picture blog

so today was absolutley beautiful, so we took pictures.
the first two were from our apartment, the rest were on my walk to work.
pictures cant really fully show how pretty it was. there was a HUGE rainbow in the sky since it rained all day yesterday. also, the mountains for the first time actually looked green!
so beautiful, hope you enjoy

Seoraksan Trip

This weekend, Daniel and I took a trip to Mt. Seorak, which has a gorgeous park and so much to do! We decided to hike to the waterfall, which was absolutely beautiful!! :-) We spent a little over five hours at the park... It was a two and a half mile trek to the waterfall from the main entrance, and definitely worth the price of admission! :-)

Daniel perched himself on a VERY high point on the edge of the waterfall thingy... He took a quick video around the whole place. You'll see me (in a black t-shirt and jeans) standing still as a statue on rocks. That's because I'm trying to figure out exactly which rocks will help me cross the stream and which rocks will get me soaked! No worries -- I made it out okay. It also gives you a little perspective on the size of the place and how high up Daniel was...

Enjoy!

funny kid story

so my students had to write a personal ad for themselves.

the past weeks we have covered hobbies, jobs, personality, and what they want in a girlfriend.
in this lesson we wanted them to put together everything they have learned so they can write their personal ad.

here is an ad, word for word, from one of my students. needless to say, i am a failure as a teacher! :-p

"My name is ______. I am 18 years old and I love in Sokcho, South Korea. I am a cool person. I'm very cool and stylish. I'm, also 2K fashion leader in addition. My IQ is 430. I can fly and a music method of shifting from place to the other place in a moment. Also I can talk one on one with the God of space who is talk everything and know everything.
I am lookin for a girlfriend who is kind.
My dream is peace of the world.If you want to call me you only use telapathy.
I'll visit you soon.
from ______"

i had kids also quoting martin luther king jr's "i have a dream" speech in their personal ad.
rather inventive i must say, but not totally on point!

so hilarious! thought i'd share! :-p

Spring has Sprung!

South Korea is gorgeous. It has been gorgeous the whole time we've been here. It's been much warmer recently, and all the flowers are starting to bloom. Cherry blossom trees are looking GORGEOUS. All of the pictures above were taken by Daniel on his walks around Sokcho.

Teaching is going SO WELL. Daniel and I are having a blast. His classes are going well, he's having fun teaching, and he's really enjoying working with his students. My classes are also awesome. I love my kids (and my newfound rock-star status!), I love working with the teachers at my school, and I'm really satisfied...

Daniel and I both say this a lot, but we're so glad we came to Korea. It was a HUGE decision (and a very difficult one!), but it was the right decision. We miss you guys, but know that we are genuinely happy here. :-)

Oh, and here are a couple pictures of the infamous pizza cones. Yum!!

new hair cut!!!!!

here is a picture of me before the hair cut:

this is me with my hair muse :-p

and here is an outtake of me when i didnt know that the camera was on . . . then i realized that it was :-p

fun times . . .

as much as we have gotten used to being in korea there are still some things that we just don't quite understand since it is still a different country, and we are foreigners in a foreign land.

so because of this it leads to some funny stories, so here is one.

one morning i was getting ready for work and i noticed that there was a button in our bedroom that i hadnt noticed before. it looked like this:

we have been in the apartment for months and i was really intrigued as to what this button was since i never noticed it before. the button is only about six inches off the ground, and why would there be a button if you arent supposed to push it? so i pushed it with my big toe!

all of a sudden a ringing alarm bell started to go off! logic being at the forefront of my mind i surmised that if i pushed the button and a noise started, then if i pushed it again it would turn off. i was wrong.

tova was getting ready in another room and ran in the bedroom and worriedly asked what was going on. i told her i pushed the button with my big toe. she was pretty annoyed with me (almost upset) she said that i shouldn't push buttons in a foreign country if i didnt know what it did.

i logically told her that they wouldnt install a button if it wasnt meant to be pushed. seriously, that would be cruel to the button's purpose in life, it was made to be pushed!

she then walked (ran?)to the living room and pushed some buttons on our apartment phone and the alarm went off.

tova said something like "you might have called the police or fire department . . ." and i dismissed her cause why would a button in our bedroom be linked to the police?

she still wasn't fully happy, but she was ok and went to school. when she got there she asked her co-teacher to explain why there was a button in our bedroom because i pushed it.

her co-teacher (not so calmly) explained that it was a button to call the fire department, and that we should NEVER push it! the reason why its so close to the ground is because since smoke rises you should be on the ground. (makes total sense)

so then tova had all the ammo and came home and told me to never push any buttons EVER, even if i did know what they were linked to! all i had for a response was to eat crow and to say "yes dear" with my head hung low in shame :-p

so, again, as much as we think we know whats going on there are still things that trip us up every now and then, and will possibly involve the authorities :-p

moral of the story: always listen to tova :-D

schedules . . .

