Odong-do, Spaghetti, and the Movies

We have a new photo album detailing our trip to Odong-do island, and our spaghetti dinner, plus a few shots of us at the Movie theatre. The first two trips are detailed pretty well in the photo comments so follow the link to check them out.

Click here to view the album...

We spent yesterday evening learning the consonants of the Korean alphabet. How to pronounce them that is, not the actually "name" of the letter. We got through all of the basic letters, there are four "advanced" letters that we are not sure on yet, but are waiting for our boss, JS Park, to help with, or another Korean. Anyways, we were SOOOO excited that we were finally beginning to read, so we can now, VERY SLOWLY, order off Korean menus, read signs, read bottles, cans, boxes, almost everything. The most fun is when the sounds of the letters correspond to an English word, like Ba-Na-Na, which is the same in Korean/English, since it is a borrowed word.

Now that we learned how to read, we decided that we would try our luck at the 8-plex movie theater down the street called "Cinus." We got in a cab and told the cab driver the wrong place ("Cirus"), but luckily he was a smart one and figured out where we wanted to go anyways. We got to the theater and immediately used our Korean reading skills to translate the title of "The Mummy Three" to "Me-E-La" Three. The clerk figured out what we wanted, and used his English skill to tell us the price (although he was a bit off, he end up say 14,000,000, which is $14,0000!). We then got some Nachos, Pop Corn and Drink with a little help from a wise clerk. It seems that the younger Koreans are much more handy with English then the older Koreans. We went to sit and wait for the movie the begin seating in 1/2 hour.

The time finally arrived for us to go to in to theater 2 and watch Me-e-La Shree. Assuming it to be just like American Theater, we went in and sat down. A few people were giving us funny looks. We noticed that people were being a bit more careful then we had when choosing a seat. We then looked at our tickets, and realized that the seats were assigned... This explained the looks we had got from the people sitting next to us, we must've been in their seats! I decided to ask the Korean girl sitting next to me if it was still OK to sit here, or if we should move. After some confusion, she finally said "Chogi (there) - OK", and it was settled.

The Mummy 3 was as horrible as expected. The Koreans love it so much it was released here before it was released in the US. After it was over we got headed home. Later that night I received terrible news that my God father, Uncle Jim, had passed away after a 1+ year battle with cancer. It was really hard to hear that news being out of the country, but Megan and my Mom (via Skype) really helped me. Rest in peace Jimmy, we will all miss you so much.

Have a great day, we miss everyone, especially in a time like this.

Update plus photos!!!

Anyeong Haseyo! Welcome back to the blog. We have some more news plus.. pics! Today we went to JS Park's International Language School once again in the morning. He told Megan what she will be doing during the summer camps, gave me a bit more thorough explanation on how I will be interacting with my one class of advanced students, gave us some material to help with the Korean alphabet, and ended it with some delicious Korean peach.

Afterwards, we went out to the Yeochon Lotte mart (which is similar to a Target) and picked up some camping chairs for the roof, a new hair dryer for Megan, and some more bathroom sandals (since everything gets wet in the BR, these are a necessity). We took advantage of "charades" with one of the Lotte employees to try and find where the hair dryers were... it worked! The new hair dryer was needed because our Asian->US style electricity converter started smoking while the hair dryer was running today... Not cool!!!

We will be going to Odong-do (Odong island) later today, which is a beautiful tourist destination on the ocean, known for camellias. We will post more pictures from there.

FINALLY - we have the first few pictures (only a few - we are not good at taking pictures - yet) of the first few days as well as a "walking tour" of our home available via this link. It is a public link and should work from everyone - do not worry about being a facebook member.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2524601&l=ac902&id=13900152

Bye bye!

Settling in...

We have now been in Yeosu for almost three full days. We have our clothes unpacked and just need to fully clean the place and decorate, and it can be ours. Jeff, my brother, is leaving for America tomorrow, so we are taking care of a few final things while he is in town, and going to eat with his brother-in-law (Won) tonight. In Korea, if one family member joins a family, your entire family joins a family, so they treat Megan and I very, very kindly. They have been so helpful, I just wish I knew a bit more around here so I could return the favor..!

