Home for Christmas!

I guess by now most people know that we are indeed home in America for Christmas!  We arrived early Saturday morning and have been staying busy seeing people, getting ready for Christmas, and going down our list of must eat restaurants these first couple days.  We had been planning the trip home during our winter vacation for a couple months but had decided to try and keep it a secret in order to surprise some people.  It was a big Christmas surprise to my mom and grandma at least!  We are so excited to get to spend Christmas here with all of our family and friends.  We will be heading back to Korea on the 31st so it has to be a short visit but definitely a great one!  It's felt a little bit strange being back after being gone for almost ten months.  There's not a language barrier when we want to go to the store or a restaurant and I haven't noticed anyone staring at me much.  We still remember how to drive too so that's good!  I will post more about our trip to America after we return to Korea on the first!

Christmas Party

We had a Christmas party for the kindergarten students today.  Well I don't know if it was much of a party since there was no food, but Santa Claus came!  And he brought presents!  Basically the parents were told ahead of time to bring a present without their child knowing and then the PE teacher dressed up like Santa Claus and gave each kid their present.  I'm pretty sure all the kids knew right away that it wasn't the real Santa Claus, but I think some of them were at least convinced he was bringing presents for the real Santa.  The kids, of course, had a blast getting, opening and playing with their presents and it was fun to watch.  I also learned that the best way to get a ton of work accomplished with 2-5 year olds is to tell them that Santa Claus will only come to school if they get all their work finished before lunch.  I only had to say it once and I think we got more learning accomplished today than we ever have!  Even Tommy, who lately has been complaining (instead of working) that I spend too much time sitting by Jayden and not enough time sitting by him anymore, did his writing in record time today.

 Baby Anthony with Santa

 Eric's student, Tony with Santa

In other news, the presidential election happened yesterday and South Korea elected its first female president with Pak Geun Hye.  We didn't follow the election very closely and don't know much about either candidate but we do know it was an interesting election for the country.  Pak appealed more to the older generation, while the other candidate appealed to the younger generation.  They were saying all along that it would be a tight race and would likely depend solely on which group of people had the most voters.  There are a few reasons why we think the older generation turned out with more voters.  The older people in Korea are more likely to vote anyway, as many of them remember when they didn't even have the opportunity to vote.  Also, there is starting to be more older people in the country (Korea is very concerned about how low their birth rate is and has been for many years).  Lastly, it is final exam time at the universities.  That means that not only are many younger people too consumed with studying to focus on the election, but if they are from the countryside and currently studying somewhere like Seoul or Busan, they would have had to make the trip back to their hometown in order to cast their vote.  According to polls reported on the news, South Korea's economy was the top priority for voters this election.  We heard on the news last night that the country is expected to make only a three percent economic growth this year, a steady decline over the past few years, and a deep concern to the people and politicians.  The interesting thing is, many western countries have been posting negative numbers for a while now and would probably love to see three percent growth!  The South Korean people also want to see more effective talks between the South Korean president and the leaders up North in Pyongyang.  We're curious to see what they think of a woman president and if they get anywhere with talks between a new female president and a young, still fairly new, communist leader.

One more thing (because no post is complete without a weather update!)... It's still clear and sunny and freezing cold.  We will never be fans of what feels like extreme temperatures to us.  For those of you who know just how much Eric hates the heat with a passion, especially the heat we had here this past summer, here's something that will describe just how cold it has been over the last 2 months from what he said to me the other day: "I almost prefer summer over this cold winter... almost."  :)

Christmas Time in Seoul

The weekend ended up getting away from us much too quickly and we ended up not having a chance to go find some Christmas lights.  But we did find some after work on Monday.  We went to City Hall where they had a large tree with lights and an ice skating rink.  It wasn't much and we decided it was too cold to go ice skating, but it was still nice to see something Christmasy!

Tomorrow is election day in Korea, a national holiday, which means we don't have to go in to work until our afternoon classes start.  Technically we should be given the whole day off but since we are working tomorrow afternoon we will get to have our afternoon classes cancelled on Monday, Christmas Eve, so I guess that is okay.  That means we only have two more full days or work and two half days before our winter vacation week!

