ACHOOOOOOO-SOCK!

The first weekend in October was Chuseok, which is pretty much a Korean Thanksgiving. I can safely say it's the closest thing to an American Thanksgiving because when asked what they do during this time, both students AND parents answer with, "EAT." They eat and eat and eat, then prepare more food to eat it later. It's a time to honor their ancestors and, for some, to go and visit graves and bow. Many of our students complain that they have to do this. However, they fail to mention right away that they DO get money every time they bow.

So because of the long weekend we were given thanks to Chuseok, and because the Korean Government let up on the swine flu quarantine rules, we were allowed to travel to Japan! It was an amazing time and the fun started ON the flight over! If anyone has the opportunity to fly Jeju Air... PLEASE DO! I don't think I've ever been on a flight that's so relaxed and fun! They came around with balloon animals and crazy hats SOLEY for the purpose of taking our photos! :D



Our time in Japan was short but we packed in SO much site-seeing. First we traveled to Kyoto and got to walk through bamboo forests, eat yummy sushi, visit NUMEROUS temples, went grocery shopping, encountered a monkey park at the top of a mountain, saw real Geisha's wandering the strees in Gion, posed with hundreds of wild deer for photos, got lost in the INCREDIBLY long and winding paths of Fushimi Inari, ate THE largest calzone known to man, and found treasures at the local Kyoto Flea market!







THEN, we went to Osaka where I got to meet up with my cousin and watch part of the Cirque du Soleil show, Corteo, backstage in his sound booth. Correction, the cheese box. Haha.. Apparently they call it that because it's super small and resembles a block of cheese due to the orangey color. It was awesome and somewhat strange walking backstage and seeing actors with facepaint so nonchalantly say "hello" to my cousin. Haha.. After we toured around backstage for a little bit, we ventured on our way to our final destination at Osaka's UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!




It was pretty much the same as the Universal Studios in Florida, except for the fact that EVERYTHING was in Japanese. Haha.. We even went to the E.T. ride (which, for those of you who've been to Universal would probably agree that that ride is a classic, aside from JAWS.) Well, unfortunately for us, this wasn't even a ride, but a walk-through and sort of behind-the-scenes tour narrated by Steven Spielberg. HOWEVER, it wasn't just narrated by him, because all of a sudden a Japanese voice was heard talking OVER Spielberg's. It felt like two people yelling into both of your ears at the same time. My brain hurt after that.

After Universal, we went back to our hostel for one last night of sleep (and an unexpected ninja photo shoot!)




All in all, this trip went so quickly and there was so much to do, it hardly seems like we were gone. And now we're back and into the swing of things in the dorm. This past week was no easy one either. I am reminded why God's called me here and how much He can use me in the lives of these students. Just this past week there was an uproar in a rooming situation and it was amazing to talk it through with each of them and to ultimately show them that there's a bigger picture here. These two are complete opposites of each other with certain qualities they'd like changed or worked on. The crazy thing is, I am almost CERTAIN that God ordained this whole thing from the start, which shouldn't surprise me, but is still so cool to see. Both girls have things they want to work on and the things that are driving each other crazy about the other roommate are the very things each of them want to work on! Neat how God works these things out, huh?

God's teaching me so much and revealing to me the very reasons I'm out here. The opportunity to travel out here is such a blessing, but there are so many more important reasons as to why God's called me here at this time. I honestly think about the kids that I'm ministering to and how I am paid to just pour into their lives every single day. These are things each of us is called to do and yet, I'm getting paid for this? It blows me away and yet I'm so thankful for every moment.

I love it here in Korea.
I love these people.
I love these kids.
And most of all,
I love my God.

Hugs, Blessings, and "chewy socks." ;)

Sarah

BEST DAY OFF... EVER.

*WARNING...I would make some popcorn before you begin this post...just a suggestion*

God answers prayer.

I think this year I've really wanted to branch out and meet more Koreans who live in the area and not just students and those I work with on a daily basis. Sometimes it's just good to have a different change of scenery or faces, ya know? Well, on Thursday, Jana, Erin, and I went to go to the pottery village that's close to Daejeon. We got directions to Sutongol (수통골) from which we were supposed to tell a taxi driver directions and all would be fine.

