SNOW DAY!!!

This past Monday we got a wonderful surprise.  The best.  The most amazing surprise.

We had Winter Vacation Wed through the weekend and none of us were looking forward to getting back to work, but Monday, we woke up, got ready for work, and the most incredible thing happened:

At about 1:30 I have to get on my bus to get to work.  This is what happened at about 12.  The snow flakes were huge...

...but I really didn't think that they would stay.  Hoped, but I mean, come on.

By the time I started walking to my bus stop (I left myself an hour and a half to get to work) this is how it looked.

The church near my bus stop.

The road I walk from my apartment to the bus stop.  Beautiful, isn't it?

 I SHOULD have taken a picture of the street.  I've never in my life seen traffic like that.  Not even in Detroit.  I waited for a bus that I could literally see for 30 minutes.  Got on.  Waited 15 minutes and my co worker Mac got on the same bus at the same stop.  Still, no word from work about whether anything was happening, so we got on and hoped that we would get there before we were scheduled to get off that night.

On the way to work.  We were stopped dead.  I finished a novel.  From the beginning.  Okay, not really.  Still no word.

At this point we tried to call, tried to text, to at least let them know that we KNEW we were going to be criminally late.  But, nothing.

So, I kept snapping pictures.  Eventually we called someone else and she told us that classes were cancelled until 5, so that we needed to be there at 4.  We had been on the bus for an hour already and weren't even close to halfway there.

 Lindie called during this time to tell me that her classes were cancelled, which was amazing because she had never touched snow in her life, or seen it snowing, so she deserved a snow day for sure.  Especially one as exquisite at this one was!!

Stuck, stuck, stuck.  Now what.  I know!  Take pictures!  :-P

 So, Mac and I got off the bus and decided to forget it, we were going home, there was no way that they were going to be able to have classes later in the day! It was snowing HUGE snowflakes and was just TOO amazing a day to worry about it.  So, we grabbed a cab and headed home.

The blue sign over there is my apartment building.  Ahh, snow.

Here's the school that they're building across the street from my apartment and my little town.  Look at that snow!!  It never stopped!

My coworker Mac and I at an intersection waiting to get home and out in the snow.  We would worry about getting back to work later.

 Then, this wonderful thing happened.  I was on the way to the park with Lindie when Mac called and said that classes were cancelled.  I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped up and down and screamed like a little kid.  And in keeping with the theme, Lindie and ran off to the park to greet the snow like proper six year olds on Christmas :-)

SNOW!!

We didn't make him, but he was the first one we met, so we had to take a picture with him.

The park in the snow was amazingly gorgeous.  The snow got a little thin for a while but then started absolutely dumping.  Of course, my camera ran out of batteries before then.  It's so good at doing that.  :-)

People were in such a good mood walking around the lake in this lovely snow.

:-)

The stadium and the swan boats.  In the snow.  Look at that sky!  It's still got another 12 hours of snow in it!!

Beautiful, isn't it?

SNOW PIC!  My camera died right after this, and we walked the rest of the way around the lake and went off to buy some more batteries.  By the time we got there, though, we decided we were absolutely starving to death so we went hunting for food.  But not before we got in a short interview with the new snow bunny.

Did you catch her trying to catch snow flakes on her tongue?  :-)  ha!

Look at those snowflakes!

This is Lindie going "Jean, I'm starving.  Stop taking stupid pictures!"  :-)

This little creek that divides our little town.

 We went to our favorite chicken place but they were closed, so we went to the one across the street, which is also good.  All we knew was we needed chicken.  And lots of it.

The poor panda bear was exhausted.

Lots of chicken!  Those white things, little rice cakes, are amazing.  I don't really know why, those are deep fried and salty and I'm absolutely addicted to them.  That was like popcorn chicken, then there was bbq chicken, yummy kabob chicken, and really spicy chicken that Lindie had to eat all of.  :-)

We were starving.  S.T.A.R.V.I.N.G.

