Tokyo Disney!

Cinderella's Castle

Hello everyone! It's time to share my AWESOME experience at Tokyo Disneyland~! I treated myself and booked a hotel resort for three nights, along with a three-day pass to Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea. I have to admit, I had no idea what Disney Sea was before I arrived, but it was so fun (and actually better than Disneyland, to be honest). 

With my best buddy, Goofy

"Critter Sundae"

On the first day, I headed to Disneyland, which I hear is very similar to the one in L.A. Space Mountain, Cinderella's Castle, Splash Mountain, etc. This park is a bit older than Disney Sea, but was still full of fun and adventure. There was a theme for Easter, and an Easter Parade with all of the characters. Unfortunately, there was also an extremely loud and catchy made-up tune that was looping non-stop throughout the entirety of the 45-minute parade, and I was singing it for the rest of my trip. It was called "Usatama on the Run!". I think that is something about eggs, but I'm not sure. There were plenty of eggs everywhere. Haha!

Tokyo Disney Resort

Hispanic Goofy?

The second and third days I decided to spend at Disney Sea, which was SO FREAKING COOL. As can be expected by the name, this park was centered around nautical exploration. It had different themes such as "Mermaid Lagoon" where I watched an Under the Sea musical adventure (all in Japanese), but still sang along with all my favorite Little Mermaid tunes. There was a new Finding Nemo exhibit opening up, but I came just one week too early to be able to go on the attraction. There was a huge "American Waterfront" section which had a bunch of American-style food like reuben sandwiches, fried cod, beer, and more. So yummy! AND a new Toy Story virtual ride based on classic carnival games. There are shooters on the vehicles and you shoot targets in those 3-D games like "egg toss" and "balloon pop".

Mermaid Lagoon

Sunset

The Tower of Terror was also worth checking out, as the story line for Tokyo Disney is totally different than the normal story back in the States. It was super neat. AND the guides even provided an English translation for me as I went through. Very cool and fun ride. My favorite was the Indiana Jones attraction. The props, setting, and overall ride itself were totally awesome. I rode it two or three times, I think.

Overall, it was a very exciting trip to Disneyland and Disney Sea. And so much cheaper than in America! I paid $160 for a three-day pass. That would be the cost of a one-day entry back in the States. Crazy.

Usatama on the Run!

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Okinawa, Japan

Well, I lived up to my promise! If you remember, I traveled to Japan during my winter break (in February) for ten days. I had an amazing trip, met some awesome people, and knew that I had to go back one day.

That time came sooner than I expected. I had a two-week "spring break" because of my school's midterm examinations and class field trip, which I did not attend. I decided to make a short trip back to Japan, this time visiting Okinawa and Tokyo Disney Resort. I stayed in Okinawa for three days, and Tokyo Disney for four days.

The beach

Okinawa is a southern island of Japan, and it was extremely humid and a bit rainy during my trip. Another solo trip, I was looking forward to meeting new people and enjoying some alone time (as if I don't get enough of that already... lol!). On the first day, I didn't get to Okinawa until late afternoon, so I checked in and just did what I usually do - walk around the city and get lost a little bit while exploring. While exploring, I came across a beach and stopped to relax for a bit. I made it back to the hostel and hung out in the lounge. While there, I met a Canadian and an American, and we spent the evening chatting awhile. I crashed early because the next day was prepped with my Japanese friend, Mai!

Donkatsu (pork cutlet) and miso soup

I had a restless sleep due to the humidity and woke up with even more BRUTAL weather - sunny, humid, disgusting. I put on my lightest set of clothes and headed to meet Mai. Unfortunately, after she picked me up, her car stalled and the battery died. So we were stuck for awhile and our initial plans fell through for the day. We decided to walk and get lunch while the repairman came and took a look at the car. We ate pork cutlet (donkatsu), which was absolutely amazing. One of my favorite Japanese dishes. While at lunch, Mai and I met up with her friend/co-worker, and they decided to take me to their dessert restaurant by the beach! Mai is the manager at a souflet pancake shop. OH. MY. GOD. I have never tasted pancakes so delicious in my life. They melted in my mouth, so fluffy, so sugary, so buttery, so good. I have GOT to get that recipe. After we felt sufficiently full from lunch and dessert, we walked around the beach and rested for awhile. Mai's friend had to leave to take care of her baby, so Mai and I decided to take a drive around Okinawa for awhile. After that, we enjoyed an insane amount of Japanese appetizers as our dinner whilst consuming Okinawa's finest beer, Orion. It was SO GOOD, but I soon found out that they don't export it ANYWHERE. Not even on mainland Japan. Ugh. So I used that as an excuse to drink as much as I wanted. YOLO. Vacation. Mai and I departed ways after an extremely fun day spent together. I wish we had more time!

