We live in Korea. Read about it.

I would like to apologize for the long absence. I got out of the routine of posting on the blog for a few weeks. We have been spending a lot of time with the new friends that we are making, which is awesome. In all honesty, I've also read a few good books in the last few weeks, which is where my computer time disappeared to.

Overall, we are good, we are safe, and we are still in Korea.

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We haven't fully embraced this classic Roman philosophy in every way, "When in Korea, do as the Koreans do."
We have yet to eat octopus while it is still alive.
We haven't learned to drive like a maniacs and run over or swerve around any living or non-living thing that comes into our path. (Granted, we don't have cars or drivers licences, which is a pretty legitimate reason for not taking part in this Korean practice.)
But, we are doing our best to embody this philosophy in many other ways.

Keith has started to wear his Ipod everywhere he goes. He fits right in. EVERYONE has earphones in all the time.

We are both working on speaking Korean, but I have to confess that Keith is doing much better than I am. My Korean accent is horrendous.

Keith is playing soccer on Sunday nights on a team of mostly foreigners from all over the world. Keith played on awesome game on mid-field last Sunday night. They play against a Korean team at Cheonan Stadium, which is about 2 km from our apartment and a really nice sports complex. (The U-17 World Cup was held there last year.) Soccer is definitely one of Korea's favorite sports. It is second to baseball, which they love, especially considering that the Korean team won the gold metal at the Olympics this summer.

We have learned to walk and push our way through the crowded subways, streets, sidewalks, crosswalks, stores, and trains, but we are still learning to lose our "personal space bubbles". There is no such thing as a "personal space bubble" in a country the size of the lower half of Indiana with a population of 49 million people.

We have fallen in love with the bakery, Paris Baguette, which really has nothing at all to do with Paris and is a South Korean based company with the most wonderful breads, pastries, and coffee. They know our order in the morning...it's awesome.

I got a library card on Tuesday, which is very exciting for me, as ridiculous as that sounds. English books are scarce and very expensive, so this will be really nice to have. The library is only about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. They have about 150 English books, mostly classics...you know, the books you think you should've read by now, but just never have.

The biggest way that I have embraced this philosophy is through a little hobby that I picked up. I am now taking Taekwondo. I just completed my fourth week. I absolutely love it. As a matter of fact, last Friday I was promoted from a white belt to a yellow belt. I am still the lowest level in my class, but I'm moving up slowly. Taking Taekwondo is humbling and humorous every single day. It is SO much work, but I really love the workout and learning the self defense.

I mentioned that it's humbling. Well, that is because I go to Taekwondo with about 25 7-year-old boys who are all at higher levels than I am at. It really is fun though. I am humbled at how good they are with their positions and form. Their faces are wonderful we are sparring together. Today, I had to spar with a little boy who was wearing a protective vest around his upper body. I couldn't bear to actually kick him until my instructor said that I had to because his little precious eyes were full of fear and terror because he's only about 3.5 ft. tall. My full stretch kick is higher than his head.

Anyway, it's embarrassing all the time, but we laugh together, and I really enjoy it. Laughter is definitely one of the few things that transcends all languages...laughter, the head shake for "yes" or "no", and the profound English phrase, "OK".

Keith will be starting Kendo soon, which is Japanese sword fighting.


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Please check out the two videos that Keith made on the right hand side.
The first link is to Keith's his debut music video, which we recorded on the public bus full of people.
The second video is full of pictures from a few of the things we've done since we've been here. Please, please, please...take a look.

It's been a while since I posted on the blog. I tried for a while to come up with an excuse...but I realized that I don't have one, so I'd rather not lie about it.

In an effort to avoid writing a book about the last two weeks,
here are a few of the highlights:

-Last weekend we had lunch at Outback Steakhouse, which we have here in Cheonan. We split the ribs and they tasted just like they do at home, with the exception of the fact that there were no garlic mashed potatoes.

-Keith is playing soccer on our "church team", which is really made up of about 3-4 guys from our church, and the rest just other foreigners that live here in Cheonan. He loved their game last Sunday and looks forward to playing with them every Sunday. There are a few British guys on the team who take "football" very seriously.