 While we were on the lake I told Lindie about how when I was little mom used to make snow ice cream and the absolute best home made hot chocolate, and chili on snowy days.  So, Lindie decided she was going to make dinner (that lovely girl is always feeding me when I'm nostalgic!)  :-)  She had some wonderful plan, so we went to the grocery store to get some supplies, then took a nap for a couple of hours (during which it continued to snow like crazy) and then met up again later to make some food.  Lindie Grace, trooper that she is, made dinner for FIVE people in my little kitchen!

Potatoes.  Everything good begins with potatoes.   

I did a bad thing.  While I was waiting for Lindie, I ate her cookie.  A Christmas cookie.  It was fantastic.  I felt really bad, but I did it.  And then I made her feed me.  I'm a bad person.  But, she got me back:

I was stabbed to death shortly after this.  Okay, so she didn't make me pay at all.  I am still waiting for the punishment.

Starting to smell amazing.

Mac and Chris arrived, and I left to go get some Coke and stuff to drink, because I had nothing, and it was so pretty outside, so guess what?!  I took more pictures!

Still snowing hard!

This is the road I walk down every day I go to Korean, need to get anything in town, or need to go to Family Mart, which has 24 hour service for any of your snaking needs.

Pretty, right? :-)

This would all be ice by the next day.  Whoops!  But it's pretty now!

 Lindie made chili pies, which was mashed potatoes on the bottom, meat with really yummy homemade sauce, beans, tomatoes, and, the secret ingredient, a LOT of cheese!
She put everything into little tins and baked each of them in this tiny little toaster oven.  Fantastic.

She's by far the youngest of all of us, but she's always taking care of us :-)

Awesome.

Albert, Chris, and Mac.  And my apartment.  Can't bear to part with the Christmas lights. . .

Dinner on the heated floor.  Good times :-)

Delicious!  :-)

Good times.  :-)

 We ate our lovely dinner and then headed out to play in the snow.  It was already like 11 at night and we were pretty sure that we would actually have to work the next day, but we needed a little more time in the snow.  So, we went.

A snowman I built while my friends were having a hard core snowball fight near the cars. . .and getting threatened by the cops :-)  Lindie actually stole this whole snowman and hid him.  I don't know how she did it without breaking him.  Very funny, Gracie.  :-)

We just went from one place to another, playing on whatever was there and  kept up one huge snowball fight.

Photo Op!

Lindie about to absolutely slay Chris.  :-)

This is how much it snowed in one day!  Amazing!  Apparently it hasn't snowed like this in Ulsan in like, a  million years.

Snow on the fake palm trees in front of a house near my apartment.  Thought it was entertaining.

 Then we found a soccer field, with basically an infinite amount of snow, so we made a really big snow man.  Awesome.  And had another snow ball fight.  Then, it was time to defrost and go to sleep.

He was standing in a goal, he was our little snow goalie :)

Goodnight, snowy Mugeo-Dong.  :-)  Thanks for an awesome snow!

New Year's Break, more or less.

There were no big vacations, or anything like that, but it was a really nice chance to relax and try to get over this cold.  It was nice to just chill, we found a couple of new places to hang out, and had some fun.  Ate a lot of McDonald's, a lot of chicken, some more McDonald's, pizza and pasta.

First, here are some highlights, thanks to Lindie's Polaroid camera :-)

Everything from our first trip to Seoul to Christmas up on the wall :-)

Good times.  

