Going to Busan

I forgot to tell everyone we are going to Busan! Next Tuesday is the Korean Thanksgiving - we have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off! So we are going to Busan. It is on the other side of Korea on the east coast. It is the main port for SK. We are hoping to have some rest and some adventure in seeing the sites. I'm also hoping that the beach will be open - even though its been warm - the season has changed for most everyone here - some are even wearing long sleeves. Just wanted to give you a heads up. I will post pictures as soon as I can. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Pray that the bus ride will be smooth.

Finally an update.

Ok, if I wait too long I'm not going remember anything from the last 2 weeks.

I don't know if we let everyone know - we got our first pay! Praise the Lord! We get paid every month. We were able to send money home for bills and we opened an account here in Naju. We have to go to Gwangju to the Korean Exchange Bank to send money home, but that's ok. We have been trying to plan a budget so we can travel around Korea a little, go to Buffalo for my brother's wedding, and maybe to China(???), tithe, and of course save money. We are still keeping Dave Ramsey in our minds! I brought our envelopes for when we get it figured out.

Last weekend we climbed the mountain here in Naju City. If you look at our pictures its the one you see from our front hallway. I think its called Keumseung Mountain. Boy, did I find out how out of shape I am. Adam and Leta took us - they were climbing like it was nothing. I had to stop every few minutes to catch my breath - it was very steep! I will post a few pictures here, but you can catch all of them on our album when I finish updating it.

This is a little blurry because my hand was shaking a lot.

This is how steep the trail is.

Our apartment building is the one that looks like stairs.

This is Naju City. The monuments are a family's grave site.

This is not even half way up.

The top - Yay!

We were tired and sweating, but the view was exhilarating!

The pagoda we were standing in at the top.

Sunday we went to Gwangju to do some shopping and go TGI Fridays for a long desired burger! Cameron got a couple of video games and I got some girlie stuff - makeup, flowers to cheer up the apartment.

Last week was fairly uneventful. We are getting more and more used to our classes. Many of them have been sick with colds and pink eye. We are being careful! Cameron is helping me remember my vitamins - Angela left some vitamin C powder packets, which I am using almost everyday now.

Fridays are always welcome - teaching is very tiring. I now have a new respect all of my friends that are teachers! It is very overwhelming with a bunch of kids who speak another language. We found out that we missed the first Korean classes in September so we are going to take them in November. We really want to learn the numbers before then - it is very difficult when shopping.

This past weekend - I slept horribly Friday so when I got up I felt really bad. I went back to bed for a while. We had planned to go to Gwangju that morning around 10 or 11. I think we left at 2. We didn't eat lunch before we left - many people know that the last few years I have had trouble with motion sickness. Since we have been here I have not really had a problem. This time on the bus - I ended up with a headache. We were almost there when I started gagging - not good - I told Cameron - we have to get off now. Thankfully, we were right by a stop. It turned out to be the stop for the airport. I took a few deep breaths and we decided what to do. We were going to walk to the airport to find some food. It's not a very big airport, but we figured we would try anyways. Not only was I feeling sick, but I found that the shoes I was wearing were not a good choice for walking - blisters. We found a pharmacy - to get bandaids, but there was only a snack stand. I just got Cider (like Sprite). I told Cameron no more bus for the moment - we got a taxi. Our stop was close - it was only 3,200W - which is a around $3.25. So anyways, we made it to our stop - spent the rest of the day shopping and got home around 11pm.

Sunday we woke up to wind and rain - when the wind started howling Cameron checked the weather. 70-90 mile an hour wind gusts - Yikes! We stayed in all day -watching out the windows to see if anything was flying through the air. Nothing happened that we saw except a soju (Korean alcohol) tent was ripped. We found out Monday that a typhoon came through. We also saw Monday that the rice field by the school had been flattened. We are hoping that the rice crops have not been ruined.

That is all for now. I have been trying to get to bed earlier, but I'm still sleeping late - makes keeping up with my blog a little hard. I will try better. Keep the prayers coming! God is awesome! He is faithful! Love to all!

Week 4

We were out of hot water for a week - Thurs. - the following Fri. We thought it was a passing event so we didn't say anything until I think Wed. They came and fixed it - it was the hot water heater. We have a small control panel - kind of like our thermostats at home. It turns the hot water on and off as well as the floor heater.
The best news this week - the hot weather finally broke. It was almost "clock work" for the start of Sept. I think it was Wed. or Thurs. it rained all day and cooled everything off. Now I am of course battling sinus problems. The past couple of days I think the highs of been in the low to mid 70's and the humidity hasn't been too bad - It's amazing! We have even been using blankets at night.
We get our first check this week. We will be paid monthly. Pray for us as we budget out our money for this next year. We want to travel and do fun things while we are here, but we also have important things to pay for and save for.
I have been researching adoption. I'm looking into overseas adoption through agencies in the states. We would like to adopt in the next year or so. This is another huge request!
Regarding school-
A huge thing happened for me in one of my classes. I learned how to keep my older students attention through "discipline." I told them about respect - and had them write the definition down in Korean. I let them know that respect is not just for me, but for each other. I developed a system to use if I couldn't keep their attention - if I continually had to ask for their cooperation I would mark the board (like a point system). Each mark would let them know how much extra homework they would be given at the end of class - usually copying sentences. It worked! I couldn't help grinning to myself!

The train to Daejeon - Costco

From the train to Daejeon - where Costco is. It's about a 2 hour train ride. We saw many rice fields and mountains. It was beautiful. We went to Costco the first Saturday we were here. We going to go maybe once a month or every 2 months - it's about $50 to travel there (both of us).

US

This was taken our first week here. We had dinner at Adam and Leta's apartment. I got my shirt here. Its says "shining shoes." Cute and crazy graphic tees are the "in" thing.