so again, another milestone has passed. we have been in korea over 100 days! pretty awesome.

we are really in the daily grind of a normal routine. this is something that is very very important to tova and i. we NEVER have had the same schedule, even remotely, for our dating and marriage. this is something that is really important to us. there were times when i worked at 5 am, and she started work at 8:30, then there were times when i started work at 8, but had to leave the apartment at 6:45 and get home around the same time, leaving us only 2 hours together every day. we understand that there is a time when you might need to "suck-it-up" and deal with the schedule differences, but we think we have put in our time :-)
having the same schedule is really important to us, and i dont think we really understood how important it was to us until we got here. i just think that both of us dont want to feel like we are two different people who happen to see each other every once in a while. now, we know that people are different and thats ok, tova and i are very much the same in this regard, and ironically it was a major factor in us moving over here. we both wake up at the same time, get ready at the same time, leave for work at the same time, and she gets home about 20-30 minutes before me, unless she meets up with me on my walk. it is so wonderful for us, and so much what we have been wanting for years!
the funny thing about it though is that as much as we LOVE our schedules koreans dont like schedules at all. having things "sprung up" on you is the norm, and its a normal thing for koreans, unlike us westerners who like to get a memo 3 days in advance about changes: -p (which i LOVE) for instance, today 4th period was over and my co-teacher said that we needed to go out for lunch since there was a party during lunch. i was planning on eating lunch in the cafeteria (15 minutes tops) and then spending the other hour and 45 minutes lesson planning. OH WELL i wont be doing that! its just expected that you get up and go.
its not being rude, its not anything like that, its just a HUGE cultural difference. just 2 years ago i dont think i would have been able to be here in korea. i was so strictly tied to my schedule(s) and any changes in those would make me furious (in a bad way) over the past 2 years though i have been working on that a lot, and the scheduling thing is now just an annoyance, and something that i laugh at (even though i still like to schedule things, and love my day-planner!)
its amazing how God uses the little things to help you grow, and yet another lesson that we are learning/growing from here in korea. (WE LOVE IT!)

Cultural Differences

Please keep in mind that this post is in no way a criticism of Korea or the United States. I absolutely love both of my "homes". There are differences between the States and Korea that I find interesting, and I am only making observations.

:-)

In the United States, depending on where you are, it's an every man for himself mentality. In some places of the country (the south, small towns), it's much different, but in the majority of places (in my mind), people pretty much fend for themselves. No one really reaches out to help each other.

In Korea, it's a very community-oriented culture. People always want to take care of each other, even to the point of telling them what to do.

The other day, at a restaurant, we were given our food and began eating. The waitress left to go get napkins or something, and when she came back she observed that we were all happily eating. Instead of putting the napkins down and walking away, she turned the plates in front of each person to make sure the food was acceptably close to the eater.

A small action, but the implications were endless.

I have had someone walk me through a grocery store and point out the kind of food I should buy. It wasn't a good bargain; it wasn't the best of the bunch from what I could see. I was told I had to get it because it was healthy...

Again, a small action, but the implications are there...

I have had students at my school hold my arm and physically drag me in the direction they think I should be walking... Not where I want to go, but where they think I should go...

That is actually pretty funny... :-) I like my students! But still -- the implications...

However, there are some circumstances where the community-oriented mindset apparantley doesn't apply. For example, if an elevator arrives, there is no rule... people push and shove in a battle to see who will win -- the people getting off or the people getting on. I have literally seen physical pushing to try to get onto / off of an elevator.

Also, if you're walking down a sidewalk, there's a huge battle. Even if the sidewalk is big enough to fit four people across comfortably, it can sometimes be a game of chicken. And, no way is either person going to move! It's interesting...

What's really interesting to me is that the United States is so not community-oriented... There is a huge sense of every man for himself. No waitress would ever turn a plate to make it better for the diner, and no person would tell another adult that they don't know what he or she should eat. However, there are definite rules for the "small stuff" like elevators and sidewalks. The person on the elevator has right of way, and you try to walk on the right side of the sidewalk... And, you move out of the way of people...

It's interesting -- there is never a moment where I don't feel taken care of in Korea. I always feel like people are looking out for my best interests and being considerate. On a public blog, I can't go into the details, but suffice it to say that I am taken care of in EVERY aspect of life in Korea. It's a little overwhelming at times, but very sweet. If this is the hardest thing to get used to in Korea, then this is the life.