Chaos and Korea

Pictures from Cambodia and Malaysia!

2009-02-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

We recently returned from a two-week vacation. We spent one week in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The second week was spent on the beautiful island of Langkawi, Malaysia. It was absolutely wonderful! Check out the pictures!

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Smart Kid!!

2008-12-21T02:32:00.001-08:00

This girl is my co-teacher's 3 year old daughter. She's one smart girl!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-17T00:40:00.001-08:00

Here's a video of our Kindergarten class singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Enjoy!

Birthday celebrations!

2008-09-22T04:32:00.000-07:00

First of all, I (Steph) want to say thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes, cards, gifts, and cakes (all 3 of them). I was a little sad having to celebrate my birthday away from everyone and everything that is close to me, but thanks to everyone I had a great birthday!

It seemed to me that we've been celebrating my birthday this whole month. It started at our school, where some of the teachers threw me a little party and they pulled it off without me knowing. But I guess considering the fact that they speak a language I don't, that probably was an easy thing to accomplish. They surprised me with a cake, candles, balloons, and some other snacks too. For my gift, they gave me a huge box full of kim. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's pieces of seaweed that is used to make gimbap (Koreans' version of sushi). I doubt that we'll ever get close to eating even half of the box but it was a nice gesture.

For the next part of the celebration, myself, Shawn and some friends went to Busan on the weekend before my birthday. We got to enjoy some end of the summer beach time and had a fun night out on the town where we even got to go to a dance club.
Then, on my actual birthday, our friends and I got together to have dinner, drinks, and you guessed it...more cake. And for the final celebration, this past Saturday, Shawn and our friend Gemma threw myself and our friend Kristen a fabulous birthday party. About 30-35 of our friends came out to help us celebrate. It was an amazing time. Shawn planned everything perfectly and mostly without me knowing. But probably the best part of the night was my birthday present from Shawn and our friend Doug. They each had their moms (thanks Vickie!!) send them Clamato in the mail. For those of you who know me know that I LOVE Clamato (maybe even a little too much!). I think it's mainly a North Dakota thing, because I had trouble finding it even when I was in Minnesota. And of course, no one in this country had heard of it. So needless to say, for the past 6 months I've been going into withdrawls from Clamato and was being forced to drink beer plain (I know, how gross right!?).

I posted some pictures below for you to enjoy. Again, thanks everyone for one of the best birthdays I've had!!

Myself and some of the teachers at our school

Notice the cake says a "26" on it. No, I am only 25 but in Korean age I am 26. For other snacks we had grapes and songpyeon which is sweet bean filling wrapped with dough. It's quite chewy but pretty good.

Myself and Kristen at our joint birthday celebration

CLAMATO!!!!! Notice how happy I look!

Seoul vacation pictures

2008-09-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the pictures from our vacation in Seoul. Enjoy!

In front of the pavillion at Gyeongbokgung Palace where the king had parties

At Gyeongbokgung Palace

Looking down at Seoul from atop the Seoul Tower

So far away from home!

Standing with the guard at Deoksugung Palace

Who's got Seoul? We got Seoul...at least for 4 days!

2008-08-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

Well here we are again...blogging. Hopefully we can keep up the good work (I know, two posts in almost a week? Yes, we are crazy). Well here is the second part of our too short vacation (but then who's isn't?).

So we left from Jeju city on a Saturday afternoon and flew to Seoul, arriving at Gimpo airport. The flight was great, only 50 minutes, and no one lost their passport! After an immediate stop at Starbucks, we headed for the information booth to find how to get to our hotel. There is an amazing amount of people who speak English in Seoul and almost all of the information booths we found cater to English speakers. So we got the skinny on how to get to our hotel and were off on a bus.

Our hotel was a nice change from where we were staying in Jeju. We decided to "splurge" a little on our hotel in Seoul, and we were nicely rewarded. The hotel had central air (something often to be desired in Korea), two beds (also not that common), a balcony, a huge shower (no shower shoes needed) and even a bidet (what a treat). Only Shawn had the courage to try the bidet, and for those of you who really "know" Steph you can understand why she would never try it.

Well on to more interesting subjects...the events of Seoul. The first night we kept it pretty low key, just visiting Itaewon (a major foreigner hang out) for dinner. For this trip we made a strict vow to eat no Korean food (not that we don't like it, but come on we get enough!). So for our first night we enjoyed a nice, romantic Thai meal. Well, alright it wasn't that romantic for us, but the restaurant sure tried. After dinner we just visited a few of the local "hot spots" to check out the Seoul night life...no more on this subject.

The next day we roused ourselves in the early afternoon for a little shopping, which Seoul is so famous for. We were completely underwhelmed by the Namdaemun shopping district (supposed to be the largest open air market in Korea). Not that they didn't have a lot for sale, just not a lot we wanted. We emerged from this shopping trip with only one purchase: a dog costume for Steph's old dog. After shopping there was only one obvious choice, a visit to a palace. Deoksugung Palace, is located right in the heart of Seoul next to city hall. This palace was originally built as a home for King Seongjong's older brother, but then became the home of the King after the Japanese invaded (one of the many times) and burnt the King's Palace. Didn't know you were going to get a history lesson did ya? This was a good first choice for us, as it is one of the smaller palaces and not nearly as overwhelming as our next palace. After our first palace experience we needed a little rest and relaxation, before we ventured to Seoul tower that night.

Seoul tower was an experience in and of itself. Really if you have visited one tower, you have visited them all...but that didn't stop us from being the tourists we are and including it as a "must see." This was a long ordeal. The wait just to take the cable car to the Seoul tower base was almost 1/2 an hour and then you are stuffed in for your ride up. Once you get there you then have to purchase an elevator ride to the top of Seoul tower and wait again for your turn. When your turn comes around you are crammed into an elevator with as many people as they can safely fit and up you go. The view from the top of the tower was pretty much what we expected... lots of lights from the city below. Not that it wasn't pretty, we're not sure that it merited the wait required. After a quick stroll around the tower, we made the long trek back to the bottom.

