It has been a while since we have written on our blog. Since coming back to Canada we have both been busy with visiting as many people as we can, as well as adjusting back to North American culture. Funny things ? parking your car across the street and waiting for a break and being amazed that cars are stopping for you; going to the movie theatre and being a little confused by not having an assigned seat; even talking to servers, cashiers, or customer service people and not thinking in Korean. There are definitely things missed from Korea, but we are also quite happy to be home.
We?ve had the chance to visit some of you and catch you up with ?what happens next?, but not everyone, so here?s a brief update. Since coming back in the middle of October, we have been visiting with many many many people that I think has extended to early December. It has been great! Now, we?re figuring out what we do from here and what God has in store for us.
Darrell has begun the process to find a church. He has spoken to most of the regional ministers around the Maritimes, and now we?re playing the waiting game. Once a church is looking for a new addition to their staff a regional minster will pass on Darrell?s resume to them. If the church feels that Darrell would be a good fit, then meetings and interviews proceed from there. He has been approved with his license to minister, which is a great step in the right direction. We?re hoping for Darrell to start his Master?s at Acadia Divinity next fall. We continue to pray and trust that God will find us the right church, but until that time we will work with what we know and what is provided. We are staying in Moncton for the time being. Darrell starts work for Bell in the New Year helping customers on the phone with their service. It sounds like a good job for the time being, and I start work at a daycare on the same date, teaching the 2 year-olds. It will be nice to work with little ones again, and I?m quite excited!
Right now?that?s what is happening with us. This Christmas season, we?d greatly appreciate your prayers, as we don?t know what God has in store for us and where He will lead, but we just ask that our hearts and minds will be open to what He wants of us. Thank you all for your support, and we hope you all have an amazing Christmas!
Alright, so there's really not much to say beyond the title, but I'll tell a little bit of the story.
We had been a little confused about our end-date, so we met with our boss two weeks ago to discuss the matter. At the meeting, she said that, based on the current enrollment, they were going to be downsizing a little and replacing me and Shannon with only one foreign teacher. She also said that, provided they could find someone to replace us, we would be completing our contract sometime in October. We said, 'okay', and went on our merry way, still wondering when exactly we were going to be heading home.
Fast forward to this week, and I'll map this out for you a little bit.
Monday - I decide that I need to start emailing some people to let them know that we're going to be coming home a little sooner than anticipated.
Tuesday - We get to work, and our other boss comes in to meet with us, tells us the new guy's paperwork is almost done, and asks us when we'd like to go home. We say, 'Whatever's going to be best for you,' so he replies by saying that THIS weekend is impossible, because it's a major holiday in Korea this weekend (Chuseok, but we'll have more on that later), but NEXT weekend should be alright. Shannon and I are in a little bit of shock, but we say, 'okay' and go on our merry way.
Wednesday - We look at possible flights and compare what we've found with what our boss has found, tickets are purchased, and we're set to go, followed closely by tickets being purchased for the new guy. Shannon and I are still in shock, but we now have our tickets in hand, so we need to start making arrangements.
Thursday - We go to the post office to send a bunch of our stuff home, which we had been planning to do anyway, but now there's a sense of urgency to it, because there's a good chance we're going to beat our stuff home, now. We send numerous emails to people, making last minute arrangements for the end of our time in Korea.
So, at this point, we're still trying to figure some things out, but one thing we do know for certain: we're leaving Korea at 5:20pm on Sunday October 11, and landing in Halifax at 1:45am on Monday October 12 (and if you're following the time zones, that means that we're going to be in transit for 20 hours, and yet only 8 hours will have passed on the clock).
We still don't completely believe this is happening, but we're excited to be coming home and we're looking forward to seeing all of you for whom we've been writing this blog over the last year. So, as our second-last week winds to a close, we ask for your prayer as we get ready for the journey home.
This past weekend, we had a rather unique opportunity; not only did we get to take a trip to a 600 year-old Korean folk village, but we also got to do it with our church family.
It was a wonderful and unique experience right from the get-go, because we arrived at the church with Chelsea (who came along for the ride), and were floored by the sight of people loading onto a huge tour bus with the church name printed on it! I must say, coming from a small-town background, something like that just tickled me, because I was expecting to see a small fleet of vans and cars (you know, like we do back home).
So, suffice it to say that the journey was a lot more comfortable than I was expecting, which was wonderful, because the drive was about three hours. We arrived about 11:00 (which, for those of you keeping track, means we had to get out of bed at 5:30 to make the commute to the church before the departure time), and almost immediately jumped into a walking tour of the town.
As we walked, we were absolutely amazed by the beauty of the town, and marvelled at the way that the locals had married their traditional homes with a (semi-)modern life. There were cars parked in the driveways and electricity running to most of the houses, but these were mere curiosities in the midst of a little village outside of time.
I also learned on this trip about the reverence that Koreans hold for the forest. There are very (and I mean very) few old trees in the whole country. Apparently, not much of the landscape survived the Korean war, which led to a massive reforestation effort by the US and Korean governments. The result is the beautiful countryside that exists now, and any old trees that remain are preserved with great reverence by the people. The tree at the center of this village is roped off with row after row of wishes that visitors have written on slips of paper.
After that, we made our way to lunch, where we had a delectable chicken dish (I forgot to ask what it was called), before we went to check out the Hahoe Mask Dance. This was certainly one of the most unique experiences of our trip, but was fascinating to witness, as this dance has been a part of the culture for centuries and is even considered to be a national treasure. I won't go into all of the details here, but you can learn all about the dance at http://www.hahoemask.co.kr/.