 

Another Week

It was another full week at work for us, but as all the weeks seem to do, it went by very quickly!  Even though the school year is almost over (the end of February), parents are still enrolling students in the kindergarten classes.  Eric got one new student last week, Tony, and I got two new students this week.  One of my new ones is only two years old (we call him Baby Yoonho).  He is not completely toilet trained, has trouble feeding himself and puts anything and everything in his mouth.  Fortunately, I have a great Korean co-teacher who is able to watch him the entire time to make sure that crayon (and her cell phone) doesn't go in his mouth again!   My other new student, Sally, seems to fit right in with the other girls in the class.  My only challenge now is that I have four kids that are ready to read books, one kid that's almost ready to read books, and four kids that don't know their ABC's and need constant one-on-one help.  So I am definitely learning how to put differentiated instruction into action everyday!  They can be a challenge and a handful at times, but a good one!  We are looking forward to having a fairly relaxing weekend this time.  We got some rain yesterday which finally helped to get ride of the compact ice that had been covering the street we live on for over a week.  We will attempt to see the Christmas display at Seoul Plaza tonight.  Last weekend we went to a mall that happened to be turning on their Christmas lights for the first time with the help of a celebrity (not Psy), so it was quite packed.  We are hoping the Plaza will not be like that tonight but it is Seoul so you never know!  We only have one more week of work and a half day of work on Christmas Eve before we get a week off which we are definitely looking forward to!

Even from another country, as teachers, the news from Connecticut hits close to home for us.  Our prayers go out to the families and all school personnel.  We will hold our students a little bit tighter on Monday, thankful for the opportunity we have to be their teachers, even on those days that seem the longest.

Snow in Seoul

We got our first glimpse of Seoul snow today!  There was quite a bit too.  It started to come down pretty heavily about noon and didn't let up until almost six o'clock, a good few inches later.  I had a lot I wanted to get done with my kindergarten class today but of course that all went by the wayside the second one of them announced it was snowing.  So I got them bundled up and we spent some time outside, which they all seemed to thoroughly enjoy.  All of our elementary classes were about half the size or smaller since not all of the school buses were running and some parents just didn't want to send their kids.  By evening the temperature had dropped into the low twenties, causing all of the snow to become compacted ice.  That made for an interesting walk home.  All of the main roads are fine but we walk on a less traveled back road to and from work which meant lots of compact snow/ice.  Since it's not supposed to get above freezing anytime soon (maybe March?) I don't think the snow and ice on these back roads will be going anywhere.  Maybe we will even get to have a white Christmas!

I will say that walking home on the ice was quickly forgotten once we started to eat the amazing chicken tacos I had left cooking in the crockpot.  It was the first main dish I have used our new crockpot for and definitely a good choice!  Eric has requested that it become a weekly meal.  Maybe there is hope for my cooking skills as long as I can have a crockpot and Pinterest! 

 Looking out the window was definitely not good enough!

 Jacob showing off his snowball before throwing it at Johnny

 The snow when it was fluffy

The snow when it was ice

December Already

It's hard to believe that it is already into December already!  We have finished an entire nine months of teaching and have officially been in Korea for nine months as of today.  It seems to have gone by so quick, but at the same time when we try to remember what we were thinking and what things were like back in March, it's so hard to remember.  It seems like so long ago but I guess that is because we feel like we have come a pretty long ways since then.  Only three more months and the first year will be over already.

Our weekend was not too exciting this time.  A few errands, house chores, and more crockpot use were about it.  The Christmas decorations around the city will not start appearing for another week or two.  The Christmas season is pretty short compared to America but we will still enjoy it.  We were excited to get some Christmas lights shipped to us from home which we just finished putting up in our living room.  We are already loving that we can sit on the couch with only the Christmas lights on lighting up the living room with some Christmas!

Speaking of the Christmas season being much shorter than home, there is another season that is much shorter here than America too: election season.  The presidential election will take place on December 19th here.  The candidates were only allowed to start campaigning about one week ago.  They get four weeks to do their campaigning.  That's it.  Sure there have been news articles and reports on the candidates trying to win over support but the advertisements and public rallys were not allowed to start until about four weeks before the election.  It could be an interesting time for this country as they have the potential to elect their first female president, who is also the daughter of a former South Korean dictator.  She has come under a lot of criticism because of some things her father did as a leader nearly 40 years ago.  In the Korean culture, if your father was a "bad" person it is automatically assumed that you are a "bad" person and should pay for the sins of your father.  It sounds like it could be an interesting election and the news continues to say it looks like a close race between the two primary candidates.

 

It was starting to snow on our way home tonight.  Snow showers are in the forecast a couple more times this week, not enough to stick yet though.  The weather continues to get colder.  The highs will be in the negatives (Celsius) beginning in the next couple days!  Here are a couple pictures of our Christmas decorations.  We will sure enjoy them!  :)

 

 Not the best pictures but the lights go all the way around our living room!

