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Hope this helps out. Enjoy getting reacquainted with your credit score!

Friends of ours who live below us asked if we wanted to take a hike with them to a Bhuddist temple in the next town. We said, “Sure,” and off we went. The temple is famous because of a 1,000+ year old Ginko tree in front of the temple. The tree is huge and pretty impressive. I can imagine it’s a lot like seeing redwoods in California. The walk up was steep but the path was clear. Here are a few photographs of the hike.

I’m just ushering out my first group of students. Because of the Winter Break, I had the same group of students for four weeks here at the camp. We needed to separate, too. When our children get to be about 12, they’re going off to boarding school. I guess as long as we don’t have 20 kids in their early teens all at the same time it won’t be so bad.

We finished up the four weeks with a short drama put on by the kids speaking in English. All of the four-week classes had to do it and my kids were somewhere near the top. The kids here memorize like crazy and, even if their pronunciation is a little off, they are usually spot on with the memorization. During class, I would start the day with 10-15 lines of dialog that they had to memorize with a partner and they would sometimes be ready in 5-7 minutes. Granted, I had upper level kids but the dialogues weren’t that easy.

One of the other interesting things is that you have to make the kids compete all the time. It’s a big thing in the school system here and it is encouraged. Divide up into teams and compete table-to-table and the kids love it. At the very least, they’re not falling asleep.

I’m tired.

Here’s to starting it all again (probably on Monday). Cheers!, as the Brits say.

We went out for dinner last night with one of the Korean teachers whom we’ve befriended and had a great time. We’ve been looking for this restaurant since we came here and we finally found it. I can’t tell you the name of it but I know where it is and I know that it’s good!

When eating at a restaurant in Korea, there are some interesting things. First, you cook your own meat. It’s a bit like Cosmo Kramer’s pizza pie idea from Seinfeld. There is a table with a grill in the middle. They bring you the raw meat on a plate, fire up the heat, and give you the tongs. All of the objections to Kramer’s pizza pie idea definitely apply and they are amplified when you have a toddler!

The second thing is that you have to sit on the floor in many of the restaurants, especially in a small town. In Seoul, we ate at a restaurant where there were “regular” tables and chairs. But last night we sat on the floor — the heated floor — on top of little square pads. Here are a couple of images I found online that illustrate the setup:

You can see how low the table sits and in the other photograph you can see the layout of the bowls of food and the grill. Some grills are different than others but they have all been gas grills that are centered in the middle of the table.

We like the atmosphere of this restaurant because the main floor was very open with many tables and no partitions. All of the other restaurants we’ve been to up to that point had tables in small rooms that were partitioned off from one another. There are usually three table/grill sets so three different parties can eat together in one room.

The small bowls of food come out with the raw meat and you are supposed to graze on some of it while the meat is cooking. Typically, they serve lettuce with the meal and you can make a lettuce wrap with the meat and any of the foods in the bowls. They also bring out some sauces that go with the different types of meat. Beef is much more expensive than pork in all the restaurants we’ve been to.

Believe it or not, it’s actually cheaper to go out to eat than to buy groceries from the store. A package of beef costs around 28,000 won (about $25) at our local grocery store. Eating out costs anywhere from 10,000-15,000 won ($7-12) for pork and 15,000-20,000 won ($12-17) for beef, and that includes all the extra food.

It’s certainly a different experience and we would like to learn enough Korean that we don’t have to take along a “guide” with us to the restaurant, though it has been good to get to know some of the people from the camp. We feel like we’re really in Korea when we go out to eat like that and are glad to find such a good place to eat close by. Next to finding a church, it seems to be one of our family’s priorities when we move to a new city.

Our family took a trip into Seoul today to see a friend of ours and attend church with her. The day started early and ended late with tons of new experiences in between. I know it sounds weird but we feel very comfortable taking public transit all over the world. I guess some people really have a problem with it but we are like ducks in water (as Forrest Gump says).

We are about an hour east of the edge of Seoul up in the mountains. The town closest to us is small but there is a ski resort about a half hour away and they have the usual resort amenities, as well. It’s been snowing the past three days so we noticed a lot of skiiers going back to Seoul as we were getting off the train to go home. The subway system actually reaches all the way out to us now. It just opened a few days ago. We decided to go with the “big” train instead because of it’s comfort and speed (it doesn’t make all the stops) but maybe we’ll try out the subway line next time. It’s more convenient in terms of transfers.

There are upwards of 20 million people who live in Seoul, so it’s definitely on par with New York. And the subway system proves it. Here’s a look at all the lines just for Seoul:

You can see that it’s crazy busy and reminds me a lot of New York City’s subway system. There is a train that will get you to every corner of the city. There weren’t nearly as many lines in Chicago but the cities are laid out differently, also. We only had to make a couple of transfers and it was easy-peasy.