 My first day off was Wednesday.  Tuesday night, after work, there was a work party.  We had some lovely pork and it was a lot of fun. I left early, which I felt bad about, but I literally fell asleep in the cab and then again on Lindie's warm floor :-)  I couldn't have stayed out anyway, it was the end :-)
So, Wednesday I slept in very late, then went home to clean my apartment, pack up all the Christmas decorations and relax.  That night we all decided that we needed to try something new, so we met up and went to a game room (I was in the mood for an arcade) it had a 4D theater and we just thought we would give it a try.  We walked in at almost midnight and we were the only ones in there.  The owner was a sweetheart.  We chose a 4D ride, a roller coaster, which was really fun, just a little thing for about  4 or 5 people, but really cool.  He also had a couple of target shooting games, some crane games, and two little singing rooms.  We did everything.  Albert won a Hello Kitty Zippo lighter in a crane game, and Lindie tried her hardest to win this huge stuffed pig.  The owner came over and gave us some free drinks and saw that Lindie was trying to win this thing, she had the table covered in change, and we were feeding the machine while she was working the controls.  He came over a few minutes later with two stuffed toys and gave them to us :-)
Then we took turns in the little singing rooms.  Three songs for about a dollar, can't beat that (especially when you don't actually feel like singing for a whole hour.)  We sang Zombie, of course, and That's Not My Name, and some other things :-)
Then we played the shooting game, which he let us play for free for a long time.  We all played against each other, including the owner, and it was awesome.  He was so much fun.  We were there for a while before we found out that he actually closed at midnight.  He let us stay at least an hour after he closed and in the meantime played games with us and gave us free stuff.  Too sweet.

Then we ran into some cool people, and hung out with them until they left for their ski trip at 6am. . .long night.

Needless to say, Thursday we did nothing.

Nothing.

Just watched movies.

Friday, New Years Eve, we decided to meet up for lunch, go to that same arcade for a little while and then meet Ted for a game room.  It was very, very cold, and we didn't really feel like being outside, but we knew we should get out and do something, so that was the plan.  So, Lindie and I met for pasta, met Albert a bit later, and then met Ted at the arcade.  Ted is Lindie's new teacher, and he's really cool.  We watched some more 4D movies, played some more crane games, shooting games, and got more free stuff :-)

Ted and Lindie shooting some targets.  I forget who won this game. . .

 Then we went to a game room, which was more like a PC room than the game room that Lindie and I went to with Sun a while back.  There were TV's everywhere, two people played at a time, and EVERYONE was playing the new FIFA game.  Except us.  We were playing Tekken.

Lindie Grace and Ted.

With a stalker. . . . . . 

They were killing each other. :-)

I started out royally kicking Albert's butt, but he eventually turned it all around.  I think Lindie and I were the only girls in there and everyone knew it when we got beaten.  :-)

Then we went to a place called Haze where all the foreigners go in our town where we were going to meet some people to go to a singing room.  We played some darts, danced, took a lot of pictures (polaroids) and I went home pretty quickly after midnight while everyone else went to another town to find some more people. Party pooper, I know but I was really tired.

The next day we did nothing.  I went over to Lindie's after I woke up and we watched Scrubs and movies all day.  We got McDonald's, of course, like more McDonald's than we had ever ordered, but I didn't get a picture of the feast this time.  About 2 in the morning I was starving to death and you know what that sweet little friend of mine did?  She got up and made dinner.  Lovely pasta.  Just like that.  She's the best :-)

Lindie making dinner at 2am for her poor starving friend (who apparently had broken both of her arms and couldn't feed herself)

 So, that leaves today.  Today, we got up late and went to go get something to eat.  For some reason, everything was closed.  Everything.  Except Mr. Pizza :-)  And Mr. Pizza has a salad bar (awesome!) so here's what Mr. Pizza pizza looks like :-)

Albert's Hawaiian pizza with regular crust.  Yum. No corn or potatoes included!!

My "Secret Garden" pizza. . .

. . .with a cream cheese crust!  That's all just baked cream cheese!!  Good looking pizza though, right?  :-)

Lindie's "Mr. Pizza's Special" pizza with stuffed crust.  Awesome.

When they pack up your pizza, they make it look like a little present :-)  how cute is that??

This is one of the very few places that will let you have free refills on your soda, so we took FULL advantage!  :-)

Cheese :-)

 Then we went back to the game room to play more Tekken (so cheap!) and then we went back to the arcade to shoot some more stuff :-)  Here's what it looks like.

Both of the little singing rooms and the photo booth that we used the first night, and a couple of the game machines.

Lindie and Albert winning some stuff :-)

Free soda :-)

Lindie and Albert, winning more lighters and other wonderful prizes :-)

So, that's about all of our break.  Lots of rest.  Lots of eating.  Lots of games :-)  Good times.  So, that's about all there is too it :-)