Christmas In Korea

Hello Friends Across The Globe!

Like everyone else this holiday season we, too, will write a holiday edition. This blog will be in sections so you can skip whatever will bore you.

Aaaaaaand.....we're off!

Christmas in Korea:

According to the CIA factbook only 26% of Koreas are Christian (almost 20% being protestant), around 23% buddhist and the rest having "none." That being said, christmas in Korea does indeed exist and seems to be growing in popularity and commercialism.

There are some small differences here but overall christmas is very similar to at home.

Music:

Yes, they play christmas music in the stores (sometimes blaring outside of the stores) and yes many songs are in English although they have many korean versions of the songs we recognize.

Trees:

People do indeed have christmas trees although the trees are often fake and small. And as every student tells me there must be a star at the top of the tree.

Candy:

Heck yeah. Candy Canes exist and are popular here. However, I haven't seen massive store displays selling candy canes, only a few here and there. They do not have ribbon candy. (i knew you were wondering)

Food:

There seems to be no specific Christmas Dinner, however Christmas Cake is hugely popular and seems to be a staple. What is this Christmas Cake you ask? Well, similar to birthday cake it can be anything. There is no mandated flavor (I asked about fruit cake and they simply started at me). Every local bakery (and dunkin donuts) had stacks of Cake boxes outside their doors. You could tell it was christmas eve because every other person was carrying a cake box.

Santa:

Oh yes and he looks the same, still has a sled and 9 reindeer. They love rudolph here and that's one of the songs I recognize in Korean.

Stockings:

Yes, but I haven't figured out if presents go in them. My students seem baffled when i asked about that and said they were just a decoration. (also they called them "socks" and even "red sox" - real cute and, of course, true)

Christmas Shows:

Watching Home Alone! I'm sure there are also US Citizens that watch Macaulay Culkin on Christmas but when I think of Christmas programing I think of "A Christmas Story" and "Charlie Brown". Oh, and lets not forget "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Please, let me know if you think differently. Anyway, in Korea it's Home Alone.

Caroling:

Does not happen and my students seemed appalled that I even suggested singing outside and in public.

Outside Decorations:

On people's personal houses, No. At stores and in Churches, Yes. However, the Christmas Decorations are not nearly to the same extent. I was told that outside of city hall they do a pretty good display but I haven't made it there. Near us the only really big christmas display is in front of the massive protestant church (looks like a catholic cathedral) near our house.

Lastly:

Clubbing. It seems that those people who aren't married, don't have children or are old enough to, go the clubs on Christmas. I thought it strange, but Sara and Jill, our friends in Argentina said it's a tradition there too. Needless to say, we did not go out clubbing on Christmas (eve or day).

Exciting things about Korea:

Christmas Songs:

Currently the top two christmas songs in Korea are Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you" and Wham's "Last Christmas."

Exams:

Christmas, although growing, is still not the only thing people focus on for the December Season. My poor 1st and 2nd graders had National Exams the day before Christmas Eve and there was school on the 24 (although not the 25th).

Hannukah you ask?

Hardly anywhere. There was a small menorah outside one of the downtown hotels in Seoul that was lit nightly. Of course because I didn't want to teach only christmas I also taught Hannukah to my students. None of them (students or teachers) had ever heard of such a holiday. The Jewish population in Korea is very small.

Soraksan and Naksan Beach

Hi Friends Across the Globe!

Jamie and i have just come back from an exciting trip to Sorak Mountain. We are both required to participate in an English Camp over winter break and the trip was a bonding experience for all the teachers who are going to be working together. It was really exciting and very fun.


It started Thursday morning at 8.30 am when we all met at the district office to get on the buses and head out of Seoul to Soraksan (san meaning mountain for those of you also interested in a Korean Language Lesson). We rode for about three hours before we stopped for lunch. Lunch was a delicious rice and vegetable dish in a lovely little restaurant tucked into the side of the mountain. After lunch we continued on our way to the hotel-and boy, what a hotel it was!

The Hotel
The Hotel Sorak Park was a huge hotel about 5 minutes away from the cable car to take you up the mountain. It had a bizarre 1970s ranch feel and combined with the fact that we were practically the only people there and it was so cold we had to wear our coats anywhere outside of our rooms it reminded me a lot of the hotel from the Shining. That being said, it was still a lovely hotel and the rooms cost about 150,000 won a night so i felt very lucky to get such treatment.



Naksan Beach and Temple
After we checked in we headed back out again to see Naksan Beach and temple (in the increasing drizzle). It was only about 15 minutes away, and while the beach was lovely and i was excited to put my fingers in the East Sea, we didn't stay there long because it was raining so we continued our walk over to Naksana Temple. The temple is famous for a 15 meter statue of the Goddess of Mercy looking over the pine covered cliffs and out to the sea. It has, unfortunately, also become known for a big fire in 2005. Many of the buildings were burned, and they had a display of the charred temple paintings and pictures of the fire. It was pretty intense. The two other really neat buildings in it were both temples. One was over a cliff and had a window in the floor so you could look down on the rocks and sea below. The other had over 1500 images (carved and painted) or various bodhisattvas. It was amazing and all the statues looked gold plated. I would have pictures but for fear of having to be asked for a donation and having neither money nor the conversation skills to handle that i simply peered in Awe from the outside. OH! There was also a neat temple BELOW the Goddess of Mercy that had been built with a huge window in it that perfectly framed the Goddesses Face. It was pretty neat as well.






Dinner
After we finished our soggy tour of Naksana temple we headed out to dinner. And a delicous dinner it was folks. So apparently the area we went to has some special type of pig that only lives there (we saw pictures, they look like wild boar but are much fatter) so we went out for pork dinner. Like every other dinner in Korea it was delicious and included lots of pork (to me it seemed unlimted), tons of side dishes and lots of soju and beer. The makings of a good party. So, for the most part when you eat meat in korea you are also given a big plate of greens. You are supposed to make yourself a little wrap using the greens, the meat, rice and any of the side dishes you want. And "wrap" is the wrong word. You put it all into the green, (i was daring and even ate the raw garlic!!) make it a little ball and then pop the whole thing in your mouth. This was a little difficult to get used to for me in Korea because it was drilled into my head to not shove food into my mouth, but often that's what you have to do. In fact a few weeks ago when i went out with my coteachers they corrected me when i tried to eat it in two bites. Regardless, i've since learned to make smaller portions and it really didn't' matter at the pork restaurant because i was sitting with other westerners.




Anyway, after reveling at the restaurant we headed back to the hotel for a friendly competition of Jeopardy (my group lost, Jamie's group won-winning competitions: reason number 54 to take up juggling) and then finally headed to bed. Jamie roamed around the hotel for a while, but because I am my mother's daughter and was disappointed with the lack of hottub, i went back and took a nice hot bath.

