Pedi-Egg Report

70 US cents well spent! Heels are on the road to recovery......probably need a few more scrubs with the egg before they are totally renewed, but it is amazing how well the little thing works. everyone should buy one. i would even recommend it at 9.99 USD which i think how much i saw them for at bed, bath and beyond when i was in the states this summer. go now........treat yourself!!!

more photos added....

check them out folks.....
click on my photos on the right....
fun shots!!!

xo
mandy

reason #126 that i love living in korea.....

shopping on the subway!!! paul and i were on our way home from ceramics on the subway when a subway vendor made his way to the middle of the car. yes, he was selling pedi-eggs! i could not believe it. i laughed. i tried to take a pic of him and his cart, but they did not come out. i did buy one though. i heard from TLC that it rocks. she loves hers. the only thing is i only paid 1,000 korean won for mine. with the current exchange rate i paid only 70 US cents for the pedi-egg today. yes, only 70 cents. BARGAIN! TLC eat your heart out. :) i cannot wait to try it out. totally a highlight of the day!

aaahhhhhh........

i went to a ceramics class today and it was amazing. everything my artsy being needed. paul and i left early and explored the area near the studio. we had lunch at the coffee/cafe place. the food was ok, ambience was cool, and the cappuccino was great.

i found the class through one of my student's moms. she teaches ceramics in the after school program on thursdays at SFS. when i found this out, i almost attacked her in the hallway with questions about art and classes. she emailed me this guy's information and about a month later here i am. class one behind me with two coffee mugs and three small elephants made. it was so fun and i had a great time just doing something artsy.

after class i met paul in a coffee shop and then we explored some for dinner. we chose a pizzeria paul read about online. pricey, but good.

it was a great day!

what a weekend.....

this weekend paul, jessica and i went to passion! it was awesome! friday night we left right after school and made our way across seoul to the olympic park where the event was. paul has a friend who hooked us up with wristbands for free. the musician for the night was chris tomlin and louie giglio spoke. the focus of the weekend was grace. louie's verse was 2 corinthian 5:21. it was good. the target audience for the passion tour is college students, so he spoke to them. i still got a lot from the talk. he used the analogy of regular TV and HDTV. how most people are watching regular TV with their faith, but when you understand grace with your heart life becomes like HDTV. it was good stuff. the worship was amazing. it started at 7:30pm and ended around 11pm, and we did not get home to the apartment until midnight-ish.

on saturday we left home at 7AM....yes, we got up early and made the trek across the city for day. the morning session began at 10am and the doors opened at 9am. we had to wait in line and then find seats. matt redman led the worship and the speaker was francis chan. he is from LA. it was good too. the verse here was from ephesians. he continued to speak about grace. that session ended to break for lunch. we had korean hamburgers and hung out in line. we were anxious to get better seats since the david crowder*band would be leading worship. i was pumped. jessica and i were the first ones in our line. they finally opened the doors at 1:30ish and jessica snagged fourth row seats this time. YEAH! the worhip was AWESOME! i love the crowder band. they are even better live!!! francis chan spoke again. about mid way through all three of us hit the wall......we were exhausted. totally worn out. after the second session there would be a longer break for dinner and we would need to wait in line yet again. so after discussing options we decided to head home. we got to see all three musicians and hear some good teaching and we all needed major naps.

it is amazing the movement that the passion tour has become. here are some things i made note of that louie giglio talked about---

• the college students and church in paris, france need major prayer. there are 700,000 university students in paris, but only 1,200 students came to the passion event. pray that God will use people to spread the good news there boldly.
• pray for tokyo, japan.....this is where the passion tour headed today. part of the passion deal is the people there pray for the next city on the tour. the interesting part about ours is the history between korea and japan. many koreans do not care for japan at all. this was a huge request for the koreans to pray for the japanese. so please pray for the koreans here, and the japanese students who will attend passion on the 12th and 13th.

it was a great weekend and i feel encouraged. it was so good to be able to worship and hear good stuff. here are some pics....

chris tomlin leading worship

louie giglio and his translator, benjamin

matt redman leading worship

paul and me

jessica and me in front of the stage

david crowder leading worship

david crowder's guitarist, jack parker, playing the rhodes piano....so fun!