That pretty much concluded our day. Afterward, we found our way back to Daejeon to sort through the hundreds of pictures that I took over the course of the day. It was a wonderful day, and we were really happy to have been able to share in it with our church family.
Last week, Darrell and I were blessed to have Jessica Dempster come and visit us. We’ve had so much awesomeness during our time in Korea. First, we had the lovely Leslie Price visit us in May and now another dear friend visit us in September. God has truly blessed us during our time here!
Last Monday Darrell and I left Daejeon on the shuttle bus to Incheon airport. It took about 3 hours to get there, but the time flew by…due to me sleeping the whole way. We finally arrived and were delighted to find out we were on time and that Jess’s flight would be early. Woohoo! We waited at the arrival gate for a blue-eyed and dark-haired girl, since we knew not many of them would probably come out of the Korean gate. As we were waiting, Darrell and I were having an amusing time watching the airport gate workers. They were wearing masks and running around with thermometers, checking anyone who came off the flight who could potentially have H1N1. Darrell and I were debating “if we cough, do you think they’ll jump us?” There was just too much to risk…even if it would have been funny. However, the idea flew out of our heads as we saw Jess coming out of the gate. I think she was the loudest and most excited person the Koreans had ever seen come out of the gate. It was awesome to see her! After some hugs, a small snack and a shuttle bus of fun conversation, we were back in Daejeon.
Since we still had to work from Tuesday to Friday, Jess would entertain herself while we were at work. She did many different things – came to see some of the classes we taught, met up with some people from Wycliffe Korea, relaxed and went on beautiful nature walks. When we were free, Darrell and I filled her with Korean food…and lots of it! Every breakfast, lunch and dinner we would try to go out and introduce her to something new, and she fell in love with EVERYTHING…except shrimp sticks. Haha…they kinda looked like cheesies, but she was sadly mistaken. She wrote down everything in her notebook, so when she got back to Toronto she could find some of these foods in Korea town.
Darrell and Jess thought they would try and climb a mountain while she was visiting, too. The mountain was called Gyeryongsan. Darrell knew the mountain was famous and thought it would be an adventure. Since I had quite a number of classes that day I decided to stay home and relax, so they left around 6am on Friday morning. They arrived back at the apartment by 1:40pm and looked exhausted. They didn’t realized how HUGE this mountain was, or that the side they climbed even “mountain people” found hard. When Koreans go climbing, they REALLY go climbing! They wear special jackets and pants, huge head visors, gloves, sometimes facemasks and mountain shoes. Darrell and Jess were wearing regular t-shirts and pants (Darrell ripped his pants badly going down the mountain) plus sandals. Koreans were pointing at their feet and saying “Oh, very dangerous!” but they survived and got amazing photos out of the deal.
Friday evening we met up with my cousin Chelsea and went out for dalkgalbi (chicken breast, rice cakes and cabbage in hot red pepper sauce), which was amazing! Darrell and Jess met up with Chelsea earlier to introduce Jess to our most favourite clothing store, Elves. The shirts just make you happy! Another favourite Korean pastime is going to the photo booths where you do pictures together. You can pose in the craziest positions and then add on any backgrounds to this photo. We finished the night with noraebang! Jess fell in LOVE with it as she sang her heart out to many many many songs. It was a grand Friday!
The fun didn’t end with Friday as the four of us (me, Darrell, Chelsea and Jess) headed to Seoul for a long weekend. We wanted to try and take Jess to all the places we had been that we knew she would enjoy. We arrived in Insadong and began the hunt for a motel. We had no success finding a room with two doubles beds, so we began looking for two rooms. We were starting to get worried we might not find a place since many of the motels had couples waiting in the lobbies for a room. Many of the workers told us to “come back at 10pm” and it was 6pm now, but we found a place. It wasn’t the best, but the lady who worked there was very nice.
The weekend was filled with different adventures. We went shopping in Insadong and had supper at a beautiful outdoor Italian restaurant. The evening was starting to cool down, so the outside was lovely. Sunday, we went to Yoido Full Gospel Church (the largest in the world), and afterwards, we went to Gyeongbokgung, which is one of Seoul’s five palaces. Darrell and I had visited this palace before and had a fantastic time. We wanted to show it to Jess and Chelsea. It was a splendid day to visit and took lots of pictures…especially jumping in the air photos in front of the palace
That evening, we got together with Heather and Seung Jin in Gangnam. Jess was saying she had not seen Heather in 5 years and was very excited to see her. We went to Shabeu Shabeu restaurant, where we had Japanese food. The dessert of the evening was Baskin Robbins’ Ice cream balls dipped in fondue….mmmm…I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. The food was delicious, and the company was even better! It was great catching up about ‘back in the day’ times at ABU…oh…correction…Crandall University ;)
It was time to head back to Daejeon and have an evening of relaxation before Jess left in the afternoon the next day. We bought some pizza and played some games, plus both us girls communicated with our parents on the other side of the world – through the wonders of technology. It was quite nice!
It was morning…the final day. We helped her pack all her belongings and she too was terribly kind to take some of our stuff back with her. What a sweetheart! It was sad to see her go as we watched her board the shuttle bus back the airport, but we knew we would see her again once we got back to Canada. Once we are back we will plan the next big adventure. Maybe Darrell and Jess can climb the Mt. Katahdin when we get back…only this time they will be in “mountain people” gear!
