Thursday, February 21, 2008

This'll be a long picture post...


Here's a picture of all the family members who convened at the ski resort. (That's not true actually, there's another sister, husband, and two kids who had already left by this point.) Anyway, the guy on the left sort of awkwardly is my host father. The woman in the pink jacket in front is my homestay mom, and the two kids next to her are my siblings. The woman in the middle, next to host mom, is her oldest sister, flanked by her two kids, with her husband on the far right. They introduced him to me as the "family boss," but I don't really know what that means. I think he liked me, anyway, in a novel sort of way.

Here's a picture of me. The condo-ish place we stayed is behind the picture-taker, and looks a lot like the one in the background. In the farther background is the actually skiing area.

Here's the immediate host family. You can figure out who everyone is.

Here's me in the hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) my co-teacher bought me for a holiday present. This is when I learned that in fact, there are two types of hanbok. 1. The really beautiful kind, which is also really expensive, but which I had talked to my co-teacher about saving up for. These are the beautiful outfits you wear on a few select holidays every year and on your wedding day. 2. This kind, which is not beautiful. It's thick and wintery, and monochromatic, and unshapely.

Here's a graduation day picture. This me and HB, who's a really really good kid. This is a picture I took with my camera, but he also insisted on taking a picture of the two of us on his cellphone, which was cute. He's smart and kind, and I'll miss him a lot.

This is the boy who called himself my boyfriend--the one who awkwardly asked my co-teacher how to say "father-in-law" and then pointed to the picture of my Dad on my desk. He's funny, and adorable, and I'll miss him too.

Here's me and SB, possibly my favoritest student. I've told stories about him before.

Here's a picture of the ceremony itself. I couldn't actually take many pictures with my own camera, because one of the boys asked me to take pictures for him, because I had a better seat, but here's one. Those four students got some sort of scholarship from the Naju Educational Board.

Here's SC! I love him! He's so stylish with his scarf, and he chased me around in the morning wanting to take a picture of me. He's the one I was taking pictures for. He's going to a boarding high school like four hours away, which seems brave. I don't have any pictures with my favorite girls, sadly. I only got to take these because the boys were screwing around in the graduation room before it started. And after it was over, all the parents and siblings and stuff were there. One girl (the valedictorian, of sorts), however, was weeping uncontrollably, and gave me her huge bouquet of flowers, which presumably she got from a family member, and gave me a big hug. She's a really good student, and wonderful.
This is a pretty awesome picture of my host dad that I can't even take credit for. My host siblings took it, and I just discovered it on my camera. Maybe he was sleeping?

Here's just a few of the ski resort. I think I skiied that route.

And here's a link to the awesome English language website for the resort we went to, Muju Resort. My dad checked it out, and shared some gems with me, but you should look for yourself. Here's my personal favorite: "When you go into the entrance, there is a site of superb scenic beauty that you may be hallucinated like you are in Europe."

1 comment:

healthy ashley said...

You look great in your pictures! I had an exchange student from Germany stay with my family a while back- it's a great experience.

And thanks for stopping by my blog! Can I ask where you are in Florida?