Christmas Season in Korea

I know it's not quite December yet but it's after Thanksgiving so I'm sure that Christmas is everywhere in America.  It is not quite that way here though.  We have come across some stands set up on the street selling Christmas decorations (usually at ridiculous prices) and some of the bigger department stores set up Christmas lights and decorations in the big shopping areas, but overall Christmas is definitely not the same in Korea.  One of the stores we shop at had a small section of "European-Style Christmas Decorations" the other day but it was not nearly as big or flashy as back home.  I was actually rather disappointed when I tried to do some Christmas activities with my students this week and found out their knowledge of some popular Christmas traditions was almost nothing!  In Korea, Christmas has become intended to be a romantic holiday for couples, rather than families and children.  It's a time where young Korean couples can walk around the areas by the expensive department stores looking at the decorations and buying expensive gifts, though still VERY absent of the commercialism we are used to seeing in America.  Most of the kids talk about getting some presents but it doesn't seem to be a big deal to them.  The real holiday for kids is Children's Day (May 5th).  Children's Day is a national holiday where everything is closed and parents spend the whole day doing things out and about with their kids.  And that's when they get A LOT of presents.  When I realized one of my elementary classes didn't know much about Santa (they guessed Rudolph made the toys so no, it isn't a translation issue) I asked them which holiday they are more excited for, Christmas or Children's Day.  It was quite clear that Children's Day is much more important to the kids here!  Although they do look forward to their winter vacation from school.  We have a one week vacation at the end of December but it doesn't start until after we work our regular full day schedule on Christmas Eve.  But we do have Christmas Day through New Years Day off so we are looking forward to a nice little break.

We plan to go searching for some Christmas lights and decorations to look at over the next couple weekends so that we can at least say we did something Christmasy.  After all Christmas in Korea is intended for couples!  And if nothing else: Starbucks has their red holiday cups and plays English Christmas music at all hours!  We do, of course, have a few decorations up in our house and tonight there is the smell of applesauce coming from the crockpot and a Christmas movie on the TV to go with our hot chocolate.  We think we can still make it feel almost just like Christmas :)

Post Thanksgiving Shopping and Feast

Even though there was no Black Friday shopping to be had in Korea, I decided I should still keep with tradition and do some shopping after Thanksgiving.  So I ended up spending most of my Saturday at the street markets where I found myself a purse and Eric some gloves, although the thumbs turned out to abnormally large compared to the other fingers... I guess that's why the guy told me "I give you good price.  Good price just for you."  I was also excited to find some Christmas decorations at the Daiso store (similar to the dollar store)!  They actually had some Christmas decoration stands at the street markets but I thought the prices were ridiculously high so I had to resort to Daiso.  I guess they know they won't sell much so they have to make everything expensive!

On Sunday I employed the use of my crockpot, for the second time, to make mashed potatoes, for the second time.  But this time I made a lot of mashed potatoes to take to a Thanksgiving potluck we were going to go to at a small international church.  Everyone knows that I am not a cook, that's why I married one, so I was pretty excited that I successfully made something (besides a baked dessert) that other people ate.  The potluck was pretty amazing and just like Thanksgiving.  There was a huge turkey that someone was able to get from the base, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, fruit, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, cookies, rice (of course), kimbap, bulgogi, pizza and much, much more!    There were quite a few people but also a whole lot of food and we both got plenty full on a traditional Thanksgiving meal along with a few extra side dishes.  Eric's only problem was that eating mashed potatoes with chopsticks wasn't very "American."  But at least we know how to eat mashed potatoes with chopsticks now :)  The potatoes were much easier than the corn...

 

Yes, I'm excited about our new crockpot so I took pictures of my mashed potato making...

Thanksgiving in Korea

Happy Thanksgiving America!! In many ways it’s hard to believe it is already Thanksgiving!  Yes, it was a different one for us this year for sure, including having to work just another regular day.  We greatly missed spending time celebrating the holiday with both of our families and eating two huge meals that left us feeling full for the next few days.   But it was also a special time for us as we enjoyed our small, different, Thanksgiving meal together, just the two of us, reflecting on all we have to be thankful for.  Not only do we have so much to be thankful for since we have arrived in Korea, but living here and experiencing a different side of the world has given us a new perspective on many things.   We wouldn’t trade the experience we are having here in Korea for anything in the world.  It has, and continues to, stretch us as individuals and as a married couple.  We are so thankful for all that we have learned over the last 8 months.  Navigating a new country very different from our own that comes with a completely different culture and language has not been easy at times for sure, but an amazing experience we will never forget and an opportunity that we are so thankful for. 

Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of ham, mashed potatoes (my first creation with my new crockpot!), Kraft macaroni and cheese, rolls and corn.  And afterwards we watched a Thanksgiving movie to top it off: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  As much as we missed spending the day with family and will be thinking about everyone sitting down together tomorrow, we are incredibly thankful for all that we have in our lives right now.  Here are a couple reflections of our thanks...

One thing that we are especially thankful for this Thanksgiving: to be an American.  We have learned up close and personally how Americans are often stereotyped in other parts of the world, often not in a good way.  There have been numerous occasions where we have definitely noticed how much of a minority we are here in Korea.  There are more than a few people that look down on us because of the simple fact that we are American.  But yes, we have a new appreciation for being American.  While Americans continue to complain or overly rejoice about the recent election, last week in China, 1.3 billion people were simply told who their next leader would be with no public input whatsoever.  Last December, a country located barely 100 miles from where we are sitting right now was told who their next leader would be as well, not even aware that other countries like America have a choice in whom leads their country.  Yes we have a new respect for what it means to be American and the freedoms and opportunities, like the one we are experiencing right now, that come with it.  

