Vacation!

We will be going on our first Asian vacation!
The school that we work for has Thursday and Friday off next week because it is the Lunar New Year here in Korea. Since we have not started full time yet, they have decided to let us have the whole week off. It took us awhile to decide where we wanted to go but we knew we wanted to go somewhere warm. It was cold in Minnesota and it is cold here, we need to warm up!
SO... We are going to the PHILIPPINES!!

OOOOOHHHHH doesn't that look nice! I can't wait to dig my toes in some sand. We will be there for 6 days, leaving on January 25th, getting to our final destination on the 26th. We found a really good deal to fly out to an island called Palawan. We will be staying in Puerto Princesa.

We can't wait to share our pictures and the experiences we will have with all of you.

One thing we will be doing for sure is exploring the underground river, here is a link with more information about that: http://www.puerto-undergroundriver.com

Here is what the entrance looks like.

And a picture of the inside

Last week we were at school every day shadowing current teachers that currently have the roles we will be placed in. Next week will be the same it sounds like. We are also doing  little tutoring. 

I hope you enjoyed the pictures I pulled off google images! :)

Blood Sausage

Hello friends and family!

Here is what has been going on:

It sounds like I will be teaching elementary with Michael now. We will be the only teachers at the school that only do elementary. This way we can share all of our lesson plans the prep is cut in half. We will also have to teach until 7:00pm every day. I was really looking forward to teaching the little ones so I am not sure how I feel about it yet.

We have been at school all day every day this week observing potential classes that we will be teaching. Korean kids are much better behaved than kids back home. They are polite and love to share. I still cannot believe how smart they are, very impressed. Some of the kids have figured out that Michael and I are dating so that is a fun topic with them. 

Last weekend we checked out olympic park which is just a couple blocks from our apartment. Lots of walking trails and cool sculptures:

We found an Outback Steakhouse very close to us!

There are some really funny English quotes, titles, and phrases that we have been seeing. So glad that they have so many English teachers here to help with this problem.

We ate some blood sausage at a restaurant in the market. There is actually no meat in it. It is noodles and blood in casing... super weird.

If you want to see a video of us eating blood sausage and liver, go to our youtube page. Here is the link for this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPY2H96sRhg

Also, we made a video walking down the market: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0bj5bdwMIU&feature=youtu.be

You can also check the videos out on my Facebook page.

Okay, thats it for right now. We are not sure what we are going to do this weekend but we will get you caught up with everything later!

Chayla

Photos 1/4/14

As we promised, here are some photos!

The Apartment

Note where the shower head is

Washing machine in the kitchen, no dryer
Very happy with the big fridge

Michael in our only room, the bedroom

                                                                                     

Food and stuff

Bangi Market, just a couple blocks from our apartment

Michael eating egg bread, very delicious

Very spicy sausage pizza

Samgyeopsal: Korean Barbecue, Soju and beer with new friends.

More of the area we live in

The "exercise" park!

Tiny little window you can order fried foods from

We are going to call this "eat street" it's all restaurants and bars

Arrival

Hello Everyone!
Wow, what a crazy couple days it's been, but we made it! Where do I even start...

The flight over was just fine, we landed a little late and the driver did not seem too happy about that, as if we could help it. We found our driver with a sign with our names on it and all we got was a forceful hand gesture to go to the door where the car was. Michael passed out in the car on our hour drive to the apartment from the airport. The very silent car ride came to a stop outside our small apartment building where we will reside on the 3rd floor in a very small studio apartment. When I say small, I don't think you understand how small it really is! (We will be adding pictures for you all later, maybe tomorrow) We were ready to pass out when we got here, but there was one problem, our bed only had a sheet on it and it was too late to try and buy something at a nearby market. Michael brought his pillow from home (I totally made fun of him for it too, regretting that now) and we had a coupe of those paper thin blankets from the plane. We piled towels and coats on ourselves to keep warm.

Side note: Sorry mom, I blew up your 25 year old noise maker. I have to sleep with some sort of white noise in the background, usually a fan but my mom had this small noise maker that she let me bring with. I plugged it into the converter and the next thing I know, I am asking Michael, "Do you smell smoke?" Michael says, "No, tired, need sleep." I look down and there is a flame inside the machine! smoke is coming out of all the holes! Holy cats, what do we do? I was scared to pick it up because I didn't want to burn my hands! Michael has a towel and it whipping it around the thing (giving it oxygen, feeding the fire!) In a panic that Michael may actually burn down the building in the first 10 minutes that we have been here, I picked it up, took 3 steps from the bedroom to the kitchen and threw it in the sink! Sorry mom, but it went out with a bang.

