2 years and counting!

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary today! We can hardly believe it's been two years already; the time has gone so fast. We have been married 2 incredible years and we look forward to many more!
We took ourselves down to On the Border and ate some delicious Mexican food to celebrate! Thanks to our friends and family who sent us "well-wishes" and celebrated with us in spirit!

Talking about the Weather

For the past few months we have been experiencing an interesting phenomenon referred to as "Yellow Dust". Each Spring the winds in Northern China kick up an enormous amount of yellow sand and dirt and spread it across Eastern Asia. Korea, being right across the sea from China, tends to get it pretty bad.

It doesn't come every day, but about 4 days a week for the past 3 months we have noticed it. Some days are worse than others but generally speaking it's rather unpleasant. When it's a "yellow dusty day" visibility is minimal and it generally seems to be smoggy and hazy everywhere. Also, there is a yellow tinge to the air.
In recent years this phenomenon has been worsened by pollutants in the air. Some days visibility is down to 3 miles or less. Needless to say we are REALLY looking forward to cleaner air in the Summer months!
It's been interesting to experience different weather patterns from what we are used to. :)

Here is a picture of part of downtown Seoul earlier on in the season.

Resist the Resister Line!

We did a little shopping this weekend and as we were heading to the checkout line....Jordan noticed a hilarious little sign.

You Know You're in Korea When......(pt. 2)

1. you have to learn how to use a squatter toilet in case you ever need to "go" away from home.
2. People (mostly middle aged women) believe it's perfectly acceptable to cut in line. :)
3. it's believed you may die if you sleep in a room with the fan on.
4. it's not acceptable to tip for taxis, restaurants, hotels, etc.
5. you can reserve a seat at the movie theater.
6. you can buy a variety of street foods like steamed meat buns, pigs feet and squid on a stick.
7. naked bath houses are a normal part of everyday life...they even have video games in there!
8. you use your floors for everything from sitting on or standing on to eating on or rolling out dough.
9. springtime brings yellow dust from China, that makes everything look yellowy.
10. you're not allowed to wear your outside shoes into a hotel room, dressing room or even sometimes at work.

Trace Bundy and Sungha Jung

Check out this video from Trace Bundy (a famous acoustic guitarist) and Sungha Jung a Korean child prodigy (he's about 12 in this clip I think). Apparently every time Bundy comes to Korea he does a concert with this kid.

Lanterns and Soccer

We had several new adventures this weekend. Among them were checking out the preview of the Lantern festival and going to another international soccer game....the last before the World Cup.

Pt.1
On Saturday we headed down to Insa-dong (an "uptown" area popular with tourists, which also has some historic sights). Buddhas birthday is next Friday and the city is gearing up for some serious celebration. This past Sunday was the traditional Lantern Festival but since we were planning to go to a soccer game we went to Insa-dong for the Lantern Festival Preview on Saturday.

We found ourselves in a sea of Koreans and tourists, but were able to get close enough to get some relatively decent pictures. It was really cool to see some of the traditional dances and the variety of "Lantern Floats" that were made for the parade. We were even treated to a dance that portrayed the birth of Buddha :)(who happened to be a tiny gold statue). All over Seoul they have hung lanterns on the streets. Nearly every "main" street has colorful lanterns lining it.

Pt.2
On Sunday we went to a soccer game with our friends Peter and Cindy. The last "friendly" international match before the World Cup. It was Ecuador vs. Korea. We have really enjoyed going to games in the past but this is only the second international match we've gone to. Being that it was Ecuador (who did not qualify for the World Cup) who was playing Korea, Jordan and I of course rooted for Ecuador. As we got to the stadium, we were almost the only ones not wearing red (Korea's team color). I began to feel a little self conscious...but I wasn't about to back down. :)

We sat high up, in a section where there were some very "patriotic" Koreans. At one point I shouted "Vamos Ecuador!!" Immediately the drunk guy in front of us and his friends turned around. I smiled ....heehee. He then realized I was wearing a Superman T-shirt (the only thing I had that was blue, red and yellow to match Ecuador's' flag). He then said "Oh superwoman....Ecuador!" and turns to Jordan "Oh superwoman boyfriend...I'll arm wrestle you!!" HAHAHA. So as I am dying of laughter Jordan insisted that he didn't want to arm wrestle. :) Then the guys announces to our entire section that we are cheering for Ecuador....this brought on many gasps and stares from the people around us. oops!


