Weekend

Without an apartment, all of the teachers out of town this weekend and limited financial resources we've been at a loss with what to do with ourselves for almost the entire weekend. We've spent a lot of time in our room watching Friends and Korean television. I've written, knitted and read... I can't wait to move into our apartment on Monday. It's a pretty decently sized place, although it might take it a while to make it homey. There's plenty of room for visitors! (so come on over!) When we get moved in I'll try to do a video tour of the place and post it on here for all of you curious folk.
The food here is certainly stretching my taste buds to new levels of spicy. The Koreans love spice on everything. I can't understand the appeal myself... but I've been eating spicy foods anyway.
We've been working on learning the Korean alphabet, which, to tell the truth, isn't that hard. It's a very logical system of symbols. Of course, being able to read it in no way helps us understand what the signs mean, but that's okay.
Looking forward to doing something this week!

We're Here!

Dear Family and Friends,

We’ve made it to Korea safe and sound, although the trip was long and a bit emotionally draining. Saying goodbye to my parents at the airport involved multiple tears which were pretty constant all the way to our Atlanta transfer. Our flight to Incheon was fourteen hours long… but we were thrilled to have the little personalized television screens to distract us throughout the ride. I think I must have watched 5 movies (David watched around 6!), but no matter how you pad it, 14 hours sitting in one place is pretty ridiculous.

We landed around 4:30 in the afternoon in Seoul and a taxi driver picked us up and drove us into Incheon. He didn’t speak any English—and the cab ride was almost 2 hours! He dropped us off at a motel where we met up with our principle Jason Lee. He helped us get settled into our temporary room and took us out to dinner before he left us to sleep. The room is really funny, all of the other teachers who’ve stayed here have dubbed it the “Love Motel” since the bed is circular and there are mirrors and funky lights everywhere. There’s even a vending machine for “adult toys” in the corner!

After a long nights sleep we went with Jason to the hospital for our traditional health checkup. They were pretty amazed at David’s and my vision (we both have better than 20/20. The worst part was when they drew blood. I for one, hate needles being under my skin. She drew one vial and then kept putting new vials on until she had five massive vials of my blood. It was quite a relief to finally be done with that. Everyone here is really paranoid about the Swine Flu. Apparently the parents of the children we’re teaching are worried that we’ll carry it off to their kids! Oh no! So far there haven’t been any cases in Incheon. I would hate to wreck it!

After lunch, where I ate Kimchi for the first time (it wasn’t half-bad, although I imagined a bit more flavor other than spice…) Jason brought us to Kid’s College. It’s on the fifth floor of a pretty tall building. We met all the other teachers as well as the ones we’re replacing. They’re all incredibly nice and welcoming. We got to observe the classes we’ll be teaching. It is a full, long day! We teach class non-stop (with an hour for lunch) from 9:30 in the morning to 6:15 at night. That also doesn’t include the lesson planning we have to do! (Our replacements usually came in early in the morning for that). As for the kids, they seem really nice. Apparently I have the angelic class! I have five kindergarten children: three girls and two boys. Three elementary school children: two girls and a boy. And four ridiculously ADD boys in an “international class.” Most of the children already have a pretty functional grasp on the language, but strangely enough it’s the elementary class which has the most trouble. Even the end of our half-day observation was a little exhausting—and both of us had the sense of “Oh! What have we gotten ourselves into?!” but I know that everything will come into place over the next few weeks.

We have the weekend free, but until we’re settled we’re at a bit of a loss of what to do. We don’t move into our apartment until Monday when Sara and Jonah fly back home.

I’ll be back soon with more updates! (We don’t get regular internet until Tuesday or Wednesday!)

Much Love,

Ryan and David

It's Official!

Last Thursday we drove twelve hours in a day to get to Atlanta (and back) for our Korean Visas. It was a relatively painless process, aside from the driving. Yesterday we found out that we're leaving... well, tomorrow! So we're busy packing lots of clothes and electronics to last us a year.