Leslie's Visit to Korea!!

From May 1^st to the 19^th 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 15^th 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 I blow-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!

Hey all! It's Been Awhile!

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.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Long Weekend!

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.)

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]