My strange-named students

During the very first class, my students were able to pick an English name. I had a list of names they could choose from or they could make their own. Here are some of the funny and creative names that the students made for themselves.

Harry Potter

Animal

Head Shot

Many girl names including Jessica, Sophia, Abby, etc…

English

Bush

Pig

Octopus

Bobo Club



Every week we have a listening test. They always write little notes to me on the tests when they give them back after the test. Here are some of them…

“heart breaker”

“the best in the history”

“sleepy”

“common boy”

“I love Ms. L”

“Would you marry me?”

“hello!”



Every day brings interesting stories!

Death by Taxi

This last weekend Michelle and I met up with some friends in a city called Incheon (it is a suburb of Seoul). It was the first time to take a bus to Seoul and costs about 8$ and is 1.5 hours. While we were in Incheon we went to a Bboy Tournament at a festival being held at the fairgrounds. It was a lot of fun. (FYI: Bboy are break-dancers). This was an international competition so we saw teams from all over the world, such as Holland, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, USA, China, Poland, etc. We would like to give a shout out to the South Korean team (who we think should have won against Holland) and the Taiwan team! The Taiwan team in our opinion was one of the best! The finalists were Russia and Japan, and Japan took the gold! Check out the videos we posted. Now, although Korean transportation is indeed wonderful, the competition ended after the last bus to our city (Gong ju) left! So, we had to resort to paying for a ticket to a nearby city (Daejeon) and then take a 20/30min taxi drive to Gongju. Once we got to Daejeon a taxi diver was available to take us to our city. It cost 40,000won (little under 40$) and there were 4 of us to split that. It just so happened our taxi driver was a former NASCAR champion; he was a speedy little guy! We were weaving in and out of cars going 120-140km/hour! At one point we hit a top speed of 160km (99mph)!!!! It was seriously like a rollercoaster at Six Flags. We thought we might die on several occasions but said “well at least we die having fun!” While the sudden stops and curves throughout the race track on a little 2 way highway and even city streets didn’t phase our driver, he delighted us with a couple stanzas from some American songs. At about halfway through our journey in the taxi, he told us that his car wasn’t going as fast because we were weighing it down (there were 4 Americans in this taxi!). We’re thinking 99mph was plenty fast :)

You Can't Make this Stuff Up!

This past weekend, Kayleigh and I went to Daejeon, had a great Costco samples treat day and learned how to use the subway and other bus routes. It was a nice day and we enjoyed hanging out with a new friend from church. As we were walking around, we happened to bump into someone else that she knew, also from our city, and we four enjoyed some pizza and hot dogs! On our way to Costco, while on the subway, we were all standing and chit-chatting and then our exit came up. I started to walk off the subway car, but didn't get very far because a Korean man was pulling on my shirt and saying something. I was like, Sir, this is my stop. Let me go! I soon realized why he was hanging onto me. We were attached. Somehow a stray string from my shirt had wrapped its way around the button of his sports coat and we were literally connected. I started laughing and pulled at the string muttering, Mianhamnida (I'm sorry) to the poor man. I barely made it off before the doors closed and I rode to the next stop! My friends were already ahead of me and hadn't noticed my predicament. So funny!

Then today while I was at school, I had my students create their own dialogues of "small talk" using vocabulary words from the lesson. This was what one of my students wrote. It was awesome!

A: Did you have a good night?
B: No, it was terrible
A: what's wrong?
B: Last night, I watched the TV program and I go to the toilet because I'm constipated.
A: Oh, that's too bad.
B: So I stayed to the toilet for a long time. Last, I went to my bedroom at 2:00am
A: Oh, what a pity!

I laughed so hard...God is good to me~! I really love the girls I teach! Couldn't resist sharing.

Really Fresh Food...Fear Factor Here I come!

So I thought I had experienced my fair share of Asian cuisine but no, I was totally unprepared for the meal I had last week. My co-teachers invited me to come eat with them after school. I was told we were having prawns. Ok, fine, I can do seafood right? So they picked me up and we drove to this restaurant about 10 minutes away. The table was typical Korean, long tables where we eat on the floor. I saw frying pans with salt in them, placed intermittently on the tables. Then we all started taking our seats and I waited as the food began to come out.

Well the waiter brought out three giant tupperwear containers filled with shrimp. LIVE shrimp. I was thinking, what did I just get myself into? So these shrimp are seriously jumping in the container, flopping around this way and that. At one point they bumped the top off the container and one jumped and landed right in my soup. It was trying to make a run for it. I screamed as others began to follow suit and quickly pushed back from the table. My co-teacher, Mr. Kim, put the lid back on as though this was normal behavior and I got embarrassed for screaming and began laughing and really couldn't stop. So my teachers were laughing at me and I said that I had to take some pictures. They didn't mind so I busted out my camera and got a few good shots. Well the waiter came by and began taking the live ones out and plopping them in the frying pan. There went the shrimp, twiching as the last bit of life was sucked out of them. I felt a little bad for them. Heads, eyeballs and all thrown in the pot. Then Mr. Kim proceeds to take a live shrimp out, pop the head off and offer it to me. I knew I couldn't refuse so down the hatch. I totally ate a grey, just been killed, shrimp and it was not "on the barbie". Not even close.

