LG metro city, the largest apartment complex in Korea and our home for six weeks. LG stands for Life's Good. Just like an American stadium can take the name of its corporate sponsor, a Korean apartment may be named after, say, a consumer electronics and home applicances conglomerate. We found that LG metro didn't live up to it's corporate slogan.
Bookworms love to read; bibliophiles love the materials and formats of books; bibliomaniacs love to hoard books of no intrinsic value and occasionally eat them. Our boss suffered from bibliomania, an obsessive-compulsive disorder "involving the collecting or hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged." We estimated that in his apartment were at least 20,000 books. The perimeter of every room was lined with locked bookshelves. Over the course of the six weeks that we stayed with him, he added a few more bookshelves, only there was no space for them - one went in the kitchen, between the dining room table and the kimchi freezer, another went behind a bedroom door and significantly blocked the entrance.
Our workspace. As you can see, the line of bookshelves extends onto the porch.
Unfortunately, bibliomaniacs don't actually read their books. If only our boss would have read that one.
After leaving dr jun's, we stayed in a goshitel, a kind of student boarding house infamous for its economical arrangement of space. Our room was 5ft x 7ft. In the picture you can see three walls; the room was the length of a table, and we slept partially under it. Even still, it was our cube, and we came to rather like it.
For a hilarious 3 minute tour through a goshitel: http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq1aAsjYOBg
Our goshitel was near a university, and the area was full of restaurants which specialized in carnivorous treats. Nearly every establishment had a cartoon animal on their sign to advertise which meat was most prevalent on their menu. It might be a chicken with an imperious facial expression being boiled in a black metal cauldron, or a pig with a bandaid on its arse, or, in this case, the two meats are in a death struggle, and clearly the beef shank is tastier than the craven chicken breast.
Our business relationship with Dr Jun ended at 10 pm on a train from Pusan to Seoul. Here we are, relieved.
Monastic-ware being sold at the train station.
And now we're back in poch'un, where Stephen began four months ago. The people here are kind and welcoming, and you can't put a price on our peace-of-mind. Stephen has two dogs to romp with, there are two Buddhist temples within walking distance, and there is nothing but trees and crisp air.
At breakfast with the family we're living with in Poch'un. We live in a house with our bosses, Dr. Park and Mrs. Myun (husband and wife), plus their daughter, two male boarding students, and another teacher. On this morning we ate kimchi, seaweed soup, rice and fish patties covered in egg.
Every autumn Mrs Myun makes a cherry wine and stores it inside this vessel. The cherries are hand-picked from the cherry trees that grow on the mountainside. We drank some when a visitor came to the house. 
Our home and the adjacent school sit atop a small mountain, reached by driving up a perilous, cracked cement road.
Stephen and his special friend JeDu which means "wise brains" in Korean. Yesterday Stephen witnessed an epic battle between JeDu and an as-yet-unidentified creature that has been referred to as everything from a "tree lemur" to a "super raccoon." It was at least as big as JeDu according to some accounts.
Adrienne and Hello Kitty laboring over her MFA application. When Adie finished, we celebrated by eating noodles at a nearby restaurant and going into Poch'un city to go bauble shopping. At the restaurant, we ordered "Kimchi water noodles" - but instead of a steaming bowl of noodles, we got a frosty bowl of ice noodles.
Stephen, Mrs. Myun, and Karam outside enjoying some snow last week. The family had to walk up the steep mountain road after their car got stuck at the bottom but everyone was in great spirits and enjoying the weather when we came out to greet them.
Us after decorating the Christmas tree. It was a festive occassion, only I hope that the indoor socket that is dangling off the tree doesn't cause an electrical fire. If the school is still standing in January, consider it a Festivus miracle!
Adrienne with Mrs. Myun, Karam, the two boarding students, the other teacher, and Ung-E, the golden retriever.
Light pink for girls; dark, brawny red for boys.
In the center of the resting room is an petrified tree to give a more natural ambience. 
We came across a ritual while walking one morning. The woman in white silk was throwing rice and other ritual objects into the ocean. Behind her was an arrangement of ceremonial foods, including an entire pig's head. 