The next day was filled with more shopping and more palaces. This time we visited Insadong, which is famous for it's Korean souvenirs. We spent a couple hours browsing the selection, which all started to look the same after a couple shops. We both had intentions on buying gifts for people, but both went away empty-handed. Sorry guys, maybe next time. After our shopping trip, we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. This was the main palace during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). I believe this is the largest of the palaces, measuring in at 5.4 million square feet. It definitely was a beautiful palace, but like we said, if you've seen one, you've seen them all. So after milling around for an hour, we decided to head back to our hotel. This was our last night in Seoul so we went out for a nice Italian dinner and even had ice cream for dessert. After a long day of walking around Seoul, we decided to call it a night.

The next day we were up and off, back to our "lovely" town of Chilwon. Shawn had never taken a train before and wanted to pretend he was Harry Potter for a few hours so we headed off to the KTX station. Unfortunately, the trains in Korea are nothing like the ones on Harry Potter so he was slightly disappointed. But nevertheless, we managed to get home in one piece. All in all, it was a very nice vacation.

Stay tuned for pictures from Seoul.

Vacation Pics from Jeju Island

2008-08-28T03:19:00.001-07:00

Beautiful scenery in Seogwipo City

This is Seogwipo City where we stayed for 4/5 nights in Jeju

Jungmun Beach where we did our suntanning... or in Steph's case sunburning

Shawn's senior picture... On a cliff near Seogwipo

A beautiful waterfall!

Next installment: Seoul vacation....stay tuned!

We're back!

2008-08-26T03:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, we are still alive! Sorry it has been so long since our last post...we've had a busy summer with school, English camps, and vacation, but we're back and we'll update you on our lives.

School vacation started on July 25th. No, we haven't been on vacation this whole time. We were lucky enough to teach 3 weeks of summer English camps. English summer camp was an experience to say the least. What it involves is students from all over the county come to our school and we teach them English. Our first two weeks of camp were the 4th and 5th graders, who we taught for 4 hours a day. It was actually pretty fun. We played a lot of games and did fun activities. Then our last week of camp we had the 6th graders... dun dun dun. This was quite possibly one of the worst weeks of our lives thus far in Korea. This week of camp started at 9:00 and went until 4:10, with no breaks. We even had to round up all 30 students and take them to a restaurant everyday for lunch. Basically, to sum up the week, I think our school recruited the 30 worst, most misbehaved students from our county. Just writing about it is bringing up too many bad memories so I need to stop...Let's move on to our vacation!

The first half of our vacation was spent on Jeju Island. This is Korea's "vacation" island. We spent 6 glorious days basking in the sun, or at least partial sun. The highlights of the trip included scuba diving, laying on the beach, and for Shawn, Asia's largest hedge maze.

The beach is pretty self explanatory so we'll give you the details on scuba and the hedge maze.

For those of you who didn't know, this was our SECOND scuba dive. Yeah, that's right, we're kind of a big deal. We got to the scuba place in the morning, greeted by the stoic German scuba instructor, wearing his speedos. We signed our life away and off we went. He told us we would have "down time" on the "beach" so we brought along books and music to entertain ourselves. We loaded all of our gear into the boat and sailed off to the island we would be diving off of. Well this "island" turned out to be a giant rock, sticking out of the ocean. The beach turned out to be rock. Funny how this sounded much more appealing when it was being explained to us. We were then informed, since we were not certified, we would have to dive one on one with Mr. Speedo. What this meant for us, is we each got a 2o minute dive, and 6 hours of sitting on the giant rock. Now, let me tell you a little something about high tide. This rock kept getting smaller and smaller, so it turned out that on this trip we not only got to scuba dive, but also rock climb. The rock was not only occupied by us, but also by thousands of nasty water bugs. They too were trying to escape the high tide so we ended up getting pretty close and personal.
As for the actual dive part, I mean, what can we say? It was a pretty coral, and there were some interesting fish, but when your ears feel like they are bleeding from the pressure, these things are harder to focus on. The one good thing about this trip was that no sea turtles were spotted. See previous posts if you don't understand.

Shawn's one wish on this trip was to go to Asia's largest hedge maze. It was actually pretty interesting, and by the end, half the people there were following us. Apparently we looked like we knew where we were going. Little did they know it was Shawn that was leading us. But after many wrong turns, we made it to the end and Shawn waited in line amongst the little kids so he could ring the bell at the end.

Most every night was spent enjoying a nice dinner next to the water. Steph and Kristen usually polished off a bottle of red wine or two each night, while Shawn sipped on his beloved beer, or for one moment in time, a Manhattan. I know, classy right? After our summer camp from hell, this was the perfect vacation to relax and unwind.

We have not had a chance to upload our pictures yet, so you will have to wait. ( Don't worry, we won't make you wait almost 2 months again!). And stay tuned to hear about the 2nd part of our trip!

CRASH!

2008-07-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well, we knew it would happen eventually.... we've been in a car accident. We've referenced many times how crazy the drivers are here in Korea, and last night only proved it.

We were in a taxi last night with our friend Kristen. We were on our way to her house. We were in a taxi and not a bus because we had went shopping at Home Plus (the Wal-Mart of Korea) so we had many sacks and boxes and it was just easier to take a taxi. Well, we were almost to Kristen's apartment and our taxi driver was making a left turn, when all of a sudden another taxi came swerving around the corner, it's tires screeching, and slammed right into our taxi. Nice, huh. Shawn was sitting in the passenger side front seat of the car and had his seat belt on (what a good boy!). Stephanie was sitting directly behind him and Kristen was sitting behind the driver. These two girls did not have their seat belts on (naughty!) due to the fact that they had many sacks in their lap and a huge box sitting between them. I know, excuses excuses. Well, the other taxi slammed directly the back door of the passenger side, yep, that's right, right where Steph was sitting. Since there was a big box next to her, she flew into that, and that prevented her from hitting Kristen. Kristen, on the other hand, slammed into the door frame, and Shawn hit his head on the back of his seat. We were all pretty shook up, and very sore from the whiplash effect that happened. What a spectacle that accident scene was! Three foreigners in an accident, there were many spectators standing around. One even came up to us and pointed at our taxi driver and said, "bad driver!" Yeah, thanks buddy for that information.