So throughout the course of the night, soju was passed around (Korean whisky) and each time a new teacher joined us, they gave me a shot of soju and another raw shrimp as though this was some kind of honor. I took a sip at a time and focused on eating yet another raw shrimp. As the night wore on, Mr. Kim got livlier and livlier, yet his English got worse and worse. It was hysterical since he was the only one who even had a chance of interpreting for me. I ended up downing 4 or 5 by the end of the night.

Eating the cooked shrimp also provided another challenge as I had to then pop the head off and de-peel it. With chopsticks! I consider myself a fairly proficient chopstick user, however, I learned that I cannot under any circumstances pop the head of a shrimp off using them. I had to go American style. Using the old fingers. It took me about 5 minutes to eat one or two shrimp cause I had to wait till they cooled off. I consumed a fair portion throughout our 2 hour meal and thought it was over, but no, I forgot about the rice. Where did I think I was? There is ALWAYS rice! I tried to muscle a few bites down but seriously thought I was gonna puke. Might have been the raw fish rolling around in the stomach. Anyways, had an enjoyable night overall and got to experience my first Korean karaoke night. They call it noriban here. Good times!

A Typical Day

So Kayleigh and I set out to accomplish three things on Saturday. We wanted to get bikes, cell phones and make extra keys. However, within minutes of leaving my apt, we noticed something going on at the park right in my backyard. It's called Gongsanseong park and it sits on a small mountain that you can hike and tour. We saw lots of people going in and there were soldiers all around the fortress gate so we decided to check it out. Basically we walked around exploring what the park had to offer and found that we could make our own soap. And by make our own soap, I mean we could pick the color, stir it and then pour into a mold. So we paid the $2 and we were very proud of our accomplishment. Since that took a majority of our afternoon, we decided to continue walking around in search of our other tasks. By the end of the day, we got nothing done, however, the day wasn't a total waste. We made soap so now we smell better :) and Kayleigh found a pet. This is about how every single day goes here. There's always tomorrow, that's our motto!

Weather

 

 
The weather has been absolutely beautiful. Lately, the mornings have been cool (chilly for me!) And usually the mountains have a mist of fog over them that then creep over the city. The nights also become cooler. Recently, Michelle and I took a lovely walk in the cities garden / walking path. There was a long, long path along small rivers of water. On either side of paths are lovely plants, trees, and arrays of beautiful and unique flowers. We strolled along after a long day of teaching, talking about relationships, life, and a good half-hour of Harry Potter. :)

  Here are some pictures of a famous fortress called Gongsanseong. Our city used to be the capitol of South Korea (ended in 538 AD).

  I hope to go hiking in a mountain I accidentally stumbled upon when trying to get to church the first time (see The Amazing Race entry). On Friday's I don't have class and so I think I will try to get to this national park and hike. The only thing is I would like to have a cell phone by that time to be safe. However, obtaining a cell phone is quite difficult. First of all, phone companies do not let foreigners have the same kind of cell phone plan as Koreans (this is the same in America, some of our international students had to put down a $ 500.00 deposit before getting a phone!). The prices are about doubled of that of a Korean cell phone plan price. On top of that, Michelle and I spent about 45 mins in one of the shops trying to communicate. We filled up many pages in my planner by going back and forth writing down various numbers, prices, and minutes. By the end, I think we understood but we thought it best to wait and ask our co-workers for help. So the goal of this week: GET A CELL PHONE!

  love,
  Kayleigh

The Amazing Race.....to church

Lets just say that having flexibility, preparation, and a pocket dictionary in a foreign country is a MUST. Throughout the week, I had been researching to try and find an English-speaking international church. It was really exciting to find one in the nearby city of Taejon. My co-teachers and a Korean friend all helped me as they explained how to use the bus system (something we had not yet done), which station to get off at, and how to then walk the last 30 mins to the church. My co-teacher even offered to come meet us in the morning to help us get on the right bus for the first time, an offer which I mistakenly did not accept. I was certain it wouldn't be that difficult and we had maps and it was explained to us several times.