-Josh and Sarah, the pastors at our church, took us out to lunch one Sunday at a restaurant that we can see from the window of our apartment. It is really close but we had never been there before because we didn't know what they had or how to order. They taught us how to order galbi, which is pretty decent. We've been back to the restaurant once since then and enjoyed it.
This is basically what your table looks like...give or take a few sides depending on the restaurant:



-I love running into my students around Cheonan. It makes me feel like we know more people than we actually do and helps me feel settled. I saw one of my students when we were having galbi one night. I saw another student at church on Sunday, which was really impressive, since it's an English service. Then, a couple of days ago, I saw a student who was walking home from school (not our school, her daytime school) while I was walking to buy apples. The apples are amazing this time of year and the old ladies have come out of the woodwork to sell them on the sides of the streets.

-We got a package this week from home with our wedding dvd and wedding pictures. It was awesome to watch it and remember that incredible day. Also, we are so pleased with the pictures. Tyler, our photographer, was amazing, and we couldn't be more thankful or more pleased.

-The weekend before last, we went to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is considered by some the "main palace" or the "national palace" in Seoul. We absolutely LOVED it. It was one of the key moments where we both thought, "This is why we love traveling and this is one of the huge reasons that we are here. We want to learn about the history of this foreign culture and see what their lives were like (or at least where they lived) before our country was even 'discovered'." The palace is unfortunately a reconstruction since the original was burnt down by the Japanese like most of the ancient architecture in this country, but still amazing nonetheless.
Also, while we were at the palace, they were doing an ancient archery reenactment, which was pretty cool, and a little funny. We could see the glue on their faces from where they put on their fake beards.
Here are pictures of us at the palace.










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This week, my students have enlightened me. We have a calendar in my classroom with each of the days circled when it is someone's birthday. Since I teach five different classes of students during the week, that is quite a few circles. My birthday, which is Sunday, is also circled. I didn't think anything of it and of course didn't expect any gifts. However, I was surprised when three different little girls brought me gifts, all on different days, but they brought the exact same gift, with just a different "flare". As a teacher, I wouldn't have been surprised to get three apples for my birthday, since that is, after all, the classic teacher gift. However, I have learned that an apple, is not the 21st Century.

Instead...the cell phone charm. Check these out.



It's definitely different. I've never had a cell phone charm before. I guess we'll just add that one to the unending list of "firsts" we already have and will continue to have this year.

This week has flown by! I have had pictures to post from last weekend and I can't believe that it's already Friday night and I am just now posting them.

Here we are!







This last weekend, Dalene came and stayed with us. We went to Seoul on Sunday together with the intentions of going to the zoo and a palace, but actually only made it to Tapgol Park, a cool shopping area with traditional Korean goods in Insadong, and the arts district.



While we were shopping in Insadong, we saw this man holding this sign.
Keith took advantage of his offer.




We also to went to an old fashioned American diner, with really wonderful hamburgers and milkshakes; they even had Dr. Pepper. It was excellent. The waiters and waitresses wore 50's style costumes with the funny paper hats that you can still get at In and Out Burger today. It was really funny. Even though everything was "American" food, we still had to point to the pictures on the menu to order in English.

It's interesting how much we connect food with our culture and even with home. One of the biggest struggles that I experienced living in Kenya was how different the food was and how I just couldn't seem to adapt to it at all. (That is of course with the exception of the phenomenal pineapples and mangoes that are far and above any others I've ever had.) There was only one meal a week in the cafeteria that I enjoyed and looked forward to. Nothing else ever looked good. Here, I am thankful that we have the ability to cook for ourselves. We still are definitely not used to Korean food and I still can't really eat kimchi without making unpleasant faces...it's just too spicy. Needless to say, I am SO thankful that we a have fridge, two burners, and a sink, so that we don't have to eat Korean food all the time. There are a couple things that we do like, but we are still learning how to order correctly.

We wanted to do something different and unique and we are so happy that we are here, even on the harder days. Please don't misunderstand me...we are trying to experience the culture in full swing. But, there are some places I would just rather the swing not go.

I mean...would you want this for dinner?




I think I'll pass for now and stick to trying to like kimchi.

