just a saturday swim in the sea

Last Saturday, Ken and I bundled up and headed to Deokpo Beach to experience the 4th Geojedo International Penguin Swimming Festival.



We arrived around 11:00, just in time for the festivities to begin. It was cold, but there was a crowd of people
waiting to watch the swimmers rush into the cold water, including a few people from Ken's project. I have no idea what the water temperature was, but the air temperature averages 31 degrees in January, so you can be assured the water is cold.
We were quite impressed with the efforts put forth by the community to make us feel welcomed. People were passing out festival itineraries written in English and most of the announcements on the stage were translated into English (by Brenda, no less - remember she went with me to China).



They also had a food booth that served complimentary muffins, coffee and Ramen noodles. I think the other booths were serving some sort of fish dish. I guess they thought we wouldn't care for it, which is probably true in my case.

The preshow included some singers, dancers, bands and break dancers. After the announcements and introductions of dignitaries, the contestants began to get prepared for their descent into the water. Coats and clothes were shed - I did see a few people in wetsuits, but the majority just had on swim trunks and sometimes a shirt (with a swimsuit - not just a shirt - I wanted to clarify that). It wasn't only the Koreans that took part, there was a nice showing of foreigners, including one young man that Ken works with. A few women participated in the venture - we saw a couple of women that work at the Foreigner's Club take the plunge! I used to teach swimming lessons in the summer in Virginia. I dreaded making that morning plunge into the water for the first class because the water was always so cold. Did I mention that it was summer? I can't imagine how running into frigid water would feel. Anyway, prior to the actual dive into the water, an announcer guided everyone though the regulatory Korean calisthenics.
Then the race was on, with was a mad dash into the water by all. Some people darted right back out of the sea, while a few made it up to their knees.
However, most of the contestants swam out to the waiting boat and collected their wrist band (which later could be exchanged for a medal). It was fun watching the various people make their way out of the water - most of them were red from the cold.

When the race was over, they then moved over to an area of water that was roped off with some fishing nets. Apparently there were fish in the nets that were let loose. Everyone was catching fish with their hands. And these weren't small fish!! I am very upset to report that my camera had been acting up and chose that occasion to not allow me to take any pictures of this part of the fun. I noticed that they had a booth were you could take your fish and get it cleaned. Maybe some of those fish were put into the fish stew they were serving???

The festivities were directed back onto the stage area, where there was a drawing for prizes, belly dancing and a hilarious Korean version of the gong show. It was all in Korean but we were able to get the gist of what was going on. They also had activities on the beach for children that included standing on blocks of ice and racing with flippers on your feet. We were starting to get a bit cold, so we ended our day there.
We had a blast and will definitely put it on our calendar to do next year. Maybe I will even swim in the competition. (Do you really believe that?)

here we are part two

We arrived back in Korea January 15th. Ken had been back in Texas for three weeks for the holidays and I had been in Texas for three months.


Things are pretty much the same as when I left - with a few changes.



I was greeted once again by T.Y. (the agent) with a huge bouquet of flowers.






The employees were exercising to "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" at the grocery store.



Flower pots lining the streets had ornamental kale planted in them for winter instead of the flowers that were there when I left.




A block of cheese is now 14 U.S. dollars.


The apartments around us, as well as the Foreigner's Club, have a new coat of paint.


Our bed is still as hard as when we left it....it might actually be harder.


I still was winded walking up the hill to the apartment, but I didn't worry that I would have a heart attack like I did a year ago.

(It is still steeper than it looks though!)


We still surf the channels on the TV looking for something to watch.

We ordered fried chicken from McMurray's and they delivered it to us on a scooter the first night we were back.


I was happy to return. To return to life with my husband, to return to my painting classes, to return to my friends (however, a few have moved on sadly), and to return to everything that living in a foreign country offers. After living here for a year, leaving and returning again, I can clearly see everything that I need to take advantage of while living here. As a mentioned in an earlier post, my life is simple here. I have time to do alot of the things that I don't unnecessarily make time for while in the United States. Wish me luck in all my endeavors - I will be sharing them with you as time goes on.

kim in korea........sometimes

I know I have been negligent in writing the past three months.

