It is supposedly the largest underground mall in Asia. I'm thinking that must be true. Every corner we turned there were more stores and it seemed we walked forever. We both had missions to find things. I needed sweaters and she needed a new bag. Cameron was looking for a jacket. And of course we had to find a few fun items. They have a Sanrio store, the makers of Hello Kitty!
Tara and I could have probably stayed in there all day debating on what to get. Thankfully they had some great sales and what wasn't on sale were easy no's. The name brand stuff here can be pricey! We were able to check out a huge bookstore that had a huge selection of English books and a few English magazines. I got a new C.S. Lewis book and Cameron picked up the latest X-Files book. We ended up spending 8 hours total including transit times. We are trying to remember how long it took to get down there - it was about an hour and half including bus and subway. Many times now if we are not in a time crunch we just go with the flow and don't worry about the time.
We really had a fun weekend. Tara is a great friend! We missed having her around. She finished the English winter camp is back in Australia and looking to start her next adventure.
I almost forgot that with Lunar New Year weekend came the most snow we had seen yet. It was fun for Tara as she is from Australia. We got some pictures to commemorate the event. She had her first road trip in a snowstorm. She said it was a bit crazy! I said it was old hat. As far as I know she didn't have to drive.
Thursday of that week was Cameron's 32nd birthday. We were going to have a dinner party for him that night with our co-workers, but decided to postpone it until the following week. We were tired from our busy weekend! But we didn't decide until Wednesday night. I had already gotten him an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins - so we celebrated early. I guess we kind of had an extended celebration. It was nice to celebrate just the two of us.
Just in time for Cameron's birthday, our Christmas packages came from the states. We had planned for them to come in January instead of December - money. We were so excited! This year we had 3 coming with a little bit of everything plus a few surprises from our family. The best part was the Christmas cookies my mom made for us - Mexican wedding cakes for me and snicker doodles for Cameron. Our favorites!
The weekend after Cameron's birthday we went out to lunch with our co-worker Alice and her friends Michelle and Betty. They are learning English together and wanted to meet us. We went to a western/Korean style restaurant, meaning they have Korean options on the menu and American type options like steak or spaghetti. Cameron and I got spaghetti. Mine had seafood in it. I decided to give it a try. It was okay. I prefer the Korean style squid. We enjoyed a nice time chatting and getting to know each other. It was a nice afternoon. We are hoping when it warms up to go to the Folk Museum together.
Cameron's birthday celebration was Tuesday. I started cooking Sunday night. I tried a couple of new soup recipes. One was a chicken corn chowder recipe that was amazing and the other a potato soup for the crock pot. I made the chicken corn chowder ahead of time and it ended up being better that way. Our co-workers Alice and Rachel came and our boss Ricky. Our other co-teacher Victory couldn't come because her mom was really sick. We had a really nice time! I was so excited to finally get to host our new friends. They surprised Cameron with a birthday gift - a nice jacket. It looks really good on him!
That Sunday (before the dinner party) we went to church. We found out our pastor had a stroke. Keep him in your prayers. As far as we know currently he is doing well, but the recovery is very difficult. Last we knew he couldn't speak.
This past weekend we had a relaxing Saturday and Sunday. We were hoping yet again to hiking Saturday because the weather was supposed to be warmer, but it ended up being gloomy. We both kind of just vegged around the house instead. I felt like such a bum. We ended up sleeping in Sunday. Then Sunday afternoon after running some errands and having lunch we got to go on our hike. It was beautiful! We didn't go for very long because it was getting late, but it was nice to get some exercise! The trail is really close to our apartment which is nice. We are hoping to use it a lot more and they have exercise equipment on the trail at the base which we are also hoping to use once it gets a little warmer. When we got back we had supper and watched a message online from Jerry Gillis at The Chapel about intimacy with God. It was really good and inspiring for the week!
While we were out I took some pictures from the bus. There are a couple of a man made ice rink and some distant pictures of our apartment complex - one looking from the opposite side of the bus through the window. The other pictures are from our hike.
The time seems to be moving so quickly! I can't believe we have already been here three and half months! We are still enjoying school. We both have challenging students, but for the most part the classes are great! I still feel like I'm trying to get a rhythm for some of my classes. I have a few that have some very rambunctious students which make the time go too quickly sometimes. I really enjoy the books we use. They are involving for the children and they seem to like them as well. One of our book series called Wake Up has two children characters and two gorilla characters in it and in one of my classes my students refer to it as the "gorilla book." It's kind of cute. The funny moments make the challenges worth it! The other day I was teaching about earthquakes in my older class and the discussion question was "What would you do if you were on the 9th floor and the building started to shake?" The first thing one of my students said was "talk to God." I said yeah that would be a good idea. It was a great moment! We are constantly having funny moments where the students say the things the wrong way. I probably shouldn't repeat them on blog. We kind of just have to smirk and move on with the lesson. Occasionally we have to correct things they pick up off the the TV which is not usually edited for language content since it is subtitled.
All in all we are enjoying the school. We are still looking to build some friendships which we haven't done a lot of yet. We would like to find some more couples our age to hang out with.
We are excited that a new teacher is coming at the end of this month from Canada!
I guess that is the catch up for now. I need to try not to get so behind.
Happy Valentine's Day!
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