Kiss of the Mumdi

Halloweekend was a right sloppy mess!
Friday I went out for delicious pork BBQ with Aine, Gareth & Gareth, Eoin and Mikey. I hate taking cabs in Jinju (for obvious reasons, haha), mostly because I can almost never communicate properly with the cab driver, and usually end up in the wrong place. Friday night, again, I ended up in the wrong "dong" (neighborhood) at about 11:30PM. By some miracle I managed to get home before midnight! I much prefer the busses- because I know the routes and where to get off- but they don't run after 11PM.

Saturday my friend Eve came into Jinju at about 2 in the afternoon. We went to the craft store downtown and bought a load of stuff for her to be a bunch of grapes as a costume. Next, we went to my favorite thrift store and bought even more good stuff, including a giant graying curtain for me to tear apart and be a mummy. We went back to my apartment, got some wine and snacks, and began working industriously on our costumes while watching dramatic teen TV programs from the UK (awesome). Our other friend Morgan soon joined us, and by 7:45, we were wined up and dressed to meet Aine, Gareth, and CR for dinner downtown.

The walk from dinner to the bar was (conveniently) about seven steps. The night was kind of a haze, and included a lot of dancing, laughing, my costume falling off all over the place, making friends with koreans, and most of all, shots. A highlight of the event was that the bartenders let me DJ, which was awesome. I chose the set for apx. two hours of rawkus partying, and overall it was a success. I had forgotten how much I love forcing drunk people to listen to music that I like! There was a fire show which at the time, everyone in the bar (myself included) thought was awesome, but the video looks really lame, haha, and I did NOT choose the music for this part. (see: video)

Also a lot of phone number/facebook exchanging.

my super adorbz friends eve and morgan in the costumes we spent all afternoon making, haha

grapes, "william wallace" and mumdi

The night ended with Eve cutting me out of my costume, and us sitting on my kitchen floor at 3AM eating ice cream and ramen noodles. Though Sunday, I was a bit of a useless mess (I only left my bed to walk to the nearest fast food restaurant.... MEAT BAR)

my kinda place

All in all, it was another great weekend! Fall is finally here in Jinju, though in a rather whimpy fashion as compared to the mighty colors of Western New York.

Love and miss you all!
<3M

True Life: I Survived Being Kidnapped By A Nice Man

Today I seriously got kidnapped by a taxi driver.

Long story short: I'm waiting for the bus outside of my school, normal. It's a beautiful day, and I don't mind waiting outside. A taxi drives by, I bow lightly, like I do to everyone else that drives by.
Two minutes later, the same taxi (which had turned around) pulls up to me and says some things in Korean, including some "Konglish," "Jinju? OK! I go there!" I reply (in Korean) that I don't understand Korean, only English. He laughs, gets out of the taxi, and walks around and opens the door for me. I say, "no sir, I'm waiting for the bus, it's ok, I don't need a ride" as best as I can, but he keeps insisting on me getting in his car! At this point, he even grabs my hand and pulls me over to the car, and says, "No money! Ok!"

I know most of you will be saying, "WTF were you thinking," but despite not being able to speak to my taxi driver, I thought, "hey, what could go wrong? I'll give it a whirl." (*Once before, while in Andong, a complete stranger gave all five of my friends and I a free 20 minute lift to the festival. He just had some time to kill and wanted to practice his English I think. He was really nice! So I had that in mind this afternoon.)

I get in and immediately felt uneasy. First things first, he had a TV on the dashboard (no joke) that was playing some kind concert of this weird old Hawaiian man. Secondly, he did not stop talking/gesturing to me in Korean. I was getting nervous. I think I understand him ask what neighborhood I live in in Jinju, so I say, "Chilam-dong." He seems to understand this, and though it seems he is asking me a lot more questions, we drive on toward the city. Here's the third strike. We come up on the highway, where my bus usually turns to take me home. There is a big sign there with an arrow that says "Jinju" in English, and another that says "Sacheon." Guess which one he turned toward? Sacheon. Haha. I begin to panic and once we got to a road that had some houses on it, I said, "Ok! Thank you!!" So he pulled over, and I am totally lost, and still about 25 minutes from home.

So, I called my friend Eoin and I was like.... "Help! What do I do?!" Thankfully, he gave me the sound advice to find a place of business, call my co-teacher, and have her talk to the owners to see where I was. So, I did. She talked to them and came to get me.

