Skeptical

This weekend I did a lot of things that I wasn't so sure about, but ended up being really fun. For starters: Friday night Mexican potluck. Sounds like a really good idea. But in Korea there are no ingredients for Mexican food. However, my friends are way better cooks than I am, and it turned out awesome. I made chips and salsa, Katie brought a pineapple, Alexis made really great rice, and Mo and Christy made chicken/beef fajitas. Everything was so good, and we had a ton of fun just hanging out together and talking. And bonus - Mo showed me a website where I can watch sports live! So I got to see the Wimbledon finals :)

Earlier this week Yuri told me she wanted to take me to a badminton tournament on Saturday. She invited Katie too because she wanted to meet her. Thank goodness. Because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Badminton is a big deal in Korea. Yuri is a member of a badminton club and she plays every morning at 6:00. My kids can't all speak in complete sentences, but they can all spell the word badminton. Not an easy word. So Yuri picked us up and drove us to the biggest gym in Ulsan. We walked in and there were 20 matches going on. Doubles. The partners wore matching outfits, and crouched in the ready position, and grunted when they hit the birdie. Katie and I were literally the only foreigners in the gym. Sometimes I don't notice how much I stand out, and sometimes I feel totally out of place. I felt totally out of place. But it was fine. The 3 of us sat and watched for a while, then we went outside with some of Yuri's badminton friends and ate pig feet and drank beer. At 2:30 in the afternoon. Pig feet are not very good. The meat was sliced pretty thin, and some of the pieces were mostly meat and some were mostly cartilage. There were a few times I just had to swallow because I couldn't even chew. Then we went back inside and watched some more matches. Katie and I laughed a lot - we ended up having a lot of fun. And its good to spend time with Yuri outside of school. Then I spent the night with these friends. We had the greatest ice cream.

 

Sunday was our 4th of July celebration! I'm going to tell you through pictures.

 It took FOREVER to light the stupid charcoal. I mean close to an hour. Katie actually melted the lighter in the process. But, eventually we got some flames and roasted marshmallows before we made hot dogs.

 Ok, not a flattering picture of me, but so funny. This is Mo's Korean friend Kyle. He came because he wanted to know what Americans do on the 4th of July. He had never had a roasted marshmallow before. He took one bite and said "What is this taste?!" We all laughed so hard.

 Alissa made a blueberry crumble for dessert. We didn't bring any utensils with us, so we ate it in cups with our fingers.

 The group minus photographer Katie

 Alexis bought us sparklers :)

So about the hot dogs. We put them on the grill, cooked them, and put them in buns. Katie took a bite and said "This is really hard to eat." Then we realized that each individual hot dog was wrapped in plastic. And we had cooked them with the plastic on. So we had to peel the plastic off the very hot hot dogs, and then eat them. What a night. We had SO MUCH FUN! Happy birthday America!