We are extremely thankful for the love and support of our whole family even when we are so far away.  We miss them so much but are so thankful for how important they are in our lives.  We are thankful that we have been blessed with full time jobs that we both love and enjoy.  We are thankful for all of the people that we have met in Korea, without whom we would be just as confused as when we stepped off the airplane for the first time.  We are thankful for each other and that we get to have this adventure and experience together.  Neither one of us can imagine doing it alone, but having the opportunity to do it together is something we will be forever thankful for and never forget.  And of course the list goes on…

 We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy all the time you get to spend with loved ones!  Know that we are thinking of you and wish we were there with you!

Our Thanksgiving table for two  :)

November Weekend

There is not a whole lot to report from our weekend once again.  We have been choosing to stay home and be lazy in our warm house for the most part.  However, we did pick up a few small things on our list for the house, including a teapot because when Koreans come to your house you are supposed to give them instant coffee and it's a bit embarrassing when you have to heat the water in a noodle pot...  We have plans to get some pictures and things up on the walls in the very near future now that we have frames and hooks and yes, the oven will be coming right after the first of the year we are planning! 

We decided to make Saturday night a date night and try a buffet restaurant we heard about a while ago.  It was an international buffet and steak place.  The food wasn't the greatest but it was definitely nice to be able to choose from so many different options!  They had pizza, pasta, salad, soup, bread, Asian noodles, dessert and even a taco bar!  We also ordered some pork ribs which were quite good.  The only thing missing was the kimchi.  Yes, when we go to a restaurant in Korea (with the exception of fast food) we now expect (and take advantage of) the all-you-can-eat kimchi. 

We have yet to decide exactly what we will be doing for our first American Thanksgiving here in Korea but will let you know later in the week what we ended up with.  Regardless of what we eat for dinner, we definitely know we have a whole lot to be thankful for this year!  I have been attempting to teach my kindergartners a little bit about American thanksgiving, but I think they are struggling with the fact that they worked really hard to color cute pictures of turkeys when people in America are just going to eat them.  We hope everyone back home has a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

Happy Pepero Day!

Since I have been slacking on the blogging I thought I would make up for it by doing two posts in one day!  And because in the last post I totally forgot to wish everyone a Happy Pepero Day!  While Americans are celebrating Veteran's Day, Koreans are celebrating Pepero Day on 11/11.  Pepero Day is when everyone buys the snack pepero, simply because pepero looks like a stick and can be arranged to look like the date 11/11.  The first reaction we had when learning of this holiday:  They don't celebrate Halloween but they celebrate something like that??  Strange, I know.  The displays and gift baskets of pepero are just as prevalent and large as the spam baskets available during the Korean Thanksgiving holiday.  I bet they went overboard crazy last year when it was 11/11/11.  This is what pepero looks like.  It is very similar to Japanese "pocky" that can sometimes be found in the US. 

Several kids at school were bringing boxes of pepero on Friday to share with the other students and teachers

One more thought for the day:  Tonight while out and about we passed a stand on the street selling fruit, particularly a very large quantity of apples for very cheap.  This is how we always buy our fruit but I thought the price for apples was even better than normal so I jumped on it.  The only problem was it was dark and I didn't take the time to look closely at the apples before buying them.  When we got home I realized they were already starting to go bad and that I should probably do something with them ASAP.  So, lacking an oven and having only a few ingredients on hand, my Sunday night consisted mostly of making applesauce.  However, I did find a recipe for an apple skillet cake which I decided to test out.  It received a thumbs up from both of us.  I still have some apples left so I may make another attempt at some sort of stove top apple dessert tomorrow.  Or more applesauce.

  You were supposed to flip it out of the pan so that the apples were on top but this picture turned out much nicer than the one after I attempted to flip it onto a plate!

Cheonggyesan

I realized it's been a while since we blogged, mainly because we've been taking our time enjoying our home.  Staying home and relaxing has been our idea of a nice weekend the last few weeks.  It's been so nice to finally live very close to work, very close to a grocery store, and a bit closer to a subway station too.  We are definitely enjoying it!

