A week of food adventures, hanging with Marie, ping pong playing and screen golfing...
The day after my sister, Alex landed in Korea we went to Seoul - danced in the streets and did Taekwando. 2 days later we flew down to Jeju Island and stay for 4 nights - riding bikes on islands and eating seafood and pork. The day after we got back from Jeju we bused 3.5 hours down to Busan to swim with sharks.
That folks, is one full week of awesome.
So the next week of her visit we took it a little easier. Well at least Alex did. I still had to work. But in the evenings we managed to do a few things around my city.
We did a lot of eating. We ate pizza (so much for my gluten free diet), chocolate (8 giant bars in 2 weeks), ice cream (a ton of it, seriously... so much Baskin Robbins), grilled meat, Indian curry with Naan bread (again, gluten - oops) and so on and so on.
Tuesday was a big day. ALEX GOT BEAT IN PING PONG!!
Video Evidence!
Ok, so here's the back story. I met a guy from China at the church I go to over here and found out he loved ping pong and was rather good at it (although he won't admit it). I told him that my sister was really good. He wanted to know how good and I said well she is American good, not Chinese good. I think he understood.
I suck at it. So I'm no competition. She can beat me using her left hand, standing on one leg with an eye closed. But no one we have ever met has been able to take her down.
So, I told my family about this new friend I had made and how I was pretty certain he could beat her. I said that she should come here and play him, kind of kidding, right? I mean why would Alex ever want to come to Korea.
But then, she came. So I contacted him and he agreed to the match.
They played. And she lost. I think she might have won 2 games to 11 out of maybe 7. I told him not to take it easy on her, and to try his hardest. He did, I'm pretty sure. He just kept saying, wow she is really good. She should get a coach and practice hard, she could be really good!
Indian food.
In celebration of her getting beat!
That night we hit up my favorite Indian food for some curry and naan bread (flat bread that kind of looks like a tortilla). It was fabulous, as always and Alex loved it. I mean what's not to love about chicken in some creamy sauce that you dip bread into!? Normally curry has more spice, but since Alex is kind of a wimp (like the rest of us Krehbiels, she got the least spicy choice on the menu!)
Wednesday.
It was a national holiday so our cousin Marie came up from Daegu to visit. She moved to Korea in August to teach English with the EPIK program (the sister program to TaLK - my program). She wants to be just like me! :)
She got in to Cheongju Tuesday night (just in time to see Alex lose a few times). Then on Wednesday we made it to the mural art district near Uam Mountain in Cheongju. I had never been (sad, I know, I've lived here for over a year and still have a lot of my own city to explore).
We wondered around, took pictures, Alex played on the iPad mostly and attempted to keep up with us two crazy artsy, photography girls. Afterwards I rewarded her with ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Basically any time she didn't complain too much, or was rather nice, I would let her get ice cream. She seemed to figure this out rather quickly, so we got a ton of ice cream! (but that's ok, I wasn't complaining!)
More incorrect English. (OPNE) -- I think they were going for open. But I mean who knows.. maybe OPNE is actually a word!
Thursday.
We went to downtown Cheongju to look at all the crazy shirts with weird-o English on them. Alex took a ton of pictures and we had some good laughs. Some of them are actually really funny and some are funny because they are so far out there and mean nothing. She bought a white sweatshirt that said Superman on it. She was happy.
Look mom no hands!!
Oh and we went to good ole HomePlus - the big Walmart like store here. And because it's Korea and they have limited space, the store is 3 stories. So how do you get your cart on the different floors, you ask? Elevators? No, that would be ridiculous, one at a time... you would need 12 elevators. Oh wait, how about a moving walk way set at an incline that holds the cart in place with magnets? BRILLIANT, Korea... just simply genius!
Friday.
She came to school and helped me teach. Well basically she was the lesson. I made the students ask her questions and made her do some reviewing with the kids. They liked her. They would walk into the office, after class and just stand and stare and say 'al-leck-su'. And she would say, 'what?' Then silence.
Screen Golf.
That evening was screen golf with my juggling, married friends. Screen golfing is basically just that. A room, with a huge screen and a computer and golf. But these are pretty high tech and fancy. First of all there are leather couches (awesome) and they bring you water and little snacks to eat while you play. You get golf gloves and shoes and there's a set of clubs for women and one for men. You push a button and the ball gets placed up on the tee. It's great for the lazy person in me.
Then you just swing normally and whack the ball. It took me a couple of holes to get used to swinging a club full force indoors!
Saturday.
We got up early, I took her to the bus station and put her on the bus to the airport. Maybe I'm a bad sister.. oh well. She did just fine though and made it home safe and sound.
And that was that.. the end of 2 weeks of awesomeness that we will both never forget! I'm so glad she was able to come and see me. I was wonderful having a visitor. It was the first visitor I've had while living or traveling abroad. I realized though, that having a visitor is quite exhausting, especially since I was still working and it wasn't during my vacation! But I pulled through and I hope she had just as much fun as I did, if not more!
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