White Day - A Day for Love Squirrels and Love Rabbits

Those living in the Western World are quite familiar with Valentine's Day and readers of The Harrington Times may remember how the Harrington's celebrated their Valentine's Day in Korea as per tradition, although a few days late. However, what the Western World is missing out on is the knowledge and concept of White Day. Celebrated on March 14th, the male counterpart of a relationship is supposed to give his sweetheart a variety of chocolates, sweets, suckers, stuffed animals etc. (Traditionally, in Korea, Valentine's Day is when the female counterparts offer gifts of chocolates to their favorite men). Not skipping a beat, Mike Harrington offered his lovely lady some sweet gifts of chocolate acquired from the nearby convenince store GS25 (the same location where a month earlier, Melissa Harrington purchases some chocolates for the man she so dearly loves). To celebrate White Day then, Melissa worked hard on her Masters Course Readings while enjoying some sweet treats from a Love Squirrel and a Love Rabbit.

Stories (and Sights) from the Couch: January 17th - 19th

On January 17th after meeting a sweet dog, the Harrington's boarded a bus and made their way to Chuncheon. Upon arrival, the couple spent some time relaxing and meandering in the local E-Mart conveniently attached to the Chuncheon Bus Terminal. The reason for waiting at the bus terminal of course was so to be well stationed for meeting up with their CouchSurfing host, Juno. Often at The Harrington Times we report on the guests received by the Harrington's, however, on a few occassions we have the pleasure of telling the reverse story, when the Harrington's become guests, this is one such occassion.

Meeting up with Juno the Harrington's bustled about in the grocery department of E-Mart keeping pace with this fast walking Korean host who was eager to provide the couple a western-style breakfast of toast, jam and yogurt. With their goods purchased, Juno kindly offered to take the Harrington's to an overlook of the city as the night lights began to shine through the coming darkness. From the hillside the Harrington's and CouchSurfing host gazed out on a city of about 300,000 people and could sense they'd made a wise decision in travelling north for their first week of vacation.

Following the splendid view, the trio made their way toward Juno's home to grab the first of a few fabulous Chuncheon meals, Chuncheon being famous for food, the dinner did not disappoint. The evening was spent chatting with Juno and his wife about previous travels, careers, pets, snacking on oranges, playing with cats and eventually dozing off into a deep slumber.

Drama Museum



Incredibly awesome pics to take at the Drama Museum and have emailed to photo-ees.




On the morning of the 18th Juno dropped the couple off at the local Drama Museum while he headed off to work. The Harrington's enjoyed meandering the museum and city streets before making their way to a lunch stop in Myeong-dong, Dalk-galbi Street. Following a food affair of great proportions it was off to Angel-in-Us Coffee for a quick email check and MAED reading and assignments for Melissa. Having checked his email, Mike was free to explore the city and found a great many treasures from a group of football (soccer) players to a lovely lake scene.



Afternoon Coffee for the MAED student



Soccer/Football



Around Chuncheon: City of Lakes


The two Harrington's reconnected just before the dinner hour to meet their host at the provincial museum where they were oportune to see a fabulous sunset and some artifacts of Korean history before enjoying the fine and delectable fare of Chuncheon one last time. The evening of the 18th ended in much the same as the 17th and took the Harrington's right into the morning of the 19th when they'd again hit the road.



Gangwon-do Provincial Museum



The Making of a 'Big' Decision

Generally when people take on the task of making a 'big' decision they will spend months mulling it over, researching options, drawing up pros and cons, etc.

The Harrington's tend to get a nudging gut-instinct that says 'GO!' With a bit of caution they examine the gut feelings, attempt to discern what's really going on and move forward. Consider for example their dating relationship which lasted 2.5 months prior to an extraordinary mountain top engagement which lasted the total of 3 months before the "Big Day."  Or consider the manner in which they placed all their eggs in the Daejeon, South Korea basket (however, in reality the couple did do a little more research and preperation on opportunites for living and working abroad, but Daejeon won with hardly any fight when the decision making came down to it).

Needless to say, living in a foreign land hasn't drastically changed this characteristic and much to even their own surpise, a big decision has been made.  Starting this week, Wednesday Korea time, Tuesday USA time Melissa Harrington will begin posting online discussions, reading uncanny amounts of technical/textbook writing and preparing weekly papers in pursuit of a Masters of Art in Education focusing on English Language Learners.

When asked as to how this decision was made Mrs. Harrington simply replies "I'm not quite sure." She continues by explaining her own shock at the ease and speed of making this decision. "Just a month ago, as I listened to two friends discuss their participation and plans of entering the program I thought 'I could never/would never do that!' Now, here I am." A few more questions from THT reveals that for the Harrington's an online Masters degree just made sense.  Although there is much to do in teaching while in Korea there is a fair amount of free time particularly while sitting at a computer, so time is more or less in abundance.  The Harrington's also took into consideration their current income, savings goals and cost of the program and felt all were easily managed - saving money as well as paying for the courses and even having a good deal of fun while living in the Republic of Korea.

If any of our readers are also finding themselves wanting to pursue higher education or simply grasp a better understanding of what Mrs. Harrington is about to undertake we encourage you to explore Ashford University and/or specifically the Masters of Arts in Education section.

(Many thanks to Jennifer Mullen for her effort in searching out programs and encouraging Melissa Harrington to move forward in this 'big decision').