After talking to some friends (one of them being a Korean doctor), they convinced us 3 to go to the hospital the next day to get everything checked out. The visit would be covered under the taxi driver's insurance. Since we're both nurses we were very interested in how this visit was going to turn out. We went and saw the doctor first and the first thing he asked us (before even figuring out what happened) was if we wanted to stay over night in the hospital. We were like, really? You don't even know what's wrong with us yet, and your asking if we want to stay overnight. That would never happen in America. Anyway, he finally did ask what was wrong. We told him (well our co-teacher translated for us) that we were in an accident and we both had pain in our necks and Steph in her back. He asked us to point to where, so we did. Then he sent us downstairs to get X-rays. We thought that was kind of odd. He didn't ask us anything else about the pain, just where it was. So we got Xrays of our necks and backs. Then we got sent back to the doctor. He looked at our Xrays and told us we have no broken bones (obviously, right?) and said it was just a muscle sprain. He then told Steph that she needed to get a shot of pain medication in her ass (can I say that word on here?). She adamantly refused that, to which the doctor just laughed. Next stop was physical therapy. They had us lay on a table with a hot pack under our necks for 20 minutes. Then they wanted to hook up a TENS unit to us. For those of you non-medical people out there, a TENS unit is a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator which basically means it uses electrical currents to help relieve pain. Google it if you want to learn more. Once again, Steph was adamantly refusing this treatment option, but the physical therapist said she had to, so she begrudgingly obliged. So, we were hooked up to some voltage and away we went! It felt very weird, and neither of us thought it did much good. Shawn even had a nice little visitor come over to him during his treatment. Yep, you guessed it, a cockroach. There are EVERYWHERE over here!

Well, needless to say, it's been an eventful 24 hours over here in Korea. Not to worry, we are both doing ok. They said the pain should subside in 1-2 weeks. Until then.......

20,000 Leagues Under The...Aquarium

2008-06-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been awhile since our last update, but...we have been busy with our FRIENDS (yeah that's right...FRIENDS). I know it may be a strange concept for you people, but we are capable of making friends. Anyway on to the blog!

We had the great pleasure of taking part in a shark diving experience at the Busan Aquarium this past weekend. Well, Shawn had a good time, Steph only had a good time in between moments of sheer terror. Steph was surprised and horrified to find out that there would be underwater animals in the aquarium that we would be diving with, I mean who knew? (P.S. Steph hates underwater animals, especially turtles).

The dive was on a rainy Saturday in the afternoon. We arrived at the aquarium ready for our orientation. This was the first time for both of us to go scuba diving, so it took a little longer for us to be oriented. First, we had to fill out all the forms saying we wouldn't sue the aquarium if we lost a limb or died. After they get your signature they show a video to scare the pants off of you about what could happen while you are scuba diving (good plan huh?). Well we made it through the videos and were off to training and our first dive.

Turns out scuba diving is a little work. First you have to shimmy your way into a skin tight wet suit, then they put weights and an oxygen tank on your back to further inhibit your movement. The result is barely being able to walk and you are on a wet slippery floor (again, good idea huh?). Once in the water things start to get a little better though (thank god for buoyancy). Breathing underwater is a little tricky though. The regulator (which is the piece that gives you oxygen that you hold in your mouth...yeah just listen to that scuba jargon) is actually really heavy. Plus if it is your first time, you are terrified of drowning and have your mouth clamped on it as it is your life support. The result from this was very sore jaws following our dive. Also the water is REALLY cold, so that isn't great either. But all in all the experience was worth it. Getting to see those animals that close up was a really cool experience. Plus, what better way to do it then in a safe controlled environment? Enjoy the selected pictures below from our experience!

Before the Dive

The Deadliest Creature of Them All

SHARK!

The group...underwater

Peace Out!

ROAD TRIP!

2008-06-09T04:08:00.001-07:00

Over Memorial Day (for Korea) we had a three day weekend, in which we went for a road trip with some friends! If any of you have spoken with us about how crazy driving here is in Korea, rest assured that neither of us drove on this road trip!

We started our adventure on a Friday morning. Leaving town proved to be more difficult than we had planned (it took us almost an hour!), which should have been a warning to us about the rest of the trip. Navigating in Korea is an interesting experience. There are very few road signs until you get on to the interstate system. The problem often is just that, getting on the interstate. We drove around our little country area trying desperately to find an on ramp, which we later found are pretty sparse. Once we found our way onto the interstate we had to pass through a toll booth to get our toll ticket. This should have been easy, I mean the hard part was finding the on ramp, but we made a minor mistake. We entered the toll through the "Hi-Pass" only lane, and the sirens began to sound. We were going to stop and admit fault for choosing the wrong lane, but there were too many cars behind us to stop in the middle of the interstate. So even though some Korean road worker was running behind our car while the sirens were still blowing, we just kept going. Don't worry though, we explained our situation when we got off the toll road and payed the appropriate fee, so we really didn't cheat the Korean toll system.

Our first stop on the trip was Namhae Island, the home of the "most beautiful" bridge in Korea. This bridge (there is a picture below) is supposed to be the "Golden Gate Bridge" of South Korea. Well, we will let you be the judge of that one...but we should mention that everything in Korea is famous when explained by a Korean person.

After seeing this amazing bridge we did a lot of scenic road tours to see the beauty of the island. While cruising around we stumbled upon the "Garlic Land of Treasures", an odd museum dedicated to garlic. This area is "famous" for garlic and apparently really proud of it. The museum was something to see, but still pretty strange. The building itself was shaped like a garlic bulb! Well, now we know more about garlic anyway.

