Christmas in Korea

Hey everyone! Christmas is now past but I hoped it found you well. On our end of the ocean, I guess we got a little more of a white Christmas than the rest of you. Below is a picture of one of the snowstorms that we were hit with. It's the most snow (and the worst) that has been in this area in at least 70 years (I heard as much as 100, but who can be sure?). It was actually declared a natural disaster zone.


Here's a picture of a snowman that we made in the park across the street. Although this snowman has three parts, Korean ones only have two. Fortunately, there was enough snow that we could make it in our traditional fashion. We made it after school one night, but it was apparently missing by the next morning. If you see him, let us know.



Here's a picture of our Christmas tree. It's a full four feet tall and it was only $7 from Home Plus. Christmas was great but we really missed all of our friends and family. Through the wonders of modern technology, we were able to connect with much of our family, which was great.Finally, here is Emily with the Kimchi mascot. We went to the Kimchi festival a few weeks ago, which was a lot of kimchi, and this fellow was the mascot. Emily doesn't like mascots, but she was kind enough to pose for this photo.

We miss you all and hope that your Christmas was great. So, until later, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tales from the classroom

So far, I have been loving teaching in Korea. I don't think I could teach elementary full time or in Canada (there's just a few cultural things to my advantage here), but I love the situation that I'm in. Most of the kids are amazing, and with the exception of a scant few, they are generally amazing. It's fun, often amusing and very fulfilling.

Some things that I've found amusing so far (just as highlights):

Brought to Class:
Balloon animals
A lifesize replica of an AK-47 machine gun
A grasshopper in a pencil case
A rather large snowball (it snowed and the grade 3's brought me a present)
A hamster in a pencil case

Said in Class:
"The crap bit my hands." (Koreans don't have much distinction between L/R and B/P in their language so it was actually supposed to be "crab")

"Teacher, I think your wife is pretty. You... you are so-so. So I think she is better than you."

(Said of a little finger puppet)
Student: "Teacher, this is my god!"
Teacher: "Oh, that's not good!"
Student: "But it's my bodyguard!"
(And my misunderstanding becomes apparent. What I heard as "god" was actually "guard.")

Written on a Fill-in-the-Blank Test:
Here's your meal. Be careful! Your waitress is hot. (The correct answer was "plate.")

Oh, Canada...

So here's the deal...

About two months ago, we get on the phone to the government of Canada and we tell them that we've left the country. We don't live there anymore, we live in Korea, here's our address, blah blah blah. The Reesors have left the nation.

About two weeks ago, we got a letter in the mail from the Federal Government. Curious as could be, we opened it up to discover a GST Cheque! Yes, indeed, people who live in a different country are apparently eligible for GST cheques. I'm not sure how, but we got our cheque for $81.39.

Two days later, we got a letter in the mail from the Federal Government. Curious as could be, we opened it up to discover a bill from the government for... $81.39! They mailed the cheque and two days later, they mailed the bill. Apparently people who live in a different country are NOT eligible for GST cheques.

Two days later, we got another letter. It was a summary of everything that had just happened. "Credits issues, payments received, amount owing, etc." The long and the short of it is this: the government needs to talk to itself a little bit more.

Fortunately, it only costs 58 cents to airmail a cheque back to Canada from here. Go figure.

Gwangju is like a box of chocolates... You never know what you are going to get!

Ah, I love this city. It is certainly never boring here!

Take today for instance. Jon and I decided to go downtown to catch a quick lunch before he headed off to school. We took the bus and our bus took a detour so we had to walk a long way. This isn't all that unusual. Our bus passes through the main "square" so to speak of the city and it is often closed to traffic for something or other. I have enjoyed many random festivals in this spot! Today we figured was another such festival.

Our afternoon progressed normally - we ate our lunch and began making our way back to the school. On our route we came across what appeared to be a protest/strike/sit in/demonstration or something of the sort. Finally we have the reason for our bus detour! Anyway it seemed a little serious and protest like - certainly not a festival, so we walked through it and to the school.

