Korean Drumming with a bit of Soju

Hope all is well in the good ol USA: the land where grocery stores make sense!

Korea continues to treat us very well. We have found ourselves upon the threshold of yet another promising weekend. Although instead of travelling I think we'll do a lot of resting - its been a fun 3 weeks, but we're a bit tired from all the activity and adjusting. Sometime soon, I will tell you all the tales of our travels from the last couple of weeks. But for right now, I have very limited time on the Internet since I need to work on lesson plans before the school day ends.

In addition to teaching, we have taken up traditional Korean drumming lessons after school with about 10 other adults. Jordan and I decided it's basically a 2 hour high-level memory game. It's extremely therapeutic but can be very difficult to remember the sequence of rhythms and motions. Don't worry, I've taken pictures and next week I'll get some video. No descriptions of mine can illustrate the hilarious scene we find ourselves a part of every Thursday night. This past week of lessons we were quite tickled  because the instructor asked Jordan and I to play the whole song along with him at a much faster tempo. We finished to applause---or at least everyone clicking their drumsticks together murmuring what I can only guess to be sounds of praise and perhaps surprise. We were rather pleased.

This afternoon and evening Jordan is going hiking with his coworkers (which supposedly they do once a month) and then he and the male teachers will go to the billiard hall for some friendly competition. It seems very common for teachers to spend designated time together because last week my school hired a lady to give us baking lessons (monkey bread!!!) and a few days before that all the teachers went out for a welcome dinner to honor new additions to the staff - myself included. On this occasion we ate raw fish, shrimp, "tan-oh-baa"- which is this delicious baked pumpkin with honey, mackerel, clams, salad, several other side dishes, and....Soju. Soju is a very common kind of alcohol which, as it turned out, plays a large roll in Korean welcome traditions. It was explained to me that in Korea it is a tradition to take new employees out and get them...well, drunk. Aware of this, I strategically avoided the ill-effects of this tradition without any offense whatsoever. I found their 7-up-like cider and coca-cola to be very useful. The custom goes that a co-worker brings the new employee an empty shot glass. If the new employee is younger, they show respect by using two hands to pour their co-worker a drink in the empty shot glass. The co-worker drinks it, and then they fill the same glass (with one hand) with the same drink and the new employee must drink it. Knowing this, it is not difficult to imagine how the Korean tradition comes to fruition. Soju, by the way, is 14% alcohol. Yes, it is not difficult to imagine at all, is it? Especially when you consider how many teachers want to "welcome" the newbie.

In other news, Jordan and I successfully obtained our alien registration numbers, which means we'll be able to get Internet, TV, and cell phones any day now---or so they say. The most important thing is that it means we can actually get our salary and reimbursement for our flights. Thank goodness.

Sorry this isn't much after such a long lull, but having internet in our apartment means brighter days ahead.

"Eat more kimchi"-

Success!

We have arrived and we're very happy to confirm that our apartment is very nice. Much nicer than our Tulsa apt actually. The best part is: no bugs! 2 small bedrooms, 1 "master" bedroom, a laundry room/ balcony, tv room/eating room which connects to the kitchen.

The flight went really well. Jordan and I were quick to say a prayer of thanks that there were no small children sitting near us. It was a pleasant flight that went rather quickly considering that we both forced ourselves to stay awake the whole time. As a result, I think the jet-lag will be minimal. We ended up going to bed somewhere around 5 am our US Seattle time and we woke up this morning refreshed and ready to explore.

We've looked around the town a tiny bit today. It's going to be an adjustment, but I think we're ready for whatever is coming. So far, we've only looked through what appears to be downtown Tongjin (which is where our apt. is located). It's hard to pass judgment on the place just yet. Overall there are a lot more shops than I expected, but I've been surprised by the lack of grocery stores. It looks like our food-cooking source will be street vendors and convenient stores; but again, it's hard to say just yet. I was surprised how few people we saw milling about and several of the shops looked closed. So far we've spotted one catholic church and haven't found our schools yet. Simon and Hanna (the lovely British couple we're sharing the apt with for a few days) said the schools are about a 10 minute walk from the apartment. We'll go to the schools with them on Monday to meet our superiors.

Jordan and I decided to brave the unknown and go after some lunch today. We were able to say "hello" in Korean and Jordan took a stab at saying "what would you recommend" in Korean (I laughed out loud while he attempted it---I'm really supportive). The man said something and pointed to the menu, and we said "thank you" in Korean and nodded our heads not knowing at all what we had just ordered. First they brought out what seemed to be appetizers- kimche, onions, pickled something, and a dodgy black paste that I actually never tried. I'm pleased to say the kimchi wasn't bad, in fact it was kind of good. Then came the main dish: not too shabby at all, thank goodness. It was this odd sort of...gosh, I dunno. It was a mound of rice and vegetables totally surrounded by a ketchup-like sauce and further surrounded by a crepe-looking egg wrap. It looked like an egg cake. It tasted just like fried rice actually and the ketchup gave it a sort of eggs and hashbrowns breakfasty taste. Quite nice. I enjoyed it very much. The only trouble that came was minor. The woman who made the food came out to talk to us. I thought she was asking if we like the kimche, and I nodded and said thank you. But as she walked away, Jordan said "I think she just asked us if we wanted more kimche."
"Oops."
We already had tons of food between the two of us, so when she brought back another heaping helping of kimchi we knew it would be a struggle to get through it. Jordan seemed to think I wasn't pulling my weight with the surplus. At one point he told me, "eat more kimchi" and that's when I realized we were definitely in Korea.

Hope all is well in good ol America. We'll keep you updated as much as we can. Sometime soon we'll attempt to attach some pictures.

-Kelsey

Breaking the Journey in Seattle

The visas came in on Wednesday. Finished up at Philbrook on Friday. Purchased plane tickets on Saturday. Turned in our apartment keys on Sunday. Flew out of Tulsa International Airport at 6:30am on Monday.

Here we are safe and sound in Seattle. Couldn't think of a more peaceful place to rejuvinate before we make the 11.5 hr. plane ride to Incheon.

More to come!