Now Sunday morning comes. We gave ample time for ourselves in the morning to get there. After our 15 minute walk to the bus station, I realized I had left everything at home or at the school, the maps, the Korean translations for the taxi drivers, the bus number, everything. But, hey no problem, I remember it was some bus with 21 in it (which I later realized was bus #190). Ok, so we somehow pay using broken English by asking the people around us for help, get on the bus, and start heading in the right direction. Until... we get off the highway and start driving further and further into the mountains. our bus is packed with people in hiking gear and we soon enough discovered that we were in a national park and everyone got off the bus to go hike this mountain. What next? We asked our bus driver what bus to get to Taejon, and he pointed to another bus. We are trying to get on this bus but have NO idea how much to pay. Soon enough we just gave them about 5,000 won (a little under 5.00USD) and he shot back a handful of coins at us. Now, we were off again, on the main road to Taejon.

In approaching Taejon (I was feeling good at this point!) we start looking for the station we had to get off. We had remembered certain landmarks and were trying to recall that. Well, all the stations were looking quite the same. We just decided to get off at one (which ended up being at least one stop too soon). At that point, we realized that this was not the right stop, so we flag down a taxi and say to him "Christian International School" which is the school in Taejon that is affiliated with the church. He continually spoke some words to us in Korean and as we didn't understand anything, I just responded "I don't know" after every question he asked us in Korean. About a 7,000won taxi-drive later, we end up at this RANDOM school in which we have never seen before. We said "aniyo, aniyo" which means NO, NO! He called someone who could speak a little English and Michelle worked through it trying to communicate with her. He then started driving off to another place. The person Michelle had been talking with called back and said that she thought she knew what place we were talking about and said it was 1 hour away! WHAT! no way was it 1 hour away nor were we going to rack up the taxi miles and money, so we just asked him immediately to let us out of the taxi.

Once we got out of the taxi, we walked a short distance to a shopping store, maybe similar to a large Walmart or Target. Once we got there, we went to a worker behind this desk and asked if anyone spoke English. They all just kind of smiled and looked at us. We continued to ask where the bus station was, because at this point, we were just going to head back to Gongju (our city). Somehow we managed to ask them if we could come behind the desk to use their computer. They kindly let us and I looked up the church and printed out the Korean translation of the name.

Now, at this point, we are 25mins late for church. We go outside of the shopping center and flag down another taxi, show him the Korean translation of the church name, and he gives us a nod indicating "yes, I know where this is..." and we are off! Finally we get there....at least 25,000 won later, 2 buses, about 7 different people through broken English and 2 hours later.

Once we got to the church, we went in. There were many people from all around the world, Koreans, America, we heard some British accents, and a couple people from our city. We went out to eat afterwards with some other teachers who live nearby and were directed (in English) as to how to get home, a straighshot and much less expensive.

It was a busy day! I enjoyed the adventure of it all, but learned that I have to be prepared because everything takes longer in a foreign country due to all of the different barriers. Whew!

Elevators: A Mind of Their Own

So this story is a little out of order but I wanted to share cause I think it's so funny. When Kayleigh and I first arrived, like literally got off the plane and found our recruiter, we headed straight to a hotel for the night. Mind you, we hadn't slept in about 30 hours at this point and we had to carry all our stuff around. I'm talking 150lbs of luggage each. Not an easy task. So we manage to clip our bags together and several of us new teachers are waiting at the elevator to go up to the 2nd floor. We can't all fit because there are about 6 teachers who all have multiple bags. So a few get on and Kayleigh and I wait with Alistair, (recruiter)for the next round.

Well, when the elevator comes back down, just getting all our luggage on the elevator requires a system. Apparently in Korea, they don't value safety quite as much and if you are standing in the doorway, you will be crushed. There is no sensor that says, Hey, don't close right now, there's a person there. So we awkwardly load up the elevator and take turns holding the doors open. Then we go up to level two and before we can even unload one bag, the door shuts in our faces. Alistair is the only thing that made it off and was the last friendly face we would see. So Kayleigh and I desparately try to open the door again but we're stuck behind our bags. So it takes off and we head to level 6. A couple Korean guys get on and look at us strangely, as do most people, and they go up to level 8. And so do we. We think surely this is our chance, we'll just hit 2 again and be in the clear. No, instead the elevator develops a mind of its own and we bypass level 2 and head back to the basement, where we just had come from.

The doors open wide and there are the other teachers we just left, who are trying to get on the elevator. The coordinator for the hotel that is helping all of us looks at us and says very kindly (but you know she's irritated) and motions, "Please, go. Please go up!". We smile and nod and under our breath say, we're trying! At this point, there is no stopping the hossy laughing that comes out of our beings. We hit 2 again and this time, Alistair is still waiting for us. We had devised a plan and managed to get all our stuff out before it closed in our faces. At one point, I had to push the doors open and felt a little like Samson. The very next day, same situation happens to me at the conference center and from there on out, I decided to take the steps. Did I mention that the next day we had to haul our luggage from the airport out to the bus, then off the bus up a giant hill and up 6 floors? And for those who saw my luggage before I left, you know it wasn't gonna make it. Wheels bending, insides cracking and it only managed to make it on a cloud of grace to my final destination. Now it's in a happy burial place, the local garbage dump. :)

