Retreat

After a very harrowing week of school (see last blog entry!) we were able to get in a nice weekend of retreat, fellowship and refreshment. Our church, Jubilee, had a married couples retreat that we’d signed up for a few weeks ago. We went to a place about an hour outside of Seoul—a retreat center surrounded by mountains. It was so relaxing to get away from the city, you don’t know how suffocating being in a big city is until you’re outside of it. On Saturday I took a nice albeit muddy hike through the mountains, getting red dirt all over my new shoes and breathing in the rainy air. The only wildlife I spotted was a feral calico, which dashed out of my sight as soon as it heard me coming.
The weekend was full of talks and Costco snacks. It was really great getting to know more of the married couples at our church. There were lots of little kids there too!









David took advantage of the opportunity to become the retreat’s official photographer. He ran around with a huge smile on his face and camera in hand, snapping everyone’s conversations and moments. He even got to do a few photoshoots for different couples… for free of course. He’s still in practice mode, so that means some lucky people get some nice pictures simply for printing cost! He’s been pretty dedicated to building his portfolio. I never run out of new Facebook profile pictures!
We got back to Seoul on Sunday night and went out to dinner with our friends Jacob and Amanda. They showed us this nifty little taco restaurant called “Dos Tacos” (Mexican food is relatively difficult to find here, as you can imagine). David ordered a burrito and I got a whole plate of loaded nachos. It was really delicious.


Nachos of Death.

Unfortunately, at 3am that night, my body thought otherwise. Food poisoning. I threw up for every half hour until dawn, dragging myself up and down the steep stairs as I grew progressively weaker from dehydration. By morning, I realized that I wasn’t in any shape to teach, so I sent David off to school and slept for a majority of the day. By Monday evening I was able to eat two crackers and a cup of rice. Powerade pumped all of the lost electrolytes back into my system. So that makes 3 incidents of food poisoning in my life. The first was in Asia (Cambodia), the second was in Mexico, and the third was Mexican food in Asia! Haha. No really, I hate food poisoning. It’s a pretty miserable experience. I’m glad it’s over.
One of my girls is coming back so I’ll have three kindergarten students instead of two!! I’m pretty excited about it. We’re revving up for a school play at the end of the month, so the school is in the throes of chaos at the moment. The children who are graduating have major senioritis, throwing fits about the slightest bit of work. It’s frustrating.

Here’s a good laugh for the day though. I was playing an animal guessing game with one of my students:

Student: It has flippers.
Me: Is it a dolphin?
Student: No.
Me: Um, a fish?
Student: No.
Me: *somewhat desperately* A penguin?
Student: No.
Me: I give up.
Student: It’s Nessie!!