Are You Irish?

Normally, this question is directed at me; I have fair facial skin, dark hair, and freckles. But today! We were on the subway, and the nicest man struck up a conversation with Michael--the first time he had had opportunity to use his English in 10 months. They talked about all kinds of things, and then he asked of Michael, "You look a bit different...are you Irish?"

No...definitely not Irish, especially since Michael's family comes from China.

Stairmaster, Buns of Steel, and Transfer Stations

After having a 1-hour commute to and from work the last two years and paying more for gas than we did for food, saying good-bye to our cars was not a sorrowful parting. In fact, we felt a bit giddy to have the opportunity to embrace mass transportation. Yesterday, Michael and I learned to use the subway. We forced this upon ourselves for two reasons: 1. taxis are frightening and dangerous. This is one of those countries where people truly drive like maniacs. 2. we don't know our address and cannot tell our taxi driver where we live should he get lost (like he did the other night). Our school shells out big bucks for us to take taxis to and from work, but we discovered yesterday that we could take the subway, not get lost, and only pay $1.25 each way.

The subway is cool for many reasons, but one reason it's cool is because you climb about a million stairs to get here and there. Actually, it is not so much cool as completely exhausting. Some trains are about six flights of stairs underneath the street. If the subway stairs don't whip me into shape, I don't know what will.

The other foreign teachers at our school seem to fit into the same class of people who tend to work in restaurants: they are lost, at a transition point in life (a transfer station, if you will), or determined to wander through life with no real direction. They are intelligent, and quite arrogant in things Korean, but they are still obviously lonely and directionless. Michael thought today that perhaps God has us here (at least in part) to minister to the foreign teachers who have found themselves in Korea. We shall see.

Until then, Suzanne Somers can watch me from behind as I get buns of steel for way cheaper at the subway stations.

We have arrived--survival, camping, and other impressions

Right now it is Monday, 12:00 am Seoul time, and it is Sunday, 8:00 am West Coast time.  We are wide awake, of course, because our bodies are jet-lagged and are convinced that it is time to be up and about, having some breakfast and beginning the day.  Hmmm...  Well, we are cooking, but it is more of a dinner because we fell asleep about 3:00 pm and woke up around 11:00 pm.  Slept right through dinner, so now we are having a little dinner and trying to stay tired so we can go back to sleep in a couple hours.  Oh dear.

Some hightlights from the journey over here:

The Flight: Long, naturally, but very nice.  Food, on-demand movies, a screen that tracked the progress of our flight the whole way there, and great service!

Arrival: As promised, a taxi driver was in the airport, with our names on a sign, and he took us right to the doorstep of our school, where we met a teacher from the school and its director (we think that's who he was).  They and the taxi driver took us to our apartment (more to come on that subject).  The teachers told us what to do to get to work Monday, handed us some cash, and pretty much left.

Camping: Because the apartment is minimally furnished, we have been making lists of what we need.  Just now, we realized that we could not make spaghetti for dinner/breakfast because we do not have a can opener.  Blah.  Our apartment came with a bed, chest of drawers, TV, minimal kitchen tools, wireless internet woo-hoo!, and a washing machine.  We have nowhere to sit except our bed for now.

Other survival Tactics: Our neighborhood is great!  We are in the middle of just about everything we could need: a department and grocery store, restaurants, possibly a library, a park, and to our grateful discovery at breakfast time this morning, a Dunkin' Donuts.

Some problematic issues: This language is very difficult!  We are like babies.  All food labels are in Korean.  This blog page is in Korean--that is very annoying.  And our camera broke before we left, so we can't take pictures for all our adoring fans at home.

I'll stop for now.  We are doing okay--I think we are in shock or something.  Anyway, more to come later.  Love, us.

Worlds Collide, part One of Many

Apparently, throwing things together haphazardly is the Korean style, and not wanting to cramp it too much, we thought we'd do it their way and leave as soon as possible. Our school said that they could "wait" until this Friday for us to arrive, so we complied, and we are leaving the USA on Friday the 14th. Like my sister said, some people spend months planning an overseas trip. Michael, me, and the Koreans--we planned it in days...

Rip it off, Go for it!

Which do you prefer--to rip off your band-aid all at once, taking off skin, hair, and scab in one boisterous tug; Or do you like to take it off carefully, whispering, "Ooo!  Ahh!  Ouch!" at each tug of the bandage?  Normally, I prefer the slow, painful approach, but at this time in our lives, Michael and I have chosen to rip it off, and we are planning to move to Seoul, South Korea next week.

Thus begins this blog, to make account of this journey and the adventure upon which God is insisting we embark.  

The basics:

Who: Michael and Eryn

What: Teaching English in Korea

When: Probably next week

Where: Seoul, South Korea

Why: We're not exactly sure