Lots of little adventures in Korea....

Anyong Hasseyo!

Sarah and I have finished up our 4th week of teaching, our first month, in Korea. I cannot believe it's already been a month! 11 more to go.

We teach cooking once a week to our intensive english classes. So far, we've made:

Tuna Salad
Fruit Salad
Tuna and Potato Salad
Canapés

We work with the kids to help them learn what cucumbers are, and learn new words like "chop", "mash", and "stir". I don't know how we do it, but Sarah and I can fill up an entire 80 mins on something that can take less than 10.

Along with teaching cooking classes, Sarah and I each have Science class! The students have individual science kits, and we do 1 project a week. Each month, the kits change, so the children get to do so many more experiments.

Sarah has taught kids the wonderful world of sand painting, while I tried to give a lesson on "Aerodynamics" to 5-yr olds by making airplanes....

Such wonderful times.

We've adjusted to teaching and know all of our kids, but the school throws some surprises at us sometimes. Sarah had a class added to her schedule this week, only to be removed for a new teacher and have another small class 2 times a week added instead. I might be switching some classes with one of the Korean teachers, but that has yet to be determined. Ah well, as long as they don't do too much to us.

We've set up our bank accounts. Hooray! Don, our director, is now realizing he has to pay us soon, but we're worth it he says.

Let's see, some adventures we've been on.

We went camping last weekend in a little town west of another little town called Gurye. The campsite we went to is a lot like Johnson's Shut-ins: very rocky along a river. We got to use our camping equipment for the first time, and had a blast! We shared our tent and air mattress with another couple, our new good friends Mark and Clare. It was cramped, but as long as Mark and I didn't move, we were ok.

Coming back from camping was also an adventure. Sarah and I had to leave early in order to catch the buses back to Gwangju in order to go to church. We left the campsite at about 6:00 am, and started walking down the road a good mile...maybe 2...to catch a bus. We didn't see any buses in sight. However, Sarah flagged one down and he pulled a 180 to get us. We had one little sheet of paper with bus times on it, and I had to keep pointing to it so he could take us to the bus station in Gurye. He much obliged. While we were on the bus, this lady hops on and tells the bus driver to drive a little ways till she could see her son (we think). She sees her son and hops off the bus, and he RUNS SO FAST TO GET AWAY! We had a good laugh.

Well, we made it back to Gwangju just fine, and had our first adventure in a taxi when it was just the 2 of us, to see if we could figure out how to get back to our place. And yes, we were successful with that as well.

That night, we decided to order pizza and see if we could get it delivered to our place. Sarah and I took turns talking on the phone to see if we could get our address correct, along with our phone number, using both Korean and English. We got our pizza, but we haven't figured out a way to explain "No corn or vegetables" on it whenever we order.

Some pictures will be coming soon.

My best friend in the whole wide world, Ken Denton, and his wife, Liz, have just lost their son, Fletcher, earlier this week. He was less than 3 months old. Sarah and I have been thinking about them so much, and it is such a sad time right now. Ken, Liz, we love you, and are praying for you.

- Troy and Sarah