Chinese Medicine

At the butterfly festival, a man in a hat said he wanted to treat us with traditional Chinese medicine. This is what happened...



The rest of us had it put on our hands. The man with the hat fell in love with Ashley. He told her she had to sit in the tent for 20 minutes and relax. The thing he placed on our hands was supposed to suck out bad toxins and make us feel more energy.


This man had one placed on his knee. He really wanted to take a picture with us. So we let him.


In the end, I feel the same, but now I have a yellow ring on my hand that smells like burnt bamboo. No matter how many times I wash my hands, the ring and the smell won't go away!

Butterfly Festival

Yesterday I want to a butterfly festival. The website said you can walk around with tens of thousands of butterflies. So we took a three hour bus ride, plus another 45 minute bus ride to get there. It was a fun trip, but the website kind of lied. There was one building with quite a few butterflies, but I don't think "tens of thousands." They were mostly in glass cages. It was hard to take pictures with the reflection. We got a few good ones though.

Little Cub Scouts

They did NOT want to take this picture together. This is as close as they would stand to each other. How precious are they though?

Harrison Ford

Thursday our listening track was about China's rule over Tibet. It said the Dalai Lama had received support from celebrities such as Harrison Ford and Richard Gere. I asked if they knew any of their movies.
Mike said, "Harrison Ford is in Star Wars."
I said, "Great! What else?" I assumed he would answer with Indiana Jones. I was wrong.
He enthusiastically said, Six Days, Seven Nights!
What? I actually laughed out loud at him. He couldn't figure out why it was funny. Korean children's knowledge of random things always amazes me.

For those of you that live in a cave...

...watch this...

Susan Boyle

She made me cry.

Never trust a Korean doctor.

They are highly educated people, but they have some crazy ideas about things.

A few weeks ago, a Korean girl I know, Jiyoung, decided to get her belly button pierced. They told her she couldn't eat meat for a week. I guess it prevents it from healing?

This week I had some laser hair removal done. You aren't supposed to sweat for the first day, so just to be sure the doctor told me not to exercise for a week.

Yesterday I was having problems swallowing because my throat was so swollen. I wasn't sure if it was allergies or strep throat. Today I woke up and could barely talk, so I figured I should make a trip to the doctor. I went to see my local heart internist (he's the closest). I told him I thought it was strep. He said it was just a viral infection. He prescribed some medicine, but said the most important thing to do was not bathe. I asked him why. He acted shocked that I would question him. He explained that viruses thrive in the cold. When you get out of the shower your body temperature drops and the virus goes crazy in your body. Hmm....

Cat Cafe

Koreans are very into themed places. We heard about a cafe that has cats--real, live cats. I thought it sounded disgusting, but Rachael wanted to check it out. (She likes cats--I don't.) I accidentally found it last weekend. So Thursday I surprised Rachael with it. She enjoyed it, but I was miserable. The cats kept jumping around which made me scream every time. I took extra allergy medicine, but I still couldn't breathe. The worst part was my camera died as soon as I turned it on. Here are the low quality pictures from my phone...


This week we are going to go find the puppy cafe. No joke.

Genius!

I don't know where he got them, but my brother has brains! He was 3rd place in the State Geography Bee. I'm so proud. I'm just sad I couldn't be there. I don't get homesick too often, but things like this make me miss home. Look at him teaching his cousins about dinosaur bones! :)

The Search for Buddha

One day Nikki and I decided to go on a hike and look for Buddha. We saw these little Korean ladies, and they told us to follow them. It was hard to keep up with them at times, but they fed us some oranges and told us to keep going.


We walked and walked and walked. We stacked some rocks for good luck. Nikki wasn't sure it would work, but I knew we had to try. And then we walked some more.


A few hours later we saw a monk. We followed her and she led us to a temple.


We knew we were getting close. I was happy.


But then we just saw more and more temples. We were starting to get nervous.


We asked this little old lady to say a prayer from us, but neither of us had much faith since the other old ladies had led us so far astray.


And then we saw him!!!


We were both very happy!

Don't tell a Korean kid...

...that fan death isn't real or that Korean strawberries are genetically altered. They get a little mad. But seriously, look at these. It's not possible for strawberries to be this perfect, right?

Nikki and I...

...saw lots and lots of fabric at the market...


...plus lots and lots of fish.



We saw the Notre Dame of Paris in Korean.


Plus, we saw the Korean MTV guy in downtown Daegu.


And we ate this. Don't be jealous! You can come visit me in Korea and try it! :)