I'm home!

I have made it back to the US safely! My return was not as crazy as my trip there. We got upgraded to Business Class from Seoul to Taipei! It was wonderful. I stayed up the entire flight so that when I landed in Portland at midnight on Wednesday I could sleep and adjust to this time zone. But it is already Saturday night/Sunday morning and I am unable to sleep! I am still not adjusted!

I have already started working at the Rapids and it is nice to be back. It is very weird to use my cell phone again. I never check it and I often miss texts or phone calls because I am so used to not using one.

It was not too hard adjusting to the culture here, just the food. I can't eat a very big meal and I usually don't eat after 10pm, but I am always hungry now late at night. Kinda annoying! On Thursday I cooked Korean pizza (vegetable pancake), black noodles and pot bing su for my family, they all loved it. I made them eat the entire meal with chopsticks too, it was very entertaining!

I am so happy to be back but sad that I will not see my friends in Korea for awhile! I already miss it very much. I feel soooo blessed to have had this opportunity to travel overseas to a country I never dreamed I would visit. It was truly an insightful experience I won't soon forget!

The Final Days!

I fly back to the USA tonight!!

My last few days in Korea have been very fun!
On Friday afternoon we left Yangsan. My host family helped get our stuff to the train deck and when the train was approaching we said our goodbyes and my host mom, Jaeil started crying and then I did too. David, Hannah and Jaeil helped us get our stuff on the train but as they were walking down the asile to get off the train, it started moving! They had to ride the train with us to the next stop, which was about 10-15 minutes. Later David told us they ended up waiting an hour and a half at the next station to catch the next train back! I felt really bad but we were all laughing about what a great story and memory it is!

We arrived in Seoul around 8pm and met Jangmi, our friend from NNU. By the time we made it with all of our luggage back to her house we were really tired. On Saturday we met up with Jangmi at the subway near her work and went shopping at a street market because I had some last minute gifts to get. I ended up spending more money than planned! Dang cheap street markets, everything is a good deal! We met up with two of Jangmi's friends and just hung out the rest of the afternoon. All of the makeup stores give out free face masks if you go in their store so we ended up going in all of them and pretending to look around for a bit so we could get the free masks! Saturday night we just had a girls night watching movies, wearing face masks and painting our nails.

Last month, before Pastor Cho moved back to Seoul, we made a plan with him to go to his huge church's English service and then spend the day touring Seoul with him. His church is huge and beautiful there are 11 buildings scattered over a few blocks that make up the church. The sanctuary holds 2,000+ people in each service and it is always full. Pastor Cho said there are 50,000 members! The English service was wonderful. I have missed being able to understand the worship and sermon at church! After church we were walking around and I spotted a Mexican food restaurant (there were none in Yangsan) so we ate there! It was delicious! For the Seoul tour he took us to the Palace that I went to in May with Hyesu, except this time it was much more hot! And then we also went to the Seoul tower and saw the huge beautiful city of Seoul! I will upload pictures when I can get internet on my laptop. There is a chain waist high fence on the observation deck that couples lock locks on and throw the key over the edge. They are called love locks! And there is no blank space left on the fence to add more locks, it is amazing and beautiful!

On Monday Jangmi's parents bought us three tickets to Lotte World theme park! It reminds me of a mini Disneyland with a castle and everything! There was an indoor park and an outdoor park. It was a lot of fun! We rode a lot of rides and partway through the day Hyesu and Jangmi's friend Shinil joined us. He goes to college in Minnesota so his English was pretty good! It was a really fun day and when we got back to her house we were all exhausted!

I am sooooo excited to fly home tonight! We are leaving Jangmi's house in a couple hours to catch an Airport Limo Bus and fly home! This has been an amazing summer and I am so glad I had the opportunity to come here!

Final weekend in Yangsan!

Our final weekend in Yangsan was a blast! On Saturday one of my adult students, Peter, said he would drive us to a lighthouse that we heard was beautiful. It was an hour and a half away in Busan. When we got to Taejungdae park, where the lighthouse is, my other adult student Kate and her husband and daughter were there waiting! We had a wonderful time walking the one mile through the beautiful park to the lighthouse. While we were waiting for the bus to go back to out car, Kate's daughter, Haerim (6 yrs old) grabbed my hand and the rest of the day she was my little shadow. So cute! And even though we could not communicate we had a fun time! I also pointed at things throughout the park (tree, rock, flower, lighthouse, airplane) and taught her the English words. She called me seonsangnim, or teacher in English. After the lighthouse, we drove back to Yangsan where we all met up with another one of my adult students for Chineese food. When Haerim came in to the restaurant she yelled seonsangnim, and sat next to me :) She was adorable! It was a very fun day!

Sunday's service was great too. I still can't understand a word they are saying but the closing song was Be Thou My Vision, so after months of not being able to understand, I was able to sing along in English! It was wonderful.

Tonight Krista and I are planning on taking our host mom to Coffee Jigi, my favorite coffee shop, because our host brother and sister are at church camp until Wednesday and an outing with her would be fun!

We leave Yangsan on Friday afternoon and we will be in Seoul with Jangmi until Tuesday. We will also get to see Pastor Cho and he will be giving us a personal tour of Seoul! I am very excited!