That night all of the hotels were booked up at Yulpo beach (our stop for the night), so our friend suggested we stay at the Jimjilbang. A Jimjilbang is a popular spot in Korea and can best be described as a bath house where you can also spend the night. Of course when you spend the night you sleep on the floor in extremely hot stuffy rooms. But it only costs about $7.00 a night, so it's a cheap fix to a lodging situation. The bath house portion of the Jimjilbang is just that...a public bath. Yes, for only $7.00 you get to sleep on the floor in a hot room, and bathe NAKED with a bunch of other people! It is a pretty cool experience though all in all. There are all different kinds of baths at the Jimjilbang. They have a bath of all different temperatures and steam rooms, and even some mud baths at this particular one. At first Shawn was terrified of the idea of being naked with all of those men, taking a bath and a shower...but after he tried it, it really wasn't so bad.

The next day it was a sleepy start and on to the Green Tea Plantation (you can imagine we didn't sleep too well on the floor). The Boseong Green Tea Plantation is definitely something cool to see. There is row after row of green tea bushes and the smell is amazing. To top it all off there is all the green tea products you could want to buy there. Seriously, if you can think of it these people make it green tea flavored. Everything from our favorite of green tea ice cream to green tea noodles and rice. It is crazy, but delicious.

After the Green Tea Plantation we were off to the Celadon Museum. This is a museum that is built on the site of the famous Goryeo Dynasty's Kilns. This dynasty was famous for the Celadon Pottery that was produced during their reign. The kilns were huge, the art work was amazing, what else can we say?

After the Museum it was on to Mokpo, a coastal city on the southwest side of Korea. Here we enjoyed a little pizza and R&R for the night. The next day we took a stroll along the water front and hit up a museum dedicated to the maritime history of Korea. It was an interesting follow up to our other stops as most of the artifact were found from the Goryeo period of Korea (kinda their "Golden Age" I guess). After the museum it was on to a long trek back to the other side of the country to return the rental car and prepare for Monday....BOO! Enjoy the pics below!

The "Silver Bullet" (AKA our ride!)

The "Golden Gate" bridge of South Korea

Dinner with new friends we found on the road!

The green tea fields of Boseong

A sculpture of a celadon potter from the celadon museum

Muhak-san

2008-06-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we took a hike up Muhak mountain. After 1 1/2 hours of pretty much straight incline, we got to the top. It was totally worth the hard work because the view was absolutely amazing. We thought we'd share some of the pictures with you.

Crazy Cow (Part 2)

2008-06-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

Well apparently the panic over "crazy cow" disease is not yet over, in fact, we believe it is only just beginning. To those of you who have not read our previous blog, "crazy cow" is what many Korean people call Mad Cow disease (we figure it is lost in translation).

Just the other night we went to Changwon (the biggest city in our province) for dinner with a friend. There was a huge gathering of people out on the the side of one of the major streets. It was clearly a protest of some kind, as they all were holding candles and signs. We didn't know what it was about, so of course being curious people, decided to check it out. Our friend that was out to dinner with us is actually Korean so started interpreting some of the signs people were holding and part of the speech a man was giving. The signs were all in protest of American beef being allowed back into South Korea, but the man had a litte stronger view on the situation. The man was not only mad that American beef was being let back into South Korea, but also felt that it is all the new president's fault and that he should be kicked out of office (a little extreme right?). As if all of this was not enough, later in the night there was even a performance by some musicians who had written a song about the evils of American beef. These people are serious. Well, you can imagine some of the looks that we got walking through that crowd. Two white people at a rally against American beef. Some of those people looked as though we were bringing the pestilence to them ourselves. Below is a picture from the protest.

I Hate You Mommy...

2008-05-27T04:31:00.000-07:00

(To our moms, don't worry, this post isn't about you!! We still love you!)

Every Tuesday, we have the privilege of visiting the kindergarten class at our school. It is probably the highlight of our week. The kids are absolutely adorable and so much fun. We go to the class for about 10 minutes, and in that time we usually read a book, sing a song, and teach them a new English word. The kindergarten teachers are the ones who pick out the books for us, so when we come they hand us the book and we start reading. When they handed me the book this week, the title caught me off guard. It was, "Mommy, I Hate You." I figured there had to be a good moral to the story so I was like what the heck and started to read the book. Basically, the book was about a child who was jealous of his baby brother, and blamed it on his mother. And at the end of EVERY page was the line, "Mommy, I Hate You." I felt a little uncomfortable saying these words, over and over again, even though the kids couldn't understand a word I was saying, but still, I just didn't like saying it. As I was nearing the end of the book, the story still was not getting any better and the kid still hated his mom. I was thinking, this has got to have a good ending, right? Well as I get to the last page, the mom explains to the kid that when he was a baby, she took just as good of care of him as she does his brother. And how does the kid reply? "Mommy, I hate you." The end. I can't imagine who would write a children's book like this. But then I remember where I'm at. Welcome to Korea!

**Update from the mean pills post, as long as we are talking about hate. The other day at lunch we ended up sitting near the poor unfortunate girl at our school everyone is mean to. Children were being so cruel to her and telling her she could not sit at the table (but it was pretty much the last seat in the lunch room). Well these kids did everything they could to get away from her, going as far as to shove their chairs into other children's chairs to slide away from her. Seeing this Shawn decided to say hi to the girl. When our co-teacher noticed he was saying hi, her response was "You're too nice". INSANE. All we can say is we hope a little kindness goes a long way with this girl...because she needs it!

Don't eat the beef!

2008-05-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

Recently, the new president of South Korea opened up imports of U.S. beef. This is after imports of beef was blocked in 2003 due to fears of BSE, or Mad Cow Disease (MCD), when a cow in Washington state was found to have the disease. I figured that lifting the ban would be a good thing, since South Korea was originally the third largest importer of American beef, and beef right now in Korea is so expensive, but many people here feel differently.

The other day one of our teachers from school invited us to her house for the night. She told us she was going to take us to T.G.I. Fridays for a little American cuisine, until she heard that they just received a shipment of US beef and there was no way that she would eat that meat.