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This weekend was Chuseok, a national holiday here, one of their biggest holidays of the whole year. We had Monday off of school for the holiday, and the three day weekend was wonderful. Unfortunately, like I have mentioned before, Koreans don't believe in days off, so we will be making up our school day from last Monday this Saturday.

If we had known in advance about the holiday, we would've made plans to go away for the weekend. By the time we knew about it, everything was already booked all over the country, from trains to hotels. Also, as we talked more about it, anything that we would really want to go see would most likely be closed. The whole city shut down on Sunday, with the exception of McDonalds, which we saw on our walk home from church. (Some things are the same no matter what country you're in.)

Sunday afternoon, we went hiking on a trail that is only about 2 miles from our apartment. It was really nice. It is definitely an escape from the busy city and I didn't even notice the sounds of traffic up on the hill. Along the trail, there is random exercise equipment for people to use if they want to. It's actually really common. Not far from our apartment is a small jungle gym playground area that is not just for children. There is weather resistant exercise equipment for the public to use while their kids play. It's really cool.

At the top of this hiking trail on the hill, there is a bungalow.

Here are a few pictures from our hike...





After our hike on Sunday, we were again left with some nice vacation time, without having to get ready for work on Monday. We did something that I have been wanting to do for two years now. Kim and I kept saying that we were going to learn and try this together sometime, but in the reality of the "college lifestyle", both going to school full-time, both working, both in serious relationships, both studying...we never got around to it. (I promise Kim, we will still do this together.) So, finally, Keith and I sat down with almost all of the necessary supplies and some online directions with pictures, and we made SUSHI!












The desire and inspiration to do this after so long was once again rekindled on Saturday when we went to the mall to try the "Japanese Sushi Restaurant". It was unfortunately mostly Korean food with a speck of Japanese influence. (Koreans have their own version of sushi called Gimpab, which we do like, but it is different. Sometime soon, we will go check out "Little Tokyo" in Seoul, which I'm sure will have amazing Japanese food. Then eventually, we hope to go to Tokyo, the actual city...we are pretty close after all.

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Thank you to all who gave suggestions on my cheating students. There have been no more incidents to report. Also, Keith and I are both over our colds, which makes life definitely more enjoyable.

I'm off to work.

P.S. Here's one more picture of Keith with portion of a very large person, in downtown Cheonan.

Keith at Starbucks on our first day in Seoul (left)
Riding the bus from the airport the night we arrived (below)

The Arario Gallery Art Museum in Cheonan with Houston (1st)
Walking in downtown Cheonan (2nd)
This is one of the permanent sculptures in downtown Cheonan; this street is covered with art. (3rd)





This weekend we went to the art museum here in Cheonan and to Seoul for the day with our friend Houston. In Seoul, we went to a pretty decent English bookstore and had our first Mexican food in 3 weeks. I never realize how much Mexican food is a regular part of my diet until I don't have it anymore. I remember having the same tragic realization in Kenya last summer. I just can't seem to get enough of it. So, the burrito that I had on Saturday night was amazing. The service at the restaurant was awful and awkward. The servers stand around your table watching you, which is weird...but the food was great.

On Sunday, I went to visit Dalene in Daegu and we had a great time. (We went to college together and had no idea that we would end up working for the same school, just at different branches an hour train ride apart. She's amazing and I'm so glad that we can see each other every once in a while.) She is such a joy to be with and she makes me feel so much closer to college and the friendships that I miss so much. I know that I will continue to look forward to the times that we can get together. Also, it was cool to see some more of Korea. The city that she lives in is the third largest in the country. We went shopping and bought fruit and vegetables from sweet old ladies on the side of the street. There is a lot more to do there in Daegu than where we live and there are also a lot of cool places to visit in her area, like Buddhist temples over a thousand years old. I'm excited to go back when we can spend more than just the day there and together.