About a half an hour later I was heading to the bus stop to go home, having already forgotten about the protest. Ah, but friends - it had not forgotten about me.

All I wanted to do was cross the street, walk to the bus stop, catch my bus and go home. Oh if only things were ever that easy! I made it to the intersection to cross the road only to see that the sit-in protest had turned into a parade! We are talking about hundreds of people here, walking down the street where my bus is supposed to be! The police were directing traffic so it was still flowing in both directions just only on half of the width of the road. The other half was my parade. I finally made it across the street (walking through the protesters!) And then realized, my bus stop is in the middle of this parade, how does this work?

Long story short I saw every single protester walk by me, singing and pumping their fists. I still have no idea what they were protesting about nor will I likely ever know. At one point I wondered to myself - should I be nervous right now? Are they protesting about foreigners or something? But I looked around and saw little kids and old ladies waiting for the bus with me and everything seemed ok. I smiled and waved at the protester guys and they smiled back. They sang their protest song. I waited patiently for them to move on. Many busses came while the parade was going past and some brave Koreans ran through the protesters to the middle of the road to hail a bus (yes you hail busses here - otherwise they won't stop for you) luckily, my bus came just as the protest was ending.

I gratefully sank into my seat, glad to be off the road and out of the cold. It still took a ridiculously long time because we were following behind the protesters (we were going so slowly that the protesters kept passing us - maybe I should have just joined them!)

Anyway, I made it home in one piece! What an adventure. It was a little bit surreal but fun nonetheless!

Tonight Jon and I are going to opening night of the new Harry Potter movie. Harry Potter is unbelievably popular here, it is SO crazy! We already have our tickets for tonight and theaters here have assigned seats so that's nice. That should be fun.

Anyway thought I would fill you in on my adventures and misadventures! We love you all so much and happy December!

Emily

Happy Pepero Day!

Good Morning everyone, and happy pepero day.

(First of all - I know that today is Rememberance day and that is a much more important and valuable holiday and this post is in no way trying to lessen the importance of rememberance)

Today in Korea it is a day the school children have been waiting for, Pepero Day! First of all a little background:

• Pepero are long and skinny cookies dipped in Chocolate which are a popular snack here. They come in many different varieties and can be bought for about 50 cents a box.
• The story goes that a group of middle school girls in Busan, South Korea first came up with the idea of giving pepero to their friends every November 11th. Since November 11th is 11/11, it looks like a bunch of pepero all lined up.
• The more likely and probable story that most people really believe is that some very smart marketing directors at Lotte Confectionary came up with the "holiday" to sell more Pepero!
• Last year around pepero day, Lotte reported its highest sales of any single product ever! I would say smart marketing scheme guys!

You would be shocked at how much pepero stuff is everywhere right now. In the grocery store yesterday they had shelves and shelves of pepero, pepero gift sets, really long pepero, bread dipped in chocolate to look like pepero, key chains, necklaces, cellphone bobbles (very popular here) And to top it all of they had this theme song playing on repeat over and over again!

I have already experienced a random Pepero-ing. I was waiting with Jon at the bus stop on Wednesday and these three girls walk by with their arms full of pepero, they stop, look at me, and start handing me pepero out of their bags. Now keep in mind that I had never seen these girls before nor will I likely ever see them again! Ah the joys of being a foreigner! Alas, poor Jon sitting next to me didn't get the same treatment...

So that brings us to today, actual Pepero day. We have been good teachers and stocked up on enough pepero for all of our students. (Really cool ones too!) And we are awaiting the arrival of much pepero for us. One of the other foreign teachers at the school said that last year it took him quite a while to get through all the pepero kids gave to him! I say bring it on!

New Pictures!