Our little girl is a rockstar here. This is something that is going to be very difficult to get accustomed to. On the subway trains, people get up out of the seats for women with babies so K always had a seat. When we got to a busy stop and lots of people got on the train car they saw Bella and formed a semicircle around K’s seat just so they could see her. It’s pretty unbelievable. People were giving her candy and treats all day and they wanted to touch her hair and face. Her hair is curly but soft and she is more pale than you would expect a mixed girl to be. She’s very cute and mostly friendly so she was drawing quite a crowd today.

We know that she is a beautiful little girl and she is very special to us but we don’t want her thinking that she’s “all that.” It’s just hard when so many people lavish praise on her or make us feel like we have the baby Jesus with us. We would get this in the US, also, and it made us just as uncomfortable — not to mention extending the time we had to spend at whichever public place we happened to be at the time.

The train ride in was really beautiful. We haven’t had an opportunity to really see the countryside until today because the highway is right up against the mountains. Today’s ride was more through the valley and we could see for longer distances. It’s very beautiful. One of the things I’ve been noticing about the smaller towns is how organic they are. There seems to be very little planning about anything. I’m not sure how they decide where roads should go or what to do with city planning. It just seems to be lacking in advanced planning and organization. I guess it could be that the flow with the topography is just very organic. Maybe that’s it.

We thank the Lord that we had very few missteps today and He was in the services — that’s right, two services, and they wanted us to stay for a third — and messages we heard. We ventured out, mingled with the Korean people, and made it back home safely and soundly. Don’t let anyone tell you that traveling is too hard. We’re all just people. And the people in this place are especially nice and helpful. I’m not just saying that, either. Koreans are the happiest, nicest people I’ve ever been around. Customer service is built into their daily routines and culture. We look forward to more encounters with the people of Korea and now we’re anxious to learn more about the Korean language.

The day after Christmas was pretty uneventful. We spent some time calling our relatives and wishing them a Merry Christmas. I have one more to call tonight and that will be everyone.

We are also getting ready to head into the big city tomorrow and go to church with a friend of ours whom we haven’t seen in a long time. The trip is all planned and mapped out and we are good to go. It’s exciting that the subway now comes all the way out to the town next to us. It’s about an hour ride to the edge of the city and then whatever it takes to get around in the more central lines. I’ve ridden the subway in many different cities and I’m interested to see what it’s like here.

We’ve had some good encounters with different people here at the camp. K had a good talk with one of the native teachers and we both have been hanging out with a foreign teacher from New Zealand. She is an experienced teacher and has given us some of the ins and outs of living here and going into the city, also. She has also been a part of a crazy mix-up as her boyfriend is still stuck halfway around the globe waiting to come here and join her.

In some ways the world is very small but in many other ways the world is overwhelmingly large. You would think communication would be easier than it is but we hear stories of things getting all screwed up when trying to move around the world.

So for now…annyeong (goodbye in the familiar) [pronounced ahn-yong].

Merry Christmas from overseas!

I hope you have a great Christmas. I realize that for many of you, as I write this, Santa has not even arrived to deliver presents and eat his cookies. For us, Christmas Day has come and gone.

It was a rare holiday off here and we spent it in Seoul at, of all places, Costco. The school takes a regular trip to Costco and E-Mart (Korean Wal-Mart). It was very productive since we needed both food and stuff for our home. We are provided things like linens for the bed but we aren’t given towels so we needed general items like that and E-Mart is the place to go. Four levels of shopping bliss. Everything from electronics to groceries to beds and couches. Most people here swear by it and the groceries are cheaper than what we pay locally.

So after a day of shopping and traveling what do we get? An hour of traffic getting out of the city. While we were stuck in bumper to bumper I noticed things about the city of Seoul and the efficiencies of the Korean people.

The first thing is the utilitarian nature of their architecture. Boxes. Boxes everywhere. All the stores have multiple levels which are bridged by escalators and elevators. The thing that is genius about the escalators is that they are ramps, not stairs. And the baskets in the store are made to go on the escalators. The wheels lock so that the carts cannot go forward or backward, depending on which way you’re headed. It’s a beautiful system and one that beats the US system hands-down.

Another thing I noticed is that instead of having real highway construction people out in road construction zones, they place very believable mannequins who are dressed up with the hats, clothes, everything. It’s a little freaky at first but I’m sure that it saves tons of money. We can’t think of this? Do you think it costs more to put up a mannequin or those “Don’t hurt my daddy” signs that are all over the States? Save lives and save money — seems like a no-brainer to me.