Meanwhile....Peter and Cindy who were with us but cheering for Korea...tried to point out their Korean jerseys saying "We are for Korea!" but alas....they were foreigners just like us....so it was assumed that we must be all cheering for Ecuador together and they were roped in with us. We all had a good laugh (the Koreans too) and later in the game, the guys in front of us gave us a "gift" of Korean alcohol. Then one of the guys wanted to have his picture taken with us. Our new "friends" left as the last seconds of the game were finishing because alas....Ecuador lost 2-0. :(

Afterward however they had some Korean pop singers come out onto the field and do a mini show. Then they brought out the whole Korean team and sent them off to the World Cup with fireworks and well wishes. It was quite the experience to be at that final game. Between the the Lanterns, fireworks, new friends and nearly causing a scene at the soccer game....we had a good weekend. :)

edit: at the lantern festival the MC kept trying to tell us to give the performers "a big hand" but instead she would repeatedly say "welcome them with your big hands!" I didn't know whether to laugh or be offended...haha :)

It's Official

Well....this week brought the day that we officially signed our contract for a second year in Korea. There are definitely mixed feelings about it, but we think all in all, it will be a good year. This past year has seen good times as well as challenging ones and we look forward to seeing what this next year will bring. One thing we are extra excited about is being able to go home for a quick visit in December!
We also have plans to do some traveling later in the year. Maybe Beijing, Thailand, Japan or Hawaii are in our near future! :) We hope that we will be able to budget in at least one of those things while we are over here in Asia. We appreciate your continued prayers as we start to figure out what our next step is after Korea. We've thought a lot about going back to school, but it's hard to take that step when we have been working so hard to pay back our previous schooling. As they say "we don't know what the future holds but we do know who holds the future." We have to keep trusting that God will lead in the direction we are supposed to go.
We look forward to sharing more of our adventures with you as we continue to experience Korea.

Oh Students :)

I have a class of 10yr olds who are sometimes my best class but sometimes my most challenging. Frequently when I come into class there are all going crazy and inevitably some student has decided to do something strange to make the other kids laugh. One day I came into class and one of my students had taken sticky-tabs (like mini post-it things) and stuck them all over his face. He was sitting there with a straight face as if all was totally normal. Another day a different student had stickers all over his face. When I asked him why he had stickers on his face he was embarrassed and took them off, only to put them back on as soon as I looked away. Another time when I came to class my student was standing in front of the class with the eraser. (we use pens that are similar to dry erase pens but they are white and leave white flakes everywhere.) He was tapping the eraser on his head, trying to get as much white stuff in his hair as possible. When I asked why he was doing that, he told me "it's fun teacher!". :) On still another day, one of my students had one of those rubber-popper things, where you can turn it inside out and set it on the desk and eventually it'll "pop" up. Well he had taken it and suctioned it to his face....multiple times. The result was a face full of hickey marks that remained for days.

Today I came in and three of my students were holding empty cassette tape cases. When I looked closer they announced that they had ants in them and they were their new pets. I had them set them on the window sill so they could pay attention to class instead of the ants. Progressively during the the 45min class, the ants died. When I came back to teach them during their third class (I teach them twice on T/TH) they had more ants, at least 5 each. We tried to keep them alive this time while still getting some work done. My students crack me up :)

Korean Pop Music

Korea has a deep love for pop music. It is one of the only things our students are willing to talk to us about because they love it so much. Frequently we will hear things like "Teacher, do you know BigBang (a korean boy band)? They are world famous!" Sadly, we sometimes have to break the news to the kids that the entire world really doesn't listen to Korean pop music.

On Time magazines 100 most influential people's list of 2006 Stephen Colbert came in second. He was second only to Rain the "famous" Korean pop star. Here is Colbert's attempt at his own Korean pop video.

The first part is Colbert just explaining the situation, if you just want to see the video skip to somewhere in the middle of the clip.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
He's Singin' In Korean
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Teachers Old and New

We had an eventful week at school with finishing up the term and all. We also had three teachers leave and three more hired in their place. On Thursday night we went out with all the teachers from school to say goodbye to one teacher in particular (because the other two were actually fired). We had a good time enjoying a meal of Korean BBQ. Here are some pictures of our night out. (some of them are a little hazy because of the smoke from cooking the meat...alas)