The very next day, I found an edition of the Wall Street Journal (in English) and started to read it. On page number 2 was a very big article with the headline "U.S. Beef Deal Spurs Rumors, flak in Seoul," with a by-headline of "Mad-cow sparks first crisis for new president." I learned that Koreans believe that they are more susceptible to MCD than other people (for unknown reasons). Koreans also believe that Americans don't eat their own beef, when in fact Americans eat 96% of the beef made in America (it's a wonder we're not all dead). The best part of this article is a quote by a prominent Korean actress (I love half-informed people with the ear of the media):

"Our country is importing meat that even America's citizens are avoiding. I can't believe we are importing cow meat and bones that are covered in mad-cow disease. It would be better to put potassium cyanide in our mouths"

There have been protests throughout South Korea demanding the new president to stop the imports of US beef. Koreans also believe that products such as lotions and sanitary products are tainted due to contamination from equipment that processes U.S. beef. I'm not sure where they are getting this information, but it is quite humorous. And just yesterday, our co-teacher was reading the paper and showed us an article talking once again about how scared the Koreans are of American beef. So if the Korean race is wiped of the earth any time soon...we are gonna come a lookin' for you America and your diseased cattle!

P.S. Japan is also terrified of American beef. Check out this poster we found in the Tokyo airport!

Watch out world! Here comes American Beef!

Bali

2008-05-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

We recently returned from our trip to Bali, Indonesia. We spent 6 days soaking up the sun and relaxing. This was a truly amazing trip and one that we would recommend to anyone.

We arrived in Denpasar, Indonesia to a warm welcome from the porters. We had really no experience in this situation, so just assumed that they were airport employees who were being nice. The two that latched on to us found our bags and ushered us to the money exchange booth, so we could change our Korean Won in to Indonesian Rupiah. Well as soon as we had money in hand they began asking us for tips. The one who had Shawn's bag simply would not stop asking for money. He kept asking for a few more "blue ones", which would be the 50,000 Rupiah note. By the end of it, mostly due to the fact that Shawn can't say no to anyone, He had given the man 270,000 Rupiah. This would be about $30, a pretty good tip for just rolling a bag through the airport to a taxi. Steph apparently knows how to say no a little better and ended up giving about $11 dollars. I guess you just can't depend on the kindness of strangers any more. Well we were off to a rocky start, but we were in Bali!

After leaving the airport we were taken by taxi to our hotel, which may have been one of the more terrifying experiences of our trip. Since living in Korea we have been exposed to a lot of scary driving. Swerving, running red lights, etc. Well let's just say Korea has NOTHING on Indonesia. This cab ride was intense. We had to hang on for dear life, literally. Besides our life that were concerned about, there was the little matter of all of the other people on the road that this guy nearly killed, but we made it. To top off our cab ride when we got to the hotel the cab driver immediately started hounding us for a tip (it happens a lot in Indonesia). After giving the man 50,000 Rupiah (and being told by him that it wasn't enough), we got to go to our room.

The hotel that we stayed at was called the Ramada Benoa in Nusa Dua (the southernmost area of Bali). This Ramada was nothing like the one that we used to frequent in Minneapolis, for those of you who had those fun experiences with us. This place was amazing there are some picutures below for you to see and we will let them do the explaining.

Most of the time we spent at Bali was extremely taxing for us. Our normal day consisted of getting up around 8:30 and going to breakfast at the wonderful breakfast buffet they had at the hotel. After this grueling chore we would head to the beach to relax for a few hours to get our strength back, before we had to go for lunch. Then we would need another rest and would head to the pool for the rest of the afternoon with our books (JP for Steph, of course!). By the time 5:00pm rolled around we were ready for a drink...and lucky us that is when happy hour started (it was acutally a happy two hours at the hotel bar, good for us huh?). After a drink or two we would head up to shower and get ready for dinner. After dinner we were usually exhauseted from our hard day of work, so we would head up to bed to do it all again the next day. All in all it was pretty rough, but we survived.

Not all of our trip was just lounging around though. We booked a day cruise to one of the other islands in the Indonesian archipelago called Lembongan Island. On this day cruise we were treated to banana boat rides (a little raft they drag behind a speed boat, which is a lot of fun), snorkeling, an underwater submarine tour of the reef, and a giant lunch buffet. We decided that this was not enough action for us, so payed the extra $20 to go parasailing (pretty cheap huh?). This was a very good choice. Neither of us had been parasailing before this and it was amazing. The views of the harbor area were gorgeous and it really is a cool feeling to be flying like that. Other than a little motion sickness that we got from the choppy boat ride, this was pretty close to a perfect day.

Here are some photos from our trip for you to enjoy...

One of the two pools at our resort

The view from our balcony

The entrance to our hotel

Lounging by the pool

Up, up and away!

Shawn's turn

Us in the submarine

Time to go home

Did You Take Your Mean Pills Today?

2008-05-02T08:06:00.001-07:00

So there is definitely a dark side to Korea...and we're here to tell you about it. Allow us to paint you a picture of just how evil this place can be...in one day!

The first offense was at school. We had a "special" day when the superintendent of the school came to see how the English town works. We showed them what we do in a normal day...OK actually we rehearsed what we were going to do WITH the students many times before the superintendent showed up, so it was really more like a play. Anyway, at the end of class one of the teachers was trying to get the students to show that they understood the phrase "Wow, so beautiful", and she asked one of the girls in class to stand up. None of the students could understand what she wanted from them and she had to prompt them with words like "cute" and "pretty" to get any results. Well after class our co-teachers asked us what we thought of the girl that she pulled up to the front class...did we really think she was "beautiful". Both of us answered yes of course (because she is a cute girl). Our co-teachers LAUGHED!!! They asked us if we were telling the the truth or not...and we answered that yes, we were. The next response was "give me a break". They simply could not believe that we could find this little 11 year old girl beautiful. Could any one give this girl a break? First of all, she is sporting a cast because she broke her arm, and couldn't be smarter. Also, we have not met such a personable child. She's always the first one to run up to us and say hi and give us hugs. I wish we had a picture to post of her (even though that would be unethical) so that you could see the insanity of this situation. We're not being biased, but who says these things?