Well...

That didn't happen.

We got off the 40 minute bus ride, found a taxi right away, explained that we wanted to go to the pottery village (in Korean of course), and the driver said he had no idea what we were talking about, we got out of the taxi and found ourselves stranded in the middle of no where with absolutely no taxis around whatsoever. A few minutes went by and I'm trying to figure out how exactly to get there and all of a sudden a car screeches to a halt in front of us and we hear "HELLO! WHERE ARE YOU FROM?!"

As we looked up, there in the car in front of us were three Korean ladies, all dressed in hiking apparel. We immediately said "America." and I think, all at once, we thought "THEY SPEAK ENGLISH! ASK WHERE THE POTTERY VILLAGE IS!" So Jana did so and the lady driving said "OH. VERY FAR AWAY." ...great.

So she motioned for us to follow her to the nearby parking lot. We got there and she explained that a friend was going to pick up her two friends and after that, she could take us to the village. We all thanked her but reassured her that she really didn't have to take us, if she just just send us in the right direction, but she kept insisting "No, I'm happy. I want to." So all three of us piled into her tiny little green car and pulled away, back TOWARDS the way we came.

Conversations flooded with broken English and about 20 minutes later, we arrived at the village, which was tucked away ever so snuggly into the hillside of the mountain. It was a cute area and the lady, who we eventually found out was, Namhee, said that she would love to guide us around the area. We found out also that Namhee is a Christian, is married, and has 2 daughters. She was so helpful and we really appreciated her translating help when it came to making our pottery.

We walked into a shop and found a couple happily working on painting pottery and Namhee explained that we'd like to make something on the wheel. It was awesome! (The guy helped us out a TON.. because I really don't think my pot would have come out so great the first time around...haha..)










The whole point of our trip out there was to make pottery that day, but looking back on it now, I realize that that wasn't even what made this day so memorable! Namhee watched and translated as we made our pots and once we'd had our full of pottery, she drove us back towards the bus stop where she found us. ON the way there, we passed bus 102 (which happened to be the bus we needed) and so she offered to have us over to HER HOUSE! Oh man... We felt like she had already saved us from the headache of getting completely lost. It was such a blessing to have met her and now she was offering to show us her place and give us food! So crazy!



We also found out that her hiking club goes out every Thursday morning and meets exactly where we got stranded earlier that day. So next week guess what we're doing?? If you said hiking a mountain with a Korean hiking group then, *DING! DING! DING!* You are correct! We'll be meeting up with them on Thursday and are all very excited to do so! So anyways, we made it back to her apartment up on the 17th floor, met Namhee's two daughters, who shared their violin and piano skills, as she fed us noodles, kimchi, and tea on the floor of her living room!



It was such a crazy series of events for the day, but how cool that God orchestrated this whole thing?! I have no idea how we would have found the pottery place on our own and how neat for God to bring Namhee into our lives and what timing! What an awesome way to spend a day off! God definitely answers prayer!

Hugs, Blessings, and new friends!

Sarah

What do you get when you put 1H and 1N together??

...SWINE FLU!!

Unfortunately, this past week's events have thrown a curve ball into this school year. Swine flu has come to Korea and has hit pretty hard. So hard, in fact, that last week our school had 8 confirmed cases from random swab tests,and before we knew it we were shut down, news people flooded the school, and we, the staff, were given a nice, week long quarantine to our apartments.

You'd think it would be nice.. all that time with no responsibility? Well, I think I might have been indoors a BIT too long, cause I'm noticing my fish staring at me ALL THE TIME! I'm not even making this up.. I'll look up and my two fish are just floating there looking DIRECTLY at me and then all of sudden they look away awkwardly as if they're thinking "oh. uhh. I wasn't staring."

Seriously... I blame the quarantine.

However, it's brought about some pretty good things, in fact. Like, the beginning of re-watching ALL seasons of LOST. (I haven't gotten TOO far.. but I'm working on it.) Also, there's a heightened sense of cleanliness around these parts. My inbox has been FLOODED with do and don'ts and H1N1 preparation. There's anti bacterial gel in literally every nook and cranny. (We even got some antibac machines installed.. that spray.. MIST!! ..yeah.. sweet, I know.) We're taking temperatures nonstop. (This morning.. I woke up early and took all students temps as they arrived back on campus after the long "break." Those ear thermometers.. *shudder* for some reason I have a problem with sharing anything that goes in my ear..) And finally a new appreciation of mask wearing. Like the one in this picture.