Korea vs America

As my trip is coming to a close I though I would write down all of the things I love and will miss about Korea and things I wont miss and then the same for America!

Things I love and will miss about Korea:
~The people here are so nice!
~The culture is so respectful to everyone, especially their elders.
~How accommodating my host mom is to our likes and dislikes
~My host brother asking us every night after class "Were you funny" instead of "Was it fun" or "are you boring" instead of "are you bored" and "take a rest".
~No one being able to say my name...I get called Brake, Brick, or Bakes (L's are hard to say)
~The church and all of the services they have.
~Talking really slow so that they can understand us.
~Playing cards with my host brother and sister.
~Running stairs and doing ab workouts with my host sister and mom.
~Taking short sightseeing trips on weekends with my host family.
~Coffee Jigi
~Random people coming up to us wanting to talk to us and practice their English.
~That wearing a seat belt is offensive to their driving
~My host moms cooking
~Drinking watered down coffee
~Korean instant coffee
~Hang drying our clothes
~The lunches everyday at the church (even if the food was not to my liking)
~The very huge amount of snack food the church secretary leaves for us during our break in between classes.
(There are many thing I love that I cannot remember as I am writing this)

Things I won't miss as much in Korea:
~Paying for toilet paper at the subway.
~Squatty potties
~No ovens
~Walking everywhere in the insane humidity or pouring down rain
~Hour long subway rides
~Being bored some days
~Getting stared at whenever we walk somewhere
~Random people touching my pale arms and blonde hair
~Not being able to read anything or speak to anyone

Things I miss about America:
~My family
~The food
~My friends
~Being able to speak and read signs

With only 11 days left in this wonderful country the realization that I may never be able to come back here is sad. I was finally able to communicate to my students that next week is our last class and when they understood that I will be leaving for good and there will be no more class, they all said a very long, in unison, Noooo. It is sad that I will be leaving and going back to my life in America and they will continue their lives in Korea. I hope that somewhere along the way I had an impact on their lives similar to the one they all had on mine!

Waterfall adventure with my family!

Today we went on a what turned out to me a mini hike with our host family! A few classes ago one of my adult students told me about a waterfall that is very beautiful, just outside of town; but it is too far to ride a bus and walk so our family went today! It was a short drive and then when we got there we parked where everyone else did but after a 15-20 walk up a steep road we realized we could have driven up the road and then walked the remaining short distance to the waterfall. There were stairs that took us right to the base of the waterfall. Along the stairs there were a couple temples with very good smelling incense burning! It was beautiful! The waterfall is kinda small this time of year because it doesn't rain very much and because of the heat too. We had a fun time. Then on the way down we took a path and sat on a big rock and enjoyed some snacks that we had bought before we left.
After we got back, Krista and I walked to EMart because we are cooking chicken parmesan tonight for our family. As we were getting to EMart we ran into one of my adult students, Susan, and her son Daniel (also my student). She invited us to join her as Daniel got his hair cut. And after she bought us a deep fried-dipped octopus snack (which was interesting) and we went to my favorite coffee shop, Coffee Jigi, where she also treated us to Pot bing su (the shaved ice, rice cake, milk and bean dessert). It was very delicious and turned out to be a fun afternoon! We are going to start the dinner soon! I hope I can make the chicken good in the frying pan!

July is here!

So I learned that the 4th of July is no fun in a foreign country where you only know one other American. Krista and I did nothing for the holiday :/ I was bummed because it is one of my favorite holidays, Ill just have to have a BBQ when I get back to make up for it!
We are still pretty bored since we don't walk to the church or lunch anymore. This weekend we went in to Busan and walked a street market all day, it was pretty fun even though we didn't buy anything.
Last night in my 1-2 grade elementary students class, one of my students brought me a rice ball with a note that said I love You and another brought me a Starbucks Drink! I love those little kids! We took a picture at class last night!
Today, we got up early and decided to go to the beach for the day. We had to get on the subway at 2 to be back in time to shower and eat before our classes. The beach was hot and sunny with a nice cool breeze and since I forgot the sunscreen and couldn't put more on I got incredibly burnt on my back! :( It hurts! Might go buy some aloe vera tonight.

Interesting differences!

So this week has been good, overcast but still HOT and HUMID! It kills me! I don't know how Koreans do it! Teaching has been going well. The dinner with my adults class on Monday was very fun too! Last night for the opening question in my adults class, we shared out testimonies! It was wonderful. Even though it was a struggle sometimes, everyone enjoyed it!

Since being in Korea I have observed some interesting differences! One of them is that there are no ovens! They only cook on propane stoves and they use a lot of oil! There are no pale blondes, so I always get stared at or touched! Also, there are no trash cans or public restrooms around the city. So if we buy a coffee or ice cream on our walks, we carry the garbage the rest of the walk until our apartment or the church. At the subway stations you have to buy toilet paper before going in and using the restroom and half of the stalls have squatty potties instead of toilets! And my favorite one is that there are no shower curtains so the water goes everywhere on the floor! But there is a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. They also eat specially raised dog here too (not pet dogs) but still different! Lastly, there are no dryers or fabric softener! We hang dry our clothes all old school like. I like these interesting cultural experiences!