The next "incident" happened after lunch. We stopped for a leisurely sit under a tree to watch some of the students high jump (on to a mattress) in their PE class. One of the girls in our 6th grade decided to stand next to us to say hi. Well after the high jump was finished the PE teacher walked by and said "hi" to us and hit the girl in the stomach with a rolled up piece of paper. Immediately following this the boy who was carrying the mattress hit the girl with it and almost knocked her over! As we walked up the stairs Shawn said to our co-teacher that it was wrong for them to hit the girl, especially as it seems she has no friends at all (she is often the victim of ridicule). Our co-teacher's response was...why? She could not understand why the other students (and teachers for that matter) should be nice to her. She was different and apparently should be reminded of it as often as possible is what we got out of it. We mentioned to her that we feel this is how serial killers are born (constant abuse with absolutely no sympathy), but the comment seemed to be lost, as we only got a little chuckle as a reply.

And finally, to end our little story, we were walking home from school and heard what sounded like arguing. We happened to glance over at the apartment across the street from ours and saw two ladies standing outside. When we looked closer, we saw that they were the ones who were arguing. And not just with words, but there was an all out brawl going on. These ladies were pushing, shoving, and swatting at each other like they were on WWE. Oh, did we happen to mention that these ladies were probably in their 60's? Never in our lives have we seen two older women fighting like this. If only we knew what they were fighting about! They were screaming things in Korean so it was obviously difficult to understand. I guess it is what it is, what else can we say. We love it here, but WOW!

Side note...We are leaving for Bali, Indonesia for a holiday, so check back in a couple of weeks for an update! Love y'all and keep reading!!!!! :)

A Weekend to Remember...

2008-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend we planned to just have a relaxing weekend. We thought maybe we would check out a movie and get a few necessities for our upcoming trip to Bali. Well, relaxing would probably be the last word used to describe our weekend.

Friday went much as any other Friday would have gone. We left school and came home to catch an episode of Law and Order, before heading to Masan to have dinner and catch a movie. While enjoying a little SVU, we got a phone call from one of our friends (Yes, we do have friends!), inviting us to an open mic night of sorts at a Korean coffee shop. Our friend Lindsey was going to be reading some poetry from a famous Korean poet that is from the same area we live in. The poetry reading was pretty cool, the poems were read in both Korean and English. They even had the echo going in the background with music playing. It was pretty entertaining. We assumed that this was going to be a pretty chill experience (I mean how crazy can "open mic" nights get?), but we were wrong! After the readings, a man with a guitar took the mic and sang what we assumed to be a popular Korean song because the people in this cafe started going crazy. I mean hands were waving, shouts were given, and people were dancing away. We loved it! After our open mic night, the organizers of the open mic night took us all out for Korean barbeque and soju. What is soju you ask? Soju is the national drink of Korea. It's a potent liquor, made of sweet potatoes, and Koreans love it. It's served in shot glasses and you take it like it's a shot. These Koreans are hard core! After our dinner, we went with our friends to a couple bars.

And then it was Saturday. After some much needed sleeping in, we headed to Changwon to meet up with our friends. We didn't have any plans for the night, just to meet up with our fellow waeguks (that's what we're called here, it means foreigners). We had a nice dinner then went and had drinks at a quaint little bar. Any ideas what we did next? Well bowling of course. We never expected to be bowling in Korea, but we had a lot of fun! Just in case you wanted to know, Stephanie beat Shawn hands down, with a score of 134 to Shawn's 93. After our experience with bowling, our Korean friends decided that it was time for us to be broken in to the world of "noraebongs." Noraebong literally translated means "singing room", which is exactly right. You rent a personal room where you and your friends can enjoy a few drinks and sing to your heart's content. We had an amazing time here! We treated our friends to a little early 90's rock, singing Mr. Big's "just to be with you." Steph decided to following this up with a little Britney Spears, which the Koreans loved!! Side note, most of the music that is popular here sounds like the days when N'Sync and Britney dominated the charts. So, of course they loved all of that music. We even did a little duet with our two Korean friends of the only Korean song we know, they sung the Korean part and we did the English...what a cultural exchange. Feast your eyes on the selection of photos from our first noraebong experience.

This picture pretty much sums up the insanity that is Noraebong.

Steph and Shawn rockin' Mr. Big

How'd that get in there?

2008-04-24T04:30:00.000-07:00

So let's just start by saying that if it wasn't for us getting to eat lunch at our school everyday, we would probably starve, but lately our lunches have been interesting. Everyday for lunch we have rice, some kind of soup, kimchi, and then usually some other side dish. Unfortunately, none of the windows in our school have screens, and little critters have been jumping in to our soup. For example, the other day there was a whole entire crab in our soup. But crabs aren't the only things that jump into our soup. Fish, whole entire fish, bones and everything, seem to get in there to. And one day, we had half a crab, half a fish, and a couple prawns thrown in the soup. How are these things getting in there? Needless to say, it's exciting digging into our soup because we never know what we're going to find...literally.

Run-ins with religion

2008-04-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Steph has had a couple of run-ins lately that have been quite interesting. Read below to find out more about them.

So some of you may be familiar with Stephanie's past run-ins with the Jehovah Witnesses. She was often frequented by them at her house in Rochester, much to her disdain. They often left magazines and other pamphlets for her weekly. No matter what she did, they wouldn't leave her alone. Well, once she left Rochester, she thought all her troubles were behind her....she was wrong. One day, her and Shawn were in E-Mart because it was time for Shawn's bi-monthly haircut (yeah, not exaggerating!). Steph was out roaming the aisles, waiting for Shawn to be done, when two girls came up to her. Now this isn't something rare, people often run up to us to say hi and hear us speak English, so Steph decided to be nice and play along. They were pretty good at speaking English, a nice change of pace, so Steph thought the conversation was going pretty well. We were chatting about the basic things that most people try to speak to us about, where we were from, how long have we been here, did we like Korean food, etc, when BAM! One of the girls pulls out, you guessed it, a Watch Tower (for those of you who don't know, that is the Jehovah's Witness magazine). All of a sudden her English became exceptionally good as she started preaching about her religion and Steph's eternal soul (perfect setting, don't you think?). Steph tried telling them that she was Methodist and wasn't interested, but those words, oddly enough, were not in their vocabulary. Luckily, Shawn was done with his haircut and came to the rescue. But who would've thought that the Jehovah's Witnesses would follow Steph all the way to Korea.

