These were Stephen's students for the month of February: Bok Hwan, Jin Sung, Isaac and Catherine.
Somebody used to get his favorite Froot Loops cereal for a while, but for the last month showed great restraint. Stephen, looking neglected.
This picture's a little vanilla, but that's the point. Korea is very organized, even color-coordinated (black, gray, purple and pink are favorite colors).
Us with Sun and Jeong Yi looking for a restaurant. This is a typical street near a big subway station, full of restaurants, singing rooms (karaoke), ice cream shops and tea houses.
Our delicious dinner.
After dinner Stephen declared that he wanted to eat Cold Stone ice cream because he'll soon be in India and Cold Stoneless. Jeong Yi and Adrienne, who are very similar in temperament, showed hesitation, but Sun was game. After eating delicious mint ice cream, Sun said that she had a surprise for Stephen, and we went across the street to a Baskin Robbins and ate even more ice cream! Love the green tea ice cream.
At the ice cream shop on Valentine's Day. The Korean Valentine's Day is split into two days. In February the girls buy their boyfriends chocolate. Men reciprocate in March. Stephen made sure to remind Adrienne of this many times. Luckily, Jeong Yi and Sun gave Stephen chocolate presents too.
After desserts, we went for a stroll along the Cheongyechun, a river that cuts through Seoul. We caught a neat light and sound show. In this picture, laser birds are flying through the river mist.
All of us.
Us.
In Korea, China and Japan, and probably elsewhere in Asia, there are great little picture booths that friends or paramours use. The pics come out as mini stickers. The quality of this picture isn't great because it's a picture of a picture, but you can still see Mary Poppins, the Wicked Witch, Mama Smurf and the Circus Tranny.
There are always riot police at the ready, just in case there's a protest against the importation of American beef (laced with mad cow, no doubt), or against the treatment of Buddhists at the hands of a partisan Protestant government.
Stephen at a Baroque art exhibit.
Prince Ivan Baryatinsky, by Louise Elizabeth Vigee Lebrun, 1802. Our favorite painting from that exhibit.
We often visited a nearby monastery for yoga and meditation.
Adrienne sending home a box of stuff. Goodbye Korea! In fact, we wrote this blog from Hardiwar, India.
We arrived in Delhi on March 1 and spent a couple of days there seeing the sights. Behind Adrienne is a small temple near the Kalkaji temple complex in Delhi.
Stephen with some of the guys who worked at a garden and crematorium that we visited. This was the most peaceful place we saw in Delhi. They invited us to have tea with them and we all sat on the grass in the shade and an elderly Sikh guard went out on his bicycle and brought back chai for all. He transported the chai in small plastic bags tied with rubberbands and poured it into small plastic cups. Afterwards, they gave us a tour which included the cremation grounds.
A Baba in his stall on the path leading up to Kalakaji temple.
On the long path to Kalkaji temple. This little girl asked us for money but seemed happy to have her picture taken instead. The man crouching behind her was also quite excited to have his picture taken, thanking us and even touching our feet in gratitude afterwards. We didn't completely understand the exchange, but neither did he.
At the India Gate in Delhi, a memorial to Indian soldiers who died during WWI.
Last night we took a six-hour train ride from Delhi and arrived in Haridwar in the state of Uttarakhand. Haridwar is the second-holiest city in India after Varanasi and is situated along the banks of the Ganges. In Varanasi the river is wide and calm and brown, but here it is cold, greenish-blue and fast-moving. Haridwar is an important pilgrimage site for Hindus and every twelve years there is a huge festival here which attracts millions.
We've seen some really cute donkeys in Haridwar so far. Here is a sleepy one, right near the Ganges. Of course, Stephen is like a kid in a candy shop, although he almost got mauled by a rabid beast-dog yesterday. There was no physical contact; we were just chased down the street. We've seen lots of animals so far: an elephant in an alley, a monkey swinging on an electrical wire above our heads, a mouse that climbed onto Stephen in the middle of the night, a street puppy that Stephen was petting and a stranger offered to sell to us for 5,000 rupees ($100)! Not exactly a steal for India.
For the past month or so, Stephen and Adrienne have been spending weekdays living at a rural English school and weekends in Seoul. This is Adrienne standing in front of a country cemetery on a misty evening, only a few steps from our front door at the school.
After both of our cameras sustained some damage - Stephen's had a skiing accident and Adrienne's had a bad experience inside a backpack in Pusan - Stephen finally caved in and got a new one. Lots of neat features to play with plus a really long user's manual entirely in Korean. This is our Techno-Mart camera salesman, post-sale. It was an arduous bargaining session and he's just relieved that we actually bought something. V is for Victorious Sale! Techno-Mart is a 15-floor mega-technology store - I've never seen anything like it in the US.
And while you're waiting to see a movie, you can step over and have your tarot cards read.
This weekend we went to a Joan Miro exhibit in Seoul. Outside the gallery was a huge cow made from white plastic pine needles and christmas tree lights. Usually in Korea a big cartoon cow indicates a steakhouse; this was a happy exception. (Update: one of our Korean friends has informed us of the very obvious fact that the above animal is actually an ox, as in Year of the Ox, which began a couple of weeks ago. We should have caught on to that one!)
Miro lived from 1893 to 1983. This exhibit contained lithographs from the 1960s and 70s.
This lithograph, called "The Brahmin," is Stephen's favorite work from the exhibit. The best part is the sacred thread.
Bodhidharma, a 5th century South Indian, is thought to have transmitted Buddhism from India to China. In Korea, Bodhidharma is a very popular icon, and can be seen in temples, on calendars and on 99.9% pure gold cards meant to function as bookmarks. He is usually sullen-faced and wide-eyed, and there are many legends spanning many countries about his life.
Adrienne posing with a set of paintings of Bodhidharma at a Zen center in Seoul.
A Buddhist bas-relief from a Seoul temple - but we have no idea what it is of.
We went out to a Japanese restaurant and had a strange but delicious dish consisting of lettuce, dried fish, pickles and peanut butter.
It is customary to give gifts during the Lunar New Year. They can include boxed sets of soap, toothpaste, tuna fish cans - even Spam and cooking oil. 
The lunar new year is a huge festival day throughout much of Asia, especially in Korea, China and Vietnam. This year it fell on January 26 and we went to Seoul to take advantage of the four-day weekend. It was great to get out of our very rural environment and spend some time in the city. Above is a picture of us at Changdeokgung Palace. It was built in 1405 as a royal villa, but became the official royal residence when the Japanese invaded Korea and burned down the main palace in 1592.
For the past several months, Stephen has been tutoring some students online. We met two of them in Seoul and toured the palace grounds together. We went with an English tour but lingered behind the group and had more fun exploring on our own. This is Adrienne posing with Sun Ryun to her left and Jeong Yi to her right. Sun was really interested in the temple because she majored in Korean history.
Above Inwangsa temple, stepped paths lead up the side of a mountain to a number of famous rock formations and other sacred spots. Some of the rocks are thought to resemble monks in meditation. 
From December 29 - January 17, Stephen and Adrienne are teaching at an English winter camp at the school they've been staying at for the past month. In Korea, students have two months of vacation from school every year, one month in the winter and one month in the summer. During this time, many Korean students attend private specialty schools such as the one where we teach, called hagwons. The picture above is from the opening day assembly.
Three cute students from Adrienne's level two class. 
Stephen on the first day of school.
Stephen lent his camera to a student who expressed interest in photography and she snapped this pic.
Adrienne with Karam and Dong Kwon, two of the level four students, on a school ski trip on Thurday. 