Soraksan National Park
The next morning we headed out to Soraksan National Park, the most beautiful park and mountain in all of korea according to EVERYONE i mentioned it too (and our lonely planet korea guidebook). We were unfortunately only there for about 3 hours so we could see very little of the Park. We stayed in Outer Sorak, took the cable car up the mountain and then took a short (albiet steep) 20 minute hike to a summit. The view from the top was incredible. It was so neat to see both mountains and Ocean (quite close) in the distance. The last part of the hike was super scary, it was this teeny tiny trail that they had to create footholds on and you had to use your hands to climb up. I was pretty worried at some points, but when i looked back and saw the man climbing in DRESS SHOES and a women climbing in platform shoes, i felt maybe i should just suck it up. Anyway, it was beautiful and enjoyable.







When we got to the bottom we had 20 minutes to go look at a HUGE buddha and a temple. Really no time at all, but we breezed through, i did a few bows to the buddha and we headed back to the busses.




Our last stop before we left the region was for an unbelievable boring lunch of tofu at a restaurant. When i say boring, i mean boring. we got ToFu soup that was simply ToFu in water. Not fried, not baked, nothing. it had no flavor. We put all of our side dished into it to make it a little better but there was little to be done. The best part? The korean teachers got a delicious looking seafood and tofu mixture but told us it was "too spicy for westerners." Aw man. It's ok I suppose. they worked hard and deserved something better than us.



Exciting things about Korea:

Tractor trailer trucks:
Having now taken two highway trips, and not seen ANY 18 wheelers, i'm partly convinced they don't exist here. I'm going to ask around some more and get back to you.

Rest Stop Food;
We stopped at a charming Rest Stop called "Gangland" and similar to the other places we have stopped on the highway the food was varied, delicous and cheap. The rest stop food is equally delicous and cheap. When we stopped at one i was expecting Masspike prices, but not so! For example: 2000 won for a bowl of delicious fried potatoes. More than one person could possibly eat.

Note:
Sorak can also be spelled Seorak

Hello Friends across the Globe!

Sorry for the lack of updating, but as winter has started to approach our gallivanting around the city has petered out a bit so the update would mostly consist of what we ate for dinner. So, seeing as it's been awhile, I've prepared our menu from the past week for you all to read. (kidding!)

Well in our domestic life we've bought a sofa and chairs from the local thrift shop. (Of course it's my new favorite place to shop-for those of you that might not know I LOVE thrift stores and cheap things. Cheap in monetary value not necessarily in quality or appearance). It's nice to have furniture in our little living room. It makes it real cozy. We were very proud of ourselves for buying the sofa because we had to communicate "delivery" to the cashier. We were a little skeptical we had done it right until the delivery men knocked on our door. And, because it's rude to wear shoes in the house in Korea even your furniture delivery men will take their shoes off before coming it. They kick them off WHILE carrying your things. This is the second time I'd seen that. First time was the fridge and then with the furniture. I was very impressed with the skills and had a little chuckle thinking about American Delivery men taking off their shoes before coming in. I don't think Timberlands kick on and off as easily.

We recently had our thanksgiving dinner. We all had to work on thanksgiving day so we planned it for Saturday. But on thanksgiving both jamie and i brought Pie's to school (we bought them at Costco). Our teachers are so easy to please. In Jamie's school they wrote a little note and put it next to the pie saying "brought by James Lyon." He brought apple. And in my school i brought Pumpkin and while Koerans eat pumpkin they do not eat pumpkin pie. My co-teacher ate three pieces before 11:30! They loved it and we didn't even have to bake! For our actual dinner we made it a quasi potluck with our expat friends. We had stuffing and cranberry sauce (sent from the US by our friend Chrissy's grandmother), green bean casserole (with homemade french fried onions because we couldn't find the cans), mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, candied yams (half being Yams from a can-again chrissy grandmother- and the other half being sweet potatoes from the store. Marshmallows from Costco), and apple and pumpkin pie with ice cream for dessert. We had to go and buy a toaster oven the day before to be able to bake the carrots and the yams. Very important but it also meant we got to warm our pie and eat it a la mode.

OK. enough about food. The semester is slowly coming to an end. We only have about a week left of classes when you take into account all the exams and reviews they are going to have. It's exciting to come to the end of the semester. We're trying to plan a trip to Thailand for February. We'll keep you posted on that news.

OK. well,i hope you enjoyed our time together and now the moment you'll all been waiting for:

Exciting things about Korea:

Parking.
In korea people often put their car in Neutral so that you can push it if it parks in your way. I didn't believe this until the other day. i was out with my coteachers and we parked in this tiny garage. This car had parked in front of us, essentially blocking us in, but not so my friends! We just pushed it out of the way. Crazy.


Thanksgiving.
In Korea some people think of Thanksgiving as a Christian holiday.

Hospitals.
When you get checked into a hospital, you're allowed to leave and roam outside. There are many clinics in our area so daily we see people wandering around in the hospital pajamas (shirt and pants-not the open in the back gown). Anyway, it must make extended hospital stays a bit more tolerable.

Wedding Day!

Hello friends across the globe!

This entry is actually about an event we went to quite some time ago but never got a chance to talk about. A wedding! One of Jamie's co-workers got married about a month ago and she invited us to her wedding. (it turns out that it's customary to invite EVERYONE you work with but as we were curious and had gotten the invite we went-so much for stressing over the guest list)

Anyway, I'd like to start by saying that, like weddings in the states, weddings in Korea are varied and different. However, the way this wedding was held is a common way to get married in Korea. The ceremony, of course, varies across couples.

OK! So. the wedding. right. The wedding was in a wedding hall. These huge buildings and corporations created to house all your wedding needs. We arrived and checked in at the brides reception desk where we signed the guest book and dropped off our gift. The hall is beautiful, by the way and there were many families milling around and sitting about. Near the reception desk there seemed to be the mothers and fathers of the bride and groom posing for pictures. The bride was sitting in a seperate room posing for photographs and greeting her guests. She was sitting on a little stage with her dress fluffed out around her and with lace and pretty things all hanging behind her. It reminded me of getting your picture taken with a princess at disney world. Anyway, it was real cute. Her fiance is a great photographer so they also had this running slide show of all the pictures of the two of them together.