As you may have read in our last post, we recently attended the Cherry Blossom Festival in Jinhae. One thing we left out was when we decided to climb almost 400 stairs up to a museum/tower at the top of this big hill. About 150 stairs into the hike, there were some Buddhists sitting around at a landing. Steph and Shawn quietly attempted to walk right past them. But that wasn't going to happen. Once Steph was passed, one of the Buddist started to yell things at her, in Korean of course. Steph obviously had no idea what she was saying and tried to keep on walking up the stairs. But this Buddhist lady was NOT going to let her go. She proceeded to chase Steph up the stairs, continually shouting things at her. What a spectacle this was! Everyone else climbing the stairs parted way to let this chase proceed. Since this Buddhist lady was considerably older than Steph, she tired out after about 100 stairs. So Steph took advantage of this opportunity and kept right on climbing, but could still hear the inklings of someone shouting at her from the stairs below.

So, you tell me, is God trying to tell me something?

Cherry Blossoms and...

2008-04-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend (yes we are a little behind on our posts!) we went to Jinhae, which every April has a Cherry Blossom Festival. It is a beautiful site to see, with Cherry Blossoms as far as the eye can see, so we thought we better check it out.

Before we loaded the bus to Jinhae, we thought we would stop and get some Starbucks first. Bad idea. With the Starbucks in our hand, we got on the bus, only to find it extremely packed with people, standing room only. So with only one hand available, we had to try to hang on for dear life. Now this is not some calm relaxing bus ride. This was about a half hour of constant slamming on the brakes and swerving in and out of lanes. And with only one hand to hang on, it was nearly impossible to try to stay on your feet. If there is one thing I've noticed about Korea so far, it is the driving. They are some of the worst drivers I have seen, and bus drivers rank right up at the top of the list. But luckily, we made it in one piece.

It was definitely worth the trip. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and looked amazing. But there was one thing that really made our trip...scroll down to find out!

Corn Dogs!!

Saved by the bell...

2008-04-07T04:34:00.000-07:00

So what consumes all our time here besides countless Law and Order reruns? School, of course. School is where we spend 9-5, Monday through Friday. After working 12-hour days/nights/weekends as nurses, this schedule was hard to get used to at first, but we're starting to get the hang of it .

We teach at Chilwon Elementary School in the English Activity Town. We teach a range of students from 3rd to 6th grades, and once a month we get the privilege of being visited by the 1st and 2nd graders. The English Activity Town is actually a pretty revolutionary method for teaching a foreign language (at least in theory). The idea behind this place is that it's a portion of the school (the 3rd floor) that is not supposed to be considered Korea at all. The students are supposed to treat the Activity Town as if it were America. The primary language to be spoken on this floor is English, with only support Korean.

The English Activity Town is comprised of 4 rooms and a teachers' workroom. One room is a large activity room complete with state of the art computer linked television technology (for displaying digital teaching materials). One room is a classroom and two of the rooms are intended as role playing scenario sets. One room includes a post office, museum, market, and a home setting. The other room consists of an airport, and immigration office, a restaurant, and a bank. One of the major goals of the English Activity Town is to teach the children practical English for real life scenarios. These rooms facilitate this learning. For example, the first four weeks are spent learning an airport scenario (wish we would've learned this in Chinese before we left!). Below are some pictures of the English Activity Town.

This is the entrance to our school

This is the entrance to the English Activity Town

This is a mural of Minneapolis on the wall in the Activity Town.
Kind of random, right? It helps us feel at home.

Here is the "Market"

The "Airport"

The hallway or "Street"

The "Activity Room"

The place we call home

2008-04-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

We're here! Finally we arrive at our new apartment, the Daeryung Apatu (that is the transliteration of the Korean word for apartment). It actually turns out to be pretty nice, with a few set backs of course...but hey, "we ain't payin' fo' it"!

Our apartment is a two bedroom, one bathroom. We also have a kitchen, living room, wash room and patio/drying room (more the latter than the former). Our entire apartment was furnished when we moved in. Granted, it is not all the best, but everything is really pretty good (we weren't expecting much and once again "we ain't payin' fo' it"). We were given a couch, TV, new refrigerator, washing machine (no dryer, but that is what the drying room is for right?), two beds, microwave, two desks, a kitchen table, two chairs, two dressers, a stove top and most important...our friend Cuckoo, the rice cooker (Yeah, without Cuckoo, we would starve). Here are a few pictures of our apartment.

Our living room (Many a Law and Order has been and will be watched here)

Steph's Room (The bigger room, of course)

The kitchen (Shawn chowin' down with Cuckoo)

Shawn's room (I'm sure he'll clean it later)

Our bathroom (what you can't see is our pink toilet)

All in all it's not too shabby of a place. Shawn, Steph, and Cuckoo are proud to call it home.

Are we there YET?

2008-04-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

So any bets on how many other blog posts it will take for this ill-begotten journey to get to Korea? Well, before you post too high of a bid, we will satisfy your curiosity...we get there this time!!! (I know we could hardly believe it either).

OK, so the flight from Beijing to Busan, South Korea was really easy. We were both exhausted and emotionally drained. We were not able to sit by each other for this flight...which turned out to be good, we both needed some alone time to just unwind from the nightmare that is the Beijing airport (oh yeah and to mourn the loss of JP...you figure it out).

The Busan airport was a BREEZE! The people were friendly and courteous. Most of the workers here didn't speak English either, but unlike the Beijing employees, seemed to be competent in body language so communication was much easier. After clearing security we went to the baggage claim area to get our bags (ALL of them made it!) and filed for Steph's lost luggage. This could not have been easier. We actually spoke with a representative for Asiana Airlines, and she could not have been more helpful. When we told her of our situation, she simply said "No, problem" and helped us to fill out a claim sheet. With this out of the way, we were on our way to our new home...almost.