Here's a new picture of the staff from MunHwa. It was taken near Puan (on the west coast in the middle of Korea) at this movie set that was a reconstruction of some ancient time. It was pretty neat. Anyway, starting from the front left, it goes Emily, Arwen (Tyrone & Gabriella's daughter), and 5 math teachers (names forgotten/unknown). In the back on the left is Mr. Lee, Jon, Tyrone & Capulet (I'm sure that's not spelled correctly), Eun Gyung, Gabriella, Jung Hae, Gumi, Mr. Moon, Michael, Mr. Kang (my boss), 3 more math teachers and then the 2 secretaries at the English school. (Just so you know, Mr. Kang owns a math and an English school and this was a little getaway for both sets of staff.)

This is Emily and I with the Yellow Sea behind us. (No, we did not pee in it. That is the name of the body of water.)

This is a Korean BBQ. Mr. Lee (the fellow on the left with the sunglasses) is cooking using a portable gas burner and a frying pan. He is frying meat and the lady with the pink hat is handing out rice from the styrofoam container. Gumi (the lady in the black with her back to the camera) is sitting by the lettuce that you wrap the meat and rice in. There is also red pepper paste, green chili peppers and kimchi, all of which make up your essential Korean BBQ. It's quite fun and rather tasty.

This is Emily & Arwen. Arwen has absolutely fallen in love with Emily while she continually screams and runs away when she sees me (Jon). It's just not fair. (All of the preceding pictures were taken on the MunHwa staff picnic day.)

This is me with some Korean fellows that we went out for tea with. They speak English, they're male, they're my own age and they're Christians! So far, that's been a bit of a rarity. It was a direct answer to prayer (and a most welcome one!) that we met these two fellows. The fellow on the left (sorry for the perspective!) is Ryan and his sister's name is Leah. We met her but she left a couple of weeks ago to study for some English tests in Australia. She came for tea with us but she left before this picture was taken.

This is an example of a quasi-typical Korean meal. This is called galbi, which is the meat in the middle. It's amazingly delicious. (I think it was pork ribs, essentially.) Traditional Korean meals come with (literally) about 15 side dishes, which is all the other plates. Some examples are cold raw crabs cut in half (still in the shell with legs, etc.) in a sauce, blood soup (we both tried it - it's not bad), bean sprouts, dandilion sprouts, seaweed, rice, coleslaw, more bean sprouts, pickled radish, kimchi (of course!), eggplant and other such things. The side dishes are various and rarely are they ever all consumed. It's rather fun to eat Korean style - every dish and plate is fair game, except for your rice bowl (when you have it).

Finally, this is Emily and I in Sajik Park, a park quite near to our apartment. It's one of the largest in our city and it's quite beautiful. We went there for a picnic last week (when this picture was taken). If we look a little awkward, it's because we were. Foreigners here are still a bit of a novelty, and beautiful foreigners (like Emily) are especially an attraction for Koreans. In this case, we were using the timer on our camera. However, we were beginning to draw a small crowd of people watching us. Okay, they were watching Emily, but I was there too.

Emily will regularly get people telling her how beautiful she is. One older fellow (about 65 years or so) said she was a second Cleopatra. Another fellow called out "Good looker! Good looker!" as we walked by. She will often get people striking up conversations and giving her free things when she goes shopping.

Me... Well, people would often rather stand on the bus than sit next to me. But that's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

Anyway, stay tuned! We're going on two more hikes this weekend so we should get all sorts of pictures after that. We love you all and miss you. Please keep the e-mails coming (it's wonderful to hear even the "boring" stuff!) and we'll update soon.

KimChi

I have a confession to make....


I'm pregnant!!!!!!


Just kidding! Did your mouths drop?? No we are definately not with child at the present time so don't you worry!

No my confession is this:
For the first two months of living in Korea I ate absolutely no KimChi. I would aviod it at all costs which is pretty impressive. Even Jon didn't realize that I hadn't eaten any of it. You have to understand the KimChi culture here in Korea. A meal is not a meal without KimChi, it comes with everything. You eat it before your meal, with your meal, you cook it on the grill, you eat it cold, you cut it with scissors. Its a very integral part of Korean food culture and I avoided it like the Bubonic plague.