That's me on the bus ride taking dorm students to their hometowns.. all over Korea.

It's been an interesting week for sure. Our school handled it really well and thankfully all students and faculty are recovering and gearing back up for the rest of the year. It's scary.. the germs and sickness and all.. but we serve a God who's bigger than sickness and who is CONSTANTLY attentive to our prayers. How awesome!

Please be in prayer for those still recovering, protection against future outbreaks, and a smooth transition back into a somewhat different kind of year.

Hugs, blessings, and DIAL soap,

Sarah

CARIBBEAN BAY!

WOW.

That is all I have to say. Craziness ensued, as I expected. However, it wasn't all smooth sailing.

We arrived at Everland/Caribbean bay around noon and soon realized what we had gotten ourselves into. Saturday was August 15... which also happened to be Korea's Liberation Day... which means EVERYONE picked up and traveled somewhere.. and seeing that it was nearly 95 degrees out.. I think nearly 1/2 of Korea's population decided to venture to the water park. We found this out due to the masses of people waiting to actually get inside. We had to pick up a "waiting card" which would let us inside at 5pm. Sooo... what to do til then?

Lucky for us, there were foreigners standing near us who said that if we just bought the full day pass for the water park, they would let us go into Everland for the beginning of the day! EUREKA! Everland is the greatest! They have a wooden ride called the T-Express. I didn't have a camera this time, but if you want to see the ride, look back at my blog entries. I think there's one titled "A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE" and I recorded the entire experience. It's seriously a great ride. And I love coasters. I wish my roller coaster buff family could experience this with me.



So we sweated the ENTIRE afternoon and once it hit 5pm we booked on over to the water park and were herded through 2 lines and finally entered the wonderland of fun called Caribbean Bay. Finding a locker was a pretty big task and once Steph and I actually found one.. well.. I'm not going to go much into detail.. but trying to change into a swim suit in an EXTREMELY overcrowded lockeroom with hundreds of sweaty bodies...is NOT the greatest... oh goodness...

The wave pool was ENORMOUS and was actually quite creepy due to the HUGE waves. (err... wave. They wouldn't actually have tons of waves all at once, the siren would sound and a HUGE tidal wave would come flying towards you. But because it was so crowded the wave was just a sea of life-jacket-wearing Koreans sporting swim caps! haha...) I didn't have a camera.. but this video will give you an idea of what we encountered..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVGPTWuq3J4

Just. Plain. Awesome.

We rode a water slide that was more like a roller coaster too.. haha.. and then you can't forget the lazy river! :D

I'm glad to be back.. but BOY was that fun!

Hugs, Blessings, and swimmers ear!

Sarah

Where in the world is Erds???

This summer has been seriously one of THE best summers I've had in a long while.

I lost my toenail.. FINALLY!

haha.. Just kidding.. that was NOT the highlight (however, I'm quite glad to be rid of that thing.) I flew home at the beginning of June and for almost every weekend following, up until the end of August, I traveled and visited traveled and caught up with so many people... It was just plain awesome! If I wasn't able to see you, I'm sorry. I visited Grandparents in Muskegon, the bean in Chicago, discovered lost lakes in Knoxville, biked the San Francisco bridge, visited Egypt in the children's museum in Indianapolis, Cedar point in Sandusky, was a bridesmaid for an amazing friend's wedding (the DAY before I flew out), and I even caught up with a couple ridiculous college buddies in the airport in Atlanta. And when I wasn't on the road, I got to spend quality time with those crazy Erdmann's. :D I love them.

And now I'm back in Korea.

It's strange how fast time seems to be flying by. Did I mention I spent my 24th birthday at home this summer?? (The package is on it's way, right? ha..) But things just haven't even seemed to slow down even after arriving here. (Or cool off, for that matter. I stepped off the plane with my swollen feet into very the THICK of a hot and EXTREMELY humid Korean summer. Not to mention the damage that was inflicted upon my lungs, due to the man who continually farted for the ENTIRE flight!! No joke. At least HE got sleep.)

