COOKIES!!!!! I decided to be nice and gave him ONE, and as soon as that cookie got in his hand he asked for another. Being quick on my toes I made him say a few words in English before he was rewarded with another one of MY cookies. The lesson I learned was that no matter how much I wanted perfect cookies to dunk in milk, crumbs would make a good cereal. 

We will leave you with this picture of our fish waffle iron. YUM!

Van Gogh and Namsan Seoul Tower

Weekend in Seoul

We decided to go to Seoul for the weekend because we had a district conference meeting (for church) so we planned the whole weekend as a get-away. I researched some things that I wanted to do and I had the whole thing planned a few weeks in advance. I will just tell you now that it didn't turn out like I had planned, some things we didn't even get to do because we were so worn out. I was proud of myself for not caring!

FIRST the bus ride.. We did not encounter any snomit this time.. Praise the FROG! Nick slept most of the way... and so did the rest of the bus..

After we go there we went straight to the Museum of Art and used the bathroom! I immediately spotted a girl in the line, wearing the dress I just ordered online. I was interested to see how it looked on a real woman with curves. So I struck up a casual conversation with her before I asked if I could see how the dress looked. She laughed and we became friends. After the bathroom escapades we came out to find our men had found each other and were also talking. We had a lot in common and found them fascinating so we exchanged numbers. We found them again later in the art gallery and decided to stick together. I don't think I was allowed to take pictures of the paintings, but I didn't have my flash on and if they said no pictures I didn't understand. This painting was one of my favorites.

It's of a crab that is upside down. HA

       After we went to the souvenir shop and got a few things, we decided hot chocolate was in order.  We found a nice place that happened to be right outside the concert hall.  We arrived right as London Philharmonic Orchestra began their concert. Where we were sitting in the lobby area, we could hear the music they played and were able to view it via a large screen above the entrance.
 
        We made plans to see our new friends on Saturday to eat some YUMMY burgers and we left to check in at the temple. This time we did not stay at the dorms. When I called to reserve a bed they told us they had a four bedroom house and that we could have one of the rooms. This was the first time Nick and I slept on the floor in Korea. They gave us a pad to put on the floor and some blankets. We knew this was how they usually sleep, but it was a pleasant, unexpected surprise. We dropped stuff off and headed to Namsan Seoul Tower.

         We thought it was only going to be a short 2 hour adventure, but it turned into a 5 hour adventure. We left at 8 pm and got back and in bed at 1:00 am. So we left and caught the subway to our first destination. Then we jumped on the bus to go up to the tower. When we finally got there it was about 9 and we were starving. We tried to eat at the burger place there but they had just closed down :( We waited in a VERY long line to go up to the observatory deck. Which was well worth the wait. It was so beautiful up there and we loved every minute of it. Here are some pictures looking out from the deck.

 They say that Namsan Seoul Tower is a romantic place.  Their commercials consist of a bear who is trying to help the guys make a move on girls. For example there is a boy and girl sitting on opposite sides of a bench and you could tell they liked each other.. well the bear comes along and sits in the middle and bounces up and down until the bench is broken and forces the couple to slide toward the middle. Very cute. They had these benches outside. Anyways in the tower they had cute postcards that you could purchase, write on, and mail from there. We wrote one each and sent them to some special people in our lives. When you get them you'll have to post on            
                                  the blog and let everyone know!

After we finished and left we were starving.. We decided to eat at the first place possible which happened to be McDonalds.. well if you know anything about Nick he hates McDonalds, but he ate it anyways. Above is a picture for proof.
We caught the subway partly back to the temple but we were kicked off a few stops before our destination because it was closing for some reason we do not know. We found some women who also did not know what was going on. Turns out they were from Taiwan and going to the same area so we shared a taxi. We finally made it back to our room for the night and we passed out. We woke up early to find  A LOT of Koreans dressed in their Sunday cloths sleeping in the main room outside of our door.

After the temple we did some shopping and then met our friends for lunch..
The restaurant was called Salt and Butter. YUM!

We went for a walk and found this person.. for school food he sure does look angry.. maybe it isn't good food?

 A shoe tree..

Check out the spelling of phone here.. AWESOME!

We also ate at a Mexican place called On the Boarder. It was a little pricey but worth it to have real Mexican food. Nick was super excited as you can tell in the following photos..

             

The second night in Seoul we stayed at a traditional Korean guest house. We had a very small room and we slept on the floor...again.... It was great! Mr. and Mrs. Yoo were really awesome and spoke really good English.  This palace was right next to where we stayed.

Well that about sums up our awesome weekend in Seoul.. We will leave you will a pretty awesome picture.. No questions asked.