happy new year!

cheers to christmas...

Okay, so this video isn't very "festive" you might say... but it was at a Christmas concert/fundraiser for a community in India... they had several different types of dancers, music, singing, it was one of the few holiday-ish things we've been to in Korea. There are some decorations, but Christmas is more like a day to go on a hot date, kind of like Valentine's day.  The biggest holidays here are Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving) during harvest season and the Lunar New Year at the end of January.  Buddha's birthday is also a big holiday in the spring.  The streets are lined with strings of beautiful, colorful, hand-made lanterns.

industrial seoul

random fact: you can't get tiny pumpkins in korea.

basil is this rare delicious thing in korea, so i grow my own.  

creativity

I've been painting and sketching quite a bit this fall, it's so fun!  Anyway, this is my latest painting... I had a loose idea of what I was going for, and somehow it morphed into an abstract... well, explosion of color... my only goal was for something that had color and cheerfulness to it.   Sometimes you just have to paint, you just have to take that risk and step out there.... and see what comes out.  Often I wait to be inspired before jumping onto the canvas, but other times it's fun to just go for it.  With oils, you can always paint over it if you don't like it.   It's a very forgiving medium.  

the Pilipinas!

Boracay is a tiny little island in the Philippines (the Pilipinas!) that is sheltered by the other larger islands, making for one of the calmest and most peaceful beaches we've been to.  We went with our friends Chip and Jennifer and very much enjoyed our time with them.  It's been an exhausting and busy autumn for everyone, so the serenity from a long weekend on the beach was just what we needed before our last long winter in Seoul.  The grace the Filipino people extended to us was so sweet.  Their generosity and tenderness, the warmth of their hospitality was delightful.  A truly beautiful place and beautiful people.  By financial standards, they don't have a lot, but they have so much more to offer than what money can buy.  

thoughts about travel...

The more of this incredible planet we see, the less we are shocked by things that we may have once considered bizarre, the lower our standards become for cleanliness (it's crazy how spending some time in a developing nation will do this to you), the less space we need to get a good night's sleep, and the more open we find ourselves to understanding other cultures.  We are often reminded of the luxury and wealth that the United States has to offer, and what we once considered shabby now seems like pure gold compared to how most people live.  

Rather than making a judgement about the differences between our cultures, we find that we have so much to learn from them.  Being in the Philippines last weekend with some friends, we were hit with how some of the most beautiful places are the poorest.  Maybe that is a gift for them because life is hard on so many levels.... that at least they have a gorgeous place to live.  

Often we go to a place hoping to give to the people there because they don't have as much "stuff," yet we leave far more blessed than anything we could have expected.   In both Cambodia and the Philippines, we were overwhelmed with the generosity and kindness shown to us by the local people.  They are both such laid back, relaxing cultures which encourages you to be more patient and friendly.  Since living in Korea, which is not a flexible or open culture, we probably appreciate these attitudes in other societies all the more.

If nothing else, maybe we are learning to smile more, be more generous, give people the benefit of the doubt, and ask in each situation, what can we learn from this?  People are people, and no matter where they live, we all have the same basic needs and problems... 

more socca'

the turf was an unexpected surprise because you never know what kind of field you're going to get here!  

gyeongbok palace, seoul

our new apartment

halloween!

in case you need some costume interpretation: 

matt: a breakdancer... well, one without any moves (with his ipod hooked to his arm and his thug beanie)

annie: 80's jazzercizer (with way too much blue eyeshadow, a delicious ring pop, and the classic side pony... why did that ever go out of fashion?)

 

autumn in seoul

Soccer season!  Matthew is on a club team with some of our friends

and has been loving every minute of it.  

A korean 10k.... your entrance fee includes group stretching with 20,000 people, led by some dancing girls.... which I have to say was by far one of the most entertaining things we've experienced in korea.

Stretching before soccer

We went to a piano recital at the Seoul Arts Center. 

The pianist began with a couple Classical pieces, played a Baroque piece, and then moved into some really interesting contemporary compositions... requiring her to go back and forth from playing the keys like normal to standing up, peering inside the piano and plucking the strings of the instrument.  Very creative and interesting.