I was allotted roughly 2 days to get over jet-lag and then the students arrived and we had the new student orientation for that first weekend. It was an amazing time of games, sweating, getting to know the new students and staff, completely taking over a movie theatre (to watch GI Joe), and slip n slides! (I was a bit weary about this one, due to a previous experience with a twig sticking up out of the tarp.) But it was awesome! And even a somewhat soft padded landing! :D

So now we're just about finished with the first week of school and I'm adjusted and settled into my newly rearranged apartment. WOOHOO! Oh, and yesterday I made a Korean friend... in the taxi. Haha.. he asked if I had many Korean friends (chingu), and I said, well, "outside of our school, no." so he gestured to himself and said "chingu." :D My first taxi driver friend. Life is good. Oh, and this weekend we may venture to Caribbean Bay. (The water park attached to Everland.. like a Korean Disneyworld. :D) I'm sure there will be MUCH to update after this! Until then...

Hugs, Blessings, and missing toenails,

Sarah

Philippines...

Wow.. so I've been HORRIBLY busy lately and have forgotten to update you on my life. here's a quick update from my mission trip to Boracay, Philippines in April. Enjoy!



Sorry if the quality is a bit poor... I uploaded it to facebook and just copied it to here, so maybe I can upload directly here later..

BORED OUT OF MY MIND...

So I've been waiting in the Rome airport now for the past 13 hours and have officially felt what it feels like to be homeless...




Yep... thrilling. I got here and had to try and find a place for me to lay down because when we arrived it was about 3 am in Korea. There was literally NO ONE around. So, luckily, I found some chairs that had the armrests broken and slept there for a few hours. It was funny though, because when I woke up, I poked my head up from my row and seriously the ENTIRE area was filled with people exactly like me. (Or maybe it was a clan of REAL homeless people and I had no idea...hmm.)

HOWEVER.. I DID say ROME airport, so yes, I will be traveling around Italy this week! :D It's winter break at our school and we found cheap tickets to Rome from Seoul, so put 2 and 2 together and you get one REALLY tired Erds, who's incredibly sick of airports. It won't be long now until one of the girls going with our group gets here. Oh, you're wondering why I didn't travel with them? Ha.. well, it's a LONG story and maybe I'll explain later, but pretty much when you book a flight, make sure you read through your ENTIRE itinerary when you get it in your email.. yeah.. it could save you lots of money and headache.

Ooh, but on the flight I found some interesting things in those magazines. You know the ones where everything is completely overpriced but they're hoping poor souls will actually buy something due to boredom? Ha.. yep. Well, I read COMPLETELY through the magazine because unfortunately our plane isn't quite up to date with the whole technology thing and so for our entire seating area, we had to share a small tv probably a little bigger than the individual ones you get on MOST flights. yeah.. so I had no say in what we watched. In fact, I didn't really watch any of the movies.. except for the looney tunes cartoons that came on later in the flight. I VERY MUCH appreciated that! :D BUT, like I said, I found some interesting articles and artists and would like to share them with you. You know, if you ever feel completely bored, check these out!

www.tracingtea.com ---> Crumpets anyone? I read an interesting article about these guys who are traveling across 3 continents and doing a documentary on tea! They're keeping a blog as they travel through the spring. haha.. That would be an amazing trip, if I do say so myself!

www.richardhutten.com ---> He's an artist with some pretty sweet ideas. Sort of crazy, but I loved the leaf magnets. Haha.. I guess some companies have filled their ceilings with these small 3D leaf magnets.. awesome. (they didn't have them on the website, so I posted a picture of them.. crazy cool!



www.yukenteruyastudio.com ---> Yuken Teruya is pretty awesome! He takes everyday objects and makes are out of them! Check out his toilet paper roll designs. Wow. Here's a picture...



Alright, I'll leave you now with a quote from the "AMAZING" information videos they show on the airplane.. this one had to do with emergency evacuations, if there were to be any.

"When leaving the aircraft, high heeled shoes should be removed."

Haha.. Seriously? I think if the plane's going down- I'm jumping with my shoes ON!

