What a Weekend!

Last Saturday, we headed to Seoul for an excursion with our friends Sandra and Philip. They are expecting a baby in November! (Squeeeeeeeee! I pour an enormous amount of my baby cravings all over Sandra, but she takes it well!) We picked them up from their doctor's appointment early on Saturday morning, and after one tiny, inconsequential, life-threatening left turn, I drove us all to Seoul successfully. We had a great time stuffing our faces with Kraze Burger and shopping around Coex. Although we are running out of money, AND HOW, I still managed to purchase three new albums of Korean music and two Korean movies. I am serious about this language immersion thing and trying my best to study hard, or at least study some, everyday. Also, you may congratulate me. 
I spent about half an hour in a bookstore and DIDN'T BUY A SINGLE BOOK. It's like a world record for me, seriously. I can't remember ever walking out of a bookstore empty handed.

Anyway, two things that made me happy: One, my husband's smiling face and getting to spend some quality time with him after a week apart. Two, HOTDOGS from Costco!! Thanks Sandra and Philip for indulging my craving for both pizza AND hotdogs, because the ChubbO is still thriving!

We headed back on the deluxe bus with enough room for our feet, seats that seriously reclined, and an old Korean man behind me giving a serious lecture on Taoism to his poor neighbor. After he stopped talking, I slept almost the entire way home. Never riding standard buses again! Now we're spoiled.

On Sunday, my friend Jennifer came down to Wonju on a day trip. We had lots of fun and visited the Wonju Herb Farm. That's where most of the pictures are from. It was a beautiful garden with pond and after pond of waterlilies, beds of flowers, rows of birch trees, and a greenhouse full of herbs they encouraged you to touch and smell. Here are a few highlights... okay, a LOT of highlights!

(This is Lamb's Ear, or Lam's Ear if you're Korean.

It was indeed soft and like a lamb's ear!)

(Creative use of roof tiles.

Made me want to start my own roof tile garden.)

(Me and Jennifer looking lovely,

with cleavage conveniently cropped out!)

(We bought two basil plants and got to decorate the pots. But the battery on our camera went dead.

The pot on the left was done by Kenny and the one on the right was done by Jennifer. Miso was very curious about our basil. It smells so good and always makes me want pizza with basil on top!)

It was a beautiful weekend for us, filled with lovely friends and wonderful outings. (Do I sound 60 years old? Yes.) Still loving it here in Wonju. Except when it rains. And I don't have an umbrella. And the skies are gray and making me want to sleep through all my classes instead of teach them. But other than that, still loving it.