We left the baggage claim area and found Jay (our contact in Korea from World English Services) waiting for us. He was great, friendly and helpful. He waited while Shawn exchanged some money to get us by and then picked us up in his car (which our baggage barely fit in). We then were off to the Gyeongsangnam-do Office of Education to meet our employers. Did we mention that because of the FIASCO with Steph's luggage we had no chance to change and were still wearing the sweat pants we had been wearing for like two days (including our first attempt at leaving the country...grossed out? DEAL WITH IT, we did!). From this point on it had to be smooth sailing right? That is what we thought.

OK, so the next bump in our very bumpy road isn't that bad, but considering what we have been through it is pretty funny. Jay who was driving us, made a sharp turn to the right out of nowhere. Why you ask? He ran out of gas, that's right, he ran out of gas! Luckily we were close to a gas station. Jay told us he was so embarrassed and that he had never ran out of gas before...nice time to start huh? (P.S. we might be cursed). Well Jay ran to get gas from the gas station up the road and we had a good, long laugh.

Well, we made it through meeting our employers at the Office of Education (even though we looked like hell on wheels, and probably didn't smell that great). But we were on our way to our new home in Chilwon (that's the name of the town we live in).

To be continued...

The journey continues...

2008-04-02T06:21:00.001-07:00

So let's pick up where we left off. Our flight was from LAX to Beijing, China. It was relatively uneventful compared to what we had already been through. There was one event that happened which seemed minor at the time. As Steph wheeled her carry-on luggage onto the plane, an Air China agent informed her she would have to check that piece of luggage because it was too wide. After fighting to keep the luggage with her, she decided it was "no big deal," and let him take the luggage.

The flight was long, boring, hot, and a little cramped (OK, maybe more than a little), but we finally landed in Beijing after the roughly 16 hour flight. The Beijing airport is an "experience," to put it lightly. From the moment we stepped off the plane, and boarded the bus that drove us to the terminal at the airport, we knew that this was going to be a challenge.

Entering China is not an easy thing to do, especially without a visa (actually, it's NOT possible without a visa). After being pushed from line to line in the immigration office, we were finally ushered to the right place, or so we thought. Where we were taken was to a security checkpoint for connecting international flights, not to the baggage claim area (where we needed to be). The other side of security was a wonderland of duty-free shops and advertisements for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. **Side note: If you haven't seen the mascots for the 2008 Olympics, stop reading and google now, it's pretty creepy, especially when your surrounded by them. Anyway, the real challenge developed when we realized we needed to find someone who could help us that actually spoke English (p.s. this never happened). All we knew is that we had one hour to get Steph's bag and board the plane, all without leaving the security area (because we didn't have a visa to get back through). To sum this situation up, we're on the inside of the security area, Steph's bag is on the outside, and there is seemingly no way for the two to meet.

Following many broken English conversations, our options were: miss our flight (again) and continue trying to rescue the bag from captivity or get on the plane and count the bag as a POW with no chance of rescue. Let's just say condolences were in order for a grieving Stephanie. So what's in the bag that makes it so important? 1. SHOES (what could be more important) 2. James Patterson (a close second) and 3. dress clothes to change into after we landed in Korea to meet our employers (first impressions are everything in Korea). We boarded the plane with only one casualty, but yet again we were on our way to Korea.

to be continued...

So it begins...

2008-04-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

The morning dawns on March 16th, a day we have been anticipating. That night we are to fly out of Minneapolis to venture to South Korea and begin our adventure. The day was a frantic one. Between last minute packing and last minute good-byes with good friends and family we barely had time to breathe. But once we were at the airport, through security and sitting pretty in our First Class seats we thought all of our troubles were behind us...little did we know.

A few FREE drinks later, our First Class experience came to an end and we were thrown back into the hectic world of LAX (LA airport, for those of you who don't know). While running the gauntlet of people in the international terminal trying to find the Korean Air ticket counter we both had a sense of foreboding, who could have known what it meant for us. When we arrived at the Korean Air ticket counter we were greeted with smiles and kind words. We were nicely asked for our passports and Steph proudly presented hers to the ticket agent. Meanwhile, Shawn was frantically searching his carry-on bag for his passport, to no avail. *Important note to this story- Shawn's passport was last sighted on the plane from Minneapolis to LAX. Again I repeat ON the plane.

--OK, we're going to shorten this long tragic story up for you folks. Shawn had to make a mad dash to the Northwest ticket counter to report the lost passport, only to be greeted with rude glances and short responses from the less than friendly ticket agents. He was told to go to the baggage claim area and report his passport. After running to the baggage claim (Yeah, not kidding RUNNING), again nothing was found but rude uninterested employees (one actually told him he was "Stupid" for losing his passport, like he needed to be told). **Scene Change- Korean Air ticket counter** Steph is waiting alone with seven bags of luggage and no idea what is going on. OK, back to the story. The Northwest people were clearly not going to find the passport so we started planning our next move. After calling our recruiter (who INSISTED that Steph board the plane alone) we had some hard decisions to make. After a few tears we decided to stay in LA and try to get a new passport. We then had the joy of trying to find a hotel in LA at 02:00 AM using only a phone book from a pay phone outside the airport.

The next chapter of this story begins in the magical and wondrous world of Inglewood, CA (yes, that was sarcasm). We arrived at the hotel at almost 03:00 AM welcomed by a surly desk attendant and some ladies with pretty, clear high heeled shoes standing on the corner...maybe they were there to welcome us, why else would they be out so late? After only about three hours of sleep we wake up to horror of our situation. Many, many calls later (all to government agencies) we are frustrated and hopeless about our situation. Shawn, at the end of his rope decides to do what he does best...call his mom. Finally, some results! The airline had called her at about 04:00 AM (central time) to let her know that they had found Shawn's passport on the plane (we left her number because...oh yeah we have no cell phones this entire time!). The next thing we do is book new flights to Korea, we are on our way once again!

To be continued...