On Saturday I was invited to go hiking with a couple girls I met recently.  We went to Cheonggyesan (Cheonggye Mountain).  It was so beautiful!  The fall colors on the trees were amazing and the view from the top was great too.  The hike was relatively short, coming from the Pacific Northwest I would have called it a hill not a mountain, but the climb was also pretty steep at times I thought.  It was located on the south side of Seoul and it was easy to tell that the air was already much nicer than the air in the middle of the city.  We were also very surprised with how quiet the trail was.  Normally Koreans of all ages are out hiking every weekend of the year, but at least not on the path that we took to the top this time.  It was nice and quiet with just the three of us on the trail and we could really take our time and enjoy the trees and the view as we went.  Last night I met up with another friend and we toured the Seoul Lantern Festival since this was the last weekend it would be here.  Actually we toured it from a distance after the nightmare experience of the last "festival" we went to.  It was pretty neat though.  Many different countries contribute lanterns of different things which are lit along a stream that runs through the city.  Instead of walking down along the stream with everyone else, we were able to get a good enough view by walking along the road and looking down at the lanterns and the stream.  Meanwhile, Eric spent the day seeing a movie and browsing through the electronic shop before spending some more time relaxing at home.  :)

The weather was perfect for hiking and being outside on Saturday as well: sunny and not too cold.  All we feel during the week is how cold it is outside when we leave work at night.  Our classrooms at work are heated but the hallways, stairs, and bathrooms are not.  I already find myself bundling up before I make my way into the hallway or up the stairs!  It's quite amazing how quickly we can forget about that awful summer weather!  It has felt quite cold for the last couple weeks and will likely stay that way at least through March.  Thank goodness for lots and lots of layers!

 View from the top of Cheonggyesan

 Some of the fall colors we saw on our way up the mountain

Seoul Lantern Festival

Halloween in Korea

Happy Halloween!  It is not a holiday that is celebrated by anyone but the foreigners in Korea.  And the English academies.  All of our kindergartners came to school in costumes today and we got to have a Halloween party with them.  My "costume" was an athlete/coach, or an excuse to wear sweats to work.  Each class went to the different classrooms to go "trick-or-treating" and we all went to the playground where the kids got to have a scavenger hunt to find the candy.  The English academy is the only place the kids will get to do trick-or-treating though.  They will not go knocking on every door in their 34 floor apartment buildings while wearing their costumes tonight.  There was a small section advertising Halloween candy when we went to the store last night, but I must say it was significantly smaller than the section advertising Spam gift sets during the Korean holiday Chuseok last month!  But the kids seemed to have a lot of fun dressing up and getting A LOT of candy at school today.  Of course my class had to be the ones to discover that it was much easier to enjoy the candy without the vampire teeth in their mouth.  The elementary students that we teach in the afternoon were definitely disappointed that they did not get to dress up and go trick-or-treating, especially the ones that remembered it from kindergarten last year.  Fortunately, all the teachers still had some candy leftover for them to have (if they said "trick-or-treat").  

Side note:  Our landlord is actually a taxi driver on the Yongsan Military Base here.  He has started bringing us a copy of the newspaper that is available on the base which was advertising A LOT of trick-or-treating, haunted houses, pumpkin carving activities for the families that live on base.  We sure wish we could have taken the little kids out for some real trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving!  But I guess Halloween, like many other "American" things, is a holiday that hasn't spread very far off of the military base area.

Here are a few pictures from kindergarten...

 

 A princess and a devil (Elizabeth and Jayden)

 We decided that if Jacob had some glasses he would look just like an Asian Harry Potter!

 Eric Teacher and his class

 Trick-or-treating at school

Pictures of our home

Things are still a bit unorganized and we still have some unpacking to do but for the most part it is starting to look like a home!  We are definitely in need of finding something else to use as storage space since the one dresser we have filled up very quickly but other than that we have just about everything we definitely need.  In the near future we plan to buy an oven and possibly a bigger refrigerator.  But right now we are very happy :)

We had a very nice housewarming party this afternoon thanks to some of our great coworkers.  Our building has a nice rooftop area (what's one more flight of stairs after everyone already climbed the five to get to our place?) so with everyone's contributions we were able to BBQ some delicious samgyupsal, eat some pizza, and of course rice and kimchi as well and enjoy it outside on the roof.  Definitely more food than we could eat!

Here are several pictures of our home!  We know it still needs some work but it is officially our home and we love it!

 A bathroom with a sink!  The shower is still funky hanging above the sink but I guess that's how it is here.  The washing machine is behind the sliding doors.

 Our entry way, just the entry way this time unlike in our last apartment!

 The living room.  Plenty of room for a couch and TV.  We also have a fold up kitchen table for dinner time and whenever we want some table space.

 The kitchen!  It might not be a "normal" kitchen by American standards but we love how much bigger it is than our last kitchen!  We can both be doing something in the kitchen at the same time!

 View from the living room window

 Our bedroom

Hooray for Moving Day!