Darrell and I finally got a well deserved break from work. Darrell finished intensive classes last Friday and the relaxing began. After a few days of relaxing, chillaxing, and not doing much of anything, we were off on another adventure. We left Sunday afternoon to Seoul to visit with our friends Heather and Seung Jin. After arriving in Seoul, we met them at Itaewon for supper. After being a little saddened that the Hard Rock Café was closed, we hunted for another restaurant. We went to some sort of American-style restaurant. I will admit the place was a little sketchy, but the food wasn’t too bad. We had a nice chat, catching up on news since the last time we had seen each other. Then we were off to a foreign food market to get sour cream for the nachos Heather was making that night. It was very hard not to buy things. I saw sooo many cheeses – brie, cheddar, mozzarella and even Philly cream cheese; however, when I looked at the price, I was a little turned off. Just have to wait 3 months…I think I can, I think I can…
The nachos, I must say, were AWESOME…I couldn’t stop eating. We enjoyed them while playing bunches of board games. We began with a classic – the game of Life. I won, which was again awesome, but very sad when I didn’t get any children on my board game journey. In the game of Life I was married to Jude Law and somehow didn’t land on any children boxes. I blame Jude! We also played Sequence which I had never played before and was a little worried. Heather and I were against Darrell and Seung and somehow Heather and I won each time. I think this was making up for not having children in the game of Life :P Finally, we finished with an intense game of Uno…I can’t remember who all won those rounds.
In the morning, we had a full day at Caribbean Bay: one of the largest water parks in the world. Darrell and I were quite excited! After a horrid bus ride down (for me), we made it. We arrived I believe at 9:30am and were planning to stay the entire day. We bought our tickets, locked up our personal items, picked up our bathing caps and PFDs, put on sun block (except Darrell) and were set for the day.
We started with the wave pool. The waves were incredibly big and fast. As soon as I stepped in a lifeguard stopped me and told me to take off my earrings. I didn’t understand why at first until I saw the giant wave coming at me and this wave was filled with people. All I would need is one wave with a person to pull on my earring and my ear would be done for. After a grand time in the wave pool we set off to the lazy river. This river was mighty long and had a strong current. Darrell and I had to hold on to each other’s tubes so we would not get separated. I am regretting that after we came to a waterfall and Darrell pushed me under it again, and again, and again. One does not have a lot of control when your butt is stuck in a hole and your hands and feet can barely touch the water. Thanks Darrell!
Darrell and Seung did a few rides together while Heather and I relaxed. Since Heather was 7 and half months pregnant she was limited with what she could do. Hot tubs were a big No-No, since she didn’t want to “cook the baby” :P I finally agreed to go down one of the giant tube rides with Darrell. After asking him many times “are you certain it will not flip” I agreed and went. You know what happened? It flipped! When we reached the bottom, Darrell told me to lean back which I did…just to the side :P Over we went…good times had by all!
The day was about done and we had an awesome time. We got to have fun on some amazing rides and enjoy a little sun too. Darrell might not have enjoyed the sun as much as us…due to not enough or hardly any sun screen…haha, but we had a great time. It was great to spend time with Heather and Seung Jin again. We are looking forward to the next great adventure!
Last weekend Darrell, my cousin Chelsea and I went to the very famous Boryeong Mud Festival. We decided to go for the day instead of the weekend because poor Darrell had to start intensives on Monday (he needed as much sleep as possible). We got up at 7am in order to get ready to take the 9:50am train to Daecheon (not to be confused with our Daejeon). This was my and Darrell’s first time on the slow train. It was no KTX…I mean I could actually see things go by in slow motion…haha, but it was a nice ride. As soon as we arrived in Daecheon we had to get our stuff and get off quickly because, like the KTX, the train does not wait for you. Quick as bunnies we were! However, we made it off and once we were in the train station we were being bombarded by our first Korean man saying “Hello…Where are you going?” to which Chelsea answered, “to the bathroom.” Haha…very nice!
After our trip to the bathroom we went hunting for a taxi driver. It was very easy and we pretty much didn’t have to tell him where we were going. We knew what he was thinking “oh, foreigners…to Mudfest.” After a 10 to 15 minute taxi drive we arrived at the beach and once again there was more bombarding by more Korean men asking us if we wanted a place to stay. They were all over disappointed when we kept saying “no”. It was time to fill our bellies with Korean food and then we were off to the beach.
The first we had to do was find a place to put the book bags. We were first going to find a hiding place in the bushes, but then we were thrilled to find lockers. In went all the bags, the clothes, shoes and jewelry…but the cameras were going to stay free. I must say I had no real desire to play in the mud, so I was in charge of the cameras. That way I could capture every express on their faces. We were ready and off to the mud – Well, Darrell and Chelsea went down to the ocean first to play in the waves, but THEN it was off to the mud!
Darrell and Chelsea went through so many different mud activities. First they went into the mud pool, where they would splash, role, and even hug loads of mud. It was a nice start! Then it was off to the mud jail where Darrell and Chelsea were imprisoned in a mighty jail where the ‘guards’ would throw mud at them. Poor Chelsea had her mouth open when this happened and she REALLY got a face-full :P While we were walking around, we saw so many different colors of mud. Chelsea wanted to take part in that color scheme, so she got herself painted blue. So many people were painted with so many colors – blue, green, purple and reddish-orange. So many ages were involved in getting the pretty colors. The youngest we saw was a very tiny baby boy who was being painted green. At first we was doing okay…until he looked at his body and saw green everywhere. He started to panic and cry, but his mother made them keep painting – kind lady! I am at least happy Chelsea did not panic and cry…although they would have made great pictures :P
It was an enjoyable day of mud! But soon the day was almost done for us and we were getting beat and sleepy. Which meant dear Darrell and Chelsea needed to get cleaned up. The only things I needed to clean off were my sneakers. They were filled with mud! I remember thinking to myself “maybe I should take them off” but I’m glad I didn’t. So many people were falling or slipping in the mud because it was EVERYWHERE! Even Darrell came close to falling a few times. A small boy even slid right into my legs…so yeah…it was everywhere. I am very pleased I left my sneakers on or I might have been falling with a very expensive camera and that would have been very VERY bad.