Hugs, Blessings, and EXTREMELY long layovers,

Erds

TO THE SLOPES!

This past weekend was, yet again, another first for little Erdmann. The dorm students had a ski trip planned at Muju Ski Resort. (This place is probably the biggest ski resort in all of Korea.. so you know what that means?? crowdiness to the MAX!)

It's 6:30 AM, and everyone is gathering at the bus in front of the school and getting ready to head out at 6:30. I, on the other hand, am just waking up and beginning to run around in a frenzy due to the fact that I did NOT wake up to my alarm clock. (I knew it was a bad idea to reset it after waking up at 5:30 to turn the alarm off on the halls for students leaving for sports. I should have stayed awake. Oh well.)

Alas, I made it to the bus just before 6:30 and we set out on the road to Muju. On the way there our group stopped at a place to rent ski gear and it's here that I tried on my very first pair of snowboarding boots. There was a glow around me as they fit snuggly to my feet.. and I do believe I heard angels singing. ha.



Anyways, we reached Muju and a group of us "chaperoning" the trip decided to head up to the slopes. Not really understanding which are the easiest ones, we go to the one called "rookie" and figure it's easy enough. First, we wait in a line that looks like this:



My reaction:



Well, Dains and I have NEVER done any skiing/snowboarding in our lives and so everything about this venture to the top of the hill was slightly more than intimidating. I click my snowboard to my boots and I'm READY! Err... Ok, and.. GET UP! ....Hmm... Something must be wrong with my board because I can't for the life of me stay up. Or maybe it's because we're not really snowboarding on snow, it seemed to me like we were boarding down a huge slope of concrete with a bit of powder SPARINGLY sprinkled. It was solid ice! Hmm.. I eventually get up and me and Dains pose for a picture:



Alright, so let me, again, just say that I've NEVER gone skiing or snowboarding and so the entire way down the first hill it was .. UP.. DOWN.. UP.. DOWN.. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. And so forth. My arms got a workout.. that is FOR SURE.

What's today? Wednesday night.. So 4 days after that fateful day, I'm STILL having trouble using the muscles in my arms. Ha.. It's funny because you'd think that my legs would be sore, but no, not at all. It's all my arms and wrists.

HOWEVER, I was determined to get this thing, and so gradually I could stay up on my board for a few seconds, and then a few seconds more and then there was a moment where I actually stayed up for a good 30 seconds! Breakthrough, FINALLY! So about halfway down the hill (after much humilation from the many stares from Koreans passing me on the ski lift right above me) by Joe, I GOT IT! I didn't really do anything fancy, but I could actually stay up on my board and slowly move down the hill. This was monumental, folks.

So we reach the bottom, after a good 40 minutes, and realize that that was actually an intermediate course. Ha.. awesome. So we find the BEGINNER slope and all of us feel MUCH more at ease, and I could stay up for most of the way down. I did have some nasty spills.. face planting into the snow. But hey, I'm still in one piece! :D

Oh, and here's a picture from the top of one of the slopes. As much as I'd like to say I did THIS one, I actually had a hard time moving to the edge of this one.. seriously, it looks like it just drops off!



It was an amazing day, indeed! We ate Domino's pizza for lunch and only had a few injuries on behalf of the students. I'll definitely go again, but, maybe after my arms are fully functioning again.

Hugs, Blessings, and muscle spasms,

Sarah

Cruise Ramblings (in three parts)

This is a collection of writings that just "came to me" while cruising the Caribbean. Now, just as a disclaimer, I was having fun writing this and don't think that I am completely bashing the going of cruises. I, myself, was a cruiser and had QUITE enjoyed myself at that. However, there are just some things I found rather amusing and thought you might appreciate my thoughts. Enjoy.

Dec. 26, 2008

ON PEOPLE:

So here I am on the deck amidst thousands of other Northern travelers. I'm guessing they're mostly from the north due to the fact that I am completely surrounded by a sea of both pasty, fair-skinned fellow friends, as well as those sporting the shiny red tomato look. I think, for some, and myself included, this is the only time we Midwest folk will feel the warm sun until the beginning of July. So as some (these said pasties) are more cautious with their approach to sunbathing by lathering on that 75+ SPF, wearing their clothes in layers, and dodging from umbrella to umbrella, there are those careless few, who believe baking themselves until their skin begins to constantly sizzle is the correct and "cruise-like" thing to do. Myself? I like to be slowly goldened, like a perfect s'more. You know the type, nice and toasted on the outside and warm on the inside, the kind of s'more that you pull off the poker and the entire outside just slips off the melted gooey innards. yeah.. those are great.