Photos....

i have added photos to my flickr page...........check them out.
click on the "My Photos" to the right in the links section........

decisions, decisions....

the time is here to decide what we will do next year......stay? move?

after exploring some options to move to budapest, we have made the decision to stay in seoul another year. i sent out two letters with my resume to schools in budapest, but the doors aren't opening like i thought they might. we are okay with that and thought this might happen. we had decided to just put the idea out there and let God do the rest.

as of now, i am still seeking the art position. i am not sure what will happen, but would ask for prayers on this. i am okay with teaching fourth grade again, but would also enjoy trying art for a change.

at the moment, i am also kicking around the idea of working on a master's degree. there are many reasons, but need to lay some things out on a timeline to see what that looks like over the next year that we are in seoul. sfs will help with the tuition which is also something to consider. it would be a masters in instructional media (basically, techie stuff in the classroom). the program is online through wilkes university in collaboration with discovery education and would be 30 hours.

so much is going on...........school has been busy and i have been trying to figure much out in my head about what is next for us, me and paul. i am sorry that i have been out of touch with many of you. hopefully that will change soon........

manila...

was good. the flights to get there were a bit nuts, but overall the trip was good. we arrived friday around noon and went straight to the hotel. it took about forty minutes by taxi. we got to the hotel and checked it out. we were both pretty tired, so we rested for a bit before venturing out. the area where we were staying is in the "suburbs" area of manila. there are two major shopping malls there. we went to one first, walked around, and then had italian food for dinner. paul and i were skeptical, but food choices are mostly chain restaurants. on the whole it does not feel very foreign at all. most folks have said they try hard to be western. after dinner we took a jeepney to the other major mall. this jeepney ride was an authentic filipina experience for sure. the other mall was better, but still quite western feeling and built like a giant maze.

saturday i had the workshop and it was so good. maggie moon, the presenter, used to work for teacher's college reading and writing project in new york at colunbia university. last summer i was suppose to go to a writing teacher's workshop there, but ended up having to change plans. over the course of the two days i felt energized and so encouraged as a teacher. great stuff!

saturday night we took a taxi an hour across town to meet vicki. we met her team mates for the race and had vietnamese for dinner. then her team mates went to wander for about twenty minutes while we caught up with vicki at the coffee bean. it was good to see her, hear about the things she is struggling with and celebrating, and get to catch up some. it was way too short, but great.

sunday night after the course paul and i took a taxi into an area called makati. more huge shopping malls. we had a great dinner at a swanky kind of restaurant and then spent the rest of the time walking the malls and checking stuff out. our flight did not leave until 12:30 so we had some time to meander. there was a GAP with normal sized clothes. it was fun and i did walk around taking it all in. i got some shirts. fun! then paul and i both bought some shoes....very fun! they are sandals that look like shoes....never seen them before. paul needed some new ones and i wanted a pair too.

we took a taxi to the airport and then waited for the flight. we did not know that we had to pay 750 pesos to leave the country?!?!? what?!?!?! yes, we had to pay to use the airport. we did not know this before so we ended up being without any spare money to do anything after we went through immigration. no cash machines and lots of stuff to do, but we could not. we sat and waited for two hours.......argh! it was tough. the manila airport is by far the lowest grade of airport we have traveled to so far. we made it back to seoul monday morning and got home just around 7:15am. we both quickly went to bed as we were exhausted. slept most of the day and then got back to life..........

here we come manila....

paul and i are leaving for manila in the philippines in the morning. i am attending a teacher's workshop there on saturday and sunday about balanced literacy. paul is going with just because. i am excited.....i love to learn and also we get to see our friend, vicki. she just started her year of world race missions and she is working in manila at this place called Kid's International Ministries. the school has many ties to this ministry and she is there. it will be great to see her and catch up. i am interested to see what manila is like and visit another country. my list of countries visited keeps growing. it is so fun! definitely a major bonus to teaching overseas.....all the travel!