Darrell and Chelsea had one last round of mud paint and then they were off to the sea, the Yellow Sea for that matter. They were very salty when they came out, but at least most of the mud was gone…most of it. There was still some hiding like in the ears…yuck! So, the three of us salty and oily beings were off to homey Daejeon. We had a great time, plus we were also very pleased we only stayed for a day. It was a very windy day, so some of the attractions were not up due to the wind. Even the waves in the Sea were being watched by the lifeguards. Small children were being knocked over by the waves and even Chelsea had a little tumble. However it is a very nice day trip! We left at 9:50am to go there and we took the 6:55pm train back. Both train rides were about 2 hours long plus also needing to count a taxi ride back to our apartments. It was around 9:30pm when we made it home and a nice air conditioned apartment with a sweet hot shower was priceless.
There’s only one thing I can tell anyone who might be in Korea and interested to go: make sure you have a great bunch of people or a great set of friends to go with. There is nothing worse than going and not having fun because you went with the wrong people. The company you are with can make or break the trip. Suffice it to say we were in GREAT company!
Well, okay...not exactly the postal system. A more appropriate title would probably be "Lack of adequate communication has caused a rather troublesome issue with the postal system"...but that would be far too long of a title for a post that's not bound to become a paper for some university professor who likes painstakingly accurate titles.
Here's the story: as you all know, we were packed up and moved across town a few months back to a new school and a new home, with a new mailing address. Shannon was ever so kind as to send out the address we were given to many of you, and even sent out some letters with that address on the return. Since that time, we've only received ONE piece of mail that was supposed to have found its way to us.
We asked our boss if she could look into it for us (to no success), and in the process, found out that the address we had for the new school (which is where we have our mail sent, in theory) has been wrong the entire time. Combine that with the fact that our school changed names shortly after we arrived, and Koreans don't seem to do the mail-forwarding thing, and it actually ends up being a small miracle that even that one piece of mail made it through.
We've done little bit more looking, and it seems that any international mail that can't be delivered gets held for about a month (but is impossible to retrieve without a tracking number), and then gets sent back across the pond...by ground. So, to anyone out there who may have replied to a letter, or may have sent us a care package since April, you'll likely see that returned to you over the next 8-10 weeks. We apologize profusely for the confusion (and believe me, we're still quite confused over it), but fortunately, at least the mail is not completely lost (again, in theory).
If you happen to be thinking to yourself, "wow, that's crazy. If only I could sent those two a letter..." fear not! We finally have a proper mailing address!
Please feel free to send any and all cards, letters and delicious Canadian snacks to us at:
Shannon & Darrell Nevers DYB Edusol 1109 4th Floor Shin Sun Tower Gwanjeo-dong Seo-gu, Daejeon South Korea
From May 1st to the 19th we were blessed with a visit from our good friend Leslie. She had been planning this trip to visit us and re-connect in Korea for a while, since it had been 3 years since she was last here. She was due to arrive at Incheon airport Friday night, but the poor girl’s plane got quarantined in Japan because of the swine flu. She finally arrived in Seoul on Saturday around 4pm. We were soooo happy to see her!! She was welcomed also by a large group of police officers. This attention was not ‘directly’ related to Leslie, but the protestors at the train station. If there was going to be a riot, the police were going to be ready :S. Thankfully we got out of there before anything could happen. We were not completely sure of what the protest was about, but we believe it was either due to cut backs and less pay for the train station workers, or Mad Cow disease and imported beef (these theories were floating around).
We found a Love Motel in Insa-dong. It was not the greatest motel…our room had punch marks in the walls, no air conditioner that worked, and smelled a little bit of cigarettes. The three of us shared a room for one night but then found out the next day “only two people”, so we had to find Leslie another room… which wasn’t hard. We explored as much of Seoul as we could within the three we had. We bought a bunch of gifts at Insa-dong and went to the Hi Seoul festival (which just happened also to be supporting World Vision). They had a large spread of pictures that went back from the 1900’s to today, as well as many other people in costume representing those time periods.
We went back to Daejeon on Monday morning, so that we could show Leslie a bit of our home town. We didn’t do a lot…haha…more relaxed. Since poor Leslie was still a bit jet-lagged. We enjoyed the comfort of restaurants and going to the movies (which, by the way, if you get to sit in the front seats of a theater you get foot rests…which is AWESOME! We totally need that back in Canada!)
Unfortunately, Darrell and I could not get three weeks off work, so Leslie had to do a bit of traveling by herself. However, she did get the chance to visit with old friends she knew in Daejeon and her old school. Fortunately, we could do things doing the weekend, and the plan for the next weekend was hitting the Icheon pottery festival. This place was amazing!! It had wonderfully-crafted pottery that you could tell took time and heart into making. They had vases, tea sets, pots, cups, whistles, ornaments, and even some stuff that was less than G-rated. Haha…that is right….they had everything! We bought many MANY gifts and even a few things for ourselves.