My New Boyfriend, Dwight Shrute

So yesterday when Kayleigh and I explored our city, which we do every evening after school, we happened to walk past a furniture store. I wanted to go in and look for something to put in my kitchen to store dishes and other random things. I found one little stand that I thought was probably for CD's but it also looked like it would fit just fine in my tiny kitchen. The store owner came over and I asked in Korean, how much? He told me but we haven't learned numbers yet so I shrugged and then spotted a calculator sitting nearby. I grabbed it and motioned for him to type in the number. But then I soon realized it wasn't for sale. Only for display. He showed me a catalogue where I could purchase this same item and after a few minutes of charades, he told me that it would cost about $50.

I was definitely not willing to pay that much so we started to walk out of the store. He then motioned and I finally understood that he would sell me the display for a discounted price. He typed in 25,000won which is like $25 bucks. I grabbed the calculator and typed 20,000 and said the one word I know that means cheaper. He smiled and sort of shook his head but then he ended up agreeing. So my next dilemma is "How am I gonna get this thing home?" It was about a 20 min walk to my apt and this thing was awkward.

So I asked if he did delivery, he of course had no idea what I meant, but then I gestured towards my home and asked about a taxi. He caught on and then looked at Kayleigh and I and motioned, Come on!" We didn't exactly know what was happening but soon caught on that he would take us and my stand to my apt. He left his wife in charge of the shop and we loaded it up in his truck and squished ourselves into the front seat with him. It was hilarious! Where else in the world would I just hop in the car with a perfect stranger? But it all worked out.

So we brought it home and he took it inside for me. As he glanced at my magnets on my refrigerator, he asked, Oh, your boyfriend? I started cracking up, cause I had brought over my Office magnets from home and had four little pictures of yes, you guessed it, Dwight Shrute. I told him no, no, tv star in America. I'm not totally sure he understood but doesn't really matter does it? He drove us back to his shop and we were on our merry way once again. I love when things like that happen. :)

New Faces, New Places and New People to Meet

Annyeong Haseyo!
We have arrived! Saturday, Aug. 22nd after a LONG plane ride, Kayleigh and I were taken to a hotel nearby the airport after being met by our recruiter. We stayed in Incheon one night and then met the rest of the teachers working in our province. We traveled to Cheonan, which is the capital city of our province (2 hours by bus). In Cheonan, we spent the week going through orientation and training. It was very organized and helpful. Much of the information was similar to what I experienced in Japan but for the brand new teachers, I thought it was extremely well done. They treated us very kindly and spoiled us with great Korean food.

On Friday after lunch, we split up and were introduced to our co-teachers from our individual schools. Mr. Kim, my co-teacher drove me to Gongju. He is a very kind man but our communication is limited which can be frustrating at times. Since Kayleigh and I had no clue where we were living or how to get a hold of each other, we practically forced our co-teachers to exchange numbers. After finally getting into my apt, I asked Mr. Kim to call Kayleigh's teacher and we were able to meet up later that night. Despite a rough start because of communication breakdowns, Kayleigh and I managed to have a nice weekend exploring our surroundings and even got to visit a Methodist church on Sunday. Didn't understand a word but it was comforting to know that God knew exactly what they were saying :) These 2 kind girls from the local university took us to church and then to Mr. Pizza for lunch. Think Pizza Hut with a twist. The slogan in and of itself cracks me up. "Made for Women" I guess we were in the right place! So after enjoying some shrimp, sweet potato, bbq flavored pizza, we went home and relaxed Sunday night.

Kayleigh started school on Monday but I didn't have to begin until Tuesday. On my day off, I got 2 things accomplished, found a bank and exchanged some money and went grocery shopping. I know it doesn't seem like much but things take about twice as long as normal :) Yesterday was my first day at school and I was introduced to many teachers and students. Halfway through the day, my co-teacher took me to my apt to get internet hooked up. This was a happy day! You realize how addicted you really are once it's taken away for a few days! After school my co-teachers took me out to eat for traditional Korean bulgogi! Yum! Then we visited the grand opening of a coffee shop that one of my teacher's wives opened up. I had a good time getting to know the staff and they were extremely kind to me. I begin teaching on Monday and look forward to being with the students. I work at an all-girls high school located about 15 min from my apt. It's a nice walk to school, ...hope I can still say that in the winter! I have decided that because I have no idea how to receive mail at my apt, nor do I have a mail box, slot, landlord to my knowledge etc, I will use my school address so here it is for anyone that wants to write me a note or send me something fun from home! Hint, hint :)

Michelle Hixson
Woongjindong 277
Gongju city
Chungchungnamdo Province
South Korea
314-020

Please keep us in your prayers, that we would abide in Christ daily when hard times and frustrations arise. We miss you all!