Anyway, after this we went into the wedding room. It looked like a beautiful function room. it had an aisle running down the center and tables on either side. there were gorgeous white flowers, candles, fake trees. it was lovely. We watched the ceremony, but it was so informal. people were talking the whole time, getting up, moving about, changing seats. It was fascinating. Anyway, i'll detail more about their specific ceremony later. But from what i gather you pick a person close to you to officiate the ceremony. I'm not 100% clear but i don't think it needs to be a specific person or title who does it. I remember mr lee (remember him, from a few entries back) saying that he has officiated some of his students weddings. ANYWAY. So after the ceremony, in that same room they took all the family photos. At the end, they asked anyone who wanted a picture with the bride and groom to come up for a group photo. It was so cute! there were about 150 people all crowed around them for the photo. Anyway, after all that it was time to eat.

The dining room was downstairs in the same building. They had two massive rooms that each held about 200 people for guests. We were not in the same room as the bride and groom but they had a huge screen the projected them for us to see. They did much of the same customs I'm used to: cake cutting, toasting (although the best man toast was during the ceremony), walking around from table to table to say hello. Anyway, most interesting thing was that if you had come for the wedding and couldn't find room upstairs, you could have sat in the dining hall, eaten dinner and watched the whole ceremony on the big screen. In fact, many people did that and by the time the bride and groom made it downstairs, they had already left to go home! Anyway, as soon as we finished eating we left-no dancing or anything. the whole event was very short. (food was delicious!)

Oh, and through the whole thing there were the women in blue suits and white gloves moving and positioning all the wedding participants. Each person seemed to have one. My favorite was when they brought the bride and groom to each table and told everyone to clap for them. In all actuality, it seemed very smart. so much happend that day, it's nice to have someone to tell you where you stand and who to wave at. Also, through the whole thing, ceremony to reception there were points where it would seem they would just stop and pose for photos. The photographs will be amazing but the photographers made it hard to watch the proceedings.

OK. so now the specifics of their wedding that were really adorable or interesting. the only people that walked down the aisle at the beginning were the parents and the bride and groom. Bride walked down with her father. Mothers walked down together. I'm not certain when the grooms father got down there, but the parents had their own special seats on the specific sides and bride and groom when to each said and said something (didn't' understand) and gave gifts. My favorite thing was when all the groomsmen walked down the aisle, gave a red rose to the groom and then hugged the bride. Then afterward the groom gave her the roses. It was real cute. Oh. and they had live singers and music. It was real sweet.


Ok. that's enough for their wedding. let me know if you want more details. We forgot the camera so we have no pictures, sorry.


Exciting things about Korea (we'll stick with a theme today):

Korean women don't change their names when they get married.

Koreans often live at home with their parents until they get married. (While this is changing slightly, we haven't met any single koreans who do not still live with their parents. GREAT way to save money.)

The wedding hall website: http://seoulweddingcenter.com/
It's all in korean but it scrolls through the pictures when you open the site.

It has been some time since our last post so we have a little catching up to do!

It is really hard to believe that today (October 24th) is our two month marker for being in Korea - its really unbelievable in thinking of how much we have done and experienced in such a small amount of time.

One of the experiences we still have not written about - a road trip! At the beginning of October (I believe October 4th), we had a four-day weekend for the Korean version of Thanksgiving (here it is called "Chuseok"). It is one of the most important holidays for Koreans, up there with Lunar New Years day. Most Korean families all gather together to pay respects to their ancestors.
SO, Shannon and Jamie made plans with their friends Dave and Chrissy to travel down the east coast, and they embarked on a very ambitious itinerary.

We actually rented a car (luckily Dave has a Korean drivers license and has been on the road here a few time) in Seoul. OH, and the car ran on LPG - Liquid Petroleum Gas - which is apparently cheaper than regular gas AND better for the environment according to a British chap we ran into along our journey. Anyways, I'm not sure if we've commented on the differences in driving culture here, but things are very different on the roads in Korea vs. the States. Traffic laws are often seen more as rough guidelines a lot of the time and it seems that few traffic laws are enforced. Speeding doesn't seem to be too much of an issue, though, as the highways are set up with many cameras that capture your license plate if your going too high over the limit. We also saw very few transport trucks on the road.

So we left early on Friday morning and kept our fingers crossed that traffic wouldn't be half as bad as EVERYONE was saying it was going to be...and luckily it really wasn't that bad. Apparently this Chuseok, since it fell on the weekend, a lot of people didn't bother traveling since they had less time off than usual. So we made our way to the city of Samcheok - Dave surprised us with our first destination in the city, and it was really quite surreal. Situated in a very beautiful set of ocean facing cliffs, Haeshindang park is in memory of a fisherwoman who drowned one day while gathering shellfish on the nearby rocks. So what better way to commemorate this woman than to construct hundreds and hundreds of blatantly phallic sculptures and monuments? It was fascinating to see the different attitudes towards sex that this place represents, as we were strolling through right next to families and Koreans of different ages. Also there was a fishing museum!

From there we headed into town to find a place to stay for the night and found a nice "love motel" to stay at. Love motels are EVERYWHERE and are actually quite nice (Shannon stayed in one during her brief quarantine) and extremely affordable. They usually run from 30-40 thousand won a night (which is like 27-36 dollars).


The next day we went to a cave in Samcheok called Hwanseon. The hike up was a little brutal and quite vertical at times, but this was totally worth it. It is certainly the largest cave in Korea but it may be one of the biggest limestone cave chambers known in the world (there wasn't too much English translation so I'm not positive). Forgive the lack of photos, they were not exactly allowed and it was really dark in there. But this place was unbelievable and it took us about an hour to walk through all the catwalks that are set up inside.



From Samcheok we then traveled south to a small "folk village" called Homigot, and we stayed in something like a hostel that was right on the water. Very very cool. Here are some pics:



We got there really late but we decided we would wake up for the sunrise... Jamie sort of just look at it and fell right back asleep, but Shannon was a little more dedicated and got some shots of it.

In the morning we were greeted by a really cool little area, with a lot of different art and sculptures. The hand coming out the water was a highlight:




Then from Homigot, we continued our travels to the first capital of Korea, Gyeongu. We started by checking out a tomb park which was a lot of fun - we rented a surry!!! (a four person bicycle with a canopy) One of my favorite parts of the trip :)

From there we took a short drive to a really remarkable temple, Bulguk-sa temple. Built in the mid 700's, this place is considered to be a piece of living history as it is still in use by monks. Absolutely gorgeous.





From there we started to way back to Seoul and stayed a night in Dave's old town, Gumi, where we hung out for a bit in a "noray bong", or "song room", which is a private karaoke room. Very fun!

Anyways, that was the weekend, it was a blast!

