80s no-rae-bang night!

OK, so some definitions first:
no-rae-bang = literally "singing room", complete with 2 mics, 2 tambourines, neon lights, couches, large books of songs in various languages (with a substantial English section)

One night, while returning to school from a staff dinner on a no-rae-bus (that's what I said), some fellow staff members and I recognized the need to have an all-out, full-on 80s dress-up no-rae-bang night. All 80s music, all blue eye shadow and big hair. Well, here's a bit of the evidence... funny how much we did not stand out - the 80s look has returned full-force here in Korea. Long live Bon Jovi!

Christmas in South America or Bust!

Yep, that´s right, this Christmas I, along with my two fellow TCIS Spanish teachers, Stephanie Liebe and Kirstin Erickson, will begin our 31-hour+ voyage to Argentina and Chile, two of the four Cono Sur (Southern Cone) countries waaaay down south. What are our plans? Hablar muchísimo español, eat lots of red meat a parrilla (grilled), read some Borges and Cortazar in Spanish on some loooong bus rides, dance the tango, ice climb on a gargantuan advancing glacier, trek, go white water rafting, and absorb all that I can of the culture, history, and language that I can so I can return and spew it back to my students (oooh, perhaps “spew” is too graphic… what I mean is, “share”)! WHOOHOOOO!!! Oh, and of course, in true Barrigar fashion, taking a ridiculous number of pictures. 
The itinerary:
Dec. 19-20: 9am depart Daejeon, Korea via airport bus for Incheon Airport > Tokyo Narita Airport > Dallas/Fort Worth Airport > Buenos Aires Airport
Dec. 20-25: Buenos Aires (La Recoleta to see Evita Peron’s burial site among others; tango dancing; colorful neighborhoods; museums; parrilla!)
Dec. 25, 1pm: depart on 19-hour bus ride to San Carlos de Bariloche, in the western Lakes District of Argentina, at the foot of the Andes
Dec. 26-28: Bariloche - white-water rafting (Kirstin was a guide in Colorado!), driving around the picturesque countryside
Dec. 28: depart at 9pm for a 30-hour bus ride south to El Chalten (north of El Calafate)
Dec. 30-Jan. 2: El Chalten – ice climbing and trekking on the Perito Moreno glacier, trekking through the Andes, eating parrilla, ringing in the New Year in the Andes, etc. etc.
Jan. 3: (last) bus ride from El Chalten to Punta Arenas, Chile – see penguins!
Jan. 4: 7am hopefully fly from Punta Arenas to Santiago, Chile
Jan. 4-8: explore Santiago, possibly hit the beach near Valparaiso, or see Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western hemisphere
Jan. 8: depart Santiago > Dallas/Fort Worth > Tokyo Narita > Incheon > bus to Daejeon
Jan. 10, approx. 10pm arrive back in Daejeon, hit the hay, and wake up to teach the next morning!
I have promised my brother that he will see pictures before June 2010, so stay tuned!!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

Cross-country 2008

Our motto for cross-country season 2008 was "To be feared." Our opponents are fearing us more and more as our team gets stronger and deeper with every season. Both the boys and the girls teams finished 4th in our KAIAC conference this season. This particular picture was on our first pre-meet Fun Friday practice. In the spirit of fear, we jogged out for practice with our faces painted, chanting "To Be Feared, To Be Feared." I'm not sure it had the desired result - instead, I think they were afraid of their coaches' sanity more than pumped for the next day's opening meet... A valiant and fun effort, at any rate.

Please visit fellow coach Meredith Bird's flickr site for more pictures. I don't have many of my own, since my attempts at photography during meets inhibits my ability to cheer, scream, and jump up and down to my fullest capacity. (thanks, Meredith!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/merraberrabird/2906525944/in/set-72157607587852553/

Spanish field trip!

As one can imagine, the opportunities for authentic Spanish field trips in Korea are few and far between; however, the 20th Century Latinamerican Art Exhibit at the Korean National Museum of Art in Seoul warranted a daytrip up to Seoul on November 7. My Spanish Department parnter-in-crime, Kirstin, and I enjoyed a beautiful fall day with our 10-12th-grade students and artists like Kahlo, Rivera, Botero, Otero, Bracho, and Siquieros, among others. The museum is located inside the walls of one of the three palace grounds in the capital city, so we left the Latinamerican art inside the museum to enjoy the fall colors surrounding traditional Korean architecture. ¡Fenomenal! Our Friday in Seoul culminated with lunch at On the Border in Seoul, where we conversed en español over tortillas y salsa, burritos, tacos, y enchiladas. ¡Riquísimo!