However,I haven't been in Korea since October.

When Ken was assigned this project, we had just moved to another house in Texas. Our thought was that we would stay in this house forever when we bought it. It had all the criteria we thought we were looking for - it was on a golf course, it had a swimming pool and it was a location that was conducive for Ken's work until he retired.

Ken usually works on projects that are for only a few months at a time, but this project in Korea was scheduled to be around 3 years. Our daughter had just graduated from college and was returning to Houston to job hunt. After living in the house for a year, we came to conclusion that it really and truly wasn't the house for us. We absolutely loved alot of the features of the house - all the covered patios and balcony, the pool, the transom windows, the hardwood floors, the curving staircase with the wrought iron banister - to name a few. However, the floor plan really wasn't something that was great for us. I think that a one story house will be of prime importance in our list of musts next time. Anyway, we put it on the market and sold it to the first person who looked at it on the first day of it being listed. This all happened more quickly than we had anticipated, so we were at a loss of what to do at that time. We decided to rent a 2 bedroom apartment with a 2 car garage in which our daughter would live and we would be there whenever we were in town.

Well, it didn't take long before we realized that this really wasn't a great answer to our housing dilemma. First of all, we should have put a whole lot more things in storage and a whole lot less in the apartment. Whenever I visited, I felt like I was always shifting things around and making piles of stuff in our bedroom. Secondly, we felt like we were intruding on our daughter and the life she was trying to create for herself out of college. Last, but not least, we still spent alot of time while we were home at our parents' house. Both of our parents live within 30 minutes of each other in the northern part of Texas - a 5 1/2 drive from Houston.

The answer came when the elderly man that lived next to my parents passed away. It took awhile for me to come around (Ken was more set on this than me), but we ended up buying the house.
I finally realized that our daughter has a new life of her own and that when we came home, visiting our parents was more important and fun.
Anyway, to try to cut this saga short, we bought the house and I went back to get it a little more presentable. It was built in the 1970's, with the prerequisite popcorn ceiling, wood paneling, and gold and brown tubs and toilets.
So I spent most of the fall getting the house ready for us to live in whenever we were home. My father, who is a builder, helped me sooooo much. I really enjoyed some of the projects, like wallpaper, that we took on together and it was great to get to work with him in this way.

Ken and I have always wanted to build a house someday and this definitely was an eye opener into all the decisions that have to be made. I really don't care about windows or doors but those decisions have to be made. Paint color is more difficult than you think - do you know how many shades of white there are? The absolute most difficult part is getting painters, plumbers, counter top installers, etc. to actually arrive at your house and actually do the work. All those TV shows I have watched on HGTV and TLC on flipping houses came alive for me at that point.

It finally came to a close. There are definitely more things to be done, but we can comfortably live there whenever we go home. I don't have piles of stuff everywhere - I actually have empty drawers and cabinets. We elected to not take everything out of storage and move it there because we had a ready supply of furniture from my parents. My mother closed her gift and home accessory store the year before and there was a wealth of items she had kept because she couldn't bear to part with them. The only large items I had to purchase was a sofa, a couple of chairs and a mattress. I used her cast offs (if you could call them that) and then picked up a few odd items from antique stores in town. For those that don't know me well, I would like to interject a few comments. I am someone who loves to decorate her home. I pore over home magazines and my first stop in a store is the home decor area. I have a definite style to my previous homes. However, everything was in storage. It really was a freeing experience to move into a home with nothing. It makes you realize how much "stuff" you carry around in your life and how little you really need. It was so much fun. I used entirely different colors than my usual repertoire. I went with greens, blues and some brown.


I hated being away for so long but I would do it again in a heartbeat. I don't know how long we will keep the home but we feel it is a good investment nevertheless. All I know is that on Christmas Eve, we had our daughter, both sets of our parents and my sister and her husband (who, incidentally, live across the street!) over for dinner. It was such a wonderful evening. I didn't have my usual Christmas dishes, I had a small tabletop Christmas tree and we sat at 2 separate tables to eat with mismatched place mats and dishes.

But we had everything.