We were really blessed on the 15th of May. It was Teachers Day…so our boss gave us the DAY OFF!! We took Leslie to Noeun (our old dong) and showed her all the wonders it had - From the awesome stationary store, to Paparotie (which sells the best buns in the world), and out favorite GalmaegiSal restaurant. It was soo great to see it all again! Then for the evening (due to the rain), we went to see Angels and Demons…only to get trapped in the underground parking lot after the movie was over! Yeah…scariest thing EVER!! All us girls kept thinking “this is when the killer jumps out in the movies”. Haha…I think we have been watching too many movies :P
We had one weekend left before Leslie had to leave, and so we went on a trip to Busan. Darrell and I were really excited because we had not been to Busan yet – Leslie had when we was here 3 year ago. The downside was it was still raining from Friday night…and it was raining Cats and Dogs and maybe a few Horses all day on Saturday! We were going to take the KTX train to Busan and made it just in time for us to catch the train…well…at least that’s what we thought. A worker on the train asked us for our tickets, looked at them and said we were on the wrong train. He told us we would have to get off at the next stop and ran to the next plate form. This guy did not speak perfect English, but he spoke enough to stress that we were going to have to run to catch the RIGHT train at the next stop! And as soon as the train stopped, run we did…we ran our butts off! Made it to the other side and were told that the train would be 5 mins late. Haha…I guess we didn’t have to run :P but the important thing was we were getting on the right train.
We arrived at Busan with plans to visit two places on our weekend there – Taejongdae Park and Haeundae beach. We took the bus (which was first the wrong bus…haha, but then found the right one) to Taejongdae Park. It was beautiful there and we got amazing pictures. One would think “oh it is beautiful…so it stopped raining?” Nope! Never stopped all day! We saw the sights all in the rain…still, we would never trade it for anything.
We arrived at Taejongdae around 12:30 and spent maybe 4 hours there….haha….then the women were hungry again! So, we started making our way to Haeundae – the plan was to find a nice Love motel, get supper, and then maybe spend an hour at the Noraebang (Korean Karaoke rooms). We found a love motel that looked like a castle, plus it had huge rooms and cost very little…always a nice sign. After changed from our wet clothes (and Iblow-dried my shoes), we went out to find food. We went to our first Bennigens….mmmmmm….it was sooo good! To this day I am not sure how Leslie ate all her ribs, but she did it. It was pretty sweet to have a club sandwich again and Darrell fell in love with the idea of deep frying your sandwich. We were very filled! It was Noraebang time! Again, we were just planning to stay an hour….that did not happen. We stayed for 4 hours and 30 mins – ended at 2:45am! We sang our lungs out!! It was sooo much fun and Darrell and I are now completely addicted!
It was now Sunday and we were told it was going to rain again, but praise Jesus it didn’t. It was a beautiful Sunday and we were staying at a motel right by the Haeundae beach! Right on! After making our way to Starbucks for some breakfast we moseyed on over to the Beach. All the foreigners were in bathing suits while most of the Koreans were in Long sleeve shirts (not all…but most). We totally didn’t want to leave…just bask in the sun, but we didn’t have much time left and we wanted to see the Haeundae Aquarium – the largest in Korea. This aquarium was amazing! It had everything – from fish, crabs, otters, penguins (my fave), octopus (another fave), rays, seals, and sooo many sharks. You could walk through a tunnel and it looked like you were being surrounded by sharks. We had a fantastic Sunday!
It was now Tuesday, the day Leslie was leaving. We were a little sad because it was nice to entertain someone, plus it was nice having someone from home. We shared a lot of experiences and a lot of inside stories. Somewhere Darrell and I are going to have to bring a Noraebang to Canada…haha! It is amazing we only have 5 more months to go in Korea and we are looking forward to having new experiences with old friends. Also, just seeing those friends again will we a great treat. It was wonderful having her here and we can’t wait to see her again when we come back home!
So I realized that, once again, I've been a terrible blogger, and haven't posted anything since we were going to Seoul to meet Leslie for her three-week visit. Very long story short, we had an AWESOME time, and we were sad to see Leslie go, but we were reminded of something we had all but forgotten: we're now officially past the halfway point in our contract! When we left for Korea, Leslie was just beginning to plan her visit, and we hadn't even realized at the time that that visit would be happening around the six-month point of our adventure!
So I guess that makes this post our six-month update. I'll try not to disappoint.
We've learned quite a bit in the last six months about who we are and what we want out of life. The wonderful adventure that is teaching English in Korea is really awesome, and even after six months, we still recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who isn't sure what to do after graduating from university, or who is just looking to travel or have an adventure before settling in to 'real life'. It's a tremendous opportunity to experience a different culture, learn a new language, and even earn a little extra money while you're at it.
That said, one of the things that Shan and I have learned while we've been here is that having a real life and globetrotting don't go all that well together. Since we've been here, we've had a great opportunity to get involved at a church here, but our involvement means that we don't often get to do the classic foreigner things like travelling all over Asia on the weekends. Now, this is definitely not a bad thing - far from it, in fact. It's simply what our experience has been, and we've realized as a result of that experience that as much as we love to travel, we would prefer to do it in more of a classic vacation style than expecting to do it and still have to be back for work on Monday.
The other thing we've learned is that, when 'real life' finally beckons, it's hard to ignore. For a few years now, I've had an idea in my head of what I think 'real life' holds for me, and being here, working at a job and pursuing my passion on the side, definitely has its difficult moments. Combine that with this conversation every time we meet new people:
-oh, you're married? -yup -do you have any children? -not yet -why not? -because we're in Korea
Such conversations tend to be a rather constant reminder that we're only here for a season, and settling down to start a family is definitely part of that whole 'real life' thing, too.