We did it!! We have officially moved from our tiny studio apartment into a much larger one bedroom villa!  Although it was a lot of work, the actual moving part was pretty easy.  We were very thankful to have the help of one of our Korean friends who drove us and our MANY shopping bags of "stuff" from the old place to the new place.  I'm not sure how many times the three of us went up and down the five flights of stairs but it was definitely A LOT!  (Though we think it's getting easier already :) )  We can already tell the unpacking part is much more difficult than throwing everything in suitcases and bags and moving it here.  We did make a pretty good dent in things today and at least have the living room set up enough to have people over for a housewarming party tomorrow.  But we are still in need of some more storage containers before the bedroom will be completely presentable.  Our bosses stopped by our new place today to tell us congratulations and brought with them a pack of 30 rolls of toilet paper.  One of our other Korean friends and his family came over tonight and brought along a pack of 30 rolls of toilet paper also.  I don't think we will need to buy any for a very long time!

I must say it feels pretty much amazing to be sitting on our own couch in our own home!  We have a real entry way, a real living room, a real kitchen and a real bedroom!  (The bathroom is still kind of iffy but that's okay)  We finally have the space and comforts to feel like we are in a home instead of a hotel room.  It already feels like a place we will definitely enjoy calling home for the rest of our time here.  We are very, very happy!  I promise pictures will come tomorrow when we have had a little more time to get organized! 

2 Days 'til Moving Day!

After spending two nights this week out searching for things to buy for our new home, we have spent the last two nights packing.  Wow.  How did we have so much stuff in this tiny studio apartment?  And better yet how did we get it all here in our four suitcases?!  Yes I suppose all the little things we have bought for the kitchen and elsewhere have added to our collection.  And the bigger things like the TV, microwave and toaster oven make the stacks of boxes and bags even taller.  Moving is definitely no easy task!  I still don't quite see how it's all going to get moved on Saturday but I know it will- just with a lot of work!  We will try to keep count of how many times we go and up down those five flights of stairs so we can let you know :)  Needless to say our tiny space is feeling even more cramped now that we have emptied most of the dresser and closet and set it out so it's ready to go on Saturday.  Not everything fits into our suitcases so we have all of our reusable shopping bags filled with things too.  It's quite a mess!  I thought I would post a picture but it is too much of a mess for anyone to see!  We would much rather have you see our nice, new, clean place in a couple days!

Only two more days and we could not be more excited!!  We cannot wait to be able to have the space to make things feel more like home.  We will post an update and pictures from our new home as soon as we can! :)

First Home Purchases

Well we made the first purchases for our new home tonight!!  Furniture purchases to be exact.  Next to our school is a used furniture/appliance store.  After work we were able to find a couch, a dresser, and a TV stand.  This place also agreed to move our bed and anything else we have packed up in suitcases and boxes, as well as deliver the new furniture for free on Saturday.  We also went to the local mart and bought some smaller items for the kitchen, including matching plate and bowl sets.  We are trying to find a nice balance between cost effective since we know our time here is short term, but also being really comfortable for the next sixteen months.  Since most of our savings went to the housing deposit that we can't touch until our lease is up we kind of feel like we are back where we started.  Fortunately we know that is very short term! Tomorrow night we plan to go to Costco and see if we are lucky enough to find that they have any good furniture at the moment.  We are still wanting to get a coffee table and kitchen table as soon as we can find them. 

Eric has begun the packing process tonight of packing up the TV and video game systems.  Our internet decided to stop working yesterday which also means the cable so we don't have much use for the TV the rest of the week.  (Our new place has cable and internet included in the maintenance bill every month!)  We may be living in the smallest studio apartment you've ever seen but somehow we have acquired a whole lot of stuff that needs to be packed and moved! 

Meanwhile our Korean coworkers have informed us that we need to have a housewarming party on Sunday, the day after we move.  Apparently it is an important custom in Korea to have a housewarming type party right after you move.  I only hope everything is moved and somewhat unpacked by then!  At least this time we will have a bedroom door to close so no one can see our mess!

We are so excited that Saturday will be here soon! :)

Home Hunting

Today we got to go on a home hunting adventure.  Since we have decided to stay in Korea until March 2014 we definitely wanted to try and find a bigger place.  The lease that our boss has on our current apartment is up the first of November and she gave us the go ahead to find our own place and receive a housing allowance from her instead of having her choose and pay for our apartment.  This was the first time we have had the opportunity to go house/apartment hunting so we were very excited!  Someone has already signed a lease for our current apartment so we have been told we can move anytime before the first.  Our biggest desire has been more space.  We know that for 16 more months we just have to accept living in a tight space but we still need more than the small studio we have now.  We would like to actually have a bedroom and an area bigger than about three feet for the entire kitchen, entry way, bathroom sink and laundry room.  We knew finding something we actually liked might be a challenge since housing is very expensive and very small in Seoul, but we made it our mission today to find something.