More updates in the month: A couple weeks ago Shannon twisted her ankle at a theatre performance we had gone to. She isn't in too much pain but the doctors have given her a cast and crutches that make getting around a lot more difficult and she has been a little frustrated with the ordeal. She has gone in for two doctors visits thus far and had an interesting round of physical therapy for it this past Friday.
Apart from the many differences that we see with the medical system here, one of the most positive differences in the speed in which you can get care (almost immediately), and the level of personal care that you get (the doctors actually spend take time to talk to you directly). Shannon was able to immediately see a foot specialist, get x-rays done, and talk with the Dr. in a couple hours time.
Medication is also really popular here from what we've gathered and for her twisted ankle, Shannon got 3 different medicines (we're not sure what they are for). Anyways, she does seem to be doing better!

OH, and the threat of swine flu seems to be making more waves than the actual swine flu (sorry pork industry, I mean H1N1). Events are being cancelled all over the place (our original Chuseok plans were actually to attend a festival that was cancelled). This past Friday Jamie had a half day of school and none of the students came in - there are 12 confirmed cases in his school and about 15 potential cases. We went to an "archeology festival" a couple of weeks ago and noticed this device at the entrance:


It is a heat sensor! They were checking people's body temperature at the gates to make sure they didn't have a fever as they entered!

Anyways, we are generally doing well here. The weather is starting to get a little colder and we are wearing light jackets on the way to school. The sun is going down real early as well, although I don't think it is very different than New England. We will not be changing our clocks back though for Daylight savings time as Korea no longer participates in the system.

Oh, we have also set up a "flicker" account online for our pictures if you are interested in seeing more photo shots! check out our account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelrabble/.


OK and we'll close with interesting things about Korea:

-Noray bang - We mentioned this above but we didn't do them justice. These are private, sound proof rooms that have couches set up around a big screen TV that is connected to a karaoke system. Its about 20,000 won an hour (pretty cheap if you have a group), and you can just belt out songs to your heart's content. A total BLAST.

-Gas stations - As you may be gathering, in Korea things always go just a little bit further in terms of services or what you get for your money. On our trip I joked that we would get something at the gas station, and we really did! They often give you free tissues! This is actually very helpful because often times public restrooms will not have toilet paper and it is a good thing to have tissues on you.

-Shabu Shabu - We just had the pleasure of trying this the other day; we've mentioned before "galbi" restuarants - Korean barbeque where you cook the meat right in the middle of your table. Shabu shabu is similar, but instead you basically make a stew. The meal starts off with a pot of thin broth (we actually had a pot that was divided in two and had two different broths, one for beef and one for seafood). The heat is turned up and you throw in vegetables, meat, and seafood into the respective sides of the pot. You start eating the things inside and later add noodles to the broth. It is great because the meal just tastes better and better as your broth matures with the flavors of everything you throw in. At the end, you have a really rich stock, so they bring you rice and a cracked egg. You mix it with remaining broth and mash it up a bit until you have a thick porridge-like consistency. Its really good and a lot of fun!

Thats it for now, hopefully we'll update again a little sooner :)

OH, and here is a really great piece of art we found in a part of the city called Itaewon:

Hi Friends!

Sorry for the delay but my inclination toward laziness didn't change with the time change. I'm glad some things stay the same.

Anyway, so as promised this update will include Mr Lee, Chuseok Holiday Preparations and our trip to Insa-dong!


So, starting with Mr Lee.

We went hiking a few weekends ago with our former roommate Christina. (for those of you who don't know, she was our motivation for coming to Korea). Anyway, we went hiking at this beautiful mountain practically IN the city. The pictures are attached to the last entry. So, as we're hiking up we stop to take in a Vista and this older Korean gentleman stops to compliment Christina on her hiking shoes. He continues chatting with us and ultimately just finishes the hike with us and takes us this totally crazy off the trail way back down. He's 72. He retired when he had to at the age of 63 after teaching History for 30 years and before that he was in the Army. When he retired he took up studying english and hiking (incidentally this was his 2nd time up the mountain that day). He takes any opportunity to practice his english and our hike mostly consisted of us listening to him practice his lectures. he'd prepared one on JFK and on Douglas MacArthur. He also loved to memorize English Proverbs. It was really interesting to find out which proverbs also exist in korea. Of course, at this point (three weeks later) it's hard to remember which ones exist in both languages. Anyway, he took us out to dinner and then invited us back to his house for apples and tea. It was super fun and really exciting to meet and hang out with Koreans. He even invited us to Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) but only Christina could go (and she said it was great!) Anyway, we've tried to call him again, but we haven't been able to connect.

Chuseok preparations.
Chuseok is like the Korean Thanksgiving and is one of the biggest holidays of the year. Koreans visit the family tomb or grave, clean the up the tomb site, feast and, most importantly, give thanks and respect to their ancestors. The week leading up to it is crazy! On Chuseok there is gift giving so all the stores have gift sets and sales and the supermarkets are packed. There's traditional clothes (hanbok) on sale everywhere for children (it reminded me of easter when all the little easter dresses get put on sale) and the clerks dress in Hanbok as well. Everyone talked about it for weeks leading up to it and because it's a travel holiday many of the schools took off an extra day so we got a four day weekend! However, checking back in with everyone the next week was kind of funny. I work with mostly women so the weekend is especially hard for them as most of the families visit both graves (paternal and maternal). And, in korea the people who have to do the cooking and hosting are the families of the eldest son so many of my co-teachers came back from the holiday break exhausted. At least that's the same everywhere, holidays are great times to see relatives and catch up but are often very hard on the people doing the cooking and hosting. Anyway, jamie and I took a road trip with friends, which i'll tell you about next time.


Insa-dong!
Well, we have a video. the two women in the video are our Co Teachers. The one on the right is Jamie's and the one on the left is Shannon's. These are the women who take care of everything for u! here you go:

Tour of our Apartment

Hi!

Check out our apartment!

Click here to see our apartment!


Video Addendum:

1) I say "every" a few times. By no means do I mean that every korean household looks like this or has the exact same set-up. I was caught up in the moment and am just referring to things we've seen or heard about. I apologize in advance.


2) I mention that a floor mattress is "cheap." I am not referring to all floor mattresses in Korea, rather just to the one on our floor. We bought it on sale at the HomePlus. (our second one bought from the market is much better quality and quite comfy)

Net-izens

Much has happened since our last entry. I'll try to keep it short so as not to bore you, but we feel like new people. We feel like "Net-izens"-as my co-teacher called us upon receiving Internet, but let's not jump ahead. So. we've moved, we've gotten cell phones and we have internet. We set up a skype phone number so people can call us on a US number and avoid the international phone bill (413-992.6490) and we are slowly trying to visit every eatery and drinkery on our new street.