I don't know exactly what I was afraid of. I am usually the adventurous food eater...

But finally one day at our church's cafeteria I broke down and told Jon I hadn't eaten any of it. So I tried it.. and I liked it!!! I really really liked it!

Now I crave KimChi. I crave its spiciness, its smellyness -- the whole bit! When I walk through the market and can smell KimChi I breathe in deep breaths of it. Go figure. Maybe when I do get pregnant (IN A FEW YEARS) that is what my midnight cravings will be. No pickles and icecream for this expat -- its KimChi all the way!

The saga of the picnic

In Canada, your average - run of the mill picnic plans usually involve a trip to safeway for your chips, hotdogs, buns, pop etc. Once said items are purchased and it is time to embark on the picnic, a typical location would be a local park, river valley or maybe a nearby national park. Needless to say, walking into our school picnic on Saturday, this is sort of the image that I had in mind.

Granted, I had figured out that the food would be different. First of all, I would be very scared to eat a Korean hotdog, and second of all I have seen no Safeways since arriving here :) I did figure though that our destination would be one of many parks in Gwangju or perhaps the mountains that still fall within city limits.

Imagine my suprise when...

We all pile into cars at the school and start driving, and driving...at nauseum at nauseum etc etc. I keep expecting that our destination will be just around the next bend. We have after all definately left the main road and are steadilly climbing up a steep and winding mountian road. Our convoy of vehicles would stop periodically so everyone could catch up. We had a straggling car because one of the foreign teacher's wife and kid were throwing up. It was an intense road.

Two and half hours later we finally arrive. So much for within city limits. Imagine my suprise when on the horizon I see the ocean!!! We drove all the way to the flippin' yellow sea!!! It really was beautiful though...

Our picnic consisted of meat cooked over a portable gas range, rice and red pepper paste. You put all of those ingredients in a little lettuce leaf burrito and down it in one bite. (a very common meal here) Oh and there was of course Kimchi. There is always Kimchi.

A good time was had by all and again I was reminded that my cultural worldview constantly needs adjusting, even when it comes to picnics.

Fan Death

Every culture has the myths and popular tales that have little or no grounding in reality. We would call them old wives tales, fables or perhaps myths. Korea is no exception.

Fan death, as it turns out, is what happens to you if you go to sleep with a fan blowing in your face. Since your breathing is more shallow when you are asleep, the fan will stifle your breathing to the point of death. Many Koreans hold this to be true since someone did a study once, or so we hear.

Another one is running backwards. Emily and I have started running at this track by our apartment where several people from the community also run, jog or walk. We will often see people running backwards (as much as one can run backwards) which is a little confusing. Upon futher investigation, we learned that running backwards apparently gives 10 times any benefit that running foward does. Who knew?

Pictures of Korean Life

This is the view from our balcony. We live on the sixth floor so we get a neat view (in my opinion). We're really blessed - we live in the last set of parallel rows of apartments, so we get to see the city and all the other buildings look directly into the building infront and behind them. The green netting you see in the middle of the picture is a driving range. Koreans have a great sense of nationalism - they will warmly embrace anything that a Korean is really good at. I think the #1 or 2 female golfer right now is Korean, so there are a whole ton of driving ranges on top of buildings.





This is what's going on underneath our balcony. It's this whole market street with all these old ladies ("Ajjumas" - it's a term used for any older lady, and it means somewhere around Grandma and Ma'am) and they sell whatever is in season. It's such a blessing being able to walk out our front door and peruse all sorts of incredibly fresh produce every day. They also sell fish out of styrofoam boxes packed with ice, but those are less appealing.



This is the Korean equivalent of those statues you see on Easter Island. I think they've got something to do with the gods protecting something or other, but you'll see these statues at tourist places and on anything to do with Jeju Island (the Korean Hawaii), which is where this style of statue is from.

October 8 Update

Our e-mailed update from October 8, 2005

Greetings Friends and Family!