We were very fortunate that one of our Korean friends could go to real estate offices with us today and see if anybody had anything in our size and price range.  In Korea you have to put a very large deposit down on an apartment before you can sign a lease and then you get the deposit back after your lease is up.  The first few places we went just told us that the deposit amount we were willing to do was not enough and they couldn't rent to us.  Fortunately there are MANY real estate offices in our area so we kept looking until we found one that would show us some places.  What we really wanted was a villa.  In Korea these are often larger and less expensive than apartments (because you aren't paying for the 24hr. security man, cleaning lady, a parking space and the convenience of restaurants in the basement.  They also don't generally come with appliances).  We looked a couple and decided on one that we could live with.  Neither of us were extremely excited about it but it was a nice two bedroom villa with a kitchen that was larger than what we have now (thought that isn't saying much).

But our Korean friend thought we should keep looking so we did.  One of the real estate offices we went to said they had a one bedroom villa available in a new building just built this year.  We had already looked at some one bedroom villas that were barely bigger than what we have now since the one bedroom is literally all the space there is.  So we didn't expect to like it but figured it didn't hurt to look.  That was a good choice.  We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.

It did only have one bedroom but it was a very large bedroom (not much smaller than our current apartment).  It also came with a living room (about the size of our current apartment).  There was plenty of room to make a nice living area with a couch, coffee table, TV, etc.  and the bedroom was plenty big enough for our bed, a dresser, etc.  The kitchen area was much bigger than what we have now and even though it was in the same area as the living room we would have more room for working in the kitchen (we could actually have two people working in the kitchen instead of only one!).  It also came with the essential appliances that we were assuming we would need to buy right away like a washing machine and refrigerator.  It's on the fifth floor (no elevator!) which is the top floor meaning we also have easy access to the roof where there is a BBQ area.  We both got so excited when we looked at it for the first time that we knew it was THE one.  The price is right, the location is right (it's less than a ten minute walk to work), and the timing is right.  We went back later in the afternoon with one of our coworkers who contacted our boss and said it was fine.  He helped us sign the contract and lease and we move in next Saturday!! 

We are so excited about this place.  It will definitely make the 16 months we have left in Korea enjoyable, more comfortable and exciting.  It will be the first home that we got to find together and we cannot wait for moving day and the months of making our home that will follow.  We will also have room for visitors to stay now so just let us know when you're coming!

We started looking and finished looking for a home on the same day.  I wonder if house hunting is always this easy? :)

Updates and pictures coming soon... :)

Nearly Trampled at the Fireworks Festival

The International Fireworks Festival 2012 happened here in Seoul tonight!  We only wish we never went.  Don't get me wrong the fireworks that we saw were great, the ten million people that were there with us were not.  Still feeling a bit shaken, we don't really even know how to describe what we just experienced but we surely hope it never happens again!  Here's the story...

Background: The International Fireworks Festival happens every October in Seoul.  They shoot off the fireworks at a big park on the river.  This year four countries participated, Italy, USA, China and Korea.  Each country puts on a 20 minute show with a 10 minute intermission in between.  Sounds pretty awesome right?  We thought so.

The Plan: We decided we would meet up with another teacher at the subway station close to home and take the subway to the park.  We knew it would be very crazy busy but we have seen big crowds here so assumed it would be fine.  We planned to find a spot to set out our mat and get some food to eat while we waited for the fireworks to start.  We planned to sit through the first two countries shows and then make our way up close to the subway station where we would stand and watch the third country and part of the fourth country before trying to leave right before it ended to beat some of the crowd.  This is no where close to what actually happened for us.

The Reality:  Everything went fine before the show started.  The subway was busy and it took a little bit to make our way up all the stairs and out because of the crowd but it was fine.  We found ourselves a spot down in the park, got some chicken and waited for the show to start.  There was a tree blocking part of our view of the fireworks (and the steady stream of people that kept walking by) but we still had a pretty great view of the show.  We followed our plan and watched the first two shows then packed up our stuff and started to make our way back up to street level.  Then the madness began.  Thousands, maybe even millions, of people were at street level as well.  Half of them walking towards the park, half of them walking away from the park.  For a few minutes our group of three was able to stick together easily, no one was really pushing and everyone was walking just fine even in a big crowd.  We got to the subway station but a police officer was not letting anyone in it either because they had closed it off or only a certain number of people were allowed in at a time.  So we kept walking.  By now we didn't have much choice in the direction we walked.  We were forced to go with the flow which meant turning onto another street (there was no vehicle traffic near the park tonight).  It's difficult to describe but imagine probably a five or six lane road with sidewalks on both sides packed with as many people as you could possibly fit.  As far as we could see this was what it was like.  Then people started pushing, I think because groups were getting separated so they were trying to push their way through to get back with whoever.  I have never felt claustrophobic before but I started to when I realized there was no way out.  The three of us were still pretty close together but not for long.  I started to feel like I was panicking and knew I needed to find a way out.  I noticed a spot against a wall so I pushed my way over as quick as I could and yelled for Melanie to do the same.  We weren't able to find Eric in time to tell him to get over.  We stopped against the wall for a while trying to get ourselves back to normal (not easy to do when people are pushing you against a brick wall) and think of a plan.  This is when I started to think about how people die from getting trampled as I felt myself being crushed against this brick wall.  Yeah we were scared!  We decided to just wait there as long as it took to get the crowd smaller.  I don't know how long we waited there, maybe 20-30 minutes, but eventually we noticed the crowd thinning a little so not caring what people thought we held hands and started walking again.  I kept hoping Eric had just kept walking and wasn't trying to look for us (he currently doesn't have a cell phone).  We walked for a while and eventually came to a subway station that would take us home.  Fortunately Eric had kept walking, only stopping occasionally to see if he could spot us.  He was also starting to feel like he might panic but was able to keep pressing on until it finally thinned out enough he could stop and have some space.  He got all the way home and fortunately his phone, which hasn't been working well for a while now, worked just long enough for him to call me and us to both know we were all okay.  Because like he keeps saying, that's how people get trampled to death.  He says he couldn't stop thinking about the Black Friday at Walmart stories you hear almost every year.  If someone in that crowd would have tripped and fallen I'm not sure how they would have ever got back up again.  It was probably the scariest situation any of us had ever been in, because I'm not exaggerating when I say there were literally thousands of people all trying to walk on one street, shoulder to shoulder.