The new digs= great. It's in an apartment complex which makes it very authentic. We live on the 6th floor and shannon likes it because she doesn't see her students every time we walk to the supermarket. Jamie however frightened the hell out of one of his students. She lives in the building and the poor think practically ran away when she saw him (her personal sense of decorum kept that from happening). ANWYAY, the apartment is 18 peyong (the unit they use to measure apartments here) which means we have a bedroom, a living room, bathroom, kitchen and a balcony. It's quite lovely. We both really enjoy it and although we said we'd be fine in the other place, this really is so much better. (aside from the day's worth of cleaning).

Move in day was hilarious. Both of our schools sent contingencies to move us. Shannon's school showed up first at 9:00 with 7 men and no translator (not that it mattered much) and then jamie's school showed up at 10am with another 7 men. The move took no time at all and everyone was gone by 11 at which time all the women showed up. Three of Shannon's co-teachers, her principal and two of Jamie's co-teachers. Shannon's principal promptly decided we needed a bigger fridge, and then just as quickly, she left. Shannon's co-teacher Ms kim brought us more kimchi, someone brought us fresh, hot donuts and everyone brought us toilet paper and tissues. The TP and tissues is a korean custom. The idea being that the tissue just keeps coming, signifying your life continuing to roll on pleasantly. Or something like that.


So, our new apartment is a 15 minute walk to both of our schools and there's this great exercise park on a hill right next door. There's great shops and restaurants real close by and we can walk to HomePlus (it's like Target only much more expansive).


I'll take some pictures now so you can see for yourselves and the next edition will include: meeting 72-year old hiker Mr Kim, our trip to insa-dong and chuseok holiday preparations.


Exciting things about Korea:

Mountains:
Seoul is surrounded by mountains. It's very exciting. Almost anywhere in the city you can see mountains so it means that you can easily get to hiking trails and that you get splendid views of the city while hiking




Age:
Generally we avoided this one because shannon just had a birthday and is not to interested in being any older, but in Korea, you're considered 1 when you are born and turn 2 when you pass the new year. Which means that born right before New year you could be 2 years old just three days after being born. HOWEVER, we're not certain how this works exactly because there seems to be some discrepancy with people who are born in 1980. We can't figure out if we're 30 or 31. it varied depending on who we talk to.

Pop stars:
are OUT OF CONTROL! There are so many here! there's this one band that has 15 members! crazy. nd it's not only our students that love them-the teachers too. There's been this huge controversy with this singer Ja-Beom and it's been the best way to get people to practice english! Of course...maybe it's the same in the US and we just weren't hanging around the right people.

Epic Entry

Both jamie and i are finally teaching in the classrooms! It's exhausting and very different from the sort of teaching we've both done in the past. We both have 22 45 minutes classes per week. On the one hand, that's ridiculous. On the other, it's the same lesson plan for 15 classes so by the end of the week I imagine we'll both be really good at it. That being said, we have about 35 students in a class so it's hard to try and get them all talking english. Then once we get them all talking, it's somewhat hard to get them to calm back down again. Overall it's good though. Korean students are ridiculously shy. it's unbelievable. Not one of them is not shy-it's like the cool thing to be. I'd say it was just my school because they're girls, but jamie has the same issue. I've never seen anything like it. if i want them to "report out" or even just read something I'm going to have to plan in time for waffling! it's ridiculous. they turn bright red. i really think they might faint. Literally. All in all thought, they did participate and they did get up. i think it's because i wasn't going to change my mind. i think the korean teachers (because all the korean teachers tell me it's a korean trait) are more flexible with allowing some to speak and others not to.

We both have a hilarious time with the textbooks because the explanations are written in Korean. To create an exercise it pretty easy, but to figure out the grammar point is a bit more difficult. Jamie, however, has excellent web search skills (and a high tolerance for painstaking tasks) so he looks them up for us.

my (shannon's) co teachers are really adorable. I technically have two sets of teachers work with: One set is the women I share an office with. there's 5 of us- not all English teachers. One of them, the oldest, has taken me under her wing. she was so worried about me the other night that she called my co-teacher (the one who is organizing all the paperwork for me) because she couldn't call me. hilarious. she bought me a gift for my birthday. chopsticks! very cute. The other woman is my main school liaison. she's the one that has to herd me around and translate everything for me and call immigration and all that jazz. She super charming, but i'm sure not thrilled to have to babysit me constantly. Then there's another korean teacher (literally she teaches korean) who speaks english conversationally but she's so excited to learn that we chat a lot. And the last woman is the music teacher. she speaks very little english, but i hope we'll ultimately trade songs! That's one group. there's me, my Number one co-teacher (the one i go to with any issues), the woman who was worried about me, a korean teacher and a music teacher. we're all in the counseling office. they're real sweet. For my birthday, they bought me a cake and sang happy birthday.

Ok. the other group: the English department. There are 9 of us. i co teach with five of them over the course of a week. They're all very sweet and I think fairly nervous to work with me. they speak English well, but have a hard time with comprehension so it must be nerve racking to have to do work with me in a classroom with students. for the most it seems like i create the lesson plan and they step in when necessary. I feel bad because they all have a lot of work to do so i imagine it's frustrating to have to share and work on lesson planning with another person when you have never done that in the first place. Not that any of them complain. they're all very sweet. We're going out for dinner tomorrow night as a department! very exciting. i think they got the idea because Jamie's department went out a few weeks ago too. This past Sunday i met up with a few of my co-teachers to go and buy books for our English classes. Is was fun to pick out books for the library and then they took us out to dinner (jamie came along). delicious of course. One of the women, had also cooked us dinner! Ms Kim-She sent me home with a huge back filled with food. She even made us (from scratch) kimchi-two kinds. She very worried about what I eat. Every day someone asks me what I cook at home. I've got to start lying because it's embarrassing to say rice and vegetables all the time... Anyway, that's the English department.

This past weekend we went into town to visit one of the many palaces in Seoul – this one is called Deok Su Gong and is located near city hall (a very cool area). The palace itself was really beautiful (and modestly sized as far as palaces go – it seems that a lot of the original space was dismantled around the turn of the century). The changing of the guards was really neat to see too – it was like a 9 minute ceremony and included at least 30 people. They even had an ancient marching band! Once we get internet in our apartment we'll figure out how to post the video on line. The palace grounds also hold an art museum, surprising enough and we were there during the last week of an exhibit on Bolero. By exhibit, I mean that every single piece of art in the building was Bolero – kind of a strange museum! His work is a lot of fun though, and the palace grounds also had his sculptures/statues set up throughout.

After Deok Su Gong, we wandered for a bit downtown and ended up at some neat spots – first was Seoul plaza, where some event was occurring. We caught some live music before continuing on! After the plaza, we ended up at the Cheonggyecheon stream – it is gorgeous. The story is that after the Korean War ended in 1953, this stream was cemented over for a highway bypass. Since then, the bypass was demolished and the stream was uncovered – it is lined with cut stone and has a fantastic design to it.