My goodness it has been a while since our last update! I have not yet learned the discipline of keeping up with this, so please bear with me and my sporadic tendencies! With that said, hello again from South Korea! Though we are half way around the world, all of you are never far from our minds and hearts.

October in Gwangju is apparently the most beautiful time of year and so far that has certainly been true. The weather is lovely, pleasantly cooler than the summer but still warm and sunny every day. The big blue skies really show off the beautiful mountains that surround our city. If you look carefully, you can see the many ancient temples nestled on the peaks. In a recent beautification project, flowers have been planted EVERYWHERE downtown. They are sprouting from around the fountain in the middle of the traffic circle, growing from pots lining the walls of the subway entrances, and in big pots in front of most stores. They are absolutely beautiful!! Yesterday as I was walking from the school I passed an older gentleman who was pulling a cart overflowing with flower pots and I had one of those “I know why I am here in Korea” moments. It is strange to see all this planting going on in October where back home I am used to seeing everyone pulling up their yards in preparation for the frost!

Jon and I recently began twice-weekly Korean classes and are gradually (very gradually!) learning Korean. So far I almost know the alphabet and some basic letter combinations. It’s so strange being back at such a basic level of language learning, sounding out words step-by-step. I feel like I am back in Kindergarten! Tomorrow we are learning some basic phrases for shopping so that will be really helpful. I know how to say “how much does it cost?” but I have no idea what they are saying when they answer me! There are about 6 people in our Korean class and we have a really awesome teacher who is so energetic and speaks excellent English. Hopefully, by the end of the class we will have a lot more independence to communicate with people.

Jon’s classes are still going really well. At the beginning of this week there was a big shuffle of classes to accommodate new students and the loss of a teacher so Jon has brand new grade 4’s and 5’s. They have never had a foreign teacher before so they are still a little bit afraid of him, but they are gradually opening up. I get to meet them for the first time today so that should be fun! Jon also got a new grade 6 class from a teacher who left and they are a very advanced and smart class. We are going to be able to do a lot of supplementary stuff with them to really challenge their skills. Right now the middle school students are writing midterm exams so his grade 7 and 8 classes are really small or nonexistent. He has been able to come home early a few times this week and that is always a treat! When he just has 2-3 students it doesn’t make sense to continue on with the curriculum so he has been playing games with them and yesterday he took them out into the neighborhood to tell him what some of the buildings were in English. Next week we have a day off because all the middle school students will be gone – what a nice treat!

Two weeks ago was the Gwangju International Day. This is an annual festival that brings together all the foreigners in Gwangju in a celebration of the various cultures, food, and native dress. I had NO idea there were so many foreigners in Gwangju! To quote an article I read about the day, “have they been hiding out in some top secret foreigners tree house club all this time?” There was representation from countries like Pakistan, Nepal, and the Philippines. It was an incredible day! We actually made it on TV. They did up a news segment about the festival and Jon & I made it in a couple of times! (You can actually watch it on the internet – let us know if you’re interested in seeing it.)

Jon and I had a friend who was competing in the talent show and she won the audience choice award! Rachel did an awesome job of singing, she has an amazing voice! We were also excited because they had a flea market which was our first garage sale-esque exposure since coming to Korea. We bought some books for 500won each (about fifty cents!) that we have almost finished already. It was also a great time to talk to people from all over the world, as well as Koreans who speak English. We met a brother and sister who invited us to come to their church, they are our age and we really hit it off so we definitely want to do that with them.

Most things are going really well here. We’re starting to get into a good schedule and we are starting to feel more and more comfortable with our lives here. At the same time, we are also feeling the distance between us and our loved ones. It’s very difficult trying to live a life in Korea while having left one behind in Canada.

Something that has been of great encouragement has been the trips to Costco that we have been taking. There is a Costco in another city about two hours away from us. We have taken a couple of day trips over there to pick up such essentials as cheese, tortillas, oatmeal, soup and a couple other tidbits. It’s funny the things that make such a big difference.