.......And then she told me, she knows the cab driver. He is the father of one of my first grade boys. He had come back to the school, and when she left to come get me, he told her what happened. Apparently, he was just trying to thank me for doing such a good job teaching his kid, and wanted to give me a ride back to Jinju for free.

Haha. Home safe!
I'm a dummy!

Hallo-weenies

Update: Today the brother and sister (Sanje and Jessica) came back to school. They did end up in Masan in search of their mother, but they had the wrong address, and with no phone number to call, they never found her. They just came back on the bus instead. Today after class, Ellen scolded James gently and he started crying, and I just wanted to hug him. Then she got a little angry and said, "Grow up, Sanje." And, my heart just broke for him. I know it's a different culture, and it's a different mindset. But I really don't think any kids deserve to be ditched by their mom (especially after spending the first 10- 13 years of their lives with her).

Some days my students are well behaved little darlings. Usually, once a month or so. Most days, not. Today I had an unmistakable urge to slap this chubby little punk with braces. "Bob" has given me trouble every single day since I got here. So today I gave him a little trouble of his own.

I watched this video* the other day on youtube and jumped. I must have also made a little scaredy cat noise, because I was sitting in my office at the time (with headphones on) and all of the other teachers came around me to see if I was ok. I was pretty embarassed, haha, and I tried to explain, but I think they just thought I was weird. But then, I KNEW I had to show it to my kids.

(*warning: it's actually a little scary.)

So today, I did. I showed it to three classes, and all three hilariously freaked out. One second grade boy jumped onto another kid's lap!!! And every girl screamed, haha. I only took video of one class.... and though my second grade freak out was much, much funnier, it's also a classic.

Enjoy below. Ah, the delights of teaching.

Volley Ballin'

Every Wednesday I play volleyball in the school gymatorium (gym + auditorium) with all of the teachers at my school.  By no means is anyone particularly "good," they all kind of either run from the ball (see: the little ladies) or completely wail on it (me, and the men, haha). Every time I hit the ball at all, they are amazed. They always say, "Mandi you are so strong!"

I told them to "look mean." From left to right: Vice Principal, music teacher, science, korean, social studies, groundskeeper, me, secretary, cook, math teacher.... best friends!

The gang: vice principal, music, korean, science, social studies, gym, groundskeeper, secretary, cook, math, english (ellen)

Today we had a lot of fun. In the past, it's gotten a little too competitive, and I didn't really have so much fun. But today, there was a lot of laughing and joking. I hammed it up, did some cartwheels when I scored a point, and everyone screamed in laughter. When I missed a spike (hah!) I pretended to be dead on the ground and everyone screamed even louder. It was fun today. Everyone was too lazy to keep score so we just played for like two hours, then ate a delicious meal of fried pork

"Mandi.... watch me"

I told him to "be funny." hahaa

In very sad news, today, two of my students, a brother and a sister, stole money from another student (about 20 bucks) and hopped on a bus to Masan, about an hour away. They ran away because their mom ditched them at some boarding house last year (very common actually), moved to Masan with her new boyfriend, and never came back for them. They haven't seen or heard from her in over a year. Today in computer class, the boy found a picture of her online and began to cry, because he missed her. No one is exactly sure when they got away or if they really did go to Masan, it's just speculation, but they were gone after lunch. The police and the boarding school were called and everything. Just, really sad stuff.


More soon,
<3 M

Hallo-wee!

As a reward to my students for doing well on their speaking/listening exam last week, and as a general nod to "teaching about Halloween," I'm showing The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror (with Korean subtitles) and eating snacks in my afterschool classes today. And, those are my only two classes.

Haha. Today is a good day. Sometimes teaching is awesome.

Busan Fireworks Festival Trip

Weekends in Korea are definitely 80% of what makes living here worthwhile. This weekend was no exception. Saturday morning nine friends and I made our way to Busan (about 90 minutes on the bus) for the annual fireworks festival.

Out of the almost two months I have been here, it has rained about twice. So of course, the weekend we're supposed to travel to another city to watch fireworks, it pours. It rained all night Friday night, and when we left on Saturday morning it was pouring. We were unsure if the fireworks would even be held, but we decided to try anyway and made it to Busan right after lunch. 

