I'm back with a week full of thoughts just for my lovely audience. I'll begin by wishing everyone a very wonderful Shana Tovah, I hope your New Years have all had great beginnings, I know mine has despite battling a sore throat. Some things I definitely missed out on were Charlotte's brisket, along with all the other delicious side dishes; since we moved to Minneapolis, the 1st night of Rosh Hashanah is a evening that is always circled on my calendar because of the many culinary delights that are always to be had at the Bermans. Of course I also miss Rosh Hashanah meals with Bubba and the Wolfish side of the family and with Bubbie and Papa and the Winston family. This year I celebrated the High Holidays differently than in the past but it was still a very nice, enjoyable, and spiritual celebration.
On Saturday, part of our Madison group made the trek from our homes to Dobongsan, a mountain in northeast Seoul that is a popular destination for hikers. I was very excited for the hike; the last time I went on a legitimate hike was in Israel back in high school. We started our ascent around 11:30 am and along the way we stopped at a Buddhist temple about halfway up the mountain, which was really neat. There were a lot of hikers who stopped to meditate and pray and the temple had a stone basin filled with fresh spring water for all to drink. It was nice break from the challenging hike. We continued up the mountain and stopped for lunch about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. I brought along an apple (no honey unfortunately) in honor of the holiday and with our newfound energy we made our final climb to the peak. The last stretch of the hike was literally equivalent to scaling the mountain up to the top where the claustrophobic were not welcome. There were probably close to 100 people in a very restricted space, all snapping pictures. The hike up was definitely challenging and tough on the legs but well worth the view from the top. The way down was almost as much fun as going up, getting secure footing was very difficult! In addition to our timidness, the Korean hikers were over zealous in their abilities and would leap over you on the narrow path if you paused for a second (Don't worry Mom, I'm definitely taking you on this hike when you come). We finished our hike around 4:30 pm and that night we went to Hongdae to celebrate Mika's birthday with the majority of our Madison group and it was nice catching up with everyone and comparing our experiences so far.
Last Wednesday I had my first Korean class which was great. It was 2 hours and by the end I felt semi-confident in my ability to read Korean. It's a phonetic language, which makes it much easier when learning to read. I have a short week of teaching this week because of orientation from Wednesday-Friday, but I'm ok with that. Unfortunately that means I'm missing the school production of "The Sound of Music" on Friday, but I was lucky enough to get my own special performance last week. Not quite Broadway, but almost at camp play levels, which is pretty impressive.
In other good news, I finally got a cell phone and a stable internet connection in my apartment so I'm now free to Skype, which is great as Mom and Dad and Bubbie and Papa can attest to. My cell # is 010-4917-1103, but I would recommend Skype if you want to talk since it's free! I've also reached the middle of the letter H of all the songs on my iPod. I was inspired by Dad to try this out; as I type this I'm listening to "Heaven and Hell" by The Who. I'm glad to see the Vikings are 2-0 and that the Twins put up a fight against the Tigers over the weekend, hopefully they'll be able to catch them by the end of the month. That's all from here, enjoy the pics!
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