By this point, you've probably figured out where I'm going with all this: as much as we love it here in Korea, we've decided that it's time to make the jump into 'real life' and come home after only one year in Korea, rather than the two we had originally planned. We've been mulling this over since our original jobs were unexpectedly terminated, and we were moved across the city to a new job and a new (albeit AWESOME) apartment. The change, while definitely not a bad one, served as a reminder to us that this adventure is not a permanent one, and that God's got plans for us when we get back to 'real life'.
Now, of course comes the point when when we realize that we have to start planning for our return home - jobs, housing, etc. and that in and of itself seems a little bit of a daunting task. The extent of such planning up to this point is making the decision that we'll go wherever we can find a church that will take me on (most preferably in a musical capacity), but that we'd prefer to stay in the Maritimes. A Master's degree is on the horizon as well, but probably not full time, and not before the 2010/11 school year.
So that's basically what's been happening with us over the last while. Shan will have a more in-depth report on our visit from Leslie coming soon.
This evening I find myself sitting on the KTX train on our way to Seoul for our first long weekend since the end of the January Intensives. It's most exciting because our trip this weekend has an ulterior purpose, too - our good friend Leslie (who played no small part in us deciding to come to Korea in the first place) is coming to visit or three weeks!
*Unfortunately, Leslie is currently trapped in Japan because of a precautionary swine flu quarantine, so we won't see her till tomorrow, but we're all still excited*
We're not 100% sure exactly what we're going to he doing this weekend (although, for me, that's part of the adventure), but we're excited nonetheless. Leslie will be the first person from home we'll have seen in person since we got here, and that is exciting enough even without the long weekend in Seoul! We may hit the zoo, we may go to one of the theme parks, we may just go sightseeing and shopping - it's just nice for us to have some time off. All I know for sure is that we'll be taking lots and lots of pictures, which makes me happy because I've been a really bad photographer lately, and I've not gone out for some serious picture-making in a fair little while.
As always, for more up-to-the-minute updates on our adventures this weekend, feel free to follow me on Twitter (or just watch re myriad of status updates that get transferred to Facebook automatically for me).
(also, I apologize for not yet doing the video tour of our new apartment. We bought a Wii instead of a camera last weekend.)
Welcome back, sports fans, to the recap of our first trip to Seoul. On today's episode, we'll continue where we left off last time and jump straight into Sunday.
We rose early Sunday morning for breakfast before making our way down the street to Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest Christian church in the world. The church has over 830,000 members in congregations spread out all over Seoul and beyond, but the main church building that we went to holds 26,000 people each service for seven services each Sunday. The services are held in Korean, by they offer simultaneous translation into at least nine different languages at the different services. It was definitely a new experience, especially during the singing times, where the lyrics were posted in four different languages, and everyone sang in their native tongue. And I must say, the sound of 26,000 people all singing the same song in their own language is one I won't soon forget. I personally still can't get over that number...that's the population of a small city all inside one building, all singing together!
Anyway, after the service, we headed out looking for lunch, and made our way to Itaewon (이태원), the foreigner neighbourhood. Basically, we left Korea for lunch - that's how large the foreigner population is in this part of Seoul. Lorie and Laura had a hankerin' for Indian food, so we found a restaurant that had a buffet, and got to try all kinds of different dishes. The thing that most impressed me, however, wasn't the main dishes - it was naan (Indian flatbread). It was absolutely delicious, especially when dipped in the butter chicken sauce!
After lunch, it was time to go to the place Shan was most excited for: the Bau House dog cafe. To answer the question that's already on your mind, no it's not a cafe with dog on the menu. Instead, it's a cafe that just happens to have a couple dozen dogs living there, and when you order your drinks, you get treats to feed the dogs, and you can play with them for your stay there. It's definitely not a place for everyone, as the dogs have the run of the place (the majority of the staff are solely on cleanup patrol), but if you're a dog person, it's definitely a unique experience. And the dogs were REALLY cute, too!
From there, it was about time to head back to the train station, as Lorie and Laura wanted to stop at E-mart before heading back to Hong Seong. From there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump back to Daejeon and our little bunnies!
It was a fantastic weekend, and we definitely can't wait to go to Seoul again and check out some more of the sights, especially when we won't have a lot on our minds during the trip. You see, an unfortunate byproduct of the global economic crisis is that there has been a severe dropoff in enrollent at the private schools, and ours has been no exception. As a result, our hagwon is going to be closing.
Fortunately, our boss runs two hagwons, and we were offered positions there, which we accepted because we love our boss, and really enjoy working with her. The only catch is that the other school is across town, so we're going to have to move, and that's not going to be a lot of fun.
So, as we look ahead to this rather significant change in our lives, your prayers would be much appreciated.
Okay, so I'm a little later than I had planned with the results of our weekend in Seoul, but that's because Shan and I have been sick basically since we got back. Now, without any further ado, here's a recap of Day 1 of our trip:
First things first - Seoul is HUGE!!!!! In the two days we were there, we stayed only in the center part of the city, and at times it still took us a half hour or more on the subway to get where we wanted to go.
We traveled to Seoul via the high-speed train (which was everything I expected it to be and more), and met up with Lorie and Laura at the train station. From there, we headed on over to Gyeongbok Palace (경복국), where we arrived just in time to witness the changing of the guard. This involved traditional Korean costumes, weapons, musical instruments, and a LOT of spectators! It was pretty awesome, especially for our first experience in Seoul.