Another thing we came across is that the people driving scooters and motorbikes would jump up onto the sidewalk and pass all the traffic on the sidewalk. I’ve already written about the taxis and how you’re not safe crossing the streets. Sounds like walking on the sidewalk isn’t too safe, either. In some ways, our time in Chicago prepared us for being cautious pedestrians here.

When we got home we had a little time before heading off to a small Christmas party intended mostly for the foreign teachers and their families. It was some Christmas music (including a song from South Africa), food, and fellowship.

It was a long day and we’re tuckered out. The best thing to come out of the day is that K had her first white Christmas. On the way home into the mountains, it started to snow and when we got back, about a quarter inch of snow had fallen. Now everything is graced with a beautiful coating of snow. One of  the teachers from South Africa also got to experience his first white Christmas.

The Lord is answering our prayers all the time. We appreciate your prayer for our family and ask that you continue to do so.

So many things to tell about the few days we’ve been here.

We got in on Monday night after an adventurous (and long) series of flights from the US. After a lengthy delay concerning our passports in Hawaii on Sunday, we were almost late for our plane to Tokyo. Going through security we had to take out our computers and put them into the bins. I was in such a hurry that I left our computers at security and we didn’t realize it until we got to our seats on the plane. We needed them so we got off the plane and told the flight crew at the gate that we would have to stay another night and take the flight the next day. After telling security they assured us that the computers would be right behind us going to Seoul. Just before we landed in Tokyo a flight attendant came up to me and said they had gotten the computers from security and we would be able to pick them up in Seoul several hours after we landed. To make the rest of the story short, we had to wait until the next day but we have our computers in our possession. The problem now is that we need to have the school give us a router for our room to connect to the wireless and we also need to get adapters for our computer so we can plug them into the outlets here. After that, we’ll be all set up! Can’t predict how long that will take, however.

There is a cafeteria here on campus but the school only provides one meal per day for me alone. So we have received some help getting meal tickets from our neighbor so that we can all eat at the cafeteria. The food is a little hit or miss. Some things are great, some things are not so great.

We needed to get some essentials for our apartment so last night I made a trip into town — a 10 minute trip cut in half by the swiftly moving taxi drivers. You really have to watch out when crossing the streets. It was pretty surreal. The town we are close to is small but there are tons of neon lights and huge signs. Everything here is so foreign to me that it all feels like the set of a movie. I don’t know how long it will take to get used to that.

So I went to the market to pick up some staples. Everything is in Korean but it’s surprising how many things you can understand by sight alone. It was not difficult to understand anything. I walked around the store for a moment just to see what all was there. It’s like walking around a really big international section at one of the larger grocery stores in America. I was surprised at the lack of variety of fruits and vegetables but we had an apple this morning and it was good.

I made it back safely last night and about 7,000 won lighter –a little less than $6 — from the cab. We were all tired and headed to bed a 8p. Our normal routine has been go to bed before nine and wake up around 4a or 5a. Amazingly, we didn’t really experience any jet lag. We flew out of Honolulu at 9a and landed at 5p the next day in Seoul. So it was like we flew for one whole day. We did lose most of the day Sunday by going over the International Date Line, however, and I guess we’ll get that day back if we go home the same way we came.

Our apartment is a two bedroom flat that is larger than I anticipated. It’s probably considered a normal to small two bedroom apartment in the US. We have everything we need, including furniture, which is hard to believe when you only take two backpacks, a suitcase, and carry-on bag. This is the majority of what we own now and it’s amazing what you don’t need to survive.

There is more to tell and I’ll try to get to it all. It will be easier when we get our computers set up in the apartment.

Just wanted to let everyone know that we made it to South Korea okay and I have already started orientation. We arrived on Monday evening and have begun settling into our new life. We still need to find out how to get to the grocery store and get some food, though the cafeteria does serve meals three times a day. The baby’s not very high on the Korean food, however.

The place here is very beautiful but the village itself is pretty awkward looking in the middle of rural Korea. It’s been cold and a little wet today. It’ s not brutaly cold but there is nip in the air when we wake up in the morning.

There are tons of people who speak English here, Korean and Foreign, so it’s been a fairly easy transition. We haven’t really ventured out into the “regular” Korean world so that will be quite the shock, I’m sure.

When we get our router set up, I’ll be able to post a little more.

We made it to Hawaii tonight. Tired and more tired. We need to get a good night’s sleep as it’s on to Tokyo and then Seoul all day tomorrow. 9 hours the first flight and then 3 after that. Pray for us. Mostly, pray for the baby. She did great today but we’re a little worried about how she’ll react tomorrow.