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Overall, Keith and I are both really happy with teaching. My classes seem to be going very well. Here are always some humorous moments, especially while reading a book called Gross Body Facts with one of my middle school classes. The first chapter was about burping, the second, sweating, the third, bad breath, and the fourth, vomiting. I am scarred to open my book and prep for the next lesson because it seems that it just keeps getting worse. Since I am teaching English as a foreign language to these students, they ask vocabulary questions often. While reading Gross Body Facts, some of the vocabulary questions I've been asked, I would've preferred not to explain. For example, words like "drool", "tossing your cookies", "snot", "plaque", and "queasy", make me feel like I am teaching a class on personal hygiene, rather than the English language.

One really great thing about my classroom is that I constantly hear wonderful piano music while I'm teaching. For a while, I thought that someone above us must be teaching piano lessons, and that was likely where the music was coming from. After a while though, when all of the music seemed flawless, and definitely not the level of students that are still taking lessons, I asked one of my co-workers what was up there. There is a ballet studio right above us and the accompanist plays beautiful classical music all evening. I love it.

As much as I am enjoying my job, I have discovered what I hate about being a teacher.
Kids cheat.
I HATE IT.
I HATE CHEATING.
It's awful! Our students are attending what others have told me is the best English language school in our city, with regards to test scores, structure, discipline, and fluency rates. But, they are still cheating! It drives me crazy! In the 10 days since I have been giving exams, I have caught 10 students cheating. It's horrible. I tell them ahead of time if they cheat or talk, it is an automatic "F", but they still do it. Then, I have to call the principal to have him come in here and yell at them all in Korean about how they shouldn't cheat. Then they respond to him with their different excuses about how I'm making it up and how they didn't really cheat. But, I can prove it by their answers and I see it with my own eyes. Some of them argue, some of them cry, some of them hate me now, for their own mistakes, and at the end of the day, I end up feeling bad. It's ridiculous. It is definitely the one thing that I hate about being a teacher.

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As you might have read before, Keith and I have no oven, microwave, toaster, or toaster oven. It provides some little "adjustments" to what I used to consider normal. (Please don't misinterpret this as a complaint. Although it is annoying, we are still grateful and blessed to have a nice apartment with two working burners, which are WAY better than most people around the world.) For example, this morning I woke up hungry and looking forward to the cinnamon raisin bagels that I bought at Costco this weekend when I went to visit my friend Dalene. Anyway, I pulled the bagel out of the freezer and realized I had a small dilemma. How do I defrost this bagel without a toaster or microwave and without 2 hours to let it sit there and happen on its own? I have a great solution just in case you ever experience a similar dilemma. Let the bagel soak in hot water concealed in a plastic bag to keep it from getting soggy for 15 minutes. Then, turn on the stove, and use a frying pan to toast your bagel on medium heat. Turn the slices over after about 3 minutes to toast the other side. Viola! A delicious breakfast! The point is…every day requires new creativity…and at this point…I love it.

Yesterday, once again, I tried something new with regards to cooking without processed and prepackaged foods, and without an oven. Keith has been sick the last couple of days with a cold, so I thought that I should get him some chicken noodle soup. The challenge is…there is no chicken noodle soup here…not even at Costco. So, I made it from scratch and surprisingly, it tasted awesome! I'm so thankful that I did, not only because it was such a great accomplishment, but also because last night, I also came down with this nasty cold, so I'm glad that we had enough for the next couple of days.

I hope we get better soon. It's hard to be patient with little kids when you feel like you should be in bed. (I know what you're thinking...stay home from work...but Koreans don't believe in sick days, so it's not an option.)

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We miss you all and appreciate your prayers. We are so glad that we are here and are truly enjoying ourselves. But, we are realistic in knowing that there will be more challenging days to come. Please let us know how you are doing.

Here are links to two of our videos.
The first video is a slide show of pictures from the week before our wedding when friends and family started coming to town and the two weeks after our wedding, including our honeymoon and climbing Mt. Jefferson.

The second video is the slide show from our wedding for those of you who were not able to be there. Thank you Emily for doing such a good job.


P.S. Yesterday, I ate birthday cake with chopsticks.

Sorry for the absence...we've been having some internet issues that are finally settled. We now have wireless in our little apartment and are set up for the next year. (Granted I have no idea when or where the bill will come to, or even if I will be able to read it, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.)