Busan is an awesome city. It's bustling, there are so many foreigners walking around on the streets that if you didn't know any better, you might just think you were in K-Town in L.A. There's just so much to see there, and in my opinion, far more "foreigner friendly" than Jinju. It's so huge, but really clean and so easy to navigate via subway. I will definitely be going back soon.

Since it was raining, we checked into our luxury hostel (really, the nicest one I've ever stayed at!) and walked through a maze of fish vendors, where we saw some of the most disgusting "food" available to mankind. One "fish," called gaebul is one of the more horrifying things I've seen in my life (I'll spare you the photos... but it if you're curious, google images has a plethora of sites devoted to this vile creature. Sick.), and seeing it crawling around made my stomach churn, but apparently sells like hot cakes around here!! De-licious.

After that appetizing treat, we headed to a delicious lunch at an authentic Mexican place, "The Fuzzy Navel," then to the biggest shopping center "in the world," (really.... there's a Guinness Book of World Records Plaque there... weird) called Shinsaegae. It's endless floors of entertainment: an ice skating rink, a cinema, an insane food court, and multitudes of stores, from Gap, Nike and New Balance to Fendi, Prada and Tiffany's.

outside....

...and inside.

We spent a couple of hours walking through the center, and by the time we were through, the rain stopped!! It was fireworks time.

So we headed toward Gangwali beach, kind of unsure what to expect. It had just gotten dark, but it was still so warm! We barely needed jackets. The fireworks festival goes on for about ten days: Saturday night was the international competiton, and we were going to see choreographed displays from China, Japan, USA, Poland (?), and of course, Korea. There were probably thousands of people there. The beach was packed with almost no room to move, and the ten of us crammed on to two mats to sit and watch. The USA went first, and used a bunch of Guns N' Roses songs, which went over quite well with the crowd, haha. Everyone else had weird dramatic classical music, I think Japan used the Pirates of the Carribbean soundtrack, haha. 

The little video above (which I think is China) certainly can't do what I saw justice, but it will give you some idea about the choreography. It was great. It was incredible, actually. It was, hands down, the most amazing fireworks display I've ever seen. We all sat there like little kids just, in complete awe. Jaws agape. It lasted about an hour, and each finale was better than the last. (Poland ended up winning.... who would have thought?!?!)

me, Eve, CR, Morgan, Shannon, Aine, Eoin, and Annie on the beach after it cleared out a bit.
(We're missing Gareth and Sarah, who were taking the pictures)

So after an hour of sitting on the beach watching amazing fireworks, we kind of felt like celebrating!! So.... we headed back toward our hostel and went to an Irish bar, "The Wolfhound." We had a couple of drinks and just to be silly, I started dancing by myself, haha.... soon, CR joined me, and then the entire bar (Koreans included!) joined in and we had a full fledged, sweaty, out of control, 2+ hour dance party, complete with a soul train, it was crazy! There was lots of laughing, screaming and sweating. My dance partner was a big Korean buy who spoke almost no English, we were a good team and had a great time, haha. My cup runneth over, everyone was smiling and laughing so much. Haha. I slept REALLY well last night.

This morning we got an awesome Western-style breakfast and came back, happy, exhausted, and achy, to Jinju.

me, Aine, Eve, Gareth, CR and Annie loving life and devouring egg sammies with forks and knives at Brizz Burn's.

I'm so lucky! I'm having fun! 

More pictures coming soon! <3M

Look at your knuckles

Look at your knuckles. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys.... the theme of my autumn it seems..... though less extreme than before. One day I make small strides towards being understood and being comfortable. The next day, it seems I fight to keep the ground I just covered the day before. It is in turns encouraging and crushing.

I've had a good couple of days. Yesterday was such a good day. I got a package from my mom, which included a giant bag of sour patch kids and a french press (with two varieties of real coffee!). I was beside myself with excitement to go home and use it. This morning I enjoyed the strongest, blackest mud you can imagine, and I loved it. It's a little taste of home.

Today I was in the bathroom after lunch and there were three other teachers brushing their teeth in there. My teacher was one of them and when she saw me go to wash my hands, she said, "Mandi.... you have such good hygeine!"
..... What! haha

Here's a little preview at how dramatic my kids are sometimes. They are crazy! The assignment below was to color a freaking picture of Peter Rabbit. We had just learned about Beatrix Potter and watched/read the story together on Youtube (I know.... kind of a lame lesson for middle schoolers, but alas, I must abide by the book sometimes). So anyway. COLOR A FREAKING PICTURE OF PETER RABBIT! Not difficult, haha.

