Amanda Takes Off...

I handed Good Man a bag of shredded cheese. "Do you see any mold?"

"I only see beautiful footsteps."

"I don't know what that means."

He shrugged before putting some cheese in his mouth. "I don't either."

When I can't find anything in the house, I call for Good Man. "Honey! I can't find..."

A few days ago, I couldn't find my watch anywhere in the house. I searched near the computer, in the bathroom, on my nightstand. He was out of town. Finally, I emailed him. "Did you take my watch with you by accident?"

He wrote back, "I think that it will be on right side of sink in toilet inside orange bag that you put your cosmetic stuff."

It was there!

My husband has maaaaaaagical skills.

Yesterday Good Man, Mark, and his Lover headed off to Seneca Creek State Park for a hike. The weather was beautiful and as you can see from the photos, it wasn't really much of a January hike.

Seneca Creek

Blue Skies

Chopped Wood

Glowing Red

Wrong Side of the Creek
(But We Didn't Know it Yet)

Good Man

Marsh

Dam

Ripples

Yesterday I spotted someone on the path down to the school, staring at the buildings with a camera or binoculars. Just as I was watching him, my intern came over and whispered, "That guy has been standing there a few minutes." We went over the window, leaned forward and watched.

The man had what appeared to be a camera with a large zoom lens on it. He lifted the camera straight at us, held it there for a moment, then began walking down the path very quickly.

"I'm going to go to the office," I said quietly. I peeled out of the room, burst into my principal's office and said, "There's some guy standing on the path with a zoom lens taking pictures of us, and when he saw us, he started walking away quickly."

She dashed out of the door and told me to grab her radio. I ran after her with her walkie-talkie in hand, and she chased the guy down while I waited in the doorway. A few seconds later she called out, "It's OK, it's OK."

I headed back up to my room, and a few minutes later the phone rang. It was my principal's extension. "Sorry I overreacted," I said.

She laughed, "No, it was kind of cute. He's from the safety office, and he wanted me to thank you for not only noticing, but reacting."

This morning, as my intern and I were entering the classroom, the man we saw left, with a few other county employees. My principal was with them.

"You're that guy!" my intern said.

He laughed, "I am, and look," he said, turning to my principal. She pulled out a photo. The man said, "When I found out you two reported me, I pulled the file up on my computer, and zoomed all the way in. There you are."

There we were, two ghostly faces in the window. Two heads attached to one body.

"Awww, we look like a two-headed monster," I said.

My intern held the photo closer. "You can't see any of the kids in the room," she said, "That's good to know."

"Thank you both for catching me," he said.

I laughed and said to my principal, "Does this make up for us both 'being shot' at the lockdown drill?"

"You both got shot?"

"Yeah," I said, "I was talking too loudly, and she closed the blinds before the doors."

The safety office guy said, "I think this makes up for being shot."

Yesterday Master posted told me this on Facebook.

아만다 잘 자내죠? 한국은 오늘이 설날이에요. 떡국먹는날. 아만다[가] 떡국 맛있게 만들어줘요~

Amanda are you well? Today it's Korean New Year. It's the day we eat rice cake soup. Amanda make some delicious rice cake soup.

Of course, Korea's a half a day ahead, so today it's Lunar New Year Eve. But I didn't need Master to tell me what day it was! I had already bought some (brown!) rice cake disks for soup.

We were originally going to have some for lunch, but long story short, it ended up becoming an early dinner. Diana, Min Gi, and the baby came over. Mark was picking up his lover at the airport, and couldn't come over for lunch, but when the schedule got messed up, they were able to come over for dinner.

The Spread

We had rice cake soup, mushroom bibimbap, spicy tofu, king oyster mushrooms, cucumbers, Asian pears, and dried seaweed. In this picture the table was set for four, but when we added two place settings and some wine, it was a true Korean spread, with dishes completely covering the table.

Good Man and Mark

Good Man found an interesting article with historical information about the military/dictatorship government, US puppet government, and Japanese colonizers government trying to get rid of Seollal.

The cartoon below (from 1980) shows most people walking toward "modernization" and "solar new year" and only a few people walking toward "lunar new year."

As a piece of trivia, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon (specifically the water element), although in Kazakhstan it's the Year of the...Snail.

Happy new year!

Busan, South Korea

In early August, Sister and I went to Busan together. I finally put together an album of our trip. The complete album is at the link, but here are a few of my favorite photos.

At the Beach

Sister Tries Fennel

Making Wandang

Hard at Work

Sign Failure