(From Jon) And also a big thank you to everyone who e-mailed in a greeting for my birthday! It was very special and it meant a lot to me. It turned out to be a great weekend.

That’s about all for now. We love you all and miss you terribly. We LOVE getting e-mail from you, even if it’s just the “boring everyday” stuff. It helps us feel that much closer to you all.
Bye for now!

Jon & Emily

The People of MunHwa

Here is a group picture of most of the MunHwa staff. It's a fairly old picture but I (Jon) just recently got a digital copy of it. It was taken at the "Welcome to MunHwa" party held for Emily, Tyrone and I. There are people from the English school and the math school here. The English and Math classes are held in two seperate buildings, so I don't know any of the math teachers, but I will introduce you to the people that I do know.

Anyway, from top left, is Harland (a Canadian that has lots of experience in Korea and teaching and is a very kind man), two math teachers, Gumi (she's very nice and helpful), Ms. Woo (she just got married yesterday), Mr. Moon (whose classroom is next to mine), and Mr. Kong (the owner and director of MunHwa Math & English school - my boss). The next row is Jack (Michael's son - he was just visiting at the time), 4 people from the math school, Eun Gyung (another wonderful person who is very good at explaining Korean to English speakers), Tyrone (a really fun guy - he started at the same time as I did) and myself.

The front row is Mrs. Kim (very friendly, but I don't see her much), a teacher from the math school, Michael (a Canadian whose classroom is on the other side of mine - a wonderful person), Emily (my incredible wife) and Mr. Lee (the administrator of MunHwa and a good friend who helps us out with anything we need, from immigration to broken toilets).

That's the MunHwa crew! Actually, there's a couple of people missing, but that's just about everyone. I can not believe how great everyone is and how wonderful it is to work at this school. God has blessed Emily and I beyond anything we could have ever dreamed. This is fantastic!

September 12, 2005 update

September 12, 2005

A long due hello to friends and family!

I know that it has been a tremendously long time since our last update from here in Korea. I find that we are daily settling into a routine and sometimes I forget that life wasn’t always like this! Nevertheless, I hope that this note will serve to bring you up to date on all the happenings in our life here.

September began with the return of Jon’s normal school schedule, a welcome blessing to both of us. Jon now works 4-9PM Monday-Friday. I am still helping out at the school as much as I can. I recently completed the editing of the school’s newest textbook which will be published soon. I also go into the school most Fridays to teach and supervise Jon’s classes as he does individual speaking tests with the students. I try to plan a fun or different activity for them after they are done writing their exams. Recently we have made birthday cards for “teacher Jon”, watched a short movie and written a summary of it, played games and had good conversations. Jon has wonderful students and they are really starting to warm up to both of us. Jon has gotten into a really excellent routine with planning and evaluating his lessons. He is very creative and seems to have a very holistic approach to teaching.

Our school has really been amazing in all aspects. Before coming to Korea we heard a lot of horror stories about unfulfilled contracts, accommodation nightmares, salary discrepancies etc. We have been blessed to have not experienced anything like that! The director of the school, Mr. Kong is a really amazing guy who treats us very well. Jon truly looks forward to going to work every day and the environment in the school is always positive and a real team setting.

As for me, while Jon is at school I have been keeping very busy. Running a household here is a lot of work! Laundry must be line dried and usually ironed, garbage has to be separated into various recyclable products as well as compost, groceries need to be purchased from various market vendors and small stores… the list goes on! I really enjoy it though. It is nice to experience life at a slower pace then my Edmonton days and I am building some great relationships with people in our neighborhood. I also have been making time to go on long walks every evening, really exploring our neighborhood in all directions. With that and helping with marking and lesson planning I keep very occupied!

Last week I was able to take in a festival at our local park. I was buying bread from the bakery and I heard live music and decided to check it out. To my surprise, our little badminton court had been taken over by a huge stage and tents. From what I could gather, the festival was for the reunification of the two Koreas. I was DEFINITELY the only foreigner there, but that hasn’t stopped me yet! I got to see some amazing Taekwondo, as well as traditional Korean drumming, children’s orchestras and much more. Some highlights included a Buddhist monk coming up on stage to dance with kindergarten age students, and a 10 year old boy that did a “Napoleon Dynamite” dance. It was totally awesome! If you check, there are some pictures of this fun night on our blog page.