We are enjoying traveling the city on the weekends, although this weekend we'll be preoccupied with our move! Luckily 95% of stuff can fit in our suitcases (although we do have a lot of furniture between our apartments which I believe will also coming along) More details about the move to come.

OK and now, fun things about Korea:

Pizza – Pizza, while not as popular as in the US, is available and enjoyed by many Koreans. Its not bad, but a few differences. Firstly, they are generally over the top with toppings (akin to some of Antonio's pizzas for the Amherst folks), and some of them look just out of control with drizzlings and features – OH, I saw one shaped like a heart! Second, all pizzas come with a side of pickles! I don't know why. When I inquired about them, my co-workers thought it was traditional in the US as well! When a friend of our was asked "What do you eat with your pizza?" she promptly replied, "Breadsticks!" Earning her the puzzled remark, "More bread?"

Side dishes – Forgive me if we mentioned this before, but on the subject of side dishes they are a necessary aspect of every meal here. And they are free! At any meal you can expect to see anywhere from 3 – 10 of them (I'm not exaggerating; I've heard at some places you can expect 20). Kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) is literally served with every meal, and it kind of grows on you. It makes every meal very exciting, as I'm typically trying 3 or 4 new foods each time. Be warned those who do not like seafood or spicy, because you'll run into a lot of both here!

Galbi – OK, I have a food theme going here so why stop: galbi is Korean barbeque. The hook is that you barbeque at your very own table!! It is incredible and fairly cheap (I think we paid under 10 bucks a person, including drinks). Also brings a slight aspect of danger to the meal for added excitement.

Silver suits are everywhere! This particularly hilarious because jamie had just bought a silver suit and was considering wearing it to the wedding. We should have brought it to korea!

The cars are not small. While this is not really "exciting" it did surprise both of us. we expected the cars to be European sized vehicles. But No. they're all midsized cars and several SUVs (although more of those in the states). Driving, however, is frightening! People seem to take most driving signs and signals as suggestions- although i will say i haven't seen anyone blaze through a stop light (not to imply that we didn't' see a demolished scooter at our neighborhood intersection just the other day). Also, driving on the sidewalk seems very common. Bike riding=not a good idea.

Dunkin' Donuts are everywhere. Apparently Korea runs on Dunkin'. And i must confess-it's good! Who would have thought that coming to korea would also be my homecoming for Dunkin' Donuts. OKOKOK. I know we already said it, but it still surprises me!

Moving is Settled.

We're settled! We're moving!

So, we do think that we will be moving ultimately. Our co-teachers and principles seem to think it's a better choice. Especially because S.M.O.E (Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) will be paying for the fees to make that happen. While we'd probably be fine with the set up it is true that one apartment will be cheaper. We looked at an apartment today. Still within walking distance, infact we walked there today. It's three rooms, the kitchen is fairly large (at least larger than our old kitchen on Grant Ave), and the bathroom is HUGE (comparatively). There's a real tub! Anyway, we need to wait for those people to move out and for people to rent our current rooms. We'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime we've both been going to school everyday. Jamie has actually been able to be in his classrooms, saying hello to students and introducing himself to them. Shannon on the other hand has been relegated to a desk to make lesson plans. A particularly difficult task considering she's never met the students. However, both of us eat lunch at school in the Teacher's Restaurant/cafeteria (a room or section with no students). Korean food of course. Everyone keeps asking if we like it so we've learned the word for Delicious (No idea about spelling, in either Hangul or English). It's seemed to keep people appeased. It's funny how worried they are about us and eating. We certainly haven't started losing any weight. (doubtful shannon will considering her 30 second walk to school).

Thursday we went for our medical check-up for the Alien Registration Card. Jamie's co-teacher came with us so we didn't even have to mime the phrase, “Pee in a cup” and while that would have been an exciting time, maybe it's better we didn't have to. On Monday we're going to try and go get our alien registration card. Yay! The excitement of bureaucracy! Our poor co-teachers! These women are dealing with all of the logistics of having a foreign english teacher for the first time. But really, thank god for them! We imagine it wouldn't have been as fruitful as calling all the government offices ourselves.

Today at Shannon's school was Foundation day - essentially the school's birthday. The foundation that funds the school is a cosmetics foundation so all the teachers got these huge gift bags with everything from perfume to toothpaste to towels. Later, there was a ceremony acknowledging all the teachers who've worked there for 10, 20 and 30 years and afterward there was teacher “sport day.” We played volleyball. Sort of. The men played the first set of volleyball, the second set was a relay race for the women and then the third set went back to volleyball. However, the third set they had Shannon play on the team. It was fun (albiet awkard). There were no other women playing so not only was everyone staring at me because she's a westerner, but also the only woman playing. Of course she hit the ball and it went completely backwards (you know, she never won ONCE when she played in High School). Anyway, the ball goes completely backward but goes into the basketball net! Hilarious. Everyone clapped. Incidentally we lost the game. (She's got a record to keep)

So, after the game we had to go see the apartment but we came back in time for the dinner. It was hilarious. We walked in (it had been going for about an hour already) and everyone started clapping and cheering for us. There was lots of beer and soju (although we missed both of those things) and raffles. Apparently Shannon won while we were away but they gave her a second chance. She won (again) a gift certificate to the movie theater!

So here we are at the end of week one. We've successfully completed a week of school, made it away and back on the subway, visited our new friend Dave and then our old friend Christina and have potential new housing. Highly productive!

Exciting things about Korea:

For the most part people don't drink things with their meals. As least not when it's korean food. For example, both at the university and at our schools, it's rare to get a beverage when your getting your food. Instead you eat and then when you return your tray you stop and get a drink of water or tea-finish it before leaving the Cafeteria-and then head out. It's not such a bad system-you don't get full drinking soda, but Korean food is Spicy!

In Korea-we're teenage stars! Almost every time we go out there's at least one teenager that nonchalantly walks over to us to say “hi.” Usually the conversation doesn't go much farther as they burst into giggles or laughter and run/walk away. Of course it happens all day at our schools here, but it's a little funnier on the street.

Couples Housing

They let us out! On Friday morning our “tour guide” David brought Jamie by for a visit and just before he left he informed us that my test results came back negative and that we could get out. Thank god! He ordered us breakfast, gave us an hour to pack up and then brought us back to the university. It was so anti-climatic. When we got back, we step out of the cab and he says to us, “OK! It's your choice if you want to go to class. Do what you want. Bye!” That's it. No check in from the illusive supervisor, no report on the week. In seconds we were free. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It was just interesting.