It says, "Justice blooming in the blood and black place." WTF?!
When I graded this paper, I first of all, laughed, then began to worry.
I wrote, "Nani (Boy's name), WTF? Weirdo. A+"

Scene: 6:59 AM. Saturday morning.
Crew of men building a building apx. 20 feet from where I lay my head.
Notice: power saw, loud tools, etc.
Me: crying/breaking things

More soon,
<3 M

Let's Beat Some Kids Up!

Today was a good day at school.
The kids were very well behaved to the point of being cute and nice again. It was great! We laughed together, they listened to my directions, and actually followed through! I didn't have to yell! It was such a nice change of pace.

Then I learned why....
Corporal Punishment still exists in my school. Yes, that's right. In a fit of frustration, I told my teacher yesterday afternoon who the big problem makers were in my class (Bob and Big Georgie). They were causing other students to be bad as well, students who were normally good. She told me that they cause problems in almost every other class as well (so it's not just me) and told me the situation would be taken care of.

After lunch this afternoon, I walked in to my office to see her and the history teacher standing in the corner of the room with bamboo rods in their hands, and two boys kneeling in front of them. The teachers smacked the boys on the face and shoulders about 10 times, and then they ran from the room crying.

Umm.... OMG?!?

I didn't really know what to say.... I've definitely felt like punching these kids in the heads before (see: yesterday's post! haha) but after it kind of happened, I feel pretty guilty. I guess I kind of feel like a rat for telling her about these kids but I honestly didn't know what else to do. Is corporal punishment ok? I don't want them to obey me because they are afraid of the bamboo rod! I want them to enjoy my class and have fun and practice their conversation skills!

Can't wait to watch Beauty and the Beast and eat crepes with my friends tonight!

It's been a hard week.

Yesterday I played volleyball with the teachers at my school for the first time, which I was initially excited about. That quickly faded when I realized how competitive this game is for them. I am not a naturally competitive person, and by no means do I have anything remotely close to talent in the sport; I just wail on the ball whenever it comes close to me, and whatever happens after that is up to fate. My co-teachers do not think this is the right way to live. They were constantly yelling commands at me (in Korean) and showing me over, and over, and over, and over how to "correctly" play. There was a lot more yelling and disappointment than laughter and cheering. I just went to show that I'm a "team player" and join in the camaraderie. By some miracle my team won 3 games out of 5 (5 games of volleyball equated to about two hours) and I did a high kick and ran down a row of high fives and they all screamed in laughter. They also insisted I come back and play next week. And.... I don't think I can say no.

My kids have taken a turn toward bratty all of the sudden and have shown even less interest in listening to what I have to say. Normally this doesn't upset me, but for some reason I've been sensitive these past few days. One boy in particular, "Bob," will say things in Korean and the other kids in the class will laugh. This makes me think they are making fun of me. It's disruptive and disrespectful. So today I kicked him out of class and made him do laps around the track (exercise is punishment here). I'm getting through it, but sometimes I really just want to punch some of them.
Teaching middle school is a little bit like serving tables, in the sense that sometimes, you just have to take it on the chin and move on.

I also got my hair cut for the first time in Korea today. I was very nervous (and for good reason). I went to a shop right around the corner from my house that had an English sign out front (Mrs. Ha's Beauty Salon) in hopes of the hairdresser being able to communicate with me a little. Sadly, no dice. She undid the clip in my hair and immediately began to screech and wail and yank on my hair (from what I can understand, I think she was despairing at how much hair I have and yanking on it to see if there were any extensions in there, haha). I had to mime how much to cut off, and she eventually called a second girl over to help in the cutting. All in all, it was ok, and since they know me now, I will go back when needed.

Tomorrow is Friday, and that is great news.

Hahoe Folk Village!

This weekend was so, so amazing. There are so many great pictures I want to put up here....
Anyway!
We left at sunrise on Saturday morning to go to Andong, about a four hour journey and two busses north into the countryside of Korea. We first arrived in downtown Andong, where the center of the festival was. There were hundreds of people, and so many foreigners! There was plenty to do there, a lot of food and mask contests, but we really wanted to get to the folk village as quickly as possible, so we maybe spent an hour downtown looking at the different things.

fun in hanbok

The children's mask contest, all handmade out of plaster and hand painted! There were dozens

Hah

We then hopped on ANOTHER bus that was completely jam packed and headed to the Andong Hahoe Folk Village, about 40 minutes further. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking there, so peaceful and still.