After exploring the palace grounds, we made our way to Insa-dong, where we had lunch at an awesome mandu (만두) shop, where the dumplings are so big that you've actually got to cut them apart with your spoon to eat them - and they were delicious! We wandered around the market for a little while and did a little shopping before going to Namdaemun (남대문) market where I did in fact get to check out the camera market area, which was cool, but not nearly as big as the internets made it out to be. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of shops, and they all had LOTS of awesome stuff, but I was expecting a long street with both sides lined with shops of awesomeness. Instead it was one side of a short stretch of street that had said awesome-filled shops. It took me a little bit of searching, but I found what I had come for: a TTL cord for my flash, and a good, solid tripod.
It was starting to get on toward supper time by this point, so we decided it was time for a little riverboat cruise. Laura had been on this cruise a few times before with some of her students, so we followed her lead in getting to the docks, but it turns out we got off at the wrong subway stop, because we had to walk a LOT farther than anyone had anticipated to get there. Fortunately, the cruise was well worth the walk, and we got to enjoy a nice relaxing trip up and down the river, and even found out that we were really close to the church we were planning to go to the next day, and that there was a hotel right next to it that we could stay at. Oh, and did I mention that the riverboat was a pirate ship? Pure awesome!After the cruise, it was getting pretty late, so we found our way to the hotel and packed it in for the night, intending to get up for an early service at the church and another full day of exploring.
Coming up soon, Day 2 of our Seoul Adventure, which will be spread out over this blog and mine, as I'll post a recap of the service at Yoido Full Gospel Church there, as well as my impressions of the largest church in the world.
Okay, so now the whole world will know that we're suckers for cute faces.
Since leaving Canada, Shannon has had a hard time adjusting to not having a pet (namely a puppy) nearby for her to play with. So, for her birthday, I agreed that she could get a pet, but not a puppy, because the logistics of transporting a dog back to Canada when we're done our time in Korea were simply more than was reasonable to deal with. She settled on the two little guys in the picture. The little one is Gizmo, and the bigger one is Ozy (named for Ozymandias, because we watched the Watchmen on her birthday, too).
We got them a nicely sized cage and all the accessories, and then we brought the little guys home. This was Wednesday morning when they were introduced to their new habitat. Thursday, I had to run home to pick up something I forgot, and I checked on the little guys, and Ozy was just sitting in the cage and shaking. After awhile, we figured out that he was shaking because he was REALLY hungry, but wouldn't eat the rabbit food that we got him. He would eat the dried vegetables and hay in the food, but not the food pellets themselves. When we gave him some of the stuff he liked, he and Gizmo gobbled it down instantly (even getting into a fight over one of the carrot pieces), and was back to his old self in no time.
Or at least, mostly back to his old self. As I type this, I've got him sitting in my lap, wrapped in a towel because he needed a bath this morning (I'll leave it to your imagination as to why he might need a bath after having a food problem). But he is definitely far more energetic than he was yesterday, so I'm pretty sure his digestive tract is still recovering from his bout of not eating.
Anyway, the great thing is that these guys are quite possibly the cutest little bunnies on the face of the earth, and while we don't know how big they're going to get (the label said they were 'lion head rabbits' but they look different from each other, so we don't know for sure), I'm terribly amused by the fact that Gizmo sits quite comfortably in the palm of my hand.
Pardon the Big Bang Theory reference in the title, but that's exactly how I feel about our upcoming weekend. After four months here in Korea, we're finally making our first trip to Seoul, and (to quote Sheldon Cooper once again) 'we're taking the train!'
Now, this isn't just some 'scenic tour about the countryside' kind of train ride (which would have me excited enough as it is). No, this is a 'barreling down the tracks faster than your average NASCAR' kind of train ride, which offers a whole new category of excitement when it comes to over-land public transportation. In fact, if We were going to Seoul JUST for the chance to ride the high-speed train, I'd consider it a successful trip.
This trip, however, is actually for more than indulging my inner speed-demon. We're actually going to do some touristy stuff in Seoul, which also appeases my inner photographer, and hanging out with there with some friends for the weekend, too. Who knows? I might even get to indulge my inner geek by taking a walk around the famed electronics market (if I can convince three decidedly UNgeeky ladies that such a venture would be an efficient use of our time in the city).
All in all, though, I don't really know what to expect on this trip. It's really hard to know where to begin in a city of 14 million people, so I'm definitely glad we're travelling with experienced folk on this first voyage up north. Realistically, we could probably get by quite reasonably on our own, but it would likely take us a lot longer to do anything if we went with just a travel guide, a subway map and a pocket full of cheer. This way we can benefit from the experience of those who have gone before, of which I am always a strong proponent.
We'll keep you updated about how our voyage goes, and if you're following me on Twitter (or Facebook, even), I'll be giving more up-to-the-minute updates as often as I have a wifi connection.
In the midst of the busy-ness of work, it's always fun to have new experiences whenever we get the chance, and this weekend was certainly unique.
It turns out that not long after we came to Korea, Shannon had a cousin (whom she'd never met before) who came over and was teaching in Seoul. So after a few emails all over the family tree, Shannon and her cousin Chelsea got in contact with each other, and it turned out she was looking for another job. Fortunately, we happen to be friends with a recruiter, so we got them in contact with each other.
Our friend Sky was able to find her a job teaching an English cooking class for kids, which was great for Chelsea, since her degree is in food chemistry, so she was quite excited about that, and the best part from our perspective is that said job is right here in Daejeon!