We are really enjoying our bible study group and have lots of fun together. Last week we all went to a Board Game Café as well as too a movie at the international film festival. We also play games after bible study most weeks. It has been a great way to make good friends, both with foreigners and Koreans.

This past weekend we went to Seoul to celebrate Jon’s birthday. We left very early Saturday morning to catch a train for Suwon where we went to an amusement park called Everland. Everland was basically a big Disneyland knockoff which was fairly amusing. They had all the details down right to the “Global Village” ride, which was eerily reminiscent of “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland. Almost the same music. Same boats. Same creepy dolls moving back and forth dressed in cultural garb…. There must be some kind of copyright infringement going on there!!!

We had a great though and braved lots of scary rides. We went on a suspended roller coaster (the track is above you) and that was our most favorite. They also had an electrical parade; again not unlike Disneyland ( the parade was really good though. We stayed the night at a hostel right at Everland and in the morning headed into Seoul.

Sunday morning we went to church at Yoido Full Gospel Church, the biggest church in the world. There are 800,000 members!!!! It was a crazy experience. They have I think 7 services every Sunday. We were given headphones so we could hear a live interpretation into English of the whole service. They were interpreting it into 9 different languages!! Unfortunately, we didn’t actually hear Pastor Yonggi Cho preach, he of course does not do every 7 services!! It was still a really amazing experience though!

We also went to a market in Seoul that has been going on for 600 years. It was huge and full of every kind of good you can think of. It was a maze and a little overwhelming but cool to see. We had a great time in Seoul but it made us very grateful to live in Gwangju. It was so crowded and busy all the time and Gwangju is much more laid back. Plus, it feels like we are getting a more “authentic” Korean experience here. People in Seoul seemed a little more aloof and cynical, where as in Gwangju everyone is friendly and open. It felt good to come home!!!

Well this is very long already so I won’t say anything more today. I hope that this finds each of you well and we would love to hear from all of you. Getting email from home always brightens our day!

Love always, Jon and Emily Reesor

The Call to Melons

Hey everyone! Jon here. This is my first official blog post.

When I first arrived in Korea everything was still new and a little foreign (okay, actually a lot foreign). I was in our apartment just relaxing when I heard a voice on the street coming through what sounded like a world war II speaker.

Not speaking Korean, I was worried it may have been a demand for all foreigners to immediately report outside the apartment building or a warning about a natural disaster or something like that. It also sounded remarkably like the call to prayer that you hear in Muslim nations.

It turns out that there are just a remarkable amount of people that sell things out of the back of trucks and they drive around using loudspeakers (not very good ones) to hock their wares. They normally sell food type things (melons, cases of little dried fish, onions, or garlic) and occasionally other things like knives or sunglasses.

The Muslims have their call to prayer, the Koreans their call to melons.

Taking the bus...

Public transportation is the only way to travel here in Korea. Korea is one of the safest countries in the world apparently, as long as you don't drive! I could not imagine driving here, the roads are crazy all the time. Nevertheless, taking public transportation is not without its own set of adventures. Generally, the subway is calm and not crowded, and taxis are cheap and fast, but taking the bus is another story. Jon and I take the bus the most of all, because we are on very good routes and it is very cheap. It is certainly an adventure though!

Today for instance, I was taking the bus home from downtown after Jon went to the school. It was raining out really hard so everyone and their MANY umbrellas were dripping wet and the whole lot of us smelt slightly like wet poodle. On top of that, it was incredibly hot and humid inside the bus, and very crowded. It felt like being in a giant moving steamroom with a bunch of fully clothed people. The crowd was impressive. All the seats were full and those of us standing were three deep. There is no room for personal space issues on the bus. Basically, you work together with everyone else to stay standing. That means leaning on whoever is behind and beside you as you accelerate and turn.