Yesterday we went to one of the beaches in town (the name escapes me) and swam around in the ocean for a bit. It was a lot of fun, and a great way to waste away an afternoon. I foresee it happening a few more times before summer ends. In Korea, people do not go to the beach after August, but the temperature is still in the 80s during the day, so foreigners can go swim to a virtually empty beach, though a Korean would see this as taboo. Afterwards Jeff's family took us out to eat for a traditional Korean style dinner near our home in Yeochon. It was really good, duck cooked right on the table while we sat cross-legged on the floor. We then proceeded to fall asleep at 8PM and sleep until 8AM... That felt REALLY good!

Saturday night Jeff put together a welcoming party and invited many of the foreigners in town to come meet both of us. We had a great time and met a lot of people. There are still many more in Yeosu to meet, including English speaking Koreans, and Koreans who grew up abroad. So many people with diverse backgrounds... some of whom even knew where Minneapolis is!

We have a few other interesting stories, the gas man, getting a scooter, going to school with JS, trying to learn Korean, awkward interactions, so check back - if anyone is even reading this so far!!! We will also figure out how we will be sharing our photos in the next few days and begin posting those, which makes the blog entries far more interesting!!

For now, anyong hasaeo!

I'm going going - back back - to Chicago

Our E-2 visas are in hand. We are finally cleared to go to Korea! We drove to Chicago from Racine today at 10AM, arriving at noon, only to find out that our visas were not going to be ready until 3PM. We walked over to Michigan Ave on downtown and found a really cool local place to get lunch... TGI Fridays :-(... We went back at 3PM on the dot and got back on our way by 4PM. I got to experience driving through my first Chicago rush hour, and it went pretty smoothly.

Now we only have a few more loose ends to tie up tomorrow, finalizing cards, trying to get "prescription help" for the flight, canceling the gym contract. I think both Megan and I are ready to end the exit procession and finally get to Korea!

PS - sing the title of the post to "Going Back to Cali" by Biggy

Finalizing the Visa

Finalizing a Visa. This would seem like a daunting task, but it would also seem like a task for which modern technology could be utilized. The Korean consulate began requiring an interview for new teachers as of December 15th, 2007. This means that we fall under the umbrella for requiring an interview to complete our process. The closest Korean consulate is in Chicago, a good 7 hr round trip from the Twin Cities. The interview process only occurs on Wednesday and Fridays. Going there in person would be quite an endeavor for one with limited time and money. Luckily, the Korean consulate has come up with a way of accommodating those who are not near Chicagoland by granting web cam interviews... but wait, that is only if you live as far away as the Dakotas! A 14+ hour round trip is deemed perfectly acceptable, and does not qualify as over doing it. Absolutely ridiculous. The Korean consulate needs to adjust this policy to accomodate special circumstances for those in the Twin Cities, and I would say anywhere beyond a three hour drive. As of right now, we am driving to Chicago and back on July 19th.

The kicker for today is, after doing some research for my flight, which will also be out of Chicago (I will return a mere two days after the "visa run") to pick up our final visa documents before our trip. We are flying Northwest Airlines, which of course has a regional hub in the Twin Cities. Could anyone guess where our first plane transfer will be? Seattle, LAX, San Fran you might ask? Nope, none other then good old MSP. That will make flying out of Chicago seem really efficent, eh? The nice thing here is, once we transfer in Tokyo, we will be going to Busan, a southern costal city, instead of the usual Seoul, and being picked up by our kind boss, JS Park, and brought back to Yeosu. Very kind accommodations for foreigners arriving in a slightly intimidating country to travel.

The first post

Hello blogosphere. This a pilot post for a potential blog for Megan and Dave's year in Korea. We will potentially be journaling the goings on of our time in Korea.