Hanging out inside a seashell

The most delicious pancakes EVER

Reunited with Mai and her friend!

The next day, I made plans with the two friends I met at the hostel, and we headed to a famous ramen shop. We had to get there an hour before opening just to guarantee ourselves a spot. So we waited from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. for some delicious ramen. And it was spectacular! After that, we headed to Shuri Castle, a popular tourist site of Okinawa. The weather was SO RAINY and cool, the complete opposite of the day before. Island life, man. I couldn't get used to it. While at the castle, I was trying to take a picture when suddenly, a cute, older, Japanese woman completely photobombed the picture. I decided that the picture looked better with her in it. She came up to us and started talking to us in a friendly manner, and then her husband dragged her away, LOL.


Amazing ramen

The cute lady who photobombed my picture

Okinawa scenery

We headed back to the hostel as the rain kept pouring down. I didn't feel like doing much else after that, so I rested awhile. Eventually the rain let up and I went to the market to buy some souvenirs. The next day I was headed to Tokyo for my expected trip to Disney Land! Stay tuned!

Orion beer at 10:00 a.m. while waiting for the plane

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So Long, 2016!

Merry Christmas!

What a year it was! For the world at large, maybe not one of its finest, but for me personally, I would say it has been a pretty great year. I was thinking about writing a few highlights from 2016, but I think everything I've expressed in my blog posts throughout the year accurately fit that description. So I'll let my blog do the talking on that part and just stick to a short list of some things I would like to accomplish during 2017:

1. Write at least two blog posts per month

2. Read 30 books

3. Travel to a country I've never been to before

4. Complete a half marathon in 1:45:00 or less

5. Remember my friends' birthdays in advance

Merry Christmas!

I have written other things down throughout my personal diary, but I thought those would be some of the more tangible goals to share with you all.

For Christmas, I spent the holiday with two friends here in Seoul. We decided to head to Lotte World, Seoul's second amusement park. The interesting thing about this park is that it is mostly constructed indoors, so a lot of the attractions are inside walls (perfect for cold weather)! Unfortunately, my friends and I could not navigate our way to the roller coaster we wanted to ride, and thus we stumbled into two minuscule rides meant for children after waiting in line for nearly an hour for each of them. LOL. We look back and laugh at the situation with fond memories.

I rang in the new year with another Fulbright friend, a first year named Arya. A couple months ago, we booked tickets to see some of the most trendy, popular, and stylin' Korean hip-hop artists over the course of a two-day concert to ring in the New Year.

"The Final Countdown"

Jay Park!

My personal favorite, Jay Park, would also be performing. Having the chance to see him perform live has been on my bucket list since the beginning of my three years in Korea, so I was quite excited to finally cross that off the list.

The concert was held at an awesome venue in Gangnam, and surprisingly, it wasn't too crowded over the two days. We danced, sang, and rang in the new year full of laughter and joy. Unfortunately, at that time, I was in the process of getting over a nasty cold, so my voice was shot and I was held back a little bit in that regard... but it was totally worth it!

Happy 2017, everyone!

We felt like Iron Woman

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5-Year Anniversary

EJ and her adorable doll

My friend Sae Min and I

Hyeon Min's performance!

