The period of having my sister here with me has begun.  And it started with quite a bang, I'd say.  On Friday some good friends helped me welcome her properly with a good dinner of 'galbi' (beef), hang-out time on the beach, and Tilt afterwards, where we danced until the wee hours.  But that was only the beginning.  Saturday morning, well, not too early, we joined five others and scooted to GyeungJu!  GyeungJu isn't really far away, actually it's as close as it gets when it comes to cities nearby, but by scooter it took us almost an hour I'd say - which is a long time to be going 80 km/hr on a 125cc scooter.  We mostly took the highway on the way there because we missed the turn-off.  It was fun to be in a small biker gang, buzzin' down the highway.




Our biker gang: 2 scooters, 2 speed bikes, 1 moter bike, and a dirt bike. 

 

And there on the side of the road was a Petro-Can sign of all things... Don't ask me why.

When we got to GyeungJu we found it to be quite busy - full of people catching the last bit of the cherry blossoms.  But it was ok because the road we were going down was lined with cherry blossom trees.  We ended up at a popular lake surrounded by cherry trees and picture-happy Koreans.

We didn't take advantage of the opportunity to peddle around on duck boats.  Bummer.  Next time. 

Cherry blossoms - as promised.

Only in Korea would you find those old shopping mall kid rides just sitting outside the restaurant - they worked too.

We walked around for a bit, had dinner, and then headed back. But the trip home was the highlight.  This time we did take the back roads, which meandered through small towns, rice farms, and mountains.  It was a wonderful moment - scooting through the Korean countryside.  And it made me realize that though the cities often tend to be the attraction in Korea, the real beauty is in its rugged country.  I'm going to have to experience it as much of it as I can this summer.  So in the end, it was an awesome trip, and a great introduction for Alisa.

Of note: Saturday night, I was a part of a very intense soccer practice.  The background to this story is that our soccer team mostly sucks - we're 0 and 5.  So a couple of our better players are taking it upon themselves to get us all to practice more often.  So I was free and we were invited to join another group for a soccer practice - and it turned out to be quite the training session.  I think by the end of this season, I'll be a better soccer player than I've ever been, which is kinda cool.

Then, on Monday, Alisa started teaching.  She has a bit of a tough kindergarten class because they are all relatively new students to Poly school, so they just don't have the school mentality.  This is challenging Alisa to become more of a disciplinarian - a good lesson to learn.

Yesterday we went to the newly opened New York Cafe - a great little American food restaurant just down the street from Poly.  It's owned and operated by John Schneekloth, a good guy.  It was really good to eat a well made hamburger again.

Overall, I've found that having Alisa here has been much more stressful for me than I thought it'd be.  I never thought of myself to be too protective of her, but I find myself worrying about her whenever we're not together.  I'm also finding it hard to share her with others.  Selfishly, I want her to only be my friend.  And at school, I really want her to succeed and feel confident in her teaching, so I worry about her when she has difficult students.  And this is making me realize that, just like her, I'm learning a lot from her being here.  Don't misunderstand me though, I'm very happy she's here, it's going to be great to have a good friend here with me.  But it has made for a very tiring week.
And now it's late, and I need to get to bed.  So goodnight.

Thanks for reading.
Michael