Andong Hahoe Folk Village

Traditional mask

Since there are no hotels in this town, we had to figure out a solution, and quickly, since not many busses go to and from the Hahoe village. We walked around a bit through the village, had some drinks and snacks, and eventually found what is called a minbak. This is essentially an empty room in someone's house that they rent out to visitors for cheap. You sleep on mats on the floor, which is heated. We got ours for 80,000 won (which was a really good rate to split five ways!!) We were extra lucky, because the lady of the house also cooked us a delicious traditional meal, which was incredible spicy chicken, kimchi, sweet potato stalks, rice, potatoes, carrots, and seaweeed. It was awesome.

The communal village: each little thatch house has an absolutely AMAZING specialized garden. There was tons of fresh vegetables, lush fruit trees, and flowers everywhere I looked. The people are only too happy to share what they have.

Sitting next to the river and a 180 foot cliff. We actually saw several sturdy ropes strung across the river, which you can't see in this picture. We thought they were for zip lining and we got so excited to try it! We asked a guy who manned a skiff if it was possible to zip line today, and he was like, "WTF?!" and then explained to us that the ropes were to be used in a fireworks show. At this point we had no idea what that meant, but we were pretty bummed about not being able to zip line, haha. 

All of the architecture was made for hobbits!

We then sat on the beach at nightfall and were seriously awestruck by the traditional Korean fire show.
It's hard to tell from this video, which doesn't do it justice AT ALL, but here's what happens: First what you'll see is several ropes are strung across the river up to the top of the cliff. There are hundreds of charcoal bags hanging from the ropes, and when lit, they produce sparks. When they are all lit, it looks like the sparks are raining down to the earth into the river, so magical!!! It was completely mesmerizing. (However, we all walked through the sparks (good luck?) and wound up completely covered in ash, haha.)

Second is a boat in the river with masked dancers aboard, guiding "spirit" river lanterns downstream.

Third is a very traditional "fireworks" show, which is quite literally, someone lighting huge chunks of wood on fire at the top of a 180 foot cliff, then throwing them off the cliff. Haha. It was amazing. This is what you hear, when the woman in the background is saying, "Gda, deu, mai..." then the kids scream "DROP FIRE!!!"

After this, there were traditional fireworks that we all know (which were actually amazing, but since you all know what those look like I didn't feel the need to include those on video). After that, we walked around in search of a snack. We went to a little restaurant at the edge of town, which was actually full of foreigners, haha. We got traditional savory Korean pancakes and makali, a (disgusting) fermented rice milk drink. We also bought some beers to go and headed back for the beach.

The beach was almost completely deserted at that time, but the rope fireworks were still going, four hours later!!! It was amazing, like our own private show. CR, Aine and Gareth gathered wood and built this lovely fire for us and we told scary stories for a few hours.

After that, we hit the floor, haha. We woke up early today and went back to the festival downtown, then made the long journey back. It was incredible! I'm so happy that I was able to enjoy it.

More soon!!
<3 M

A Short History of Andong

This weekend the usual suspects and I will travel to Andong, a small, ancient mountain city, also known as "The Capital of Korean Spiritual Culture," about four hours north, to witness the annual Andong Hahoe International Mask Dance Festival. (It's festival season) It's exactly like what it sounds: people wearing creepy elaborately painted masks, ala "Eyes Wide Shut," acting out simple plays and dancing to traditional Korean music, which, if you've ever heard before.... can be a little jarring on the ears.
So.... why would I want to go there?

BACKSTORY:

The city, as proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited there in 1999, was called "the most Korean place in Korea."It's one of the only populated places left in Korea that hasn't been touched by skyscrapers, advertisements, and busy roads.

During the Korean war, pretty much everything in the country was destroyed. Andong is special because it's also one of the very few places left in Korea that still has what they call "Joseon period style architecture" (which basically means small huts made of natural materials, including thatch and bamboo, with stereotypically asian looking downward bowing rooftops). There is still a strong connection between people and land here, and the festival dances are meant to bless the rice harvest. Through the years dances have been done as a kind of political commentary, or to connect with spirits.

