RudeDudes Travels

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

A Korean Thanksgiving


Happy Thanksgiving! 





I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Although we are far away and miss our family and friends back home we are thankful we have such wonderful friends to celebrate with in Korea. 

We had to work Thanksgiving day but the trade off was a three day weekend and a delivered Thanksgiving dinner the night of Thanksgiving. It took many extra hours and the efforts of several people to organize, host, order, pick up, and deliver all the many parts to this wonderful meal. I have to admit, it was pretty nice to just show up and have the food pretty much ready to go!

Our menu included...

Costco Ham and Rolls

Green Beans, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Cranberries, and assorted sodas


The Turkey


Black Olives and Gravy 


Costco Pumpkin Pie
I was surprised at how similar the food taste to back home. I would have to say it was the most "American" tasting food I have had in Korea yet! 



Table setting provided by Mrs. Rude with decorations sent all the way from America!


Even though the dinner was delivered there was still some prep work and heating involved

We are excited that we had a real oven to cook with! 

Heating up the side dishes

Making ham gravy 

Sam carving up the turkey


Just enough room for the turkey ... and turkey only!!!




Some of the BHCS Teachers



Our Hosts

The teachers




After dinner nap 



Next up... Christmas! 














Sunday, November 16, 2014

Fall adventures!

I cannot believe how fast we flew through October, Halloween has passed, Thanksgiving is in about a week and after that... Christmas!!!  It was a pretty busy month on the school side of life.  We have been taking advantage of our weekends to "relax" a bit and explore! Here are some of the things we have been up to the past few weeks... Don't the the sunny warm looking weather fool you! These pictures are from the beginning of October and the weather was amazing. Now Fall is wrapping up and Winter is just around the corner.

Hwaseong Fortress
Suwon Fortress is located South of Jukjeon. It was about an hour bus/subway/bus ride from where we live. The fortress wall stretch around about 7 miles of the city. You could easily spend the whole day here. We started at the west gate and walk all the way around until we found ourselves back at the west gate as that was the only way we knew how to get ourselves back home again! It was a beautiful walk and there were many things to see along the way. Bonus! We went around Chuseok holiday so there was a parade going on to celebrate and we were able to see the reenactment of the changing of the guards.







Suwon City from the top of the Fortress

Exaggerated Exhaustion 

The Seojandae on the summit of the fortress

Suwon City


Hyowon's Bell - Three Rings for 1,000 won.  1 for gratitude for the love of ones parents, 1 for hope and happiness in ones family and 1 for prayer for self improvement.



Paldalmun Gate

Street Market inside the fortress walls







Beautiful Park near the fortress walls









more stairs....





Fancy Ajumma Trolley Bag




More street market

The selfie pole.... Very popular in Korea right now
How to get there -
Seoul Subway (line 1) Bundang or (Yellow Line) to Suwon Stop. Cross the street and take any of the following buses 2, 7, 7-2, 8, or 13.  It was about a 15+ min ride from the station and you will see the fortress on the right indicating that its time to get off the bus. You will end up at the West Gate (Hwaseomun) taking this route.


Samsung Thunders
We were lucky enough to be invited to our first professional sports game in Korea with our Head Teacher Ms. Kristina and her friend Julie. She has a friend who is one of the players on the team (an SPU grad) so it was fun to cheer him on! The Fans had a lot of energy and there were many prizes that were handed out ranging from Pizza - which we got :)  to Samsung Galaxy phones - which we did not get :(  but it was a fun afternoon none the least!























Global Fest in Itaewon
This was a food fest and then some. For those back home, think of taste of Seattle but with way more people in a smaller space. The main street in Itaewon was closed for the day, International restaurants set up their tents and sampled food and beverages (between $1-5 per taste/dish/drink) We had a goal to try 5 new foods from 5 countries. We were successful and the food was pretty good. In addition to food there was shopping, a parade and a DJ to keep us entertained. Thanks to Ms. Kristina and Ms. Garies for the great afternoon!









































Hope you enjoyed!

- The Rudes