We finished off our week (day) of orientation by watching the practice lesson plans of the other teachers and thankfully we got back in time for the Tae Kwan Do performance. It was amazing. Lots of kicking and breaking boards of wood interspersed with ridiculous skits and adorable dances. That night we played card games with our friends Chrissy and Dave (I'm hoping they'll be recurring characters so remember their names). When we woke up the next morning we put on our suits, packed up our rooms and loaded up the buses. We had a closing ceremony where again we were warned about H1N1 and told that we wouldn't be able to teach at all this coming week! They said that we would go to school every morning to check in and show that we were healthy and then we would just go home. So funny! Anyway, we took it in stride (we didn't care at this point anyway). They then served us a delicious buffet and took us to our district offices to meet our co-teacher.

Part two: The district office:remember when I joked about not being given Couple's Housing?

Arriving at the district office was real cute. All of us western teachers are standing there in a group in the parking lot waiting to be introduced to our Korean Co-Teachers who are also standing in a group in the parking lot. Everyone looks very excited and you can tell that everyone is trying to decide who they want as a co-teacher. Anyway, we get paired up and instantly swept away to our schools and new lives in Korea.

This is when the fun begins. Shortly after the crowd started to disperse I see a western man trying to contact John Pak (our “supervisor” with SMOE). Having just seen him hug a woman goodbye I'm a bit curious - upon examination it turns out that he wasn't given couples housing with his wife. Great. Jamie and his co-teacher are waiting to be picked up so I go over and ask about our housing. The co-teacher is obviously confused (it turns out she was actually just filling in so she had no idea what we were talking about). My co-teachers arrive and I ask them if they know about the situation. Their response is not encouraging. No, they say. They didn't know I was married. They had prepared a room for one person-with a single bed. At this point more people from Jamie's school show up and now their on the phone with S.M.O.E and there's about 6 people trying to figure out what to do. Finally it seems like we've been placed in the same building. So we decide we'll just see what this looks like and we head out to our schools.

We arrive at our apartment building and yes, thankfully Jamie and I have been placed in the same building, 2 floors apart. The rooms are just that. Rooms. It's an open room with a kitchen area that includes, a range, sink, and a small fridge. The bathroom is the only separate room, it has a washer, toilet and shower...but the shower is more like a shower head attached to the sink. Not actually a distinct space. Shannon's room is considerably larger than Jamie's. Shannon thinks it's funny that the rooms were so obviously prepared by men vs. women. Jamie's room was prepared by a man, as he was showing the room he pointed out the arm chair, the cable television and the big bed (he was also very proud of the curtain). In my room, prepared by my female co-teachers (both mothers), they bought me sheets and pillows (and a pig stuffed animal), cleaned my whole room top to bottom, left me with towels, plates, laundry detergent, orange juice and water. Anyway! At this point the numbers have grown, I have my two Co-Teachers, the Vice Principal and the Man in charge of Administration (he set up the room). All 5 of us traipse up to Jamie's room where there's the equivalent people from Jamie's school. They all talk trying to figure out what's happening and how to handle this situation. Ultimately we just told them we'd decide on Monday whether or not we want to keep our rooms or move to a bigger apartment.

In the mean time we get taken to visit our schools. Shannon's school is literally across the street. We can see it from our windows. Jamie's school is a 15 minute walk down the street but there are 2 buses that go that way. There's everything in walking distance, including, but not limited to, a Dunkin' Donuts (we've already tried the Garlic and herb coffee roll and Red Bean Paste filled donut), 2 bakeries, a grocery store, shops galore. You get it. We live in the city.

Well, that brings us to today. We slept in Jamie's room last night and I think we've decided to just keep the two rooms. We'll use Jamie's room as a bedroom and Shannon's room as everything else. Not great, but now we have a guest room! Come Visit! We debated having them get us a new apartment (and they would), but it's a gamble. It might be considerably farther away from our schools, we doubt there would be as much space as the two rooms combined and this really isn't so bad.

Well, that brings us to our “exciting things about Korea” section:

• Chinese food is just as popular in Korea as it in the states; instead of being “Americanized”, though, they are “Koreanized”

• Dunkin' Donuts are very prevalent in Seoul, and they are waaay nicer than in the states

• You can set up your debit/check card to draw fare money from your account for busses and subways

• The trash disposal system is very extensive in Seoul, and you need to separate EVERYTHING – the collection system is based on how much trash one produces and everyone must purchase special trash bags (one for general waste and one for food waste); recycling is highly encouraged and free

We still have a whole lot to learn and experience so keep checking in for more updates!

Quarantine.

Oh, this is an exciting experience. It began Yesterday (wednesday) morning.
(this narrative is told in the first person, from Shannon)

First, I woke up sick. My throat hurt, I had a fever, the sweats and felt nauseated. They are so paranoid about Swine Flu here that they gave us all thermometers and have been making us report our health. So, when i woke up sick, I went to tell them. I really should NOT have done that. First they sent me to the health clinic on campus. (after having me, jamie and the man who walked up there put on a face masks). Then they brought me to hospital. Jamie can with me-thank god. I would have been in hysterics if he wasn't there. After 4 hours in the waiting room, the doctor told us it probably wasn't H1N1 and so he prescribed me this crazy concocotion of drugs (Augmenten, Tylenol, Xanax, and an Antihistamine). However, that wasn't good enough for our orientation leaders. They insisted on taking us to a second hospital for the flu test. So we get in a taxi, ride for an hour to this other hospital, take the $320 flu test, get the medicine "tamiflu" and head back. Still not good enough. Now I'm quarantined in a hotel. who knows how long. The man David, suggested that Jamie stay the night with me in the hotel, but i refused to let that happen. I figured if he stayed with me he'd get quarantined too. So, jamie went back to the university to plead my case and try to get me out. Not so lucky, as soon as he got back They quarantined him too. I'm particularly angry about that beacue there's no real reason for him to be quarantined. All week we have been in seperate rooms! ugh. he's quarantined at the universtity, which sucks that we are both alone, but i think it's good in the long run becuase he can get in contact with people for information. For example, last night they forgot to get me food, but becuase he could just go and find someone they ordered me some. It's a little nerve racking being here because I'm completely stranded. I can't call out, i can't talk to anyone becuase everyone speaks Korean and I haven't learned anything past "hello." However, looking on the bright side, there's a computer in the room so i can G.chat with jamie and have plenty of things to look at. I'll probably take this time to learn a little more korean. At Least the alphabet. Also, this hotel has a full size whirlpool in the bathroom and is quite swanky. When we came in the computer automatically boots up and started talking to me (in korean unfortunately). it's pretty interesting. everything is controlled by this one remote. The air conditioning, the TV, the lights. If only i knew what the korean words meant...it's ok. i can take the two second walk across the room to turn the lights off.
they let jamie come visit for an hour this morning and he brought lots of food which is nice. I was worried they'd forget me again, so i was saving my dinner from last night.