October 20, 2008 - dinner with friends

Mrs. Jung is the amazing high school secretary at our school. Ange and I like to get together with her when possible - which isn't very often, crazy-busy school at which we work! She has such a huge heart and, no matter how hectic it is in the office, she is always willing to help out a teacher or answer a question.

This particular evening we went to a kalbi (Korean pork bbq) restaurant with her daughter and Kirstin, my fellow high school Spanish teacher. A great evening was enjoyed by all!!!

Happy 30th to me!

So, 30, 30 years old! Not bad, not bad. Tired of the 2 in my age, let's move on with it, eh? That weekend was our staff retreat in Kyongju, near the east coast of Korea. Dined at Bennigan's with some friends, listened to the waiters and waitresses sing "happy birthday" in Korean with guitar, dancing, and spirit fingers! I decided the 30th should be honored with a celebratory dance complete with jumps, hence one of the pictures in front of Bennigans. :) Oh, and it's customary to take many pictures of oneself in Korea, so my friend, Jen, went a little camera crazy.

Two days later, on Tuesday, my friend, Jaci, threw a surprise birthday party for me! It was really nice, we all visited and ate snacks, laughed, and of course I had to do a few more jumps! Good times! Check out the pictures on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/23065175@N02/

Lunar Break H4H, Tagaytay, Phillipines

What a great trip with twelve amazing students and three other inspiring teachers! Over the course of the week, every kid grew in one or more of the following ways: their work ethic, their gratefulness and appreciation for their health and what they have, their realization that there is more to life than tests, cellphones and the SAT, their compassion, their maturity, and, most importantly, their relationship with the Lord, seeing His love in others and spreading His love.

Of course, as usual, there are hiccups along the way, like getting to bed early and being able to be at breakfast on time. However, a couple mornings of sprints up the steep 50m hill inspired a miraculous improvement in punctuality (these kids love having a cross-country coach on their trips).

On my second Habitat for Humanity trip to the Phillipines, I was fortunate to be on the trip that was returning to the same area where I had been two years before - Tagaytay, 2-3 hours north of Manila. This time we stayed at an apartelle across from a spectacular view of the Taal Lake and the Taal Volcano. Precioso! Even more precious are all of the smiling faces of the Filipino people, their relaxed, laidback attitudes, and their love for laughter. Our hosts, H4H members Bugs, Delly, Joelle, Zernan, and Paul - or, should I say, "the 1958 Phillipines Olympic Volleyball Team," as they humbled called themselves on our day at the beach - demonstrated this attitude along with a love for life, for people, and for singing karaoke (rock on!). I can't wait to return!

By now you all know better than to just expect a spattering of pictures...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.c1ugsai3&x=0&y=-qd3gx3&localeid=en_US

Christmas 2007-08 Leg 2: Thailand

Our Christmas trio hopped on a plane from Phnom Penh headed for the sandy beaches of Phuket, Thailand. After a Dairy Queen treat in the Bangkok airport (just don't see DQ in Korea!) before our connecting flight to Phuket, we settled into our hotel room in Karon Beach and went to enjoy the first of many delicious Thai meals (well, except for when Tiffany and Ange got sick - then nothing was delicious). We met up with friends and colleagues from Korea for a couple of days before Tiffany and I took off for an overnight snorkeling tour of the Similan Islands, a chain of 9 beautiful islands in the Andaman Sea, with the whitest, most powdery sand my toes have ever felt among them! Quite a production with speedboats everywhere during the day, but when the daytrippers left, the island was serene and quiet. We camped and managed to avoid seeing the python that others saw when trekking to the nearby beach to see the nocturnal chicken crabs. Ironically, we had opted to search for a different empty tent, since ours had many holes in it. After hearing about the python spotting and watching rats run across the pavilion floor that night, I still didn't have the most restful sleep, but it was much better than it would have been if we had stayed in the more "air-conditioned" tent!

We definitely enjoyed this relaxing leg of the trip before returning to Semester 2 of this school year!

Enjoy pictures at this link:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.3zsd3m3v&x=0&y=-paqiem&localeid=en_US

Christmas 2007-08, Leg 1: Cambodia

The Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC), an open patio-style bar/restaurant with heavy leather wingback chairs, dark wood stools to match the thick wooden columns, and framed black-and-white photographs of life 20 and 30 years ago, as taken by those who used to frequent this establishment after a hard days work, both physically and emotionally. I couldn't help but imagine this place, overlooking the Tonle Sap River from its second-floor view, 30 years ago as Cambodia's borders opened and journalists and photographers from around the world came to record the footprints of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's mass genocide of their own people. Phnom Penh must have been virtually abandoned at that time, aside from some remaining revolutionaries, the Vietnamese who led the invasion into Cambodia, and the news correspondents; during Pol Pot's regime, the city's population was reduced to the bare minimum government workers and leaders, as everyone else was sent out to the countryside to complete their agrarian responsibilities. For most, it was inevitable that they and their families would eventually be sent to Tuol Sleng to be tortured and forced to confess to irrational and paranoid accusations of treason against the regime before being shipped off to the Killing Fields, where pieces of victims' clothing still litter the ground today.

