Initial Reactions To Bundang

Hey everyone!

We are currently across the street from our kickass apartment at a coffee shop to borrow their internet.

So far this week we have been training at Maple Bear Headquarters in central Seoul. Tomorrow we will be at the school meeting the parents of our new kids. We will both be teaching kindergarden, my students will be 3/4 years old on their first day. Michael's students will be 6/7 years old. They will all be brand new to English and new to our school. This is putting some pressure on both of us to do a really good job because we will be their first interaction with Maple Bear. We really feel that they have done an amazing job preparing us to become teachers and we are getting quite excited.

Here is a map so you can understand where Bundang is located in relation to Seoul:

The area that we have moved to is very different than Songpa, where we came from. There are tons of restaurants in the building that we live in which is great! There is also a convenient store right by the elevator that we go up to our apartment. We also have the 2 stores that we shop at the most (Home Plus and Daiso) very close by. The yatap subway station is right down the street. We found a movie theatre that has English movies and Michael wants to go to Captain America when it comes to Korea in March (woho!) We also feel a lot healthier being here, as you may know I have been sick a lot since we got here. I think we are getting used to all the dust in the air.

We met all of the new teachers except for one. There are two male teachers that are currently staying across the street in a hotel until they can move into their apartments this weekend, we have spent every day this week with them. There are two female teachers that are currently teaching in Korea and haven't been around for training with us. One of those teachers I will be working along side with because we teach the same age kids. We have not met her yet. We had a staff dinner the other night and some of the new teachers came to our apartment. We played guitar, drank wine and talked smart. We are very very pleased with the group of teachers we are going to have at this new school!

We will be getting internet in our apartment next week. We are going to be very busy this weekend preparing our classrooms for Monday when we start teaching. We cannot wait to meet our students, we will be sure to take some pictures of them for all of you!
I think that's all for now...

Happy Valentines Day!

Hello all!

A big hug and a kiss from us to you on Valentines Day!

So, Korea has a very interesting way of celebrating Valentines Day. It's the man's day to be showered in gifts, beer, and soju. So you might be thinking to yourself... uh! Koreans are so sexist and bias towards women! Wrong! Women get their day too, March 14th, it's called White Day.

You may also be wondering what Michael is doing right now since it is his day. Well, you'll be happy to know that he is sitting on the floor with his shirt off, drinking a huge beer and singing along with music videos from the 60's. Who am I to say that he can't be occupying his time like this when it's his day? More power to you hun! His selection of restaurant for dinner is going to be hofbraeuhaus which is very close to our apartment.

Side note: We are moving to Bundang a week from today, the 21st. We are getting a bigger apartment with a loft! woho!

xoxo,
Chayla

The Philippines

Hellllllo You!

We just got back from a wonderful time in the Philippines. It was 5 days of blissful adventure.

Day 1:

To start, our flight had an overnight layover in Manila, so we spent the night in the airport. Chayla hated it more than a toad hates being called an frog. I, however, loved it because they had a 24 hour Wendy's.

Because I was afraid of being mugged, I spent the night awake reading and on guard. When our connecting flight was available we roamed down and boarded. Upon boarding I immediately zonked out.

After a few hours of sleep we arrived at our hotel, the Deep Forest Inn. It was a quaint place that felt like it came out of a "Very Brady Sequel". There were giant, painted, wood carvings everywhere. But after getting past the rather funky decor, we realized the room, staff and amenities were top notch.

Later that day we kicked off our vacation right with a few to many San Miguel brews in the jacuzzi with some new, Navy folks from the US.

Day 2:

We woke up and had to be in the lobby at 7AM for an Island Hopping excursion. Driving through the city reminded me of Mexico in some aspects. People there live in very simple, hodgepodge accommodations, but everyone seems so happy. Also we noticed all the kids were wearing school uniforms.

On our island hopping in Honda Bay we stopped at 2 islands: Pandan and LuLi. On Pandan we did some amazing snorkeling and got a $6 hour long massage after sipping coconut milk. For a second I thought a sea snake had bitten me and I had went to heaven. Then, after using the bathroom which had no toilet paper or water to flush, I realized this was not heaven as my facilities would be fully stocked. Most of the public restrooms didn't provide toilet paper.

Day 3:

We visited the world's longest underground river cave and took a tour. The site was a 1 1/2 hour van ride away on  some jungly switchbacks. Chayla's heart dropped into her stomach several times, but thankfully nobody's stomach dropped out of their mouth.

We had to approach the cave via scooter boat that had to land on shore because docks aren't allowed in the state park. There were also monkeys living near the entrance of the cave. They went about stealing stuff out of women's purses for nourishment.

Bright, happy, airy, cheerful. These are not words I would use to describe the underground river. The cave also had more bats than Bruce Wayne's basement. That being said, the cave had some of the most amazing natural formations we've ever seen and it was amazing to think that this was its own self contained ecosystem.

Day 4 & 5:

From all of the excitement over the last 3 days we decided to relax a bit. There was a lot of pool, drinking, eating, and sunburns. Chayla also did some shopping for pearls which were increadibly cheap (like earrings for $.40 cheap. That's $ point four zero.) We also went out on the town one night and listened to two phenomenal live bands. And I mean phenomenal. Move over Katy Perry.

Now we sit in our cold, Korean apartment and dream of happier, warmer times lying on the beach and drinking coconut milk and beer. :(

P.S. I'm not expecting any sympathy from you Minnesotans.

In Other News....

We are being transferred for work! We will be joining another school in Bundang. We will be moving out of our apartment as soon as they get the new one for us there (in the next 2 weeks). Our new home will be larger than the one we are in now, thank goodness! Also, we will be moving to the outskirts of Seoul. Tomorrow we will spend the day there to check things out. We just found out today, so we will keep you posted on more details soon! It sounds like a great area, so we are excited! 

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