I woke up at about 4:00am and was wide awake. At this point I really needed a shower and I was excited to test ours out. The shower head is attached to the bathroom sink. We turn the sink on and push a button to turn the shower on. So, essentially, we will be showering in from of our bathroom mirror, there is a drain on the floor. I coaxed Michael out of bed, I NEEDED coffee! There is a 7eleven right around the corner from us, score! I thought I was grabbing a cold coffee when I opened the small fridge on the counter, nope, hot cans of coffee and they were delicious! We also picked up some cookies, a mountain dew, and toilet paper. The guy behind the counter gave us two things of toilet paper. I think he took one look at us and thought, foreigners, they are going to need some extra toilet paper. Who knows. The Mountain Dew tastes nothing like it does back home. Very sad.

As our day progressed, we went to the school and sat in on a couple of classes. The students were around 5 years old in my class. I got to listen in on circle time where they talked about what they did over Christmas break. They made new years resolutions and wrote them down. Most of them wanted to learn how to ride a bike. I got to help with spelling. They are so smart and adorable! Michael had a Q&A with the class that he was in. Students asked him about himself and then once they where done, they repeated his answers per the request of the teacher. Those little sponges remembered everything!

A couple of the staff members brought us to lunch, we had vietnamese food which was very delicious! We have not had a traditional Korean meal here yet because we haven't had time. After lunch we had to go buy a bunch of stuff for the apartment, since we got a band new apartment there is nothing in here. We got all our dishes, pots, pans, garbage bins, bathroom necessities, cleaning supplies and some other odd end things for around the equivalent of $45!

As soon as we got back here, we passed out! Now I am awake and Michael is still sleeping. It's almost midnight. We have the next three days off from work, so we will need to devote ourselves to getting on the Korean sleep schedule.

Since I just wrote a short book, I will end it here. There is still so much that I missed.

It was a great couple of days and we love it here! We will put some pictures up for you all soon.

Happy New Year!
Chayla

Packin' up, movin' out

Hello All!

The evening before we leave for our amazing adventure we find ourselves at the Comfort Inn next to the airport. As I am not a morning person by nature, the proximity to the airport means that I can stay in this giant, king sized bed as long as possible. As we will be in a studio apartment soon, I doubt we'll have this much sprawling space for quite some time.

Packing took several days over the Christmas holiday. We managed to get everything we are taking into 3 large suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and 2 backpacks. Some people have asked "how do you pack for 14 months?!?". This is a very good question. A large portion of the luggage is devoted to essentials (underwear and socks), but we also have a number of shirts and pants along. While we mostly have clothes, we also picked up some meds while we are still able to read the labels. One of my fears is mistaking korean foot cream for toothpaste so we also grabbed a few tubes of that.

Moving went very smoothly. I think we chose the warmest day in all of December. We really lucked out because the next day even the snowman outside our apartment was banging on door so he could come in to get out of the wind. 

A special thanks to all who helped us move!!!!

More to come and we will try to get some videos up too so we can show you everything!!

Woot woot!!

Beginnings

Welcome! hwan-yeong!

After months of preperation, we have been placed at an immersion school in Seoul, South Korea which is by far more than we could have ever anticipated or hoped for. Life is going to change, yes... a lot. We often find ourselves smiling at nothing, just thinking about it.

Today we woke up to an email with copious amounts of attachments from the director of our school. She is trying to get us well prepared, but if you know me (Chayla) I learn from experience. I suppose I will be learning while I am teaching and while my students are learning... huh.

I will be teaching 4 year olds, the youngest and cutest students at this school. The reason for this, according to my interviewer, is because I have an innocent face. Isn't that nice. She also made me sing during the interview... yep. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star it was.

Michael is, well... we are not too sure yet what age he will be teaching. They were thinking the oldest kindergarden age and/or Elementary. Still sorting out those minor details. He sold them on his lesson plan about soil samples, genius! He was a rock star during the interview, but he didn't have to sing. Lucky guy.

So, now I sit here in a 2 bedroom apartment without anything packed up for storage and empty suitcases. Michael is getting in touch with his downward dog at Yoga class and relaxing his mind from all the mental chaos.

We board the plane on December 31st at 10:15am.