So, we have no idea what this means. We're not certain when we get out of here, we not certain if we can start work on monday. Heck we're not even sure if we can stay in the country!

If they send us home, maybe we'll just start our travels early? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

anyway, exciting little things we've discovered about Korea from our forray into the world for the Korean medical system:

people LOVE their cell phones. EVERYONE was using them. Our chaperone for the day was on his cell phone constantly and would regularly give it to the doctor/nurse to talk to the SMOE people. Even the doctors and nurses would pull their cell phones out and answer them during my examinations. It was funny though. They used them more like walkie talkies. Two words and then they'd hang up.

taxies are clean and fairly cheap. the cars are luxurious and 2 out of the three we rode in had fake turf in the back on the back on the floor. Very cute. Our taxi ride was an hour and was about $30. I don't ride taxi's often, but that seems pretty cheap-especially because tipping isn't very common in korea...although our second taxi driver demanded a tip becuase he heard our chaperone talking about swine flu on the phone. It was funny, i think as soon as he heard that he cracked the windows. Anyway, still only about $30 with tip.

Delivery food was neat. They brought it in a plastic picnic basket with real silverware and everything in glass containers. When you finish you just put the container back outside your door and they come back and collect it.

we'll keep you posted on our continued adventures (hopefully still from within Korea)!

We're Here!

Yes, we landed outside of Seoul on Sunday night (here) It was a really long travel day - about 23 hours in all. Logan to San Fran layover (where we furiously wrote all of our thank-you cards) to Incheon airport Korea - very crazy. The international flight was pretty sweet as far as planes go. The food was pretty good and it was free alcohol, plus in front of all the seats were these multi media video/computers that was pretty neat. When we got to korea we realized that we hadn't read the paperwork about where to go so we furiously searched the crowd for another person with a footprints travel tag. Thankfully when we found her she was prepared and we walked with her through security (a BREEZE by the way). Anyway, because we're all English speakers in a country where we don't speak ANY of the language and nor is one bit of it understandable it's been pretty easy to make friends. (incidentally, mom and dad keller-that first woman, Shauna, is from Arkansas! Near eureka springs! i felt so proud that i knew the geographic location).

We checked in at the University where we will be staying this first week at some time between 8 and 9 PM Korean time. Our time zone is 13 hours ahead of you all, so i guess we were arriving here between 7 & 8AM EST on sundayMorning! They have us divided into male and female dorms while we're at the university (SungKyunKwan University), so Shannon and I are separated for the moment. The dorm rooms are cute. They look just like the UMASS dorm rooms only newer and with a shower and bathroom. The whole university is great and the dorms are painted lime green and yellow. You know how shannon loves the bright colors. This week we are basically quarantined to the university so we haven't explored anywhere yet - we have a weeklong training that goes until Saturday afternoon, after which we will meet our Korean co-teacher and the principal of the school we'll be teaching at.

Monday we had a welcoming ceremony that started with musical performance and ended with a warning about Swine Flu! They are very paranoid that we are carrying swine flue so every night we need to tell them our temperature. We also have medical tests tomorrow (including bloodwork) before they will give us our Alien Registration card.
ANYWAY, after the warning we sat through 3 hours of lecture. If we weren't jetlagged it probably would have been better, but it was hard to stay awake. On top of that we tried to go to a "survival korean" class last night from 7p-9p (it was optional), but the woman was going so fast and neglected to talk about the alphabet or use the English phonetic equivalent to English, so during the break we booked it back to the rooms to sleep. We probably should have stayed up past 9 though to get over the jetlag but both of us pretty much collapsed after saying as much. i Of course we both thought we be fine by today but this morning we both woke up and were wide awake at like 2:30. The excitement and nerves wasn't helping.

Today, tuesday, we had two sessions on teaching. One about using technology and the other about getting students involved. Both were highly engaging and enjoyable. We're just about to head out to dinner and then go to another optional class on Korean Culture.

Food has been good so far, but shannon thinks she'll get tired of it ultimately. Every meal we are served Kimchi (EVERY meal), but the also put BBQ sauce on pretty much every meat and we really like it. They served us french fries today for lunch which i think they did for our benefit. It was hilarious because they gave us about 7 french fries a piece. Not your typical american style serving, but we made due.

Well we both now have skype! Yay for skype! Jamie's name is Jamierlyon and shannon's is Shannon.a.keller and again, just think of your time, subtract an hour and change the AM to PM or vice versa, and you've got us. It really makes getting in touch kind of difficult... but for as long as we have jetlag we could be chatting in the afternoon in your time!

And so it begins!

World Travels here we come! Ok. So it's really only South Korea right now but we have big plans! Regardless, we've made it to our last night in the Valley. Who knew this day would come? 3 months ago were were planning the wedding, 2 weeks ago we were getting married and 5 days ago we bought luggage! (lots of luggage, mind you.) We also bought: a new Mac (using it now), lots of clothes (wearing them currently) and loads of deodorant (suggestion from westerners in Korea). We've also managed to avoid cooking at all and have been using the excuse that we need to appreciate western cuisine for the last few times before we ship off to a new country. (maybe not a good excuse, but it's worked for us so far). It's been a fun filled week.

So, we're heading out tomorrow afternoon to sleep in Boston and arrive at Logan for our 6am flight refreshed. I imagine you must be thinking, "wow, they're packed and ready and so prepared that they can be posting on their new blog! What a couple!" Well, that may be true for some couple somewhere but not us. Currently Jamie's making a pizza for our "last night get together" and i'm well....procrastinating. We're trying to stick to our regular patterns-they say it helps with culture shock.

Ok. We're real excited to be moving to Korea and think it's going to be an awesome challenge and yet incredibly rewarding.

Want to know what the guide books tell us? (We'll keep you posted on whether they're true)

that there are no ovens, that rice and kimchi are eaten at every meal, that there's lots of drinking, that you can only find frilly and uncomfortable underwear, that everyone dresses up all the time, that Seoul never sleeps, that driving is like taking your life in your hands, that the subway system is incredible, and, of course, that we'll love it.

We're off on Saturday- 6 hours to san francisco, 4 hour layover and 13 hours to Seoul. Plans for our flights? While we're still in the states we want to finish up our Thank You cards so we can mail them with all the postage we have. On the flight to Seoul, watch the rest of the Angel Series!

Great! This is going to be great!