This might not sound special, but Korea has a very long history of being trampled on and destroyed (mostly by the Japanese). But when the country was rebuilt in after the war, they built everything in the new style. Pretty much overnight (by the mid 1970s), new metropolises sprang up and people rushed in from the country in record numbers. It was a near complete shift in society, from being 90% rural to about 80% urban. Soon, the newest generation born had never really known an agrarian society (including my co-teacher, whose parents moved to a newly built Jinju in 1971).

I guess it would be comparable to.... say, after the American Civil War, the country was completely destroyed, not just a few dozen battlefields, but completely, including every single city. Imagine if, within 15 years of that happening, the country had fully industrialized and had just one or two buildings left from the American Revolutionary period.

That's basically what happened in Korea, but they lost a lot more than 250 years of history. More like, 2,000 years. That's why it's so important to Korean people to preserve this tradition- because it is quite frankly the last part of Korea that's right out of a history book.


Well, all of that, and the food is good.
Pictures coming soon!

even more culture shock

A few more observations:

Over the past few days, I've noticed a lot of Koreans clipping their nails in public. Why is it ok to do this, but not ok to blow your nose in public?! When I am out and about, the sound of the streets, cars, people, dogs, club jams, whatever, can be DEAFENING, and I will immediately be able to pick the sound of nail clippers out, that's how much it bothers me. It's like nails on a chalkboard. It makes me want to fly in a rage when I am on the bus and a man sitting beside me is clipping away with a keychain clipper (in a perfect world, those should not even exist). Hello, I'm sitting next to you sir, trying to read Game of Thrones, but I can't even concentrate because I'm so disgusted I want to puke! Even more so when I'm at my desk and TWO people in the room are clipping their nails. Disgusting! I'm shielding myself from tiny bits of nail flying at my face. Go away! Do this at home!

I've decided Koreans have some pretty weird rules governing what is appropriate. For instance, it's totally appropriate to brush your teeth in public, anywhere, anytime. My students walk through the halls at school brushing their teeth. I got off the bus yesterday and saw two young girls brushing their teeth walking around downtown. Weird? My friends Gareth and Aine work at a school with very young kids, where there is one communal toothbrush for the kids to use whenever they feel like it. ONE toothbrush for a load of buggery children. GROSS.

Visible tattoos are not ok (though really only with the old folks... it seems the younger generation is more open minded about it).
Super dangly earrings are not ok. (They insinuate that a woman is a prostitute)

It's totally inappropriate for a woman to show any kind of cleavage or bare her shoulders; to do would also make people think she is a prostitute. However, it's totally ok to wear shorts/skirts so short they practically cover less than underwear.

I really want a pizza and a rootbeer float today.

Lite Brite City

This weekend was the lantern festival, and it was beautiful. To kick things off, my friends and I ate dinner together at a Shabu Shabu restaurant (the big soup pot) and stuffed our faces full of meat and vegetables. We made our way down to the water around 7:00. For a trip that normally takes 5-10 minutes by bus, it took 45..... and there were 80% more people on the bus. It was crazy! We finally arrived and while we were getting drinks, the fireworks began. The four of us from the states sang the national anthem, I began a "USA! USA!" chant, Koreans were confused, I liked it though.


Then we walked around the festival. It was cart after cart of hot delicious street food, drinks, and crafts for sale, which was awesome. My friend Sarah and I went to go to the bathroom, and while we were waiting we got our Chi realigned by some volunteer monks who were healing people. It was kind of weird and cool, they just moved their hands around our heads and backs and made a weird whooshing sound the whole time. I liked it.

The same dragons? Yes

You may be asking yourself: is Santa really holding a cross? Yes, yes he is.

Anyway, the lanterns! There was a floating bridge that you could walk across the river on, that's how people were able to take good pictures of the lanterns. It's going on until next Saturday, so I'll definitely be going back. Here's some more pics:

The best ones were definitely the interactive lanterns- with moving parts, etc. I loved this one!!! 

A view from one bridge

Interactive mixing bunnies? Ok!

Handmade prayer lanterns underneath the walkway

Leaping winged tiger!

Anyway, you kinda get the idea. It was great! It was kind of cold so we left around 1.
Yesterday CR hosted a dinner & movie party for us- he made jambalaya, I made cornbread, Gareth & Aine made delicious nachos, and Sarah and Jess brought ice cream cake!!! We drank wine and watched A Streetcar Named Desire (the movie version this time) and all in all had a wonderful time together.
Yay for a great weekend!!!