This post marks me pretty close to my 5-year anniversary of starting my blog, "Happening With Hillary". While initially I wasn't entirely attached to the name I created for it, the title "Happening With Hillary" has really grown on me. As you can imagine from the name, and for any reason why most other people write a blog, I started it with the intention of sharing my experiences abroad. Since my study abroad experience in Spain, the blog has become much more than just a way to share my thoughts, memories, and photos with the surrounding community. It has become a habit, a hobby, and something I really look forward to updating twice a month (or so I try!). Since my foot injury last year and the massive amounts of feedback received after those posts, I realized that more people were tuning into these bits and pieces of my life than I initially thought. Because of my blog, I've gotten more into photography, keeping a diary/journal, thinking about how seemingly ordinary days in my life could be something foreign and unimaginable for others, and more. I find myself actively living in a moment and trying so clearly to put it into words so that I can "save it for the blog" later. I hope readers have enjoyed my personal storytelling and recounting of events, although I'm not really an excellent writer. As always, I thank you for taking the time to read my entries.

Myself, Hyang Ran, and Eun Jeong!

Love this group of people!

With that said, it's time for me to catch you up on what's been happening lately! Just like November, December has been an extremely busy but enjoyable month. It started when I visited one of my students who had graduated from Gwangyang but is now studying at an Arts college in Seoul. He studies music and has always been into rapping. Actually, when he was still at Gwangyang, we collaborated together and wrote and recorded two songs together. Anyway, I went to see his end-of-the-year performance at his university, and it was phenomenal! I'm so proud of him and love that I can still connect with students after graduation.

Go Eun and Sae Pi

At school, students were focused on preparing for their final exams, so the atmosphere was pretty serious for the first two weeks. This past week was spent relaxing and playing holiday games with my students after their tests finished. I decided to create "Minute-To-Win-It" games, and the students had a blast with it. The winning teams earned hot chocolate and candy canes to show them a little bit of America's holiday spirit.

China Town

Additionally, the school staff had our end-of-the-year teacher's workshop/retreat. We traveled to Song-do in Incheon, which is a new, urban city with thriving businesses. It was a really cool city to see, and it was fun to hang out with my co-workers and get to know them better outside of school. We stayed for two days, one night. The first day was mostly workshops and professional development, followed by a fancy 5-course meal, lots of drinking, and bingo! I won traditional Chinese alcohol as my prize, haha! The following day was spent as sightseeing, where we traveled to a famous park, cityscape tower, and Incheon's China Town, where we ate a delicious lunch before heading back.

During the final exam period, I didn't have to go to school for 4 days, so I took the opportunity to head back to Gwangyang and visit my friends. I was soooo happy to be in their company and catch up with so many people. This is my small but sweet tribute to my amazing friends who always welcome me, host me, and make me feel right at home every time I visit. Love you all!

Song-do, Incheon

Sora was my coworker at Gwangyang

For the holidays, I will be staying in Seoul and spending Christmas with a few friends. One Fulbrighter from my first year is in town visiting, so we have been enjoying each other's company catching up on life and eating delicious food together when I get off of work. We are planning to head to one of Korea's amusement parks to see the holiday decorations during Christmas Eve, and spend Christmas morning with a short hike up a mountain to enjoy some makgeolli and the landscape around us.

Ro Eun and Go Eun (Sisters)!

Although I often get homesick around this time, I am glad to have good company here in Seoul with me, and I am lucky that all of my family and friends back home also have each other to celebrate and be with this year. I am thankful for good health, a roof over my head, and the multiple opportunities I have to try new things and follow my dreams. Here's to a continuation of that as 2017 approaches, and I wish the same for all of you. Be happy, be merry, and be kind to one another!

Sending lots of love,
Hillary

Happy Holidays!

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How I Feel About November

Celebrating Halloween with my after school class

Overworked!! Holy moly it's been a crazy month. A drastic change between November 2015 and November 2016, I tell ya. I was sitting on my ass with my foot propped up and watching crappy K-dramas in the hospital all of last November, and this time around I could barely find anything trashy to watch due to all of the election coverage and newly revealed scandal with S. Korea's president, Park Geun Hye.

Hanging out at Everland with Morgan!

Although this month has passed so quickly, I look back on it fondly. I made a lot of fantastic memories with friends, co-workers, and students, despite the political turmoil everyone around the world seems to be facing. I'll talk about some of my highlights, and what's been keeping me so busy.