Oh, and I guess I've forgotten another cruiser, those few who's color seems to resemble both a lobster and burnt cookie. Ha. They think that because they've "fake baked" themselves all of fall and beginning of winter, that the sun will have no effect on them. Apparently the woman next to me believes this wholeheartedly. (Although, I'd have to say she's definitely more burnt cookie than lobster.)

And now that it's the day before we land back at our port in Florida, I think even those overly cautious are beginning to feel the sun beckoning them and have now decided to risk it all. We, the Erdmann clan, have also thrown caution to the wind by indulging ourselves in VIRGIN piña coladas. yeah.. someone save us, please.

ON LIFESTYLE:

Enough with the burning flesh, the entire idea of a cruise ship has had me chuckling every once in a while this entire trip. I just start to think about the 3,600 people aboard this ship (and that's just passengers!) and I think about how we're all floating here in the middle of no where, no land for miles. A floating metropolis! I mean, think about it from a sea creature's point of view. Your day consists of floating around and eating small fish and, all of a sudden, you hear this faint sound of marimbas playing off in the distance. As it gets closer you begin to make out the giant ship with the thousands of plump, red bodies strewn about, margaritas in hand. Just a bit unusual, right?

At the moment, I'm gazing at everyone lounging around in their beach chairs. The drink guys frantically waiting on them hand and foot. I think some passengers must stay in these chairs 24/7. I mean, I hardly blame them, trying to find 6 open chairs, let alone just one, is almost always a task. But the way that the chair has now begun to form around them is a bit disturbing. It's almost as if they're starting to actually become part of the ship. For example, take this man over here across from me. I think he hasn't even moved for several hours. Quite frankly, I'm a bit worried he might be dead. (And yet, he's still grasping that half-full margarita.. boggles my mind every time I see this.) Oh wait, he's flipping. False alarm.

So I can't help but be reminded of WALL-E right about now. Never leaving their space-age hovercrafts, these people don't even notice the wonder of creation or even those around them, for that matter. Sometimes it makes me nervous that I'll hear that "blue is the new red" aboard the mighty Mariner of the Seas. They do offer the drinks of the day, so I guess that's not too far off.

ON TOURIST SALES TRAPS:

Have you ever noticed passengers ears aboard cruise ships? Haha.. Ok, so that's a bit strange, but ever notice those funny round stickers placed behind their ears to ward off motion sickness? Yeah, it's all a scam. Now, I'm not one to rain on someone's parade when obviously someone out there is making big bucks. In fact, I wish I would have thought of it first! But come on, really? Do you actually believe those things keep you from seasickness?

I bet there was once a guy riding a ferry, who thought, "Hmm, I got a bunch of plain white round stickers and no money. What to do... what to do." While this man is trying to frenziedly figure out a way to use these stickers to somehow pay for his next meal, he begins to notice an extremely seasick man wobbling towards him. Nearly toppling onto the man with the stickers, he mutters cautiously and quietly so as to not let any unwanted lunch spill out of his mouth, "Man, I really wish I had one of those sea sick pills or bracelets." So, naturally, in fear for his life, and life being his only clean white jacket, he immediately grabs a small white sticker and begins to explain to the man that this small white sticker is a "SEASICK BE GONE PATCH" and nervously tries to place it on the man, only to have it end up behind his ear. The man thanks him and miraculously feels 100% better, or so he thinks. So that clever young man leaves the boat with a bag full of stickers and a plan to make millions. For, you see, it's those very stickers that everyone seems to be sporting on our ship. And I'm sure this sticker man is now perched at his desk atop the tallest building in a nearby city, stroking his cat and smiling sort of grinch-like at the thought of his brilliance. So, uhh, think twice the next time someone tries to sell you a migraine saving toothpick or a weight loss curing goggle set. You never know.