We are now living in Cheonan, a town about an hour south of Seoul by car or train, or only 37 minutes if you take the bullet train that goes 175 miles an hour. The Cheonan Train Station is only a $1.80 cab ride from our apartment. Cabs are CHEAP here. Needless to say, Seoul is very accessible on weekends, but we'll probably be spending most of our time here in Cheonan during the week. It's not a small town though, about half a million people live here. We haven't been able to explore a whole lot yet since we've been getting settled into teaching...but it seems like we definitely won't be bored living here.

Our apartment is nice, and even bigger than I thought it would be. I miss the luxury of a dishwasher, microwave, oven, and dryer, but I'm learning how to cook with only two burners which is going alright. We have a lovely wall covered in pink daisy wall paper, which Keith is just crazy about. I'm just disappointed because after one year of starring at that wall, there's no way daisies can be my favorite flower.

Teaching is also going well. I really like the school that I work for. It's very structured and very challenging for students. I feel guilty about how much homework I give them, but I just follow the curriculum. You would be amazed how young some of these Korean students are. They are reading and writing English, summarizing essays, and answering questions with a broad vocabulary almost as well as any other 4th grader, whose first language is English, not Korean. They truly are amazing students and I can already tell that they've worked for years to get to the point that they are at.

Adjusting to living in a foreign country always has it's moments of humor when you realize that you really have no idea what you're doing, but it is all a part of the adventure of living abroad. Here are a few highlights from the last week or so...

• When I open firefox on my computer, it automatically goes to Google, which is my home page. The problem is, the entire page, with the exception of the word "Google" is in Korean and I can't figure out how to change it back to English permanently because I can't read any of options. (I'm sure there is a way to fix this...but I'm not the most computer savvy person out there.)
• Walking through the grocery store yesterday, we were trying to find pepper. Things are organized differently than we're used to, so there isn't a central "spice" isle where it is easily noticeable. For example, I found salsa between two jars of spaghetti sause. I guess both have tomatoes, so that is logical, just not standard for what I would consider normal. Well, we still have no pepper because very few things in stores are written in English. It really is humorous every time we try to shop because it takes a LONG time to figure out what is what.
• We have a bus stop right across the street from our apartment, which is wonderful. The public transportation system is incredible here, even though we're in a smaller city. When the bus drives by your stop, you have to be standing up next to the bus sign or they won't stop for you. If you're sitting under the covered bench, it doesn't matter, they are not going to stop. Well, once you step onto the bus, the door behind you closes IMMEDIATELY and the driver takes off. You have to grab onto the closest rail to hold onto or run to a seat because they do not wait until your sitting down. Once you're on the bus, it amazes me that they drive just as crazy as the taxi drivers, even though it is 10 times the size of a cab. We're going like 60 mph, passing little cars, and we're not even on the highway. Keith and I watched as one woman hit the "next stop" button, and the driver pulled over to let her off. She still had one foot on the bus when he started driving away. It looked like she was jumping off a moving train in an old western movie. EVERYTHING is fast paced here.
• The other day, we needed to take a bus back to our apartment, but we didn't have any small bills for the bus fare. So, we went into Krispy Kreme to buy a donut and get some change. (Yes, there is even Krispy Kreme in South Korea.) Most of the donuts are similar...of course they have the classic glazed donut and it tastes exactly the same. But they also have a couple of different green donuts, made with green tea. It puts a little Asian twist on the Krispy Kreme phenomenon.
  

Well, I think that I should get ready for work. Again, I'm sorry for the absence, but we should be much better about using our blog now that we have internet at our apartment.

Please feel free to send us an e-mail...
meganpardue@gmail.com
keithpardue@gmail.com

Also, here is our address. Our mail has to go my school address so things should ONLY be addressed to me, and not to Keith, for the sake of not confusing the non-English speaking staff. However, if you would like to send something just to Keith, just make a note on the inside...this is for Keith, or something like that, but still put Megan on the outside of the envelope.

Megan Pardue
c/o CDI
4F #963 Buldang-dong Cheonan-City
Chungnam, Korea 330-230


That's right. Our neighborhood is called Buldang-dong. It's awesome.

Meg

P.S. More apartment pictures to come and cool pictures of us doing awesome things as soon as we are not working...which so far...is basically what we've done.