Turkey and Tea

I like to first start off by saying that I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This Thanksgiving was the first that Dennis and I were able to celebrate together which was really nice. Though it was sad to be away from our family and friends and I would of loved to be eating Turkey at the South Carolina Lake House we still had a wonderful time. The Officers of the squadron got Thanksgiving catered and to my surprise the food was actually very tasty (of course, not as good as your mom). We had the normal Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and there we also many tasty treats for after dinner. We all got our into the buffet line and brought our turkey into one of the rooms with a projector and watched Wall-E and then Elf. It was a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving. Seeing that Dennis and I will be in Japan I think we will be doing something like this probably for the next three years. Maybe next year I will even be brave and attempt to make my own Thanksgiving dinner.

The weekend after Thanksgiving Dennis and I went down to Seoul and visited a district called Insa-dong (인사동). It is a culturally rich area of Seoul and has a lot of stores with traditional clothing, paintings, crafts, and pottery. There is even a row of about 20 fortune tellers who all have their own tents set up to read your palms or cards. It is also known for having some famous tea houses. Dennis and I checked out a local tea house called the O'sulloc Tea House. There I had some of the best tea of my life. It was a honey milk tea and it was to die for. Probably pretty fattening but so worth it. Dennis and I also got some little desserts. I had square pieces of chocolate with a powered coating of green tea. The powered green tea was interesting and not my favorite but the chocolate inside was amazing. This district is a place I would love to go back to again.

At the tea house.

My amazing tea

Dennis being so proper.

Dennis and I ended the night with a trip to one of his favorite places in Seoul called the Craftworks Taphouse. It is one of the only microbreweries in South Korea and I have to say the beer is pretty tasty. It was the bars one year anniversary and they were having a raffle. For every beer or cocktail you bought your name got put into a drawing for a free trip to Balli. We wanted that free trip to Bali and decided the only way to win was to drink more : ) Sadly,They drew the winners last night and neither Dennis or I was contacted but at least we enjoyed lots of tasty beer.

Wedding Planning

We are in the beginning stages of our wedding planning but have some important details already up on our website about our at home receptions and our Maui wedding. Click the link below to come check it out!

http://BreannaAndDennis.ourwedding.com/

The Noryangin Fish Market

The other day I had the opportunity to visit the famous fish market in Seoul with Dennis and some of his co-workers. It was a very interesting experience especially when you get off the subway and you are over powered with the smell of fish. At least you know that you have gotten off at the right stop. You enter this 66,000 square foot warehouse that is filled vendor booths with tanks containing all types of sea life. We saw everything from flounder, squid, eel, crabs, and even some sting rays and sharks. It was the biggest assortment of live fish that I have ever seen besides going to an aquiraum. So after we recovered from the shock and awe we picked out a booth to haggle and buy some fresh fish from. We ended up buying a flounder, some sort of sea bass (i think), a gigantic crab, and some shrimp and prawns. You then have them take your freshly killed fish to one of the local restaurants where they cook it up for you. They first served us the fish that they just cut up in the back and you can choose to eat it like sashimi or roll it up with some seaweed and rice like sushi. It was so fresh, since it was recently killed, and had no fishy taste at all. After the meat from the fish is gone they take the bones and make a stew called Maeuntang. When you eat this you have to be very careful since there are fish bones and those can be pretty rough going down if you accidentally swallow them. We also had them boil up our enormous crab which was so delicious and then they grilled up our shrimp and prawns. I wouldn't necessarily just call this a meal but it was also a cultural experience and I am glad that Dennis and I were able to partake in. 

Fish Market from Above

One of the many booths with shrimps, prawns, etc...

Live crabs 

Sting ray...I wonder how that tastes?

Weighing our Monster Crab that we picked

Our fish alive 

Our Fish dead

Shrimp and Giant Prawns 

Fish Stew 

The Land of the Rising Sun

Dennis received his next assignment and we are going to JAPAN! He will be flying F-16s for the next 2-3 years out there and if everything goes right I will be back in the classroom teaching! We both so overjoyed with the news and are looking forward not only to living in Japan but getting to travel and explore Asia and the South Pacific further....China, Austrailia, New Zealand, Vietnam, etc... Another very important detail is that we will finally be able to bring Kendall Jackson (my doggy) with us. Then we can be one big happy family : )

So not only is this news exciting but Den and I can now finally plan our Wedding Ceremony that we have been delaying since being overseas and waiting on this assignment. We are now most likely going to get married in Maui on December 29, 2012!!  So save the date and start saving up if you would like to join on us on our special day.  We would love to have you there! 

I must go and now put down my Korean phrase book and start searching for a new Japanese language book. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to see you in December! 

We will be based at Misawa, Japan