The 5-hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap provided us with a glimpse of life for the typical Cambodian. For the grand majority, every day seems to be a survival game; most huts had a few animals, and a small garden. The land was dry, mostly due to the season and to the fact that people cut down most of the trees to sell the wood. Survival.

Speaking of survival, our next destination before leaving Cambodia was Angkor Wat, the wonder of the world that survived a couple of centuries under the rule of the jungle, unknown to man until rediscovered in the mid-1800s. A source of pride for the Cambodian people, perhaps because the survival of this man-made marvel epitomizes their resilience in spite of their turbulent past and their certain survival despite the still-long road ahead of them - this sprawling city of great temples, many of which are still intact despite the huge bayon roots seemingly wanting to crush the walls to no avail.

All in all, the Cambodia experience left Tiffany, Ange, and me wiht a desire to learn more - and a determination to bring a leash for one counterpart who happened to lose her group in Angkor Wat while taking pictures... who could that be???

Paste the following link into your browser to check out my pictures!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.4cza6ok7&x=0&y=-b6dbxa&localeid=en_US

Korean Wedding

A friend from my church, Insik, got married on October 6. This was a big deal, as he is the lone son of 6 children. His family is very dear to me; I go to movies with his older sister, Inok, and I go to the fruit market or have dinner with Insun and Inson and their children. Insun tells me which fruits are in season and which are not, and she tells me what is a good deal and what is not at the market. Of course, every time I see them, they hand me a bag full of apples, mandarins, and Asian pears or persimmons!

Last Lunar New Year, I spent a weekend at their parents' home in the countryside. They made me feel like a member of the family - and they really enjoyed the apple pie I contributed to the feasting! Not typical food for them. They remind me a lot of my family - they sit and talk and laugh together.

Nikole and I attended the wedding with other Korean friends from our church.

Steps to attending a Korean wedding:
1) Enter the door of the wedding hall (where often more than one wedding is taking place at once, in different rooms) and go to the counter for your wedding party. Hand over your envelope of money and receive your meal ticket.

2) Enter the large dining hall with your ticket, and line up for the LONG buffet line that includes all kinds of meats, sushi, several kimchis, salad, soups (rice porridge and pumpkin soup, normally), and desserts (rice cakes and fruit). Sit down at a table, usually next to people you don't know, who are guests of another wedding party.

3) Eat your food before the wedding begins.

4) Try to get a seat, or just stand at the back of the hall and chat during the ceremony.

5) Listen to the recorded fanfare as the groom, then the bride with her husband, enter.

6) Parents are seated at either side of the bride and groom as witnesses to the wedding

7) Smoke, bubbles, or colored lights may initiate at various moments of the ceremony

8) Bride attempts to not smile, and she keeps her gaze down so as to not run the risk of giving birth to a girl instead of a boy as the first child.

9) Opt to leave before the ceremony ends, if you have other pressing engagements, or want to eat more food

10) Couple bows to both parents

11) Pictures ensue after the ceremony - families, then all friends. A female friend is "chosen" to catch the bride's bouquet for the picture. She stands in front of the group of friends, with everyone looking on (Hint: choose a friend that can catch so several photos do not have to be taken)

12) Everyone leaves

Somewhat cookie-cutter and procedural, but to me still just as special to see a good friend get married. Hurray!

Check out the pictures!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.bbfp1pi7&x=0&y=434ynt

Chuseok in Okinawa, Sept. 24-28, 2007

I finally made it to Okinawa, one of the southernmost islands of Japan, to visit my cousin, Shannon, who has now lived there for... 3-4 years with her husband and family. I was blessed to spend time with her and her newest son, Sammy, then only about 3 weeks old, and her 2-year-old son, Caleb. Shannon took me on a few outings, but the best part of the visit was just chatting with her and playing with Caleb. We had some good chats, didn't we, Shannon!

She also took me to the PX, where it was exciting to buy things like scented candles, greeting cards, and Cherry Coke! Yes, it's the little things.

Check out pictures from my trip. (I forgot to get a picture of Shannon and me! Tsk-tsk!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.2ywr5yzj&x=0&y=77z9qv