Birthday Weekend

I have officially had a birthday in a foreign country. Though I wasn't able to spend it with family and friends from back home, my friends here set up an evening of fun for me. While at work, I was given a list entitled "Picture Scavenger Hunt." This list comprised of 22 things that I had to do around Mokpo and take picture of. So I started. I would do one here, walk around for a little bit, find another one I could scratch off the list, etc. It was a lot of fun! Naomi and I met up with Amy, Lisa, and Paul, and continued in my pursuit to do all 22 things!

Lisa made the list. Here it is:

1. If only you could find Lee Min Ho (Korean celebrity)...
2. Find or make a calendar of August. Try to find someone else who has a birthday in August!
3. Find a really creative hiding place that you would use in a game of hide and seek.
4. Catch a bus and say a prayer!
5. Find a stage or platform. Put on a show and take a bow!
6. Find the most outlandish ring you can and try it on for size!
7. Strike the most peaceful, relaxed, and happy pose you can!
8. Find balloons and have a contest to see who can blow their balloon the biggest in one minute (we changed it to 10 seconds)
9. Bust a move
10. Find something that clearly represents Tokyo or London
11. Find something bouncy to jump on!
12. Have you seen any "Queen" Mary's in Mokpo?
13. Find a Korean teacher and snap a quick photo with them!
14. Create a maternity moment.
15. Decide on a "true" color and create something using only that color
16. Drum up a parade
17. Vogue.
18. Find something that has the word "funk" in it and snap a photo
19. Find a sign in Korean saying "Do not touch."
20. Let's see some creative "shadow" art
21. Give us your best poker face. Must include cards of some kind.
22. What are three things that you are dreaming of for this year? Find a way to make a list using pictures.

So I had quite a lot of work ahead of me. I'll just say right now that I didn't finish Thursday night. Hunger got in the way. And the need for a birthday cake. I won't post pictures here, because there would be too many. Check Facebook. Anywho, I had a lot of fun, but we started to get hungry. We hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we went to a restaurant and ordered a chicken dish. It was ginormous! (Facebook pics) It contained chicken, cabbage, potatoes, rice cakes, ramen, cheese, and a red pepper sauce. DELISH. Oh yeah, we had some quail eggs too. That was interesting. It was really just like a hard boiled egg, but smaller.

After dinner, I was led to Baskin Robbins, where I got to choose an ice cream cake! I decided on a chocolate cake with a vanilla center. It was quite scrumptious! We took it to a coffee house and ate it there while sipping delicious caffeine goodness. We may have let some of the ice cream get to us, because we pretty much laughed the rest of the night. Before we knew it, it was almost midnight, and we headed home. I still had 7 things left to do on the list, so we decided that I would have the weekend to finish it.

Saturday evening was girls' night in! Naomi, Lisa, Yung Suk, and I met at MaRee's apartment. MaRee made the best pumpkin spring rolls ever! Then again, I've never had them before. Yung Suk made a noodle dish that was excellent, and we also had some veggies courtesy of Naomi. Everything was so good and we were so full afterwards! MaRee also made rice krispies treats and cut up a bunch of fruit. I was full for the rest of the night! We played picture telephone and hilarity ensued. And I kicked butt in Bananagrams ^^. I didn't end up doing any more of my scavenger hunt list, so Sunday would have to count!

And it sure did. But I'll get there eventually. I got a call from Jay's (one of my students) mom, who invited me to lunch. I had already eaten, but she insisted, so I said yes. She as well as Sally (another student) and her mom picked me up and we went for coffee. They are so nice! I was invited to dinner at Mrs. Jay's (I have decided to call her that) house on Friday. I'm pretty excited.

I went to church, and afterwards I did another objective on the list. I put on a show and took a bow. That was fun. We headed to Smoothie King and chilled there until I went to the Catholic Mass. After that, I met back up with Lisa and we continued doing the scavenger hunt. There wasn't much left. After much walking, we decided that there are absolutely no bouncy things in Korea. Unless we bought some kind of bouncy ball, which we didn't feel like doing. So unfortunately, I did not complete 1 item from the list. But it's the only one! I'll get a ball sometime this week though and finish the list. Otherwise it was a great weekend that went by way too fast! I'm not ready for another week of work!


On a random note: I got a card from my mom and little bro! I was beyond excited when I got them at school. For serious. It was fantastic.

Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday!