Happy New Year!

Christmas was a bit different for us this year. We really missed being with our families, and things aren't quite as "Christmasy" here as they are back at home. We knew it wasn't going to be a traditional celebration, so we decided to take a trip to keep our mind off of missing home. For our Christmas celebration, we left behind the city life and pursued a mountainous adventure. What a great idea it was!

We got home from work at 11 p.m. on Christmas eve, which is sure to be a day we'll always remember. We talked to our parents and then slept as long as we could. We made it to the subway station by around 8 a.m. on Christmas morning, and man, did we look tired. Thankfully, we live at the last stop of our subway line, which means we could sit down during the the 70 minute trip.




From the subway, we hopped onto the Bus, which took about 3 hours.



The views were beautiful, though, as we got to see both the countryside of Korea and the eastern coastline, both were covered with a blanket of white snow. From the bus, we called a taxi, which couldn't find our hotel. When we finally arrived at the hotel, the owners were shoveling snow and speaking to us in Korean, saying something about the hotel being closed or something. Great. One of the people beckoned us into his small car, our backpacks on our laps, and we drove around the block to a new hotel. Somehow, even though we called ahead, no one seemed to explain that the hotel was changing buildings. Or something. Anyway, we were in for a nice surprise. This was our view from outside the hotel.









This was our cozy room, which had the traditional Korean heated floors, perfect for a winter trip.






We decided to make it Christmas, so we each opened gifts from the other. I got Ben some mints, and he found Home Alone for me. Not only is it my favorite movie, but it really brings some Christmas joy to any occasion.







We ventured into the city of Sokcho, which is a summer haven for beach-goers, and an all-season delight for mountain hikers. We enjoyed Korean Tak-kal-bi for dinner. It was delicious!









Friday was reserved for hiking, movie-watching, and hot-chocolate drinking. What a perfect combination! We hiked at Seoraksan National Park, which is quite beautiful. Despite the wintry dead of the trees and surrounding nature, the thick layer of snow from the previous days made the scenery just gorgeous.






We decided to take the hiking trail that led to the Ulsan Bawi, which meant some kind of big rock. It looked to be an intermediate trail, and the distance seemed to be just right for what we wanted. There were more people than we expected, but the higher up we went, the more fun it became. There is nothing like being in nature, with the crunching of the snow beneath your feet being the only sound you hear.



We went higher...


And higher...


And we got closer...


To the TOP!!! What a view!!! We could see the surrounding mountains, the city of Sokcho, and the ocean. Just awesome!





By the end, we needed to thaw out a bit.







The next day, before we returned back to the city, we decided to take a sunrise hike (we missed the sunrise, but it was a great morning trip!)



To a waterfall...that was mostly frozen!





The view on the way back to the park was just incredible. Ben took these!







After a wonderful couple of days, we boarded the bus and headed back to Seoul. Hungry, Ben got a snack at the rest stop. Our jaws were sore from eating beef jerky sent from home while on the hiking trail, so he opted instead for the package of dried fish. Much to his surprise, it wasn't fish. It was dried squid. Mmm...It looked dry and flat and Ben said it tasted chewy and fishy down to the last bite...big surprise.



We enjoyed the scenery on the bus, and I was particularly impressed with the snowy mountains that faded into the ocean. Not something you see everyday in the midwest!




So, this was our Christmas. It was one to remember, for sure!

We hope that you enjoyed the holiday celebration with your loved ones, and wish you a wonderful start to 2009! Happy New Year!

We'd love to hear from you!

Please write us a note!
We can have things sent to us at:

LMC Language Center
2030-5 Daehwa-dong Ilsan-gu Goyang-si Gyeonngi-do
KOREA
411-803

Also, we have a US phone number. Just leave a comment if you would like us to send that number to you! We can talk for *free*, well, kind of!

Meeting for the First Time

Meet Yangjin! We just did! We've been talking with her since May, but we finally got to meet her in person last night. She is so wonderful! Yangjin is our recruiter. Basically, she is the person that helped us find a school, deal with paperwork and government stuff with visas and such, and she was our only contact and support person in Korea through the entire process of coming here.





Yangjin met with us and two other teachers that she had recruited. We had a delicious cup of coffee (my mint mocha was just perfect) and Ben decided to have something over ice. At first I thought it was odd that he would get something iced in the winter, but then I realized his logic. Because we are walking outside so much, we are usually bundled up. We keep warm outside, but quickly get overheated inside. On the subway ride into Seoul yesterday, I started sweating. A lot.







After coffee and visiting with the other teachers, we all went for a wonderful Italian meal. Yangjin found a cozy and very nice place to eat, and of course Italian is among our favorites. The entire evening was great, AND we were able to find the bus home by ourselves. Now that is something to be excited about!

The First Snow

The past two weekends have been quite full of new places and good experiences.


The first unexpected surprise was last Saturday afternoon. We visited the popular Lake Park, just two subway stops from us. We walked around the park, which is quite beautiful. It was, however, a very, very cold day. Even the ducks were too cold to fly south.



In our efforts to thaw out a bit, we decided to visit this place that looked like a cafe, but we just weren't sure. Every time we would go in this part of town, we would notice a building that had an airplane on top of it. Sure, any airplane on top of a building seems misplaced. But this one was painted like an eagle. It was odd, but the marketing worked. We were intrigued, so we followed the steps up to the top floor of the building.



Ahh, what a delight it was inside! The atmosphere was warm and inviting, like a log cabin, with rustic decorations and furniture. We were greeted by one of the servers that spoke English, so he explained the place to us. They give you cups with tea in them, and you can either take your cup up to the coffee bar and order fancy lattes and cappuccinos, or you could take your cup up to the coffee bar and order one of the refillable drinks, which included a wide assortment of Korean teas, coffee, and soda. We picked some random Korean words from the menu and were warmed fully by the delicious teas that we had 'ordered'. We took advantage of the refills, and were able to relax and stay warm inside. The cafe would have been the perfect place to study while in college, as there were nooks everywhere and you could borrow books and magazines from their shelves. We stayed for not quite two hours, and our server said something like "leaving so soon?"--how nice it is to feel like you can go to a place just to relax!


That next evening brought a new surprise, when we looked outside and saw snow flurries. We've seen snow flurries here before, but these particular flurries kept growing. After about an hour, this was the view from our apartment.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to cover the ground with a beautiful white, the kind that muffles the sounds of the city and somehow feels peaceful. And wet. By morning, it had all melted and we had temperatures this week that were in the low 50s. With Christmas being less than two weeks away, those small reminders of 'the season' are very comforting.

Before the snow fell, we had some friends over for cards and peanut butter cookies (the toaster oven is working very nicely!). One of the local teachers brought some curtains for us to try in our massive windows. We weren't expecting them to fit, but they fit just perfectly! We are so excited that we now have some privacy from the outside world, a shield from the neon signs outside, and window blankets to keep the cold out during the winter. And they were free! What a blessing! It was going to cost us at least two hundred to three hundred dollars.


Our week of teaching went quickly, now that we are more into a routine with our classes. Nothing is too exciting at school, but we'll try to post pictures of school soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

After work tonight, which ended at 10:30, Ben said "why am I so hungry?" We realized that this day is typically the one day of the year where we just eat because it tastes good, and then eat more. And then eat more, watch some football, eat more, and then fall asleep. It seems that our bodies are so used to being ridiculously full on this day by the time 10:30 rolls around. Our Thanksgiving celebration wasn't much of anything, as there were no pilgrims that landed on the shores of Korea. We had some people wish us a happy day, and we reflected a bit on the things we are thankful for.

Please leave us a note and share about your holiday. We hope that you are enjoying time with family and friends. We also hope that you are not taking the delicious Thanksgiving menu for granted! Tell us what you are eating, too! Jen will attempt to make a couple of *small* holiday dishes in the new toaster oven, and recipe ideas are much appreciated.

Happy eating, and happy napping!

Catching Up

It feels like the last two weeks have been so full of new places, new people, and new experiences. Because of our internet situation, we are quite behind on sending stories and photos from all of those new things. Thus, you can now look below for some random pictures and quick stories on our first two weeks.

You must realize that we are in a small city that is a part of one of the largest cities in the world. People who live here in Ilsan think that it is quite small, compared to the heart of Seoul, which is about 45-60 minutes by subway. Many of our experiences have been not only with Korean culture, but also with 'big city' life. Because of the size of the city, there is a lot of western influence. It is interesting to see things that Koreans have adapted, especially when it is mixed with their own styles and customs. One of the funniest things is the influence of American music here. The American songs that the Koreans know, and like, are quite random and include: Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, the Spice Girls (Ben and I sang that during our first Korean Karaoke singing room experience) and an eclectic mix of eighties and early-nineties songs. At the gym yesterday, we were next to a very strong Korean man who was singing aloud. He was singing "It's rainin' men...hallelujah...it's rainin' men." While he was lifting weights. As we left the gym and the elevator doors closed behind us, Ben and I said to one another, "Does he even know what he was saying?!"


Us singing "Wanna Be"





I mentioned the Western influence. This is the women's bathroom at a German Pub-style restaurant. Yes, that is Keanu Reeves. Why? I don't know. I had to take a picture so that Ben would believe me when I said there was a giant mural of Keanu on the wall of the restroom. Like I would even pretend that there would be a giant mural of Keanu on the wall.




We took a lovely tour of the Han River, which allowed us to see the city of Seoul from the water.





We visited the Namdaemun Market, an open air market that was full of clothes, local cuisine, some fresh vegetables, and other small stores. And full of people.


The characters under the logo read (each bundle of symbols is one syllable) "Suh-ta-bok-suh-koh-pi" and mmm it is still delicious. This is the only store that has the store name written in Korean, because it is in a traditional district of town. All others are in English.


Visiting with an old friend in Seoul! We have quite a representation of Northern Indiana people here in Seoul. Deanne was among other friends from the South Bend area that we met with, and who we will visit more during our time here.



Meet a few of the ladies from LMC school: Kalii (US: she left after our first week here), Atsuko (Japan: our manager), Kyung-min (Korean receptionist), JaYoung (Korean teacher), Noriko (Japanese teacher), Razel (She's from the Philippines, but is married to a Korean. She teaches English, but is leaving soon--we are taking her classes). They were dancing, they don't always pose for pictures like that.



And the men, who, along with Jen, make up the entire English department at LMC. Ben, the handsome one, Thomas (Tom-he's from Canada) and Lawrence (South Africa). Atsuko likes to squeeze into pictures, too.

Home sweet home...

This week, we moved across the street into our new apartment. Of course, we would love to have you for a meal or coffee at our home, but that would require you to take a trip to Seoul. Instead, please feel welcomed as our first guests through pictures!

On Tuesday morning, we packed our belongings--four suitcases, three backpacks, a few bags of food, and a big package of toilet paper--and trekked across the street into our new building. Our previous apartment was...small, so we had no idea what to expect. Well, we were pleasantly surprised!



Our kitchen is typical Korean, with a small sink, a two-burner electric stovetop, a refrigerator, and a small washer where an oven belongs. I'm still a bit bitter about the oven situation, as Koreans just don't bake like we do. However, Ben said that we can get a toaster oven, which has since made our kitchen complete.

In addition to living without ovens, Koreans also live without clothes dryers. We survived our first load of laundry in our 'old' apartment, finding every possible hook to hang the wet clothes on. When we moved into our new place, we were delighted to discover that our washer also DRYS the clothes! We've never seen such a thing, but it is such a relief and an added convenience that we were not expecting. The machine itself doesn't hold much, and it takes about 3.5-4 hours to do a load from start to finish, but wow, we can do laundry!





The main room of our apartment is quite roomy. Up until tonight, we didn't have a single piece of furniture in it. Today, we purchased some 'stools' (they are perfect for a freshman girls' dorm room) and a few seat pads (think of the mats that you see on the floor of a Japanese teppan restaurant) so now we can have friends over and be more comfortable. The advantage of the floor seating mats is that the main source of heat in Korean homes is through the floor. It is getting colder each day, so we'll probably get a small space heater for our bedroom area, which has no heat because it is a loft.



The loft is quite cozy, and by cozy we mean four and a half feet tall. When standing on the second-to-last step, Jen's head just grazes the ceiling. The final step means walking like the hunchback. For Ben, well, yeah, he has to duck. Our bed consists of two twin mattresses on the floor, which you can see fit just right in the loft. We still don't have curtains yet, so we wake up to a nice view of the building across the street. At night, the lights from the street are similar to that red sign from that Seinfeld episode that kept them from sleeping. Thankfully, we are so tired at the end of the day, it is easy to find rest. It is a comfortable room, and we are so glad to have some sort of separation from the main room. In our old apartment, if anyone wanted to come over, they would have had to sit on our mattresses.



It is Korean tradition NOT to clean your apartment when you move out. Granted, there's not many rules in the States about leaving your place spotless, but there is such a thing as apartment maintenance, who will clean the apartment, re-paint, etc. Not so in Korea. That same tradition also holds that when you move into the apartment, it looks like it did when the previous tenants moved out. A bit...different for us, especially when it came to cleaning the bathroom. Of course, cleaning any bathroom, including your own, can be a chore. But, cleaning your bathroom and finding long, dark Asian hair everywhere is just...gross. It was a challenge. Today's adventure is cleaning out the refrigerator, which smells like old Korean food.

Despite Korean tradition, we have felt very comfortable and at home at our new place. We praise God for an apartment that is big enough to have people over, which is what we love to do. Jen's excited to learn how to cook some things the Korean way, and we already have plans to teach the guys we work with how to play Euchre. Now, if I can only convince Ben that we need a small Christmas tree next week...'tis the Season!