Jeju V-ball tournament!

We had an exciting full 2-day v-ball tournament this past weekend! There were about 25 teams, each with 6 players (half female, half male). This means there were 150 v-ball players, foreigners and Koreans, in addition to a bunch of people that came to the beach just to watch and cheer everyone on. So many people all on one beach!

Keith and I played on the same team with four other Jeju friends (Kyla, Brittany, Jason and Collin). We played pretty well. We won some, lost some...pretty much just had fun though and hung out with a lot of good friends! The weather was perfect both days....not too hot, but sunny and warm. People camped out (we don't have a tent yet so next time we'll be camping!), and there was music, food, drinks, bands, raffles, games, etc. all weekend!


The first day we had to get there 7:30am, because games started right at 8! We left the tournament that day around 7pm and headed off to the hospital to visit our friend and neighbor Mike. He had to get surgery on his foot and was supposed to be a player on our team, so we visited him to try and cheer him up.

The next day we got there by 8:30 am and we won our first 3 games, but then lost our next two games against some really good teams. We stayed to watch the final teams compete, and then stuck around for the big raffle.

Keith bought many raffle tickets in hopes of winning the grand prize- a very nice surfboard. Although he didn't win, he DID win 2 $20 (20,000 won) gift certificates to Outback Steakhouse, which is a delicacy here. After the tournament ended around 8:30pm Sunday night, we headed there and had a HUGE water-watering feast!! YUM!

We were both EXHAUSTED after the fun weekend. We'll probably continue this v-ball tournament tradition and play again for the next one in the fall. Can't wait!

Wedding photo shoot

What an amazing and interesting day this was.

Let's start with Friday, the day before the big photo shoot. This was Buddha's b-day so no school/ a free day off!
>I got my nails done, French Manicure with tips.
>Keith and I prepared some of our favorite marriage/love quotes to be put into the book.
>We rested up and got lots of sleep before the big photo shoot day.


The day of the wedding shoot...


My co-teacher, Eun Mi Lee, picked us up at 8:30am (so early!) and took us to the photo shop. The ladies are all really nice there and although they don't speak much English, which is why my wonderful co-teacher assisted us throughout the day, the ladies were fun and made sure to make us laugh! They spent about 2 hours doing my makeup and hair! They even bought hair extensions just for me from Seoul, in order to match my color. I'm glad they did this because it made my hair longer and gave them more options of fancy hair-dos. Keith's makeup and hair (lol) took a total of about 2 minutes to do! :) But it was fun having him sit next to me, while we were being pampered and all dressed up. I felt like a little princess!

After we were all set and ready to go, we headed out (in the rain unfortunately) and got into a car, which then took us to the studio we had chosen for our photo scenes. The next hour or so was waiting around while the photographers and my co-teacher were discussing the issue with the rain and the possibilities we had, since half of our photos were outdoor scenes.

We ended up going ahead and doing some of the outdoor scenes (they can change the sky with photoshop:). We used umbrellas at times and just had to deal with the rain. We honestly felt like real models, since we had to do whatever it took to get good photos!

Some of the scenes were on the studio's rooftop, and the photographers improvised some scenes around the city area where we were at. One was in front of a pretty Italian-looking cafe, while another was in a shoe shop. I won't give any more away. It will be all a big surprise when we get our photo book.

All in all, I got to wear 7 different dresses, with different hair-dos, jewelry, accessories and shoes each time, and Keith wore about 5 different outfits....no new hair-dos for him though! :) We had probably about 20 or more different scenes, and the whole experience was very fun! Although the day was very long! We were there from 9am-8:30 pm, and between changing locations from the photo shop to the studio and getting shots done with enough time, we didn't eat anything all day except for yogurt, some crackers and almonds! After the photo shoot we ran quickly over to our favorite restaurant, Zapatas, for some delicious Mexican food!

A week later (last friday), we went back to the studio and saw our professional photos and picked out the best ones for our photo book, picture frames and for our cd file that we get to keep. The photos look simply AMAZING!!!! I can't wait to show all of you! We get to pick up the book, frames and cd on July 9th, the day before our pre-wedding party here in Jeju. Perfect timing! For those of you back in Chicago area, you'll have to wait patiently until our wedding reception party on August 21st. I know I'll be tempted to put some of the photos onto facebook before then, but hopefully Keith will keep me from giving away the surprise until after our wedding!


Here are some photos that my co-teacher took for fun that day. We were lucky that the photographers let her take these because she is a really good photographer herself! Enjoy!

NANTA!!!

The most popular performance in Korea is NANTA, a cooking dance/music performance, similar to STOMP or Blue Man Group (back in America). I went Sunday night to the show with Keith and a big group of our friends. Tickets are usually expensive (around $50-$60), but since our friend Elizabeth's co-teacher was able to get us an incredible VIP section deal, it only cost $30.

It was hilarious and such an amazing show! The four main performers had so much energy and combined comedy scenes, such as being stuck in a trash can, to fighting over the beautiful female performer, to having a cook-off/ knife-off, and dance-off, etc. I wish I could explain the show better in detail, but I guess you'll just have to come to Korea and experience it for yourself!

People were even taken from the audience to be apart of some acts on stage. Since we had about 10 foreigners all sitting three rows back from the front, we weren't surprised when they chose our friend Kelly to go up. She was able to try a soup dish that the performers made and had a "pretend marriage" with the other male guest from the audience. It was pretty funny to watch and our friend Kelly was able to bring home a little souvenir (a small package of cornmeal and a NANTA keychain).