At the race with my best buddy, Go Eun

Since my last post, we've celebrated two large holidays for Americans: Halloween and Thanksgiving! For Halloween, my friend from Gwangyang (Morgan) came up to visit, and we traveled to one of Korea's amusement parks, Everland, together to check out their detailed decorations. It was awesome! A lot of people were dressed in costume, and the decorations were fun to see along with all the fall foliage. It was so beautiful! I felt so happy just to get out of the city and see trees and mountains and a sight of home with all the costumes and decorations. After Everland, Morgan and I met up with two of my Korean friends and we went to the foreigner district of Seoul to celebrate Halloween! We danced throughout the night and had a great time together.

My friend Ryang Sun and I like to visit museums together!

At school, I celebrated Halloween with the students through Halloween bingo, "trick-or-treating" with their English vocabulary, and having a Monster Mash with my club class, which included mask-making and decorating, pin the face on the jack-o-lantern, and a murder mystery game. It was so fun and the students seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Hiking Seoraksan with Fulbright friends

After Halloween, I was due to prepare my school's English Speaking Competition, where 7 students from each grade are selected to write a 4-5 minute speech on a topic of their choosing, and present them in front of the entire school. Each student earns a prize just for participating, but of course they all want to earn the top spot in their class. I had the task of helping the students write, edit, and help them practice their speeches. We worked on fluency, speed, volume, pronunciation, and most importantly, body language and tone fluctuation! We spent almost three weeks preparing for the big day. The students worked so hard, and I was very proud of them. They had an array of topics such as the E-Sports Industry, Earthquake Concerns on the Korean Peninsula, How to Live a Productive Life, Being a Good Leader, and more! I was taken aback by the depth of the students' vocabulary and knowledge of colloquial phrases. They all did a great job, and we celebrated with a huge food party at the end of it. 

Playing Apples to Apples with my after school class -
We ate apple pie along with it!

While the students were busy training for their speech competition, I was training for one of my own: my first race back since my foot injury! I decided to sign up for a race back in Suncheon (near my old placement city) with two of my Korean friends, and we completed a 10K together. I was a little nervous about how I would do since it was my first time back in competition since my injury. All went well, and I am eager to continue racing and get back into healthy competition. My friends and I have already made plans to sign up for more races this spring and summer! Woohoo.

Thanksgiving Dinner with Fulbright

Another big feat for me this month was (re)conquering Seoraksan National Park. Most of you may not know or remember that this was the exact park where my near-fatal blister was formed on the back of my heel. I am not gonna lie, even though I had already been back to hiking and strenuous exercise before going back to Seoraksan, I was a little nervous to climb this mountain range again. An irrational fear of another blister magically appearing in the exact same spot... but all went well and I walked away unscathed! Muahahaha. It was a bit of a last-minute decision to go - a Fulbright friend from my first year (shout out to Zoe W.!!!) was back visiting Korea from San Fran, and so we decided to head there and hike for a few days. A couple of the other Seoul Fulbrighters tagged along too, and we had a great time together! It felt great to be outdoors and enjoying each others' company.

Made some chicken pot pie for Thanksgiving

And of course, to top it all off, we just concluded Thanksgiving celebrations! I always get a little homesick around this time because I miss my family, home-cooked meals, and being lazy and watching football with Cooper and dad. But luckily, the Seoul ETAs hosted a potluck dinner on Thanksgiving evening, and the Fulbright Program also hosted a formal Thanksgiving dinner for us this past weekend! So, celebrating twice was not too shabby... hehehe! 

Amazing views!

I'm now in the process of booking my travel plans for winter vacation! Although I'm not planning to go back Stateside for the holidays this year, I will definitely be traveling abroad because I missed those opportunities last year due to my injury. So far, I am looking at traveling to Taiwan, Japan, and Bali. I am especially excited for Japan because I am planning to meet up with one of my Japanese friends who was an international student at ISU during the same time I was there! So, we have been in contact and are hoping to get together during a leg of my trip there. I am so excited to see her and reconnect after about four years!

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post an update! I have been meaning to write throughout the month, and then in the free time that I DID have, I decided to be lazy instead... it won't happen again! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves this month. Talk soon!

I've got my miniature Christmas tree set up!

Seoraksan is pretty even when the foliage is gone

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PPAP; 1Q84

Fulbright Third Year ETAs

Gyeongju at night

Acronyms are taking over. Pen Pineapple Apple Pen is somehow the hottest track right now. That video is basically all of us English teachers' lives on a daily basis during class... haha.