Long story short, Chelsea moved to Daejeon on Saturday, and we met her for the first time at the train station to help her move into her new apartment here in the city.
Today after church, we took Chelsea on a little orientation tour of her part of the city, showing her some of the important landmarks (like the subway), and going with her to pick up some things for her apartment. We had a great afternoon, and really enjoyed getting to know her. It looks like she's really going to enjoy her time in Daejeon, and we're really glad that we were able to play a part in bringing her here.
Last Feb 17th we had the chance to celebrate Darrell's birthday. Of course, I would ask him many times before the date asking him "so...what do you want to do?" and him always answering back with "whatever you want." Haha...it made it interesting to plan :P I wanted to plan a surprise party, but I couldn't find the right supplies. Thankfully though, someone else had the same idea. We came to work on Tuesday (17th) and Linda told Darrell he had to leave...haha...he looked her very confused, but he did what she said. She closed the door and told me she picked up all kinds of supplies to make a fantasic surprise party. She is sooo wonderful & sweet!! We started decorating Darrell's class with banners and balloons. As we were decorating our boss Iris came in and started to help...then she turned to me and asked "What is Darrell's favorite cake?". As soon as I said "chocolate" she ran off like a shot, grabbing her purse on the way out :P We had just finished decorating when Iris returned with a lovely chocolate cake. They called Darrell back into the building and he was quite surprised...haha...despite him kinda suspecting what we were doing. We all sang Happy Birthday thinking we were then going to eat cake, but the surprise was not over. Linda and Iris had bought Darrell gifts...wonderful gifts. Linda got him a beautiful keychain with Korean carvings and Iris got his fantastic greenish clay mugs. She then turns to him and says "now everytime you drink coffee or tea you can think of me." It was sooo sweet!
It was quite a different birthday, since we were usually always tight with money. This year has been amazing, but we have not had to worry about that which was a wonderful first :) He got from me more silly things - snacks, orange earmuffs (which in the end did not fit...Koreans' heads are a bit smaller) & a solar powered bobble head sitting on the toilet...teehee...you heard me right. Finally, being able to say "also, after work you can buy whatever you want at Comma" (one of our favorite Korean stores that has everything). He bought new pens, lighter and wallet...haha...plus, also part of his gift was me ordering everything in Korean at restaurants, which made Darrell very happy. I have to say it was a freeing experience :P It was a great day!!!
We just celebrated our third month being in Korea, and I really can't believe that it's been three months already! I still feel like we've only just arrived, but at the same time, I feel like we're finally getting settled into a groove where our schedule is pretty well set.
We're definitely not wanting for things to do, as we do have a pretty busy schedule between work and school, and it almost makes me wonder where we're going to find time to do all of the adventuring that we want to do. All of the other foreigners that we've talked to are shocked that we've been here three months and haven't been to Seoul yet, but in the midst of everything else we're doing, we just haven't gotten around to it yet (but when we DO get a chance to go, you'll definitely hear about it!).
I won't bore you with our mushy-gushy Valentine's day plans of worship team practice, grocery shopping and house-cleaning; suffice it to say that our first V-day in another country probably won't be as romantic as you might expect, but if I have time today to plan anything outrageous, I'll try to post about it before YOUR Valentine's Day comes and goes.
So tonight we had another first for our adventure: we got to be interviewed over Skype about our experience in Korea. The audience was one of ABU's small groups whose topic of discussion is figuring out what you want to do with your life after university.
Because of the distinctive lag on the skype network (I suspect it has something more to do with the ABU network than with skype, but skype is always an easy target), we were provided with a list of questions in advance and had about 15 minutes to share a little about our experience while answering the questions, leaving time for additional q&a at the end. It was quite fun, and wouldn't you know it but an old friend was in the crowd, too!
We left the group with an open invitation to email us with any questions they might have about Korea, and hopefully we'll get some replies back because we'd love to see more people come over and take part in this wonderful experience with us.
Of course, if any of you have other questions that we might not have answered yet, please feel free to email us or simply post your question(s) in the comments section of this post (with your email address so we can reply directly to you). If a lot of questions come in, then we'll do a Q&A-style post, and put all the anawers in one place.
Well, we successfully made it to Hong Seong, and we're now on our way home, happy to have been able to visit somewhere new and to see Lorie for the first time since we first arrived in Korea.
An unexpected side effect of the bus ride was that Shan got a little motion sick on the way up, so we stopped by the pharmacy on our way back to the bus station to get her an anti-nauseant. We'll see how it works, and hopefully she'll have a more pleasant trip home.
Our day was really exciting, though, as Lorie showed us around her hometown, introduced us to some more new food (and I'm a horrible person for not remembering the name of it), and just generally showing us a great time. Hong Seong is much smaller than Daejeon (at a mere 35,000 or so, compared to Daejeon's 1.5 million), but there was still lots to fill up the afternoon. We went hiking around the mountain near Lorie's place and checked out the temple there, then she took us to the remains of the old Hong Seong fortress (we'll have pictures up on Facebook or Flickr once we're back at a computer and have time to sort through the hundreds that I took). It was really cool to see these buildings that are so old and then see how much of that heritage is in many modern buildings (like the pagoda-style roofs that you see modern iterations of in many places, to name just one example). Now I'm not much of a history buff (I leave such things to Shannon), but I can definitely appreciate being able to see (or more appropriately, 'take pictures of') things that have real historical significance.
All in all, I really enjoyed the day, and I can't wait to go on another adventure like this one where we get to see some of this rich history that exists throughout Asia.
Dear family and friends,