The Lesson:  Don't worry we all learned our lesson and will avoid anything that could potentially involve a crowd like that for the rest of the time we are here!  I'm not sure we will even be able to get on a crowded subway for a few days!  Wow.  I wish I had pictures to show you the crowd.  Tomorrow I plan to see if I can find a news article about it and will let you know if I do.  Maybe that was just a normal thing for here.  I honestly don't know how you could possibly even try to control a crowd that big. 

Anyway that was our story for the day and one we plan to never have to tell ever again!  Here are a couple pictures from the fireworks...

 What we saw was a great show!  We're just not sure it was worth such a scary experience later...

Back to Work...

After an amazing week we got to spend with our dads we had to get back in the routine of work today.  But not before we shared one last meal together for breakfast at the local Burger King!  We are so thankful for the time we got to spend with them, even though it went by much too fast and we miss them already.  It was just like a vacation for us too with as much sightseeing (and eating out!) as we did the last five days.  We have been to a palace, two museums, two outdoor markets, N Seoul Tower, the Korean Folk village, a couple of parks and more.  I think they had a good time seeing about as much of Seoul as you can pack into five days but mostly it was so great to get to spend so much time with them since we have been here for seven months already.  Even the fall weather was perfect the whole time they were here.  We have hundreds of pictures to go through and put up this weekend so check our Shutterfly site early next week to see our complete weekend in pictures!  Here are just a few more...

 Torture device used in ancient Korea

 Eric next to the kimchi pots at the Folk Village, his almost favorite food!

 Not a good picture since it is a picture of another picture but N Seoul Tower at night was really cool!

 

Inside the War Memorial of Korea

 At the top of Mt. Namsan

The leaves are starting to change in Seoul!

Weekend with Dads

We've had a great weekend with our Dads and are looking forward to the three more days we get with them, though I'm sure it will go by too quickly!  Like I said before this weekend was the three day Chuseok Holiday and everyone was spending the time at home with family.  We knew that meant more people would stay inside and less people would be out but we didn't realize Seoul would be a ghost town.  It is so weird to us that we can walk on the streets with almost no other people anywhere in sight.  We are so used to living with ten million people now that this feels very strange!  Anyway, we have kept our Dads busy seeing a few of the sights we have enjoyed since we've been here.  This has included a whole lot of walking the last two days (though it's always a guarantee we will get seats on the subway since no one is on them!)!  We started our Saturday at Gyeongbokgung Palace, the largest of the five palaces in Seoul, originally built in 1394 and used by the Joseon Dynasty.

Near the palace is an underground museum about two famous Koreans: King Sejong and Admiral Yi Sun Shin.  So our dads got to learn a bit about two of the most famous Koreans from the past and see a model of the turtle ship.

After that we headed to Namdaemun market.  This area was still busy and crowded but that is the only busy area we have seen the last two days.  We wanted to take them to a Doonkas (pork cutlet) restaurant that we really like but of course they were closed for Chuseok so we ended up with pizza.  After a day full of walking we spent the evening more relaxed, down by the river outside our apartment and their hotel.  We spent our Sunday at the War Museum of Korea, learning about the Korean War.  There were even some new things for us to see that weren't there the first time we went several months ago.  Both days have given us perfect fall weather, sunny and warm during the day and cool but comfortable in the evening.  We are very thankful for the time we get with our Dads and are enjoying showing them some different things about our lives here.  Many pictures to come!