But anyway, I've been reading this novel, originally split into three separate pieces, titled 1Q84 and written by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It's really long - just about 1,000 pages in the English translation. It's taken me over a month to read it so far, but I enjoy taking my time. While it gets redundant in some areas, the premise of the story revolves around an alternate reality mixed in with romance, political unrest, and plenty of science-fiction mystery. As you can imagine, it is loosely based on the idea of George Orwell's novel 1984. I'm not terribly good at book reviews, so I'll just leave it at that. It's interesting, but unnecessarily long and over descriptive. This paragraph has virtually nothing to do with the rest of this blog post, I just wanted to write a short excerpt on what I'm currently reading.

Cooking with my friend JaeWon!

Sometimes it feels like I'm living in an alternate universe here in Korea. I had no idea what to expect two and a half years ago before arriving, as I quite literally had no background knowledge on Korea's history, culture, and language save for what I learned about from my Korean-American friends and professors. Most people who know my background in Spanish Education always ask me why I applied for Fulbright KOREA and not a Fulbright grant in a Spanish-speaking country. My answer to that question is that I wanted to explore a part of the world I've never been to before, and most likely would NOT visit otherwise. I knew that the Korean education system was considered 'hardcore and intense', and I was intrigued by what exactly that meant. I knew that Koreans start studying English from a very young age, and I was curious how that influenced their attitudes towards language learning and their functional use of the English language.

Enjoying a night out with friends!

Two and a half years into my Fulbright grant, and I'm able to describe the reasoning behind these curiosities to a decent extent. I've also picked up the Korean language in a fairly small amount of time (as far as language studies go) to an intermediate level, a passion of mine which continues to grow and hope to continue when I return to the States next summer. I've met incredible people both within the Fulbright program as well as my surrounding community. Seoul has been a total 180 from southern, rural life, which has its ups and downs (mostly ups). I think the worst part of living in Seoul (for me) is constantly feeling as if I should be out and about doing SOMETHING rather than allowing myself to just relax in the comfort of my home at times. Especially as an extrovert, I'm quick to feel a tinge of loneliness when hanging out alone in my apartment while listening to the hustle and bustle outside my window. But I'm working on it!

Monster Pizza with fellow Seoulites

To switch gears, my last Fulbright Fall Conference just ended. Gyeongju is a beautiful and historic city, and I didn't want to allow myself to say that it would be my last time visiting there. As a third year, I was ready to take the backseat and just enjoy the scheduled programming (rather than being an active participant in planning/executing workshops). It was awesome. The weather was a bit crummy, but I was content spending time with friends just chatting and catching up, helping each other figure out what the hell we are gonna do when we finish the grant...

I don't have too much else to update for now. School is still going great. I told two of my co-workers about the term "shit-talking", and it's become their new favorite phrase to use every time I see them. Example, my main co-teacher now comes up to me and says, "Hillary! Let's eat lunch together and do some shit-talking!" with the biggest grin on her face. I love it! Haha. Definitely one of my prime teacher moments...

I'm including some random pictures of what I've been up to and songs I'm listening to lately. Enjoy!

A panorama of the night life outside my window

These Days' Mood Playlist (on shuffle):
1. (They Long to Be) Close to You - Carpenters
2. Me Too - Meghan Trainor
3. Work - Rihanna, Drake
4. Reminiscing - Little River Band
5. 휘파람람 WHISTLE - BLACKPINK
6. Ribbon - Beast
7. Why - TAEYEON
8. Fallin' - Alicia Keys
9. All That She Wants - Ace of Base
10. PPAP - Some YouTube Sensation
11. Candy Everybody Wants - 10,000 Maniacs
12. This Is What You Came For - Calvin Harris, Rihanna
13. Side To Side - Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj
14. Fight For Your Right - Beastie Boys
15. 33 "GOD" - Bon Iver
16. Interstate Love Song - Stone Temple Pilots
17. Broccoli - D.R.A.M., Lil Yachty
18. Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani

By the way, check out Hana's YouTube video from her trip to Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jGVEBy0ED0 !!!

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