The thing that always adds to the adventure of the bus, especially when you are standing, is the fact that all the busses here are manual transmissions. Manual transmissions generally driven badly. No matter how skilled you have become at leaning into the turns and balancing during the acceleration and deceleration, nothing prepares you for the clutch pop. At least once a ride, the bus driver pops the clutch and everyone looses their balance. Today on the bus it was a pop clutch while going over a speed bump, right before turning. You simply do not have a hope!

So the wet poodles in a steam room, falling all over each other when the clutch pops is always quite a sight to see, but it is an endearing part of daily life here in our new home!

Stay tuned for more anecdotes from our life in this crazy and marvelous place!

signing off for now, Emily Reesor

Pictures from our Trip to Daejeon

Here are some pictures of the amusement park in Daejeon:













This was a marching band from America. They were so cute!

Our Trip to Daejeon

August 17, 2005

Greetings once again from Korea!! For those of you who are reading this on your email, I just want to let you know that you can access all of our updates at our blog. The address for our blog is www.reesorsinkorea.blogspot.com . All of our updates are at this site, as well as additional posts and pictures!! You can also leave us little notes there too!


This is the last week of summer intensive -- Alleluia! We have only three more days and we are very happy about that. Then we go back to having our mornings together again, and I can't wait. This has actually gone a lot better than I thought it would though, we have really made the best of it and it has gone pretty fast.


Every day Korea is starting to feel more and more like home. We are starting to build routines here and things are more familiar. We have a walk that we do every night through the neighborhood and a nearby park. They have exercise equipment there for adults so we are doing inclined situps and chinups every night. Then we usually go for ice cream... We have earned it by then right?!?! You can get ice cream cones from a place kind of like McDonald's for less than 50 cents Canadian. Or you can get ice cream bars from convenience stores for about 50 cents. Its a great deal!


This past weekend was a long weekend here in Korea. It was independence day from the occupation by the Japanese. It was a very interesting holiday to be a part of. It has only been sixty years since Japanese occupation. Its crazy when the history is so recent. Lots of people would still remember what it was like. Independence day was also interesting because it became a real rallying day for the reunification of the two koreas. They were waving flags with a picture of all of Korea reunited (north and south). They have a long way to go before that could ever happen but they are taking steps every day. A telephone line has just been established between the two Koreas, as well as work on a railway. And on independence day there was opportunity for video conferencing between families on either side who haven't seen each other in many decades. It was very emotional. I imagine it is quite a bit like east and west Berlin.


On the long weekend we took the bus to a city about 2 hours away called Daejeon. We wanted to go there because they have a costco, and we heard that costco has a lot of western food that you can't get anywhere else. While we were driving into Daejeon though, we drove past an amusement park and decided at the spur of the moment to go there. The amusement park was called "Kumdori Land" and it was so much fun!! Daejeon hosted an expo and so they have amazing facilities all in one area. We went on a big rollercoaster (Jon's first big rollercoaster ride!) as well as a bunch of other rides. It was ridiculously hot that day though but we bought some sunscreen and drank lots of water. And if we got to hot we would just go on the water ride to cool off!


After an awesome day at Kumdori land we took a taxi to costco. Costco was like a big party! We were able to get cheese, tortillas, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese etc. It was awesome! Then they had costco hotdogs and pizza just like at home! As we were leaving we were looking for a taxi to take us home and discovered that costco is about half a block from the train station. We walked in to see if we could take a train back to Gwangju and we could. We decided to splurge and take a first class train car! It was awesome! Our seats were so spacious and we got free drinks. The train could travel to up to 300kms an hour. It was definitely the way to go!


There is a blog posting with pictures from our trip if you would like to take a look at them.


We have found an amazing Italian restaurant here. It is a sister restaurant with another restaurant in Rome, Italy. It is absolutely beautiful inside with a loft and a grand piano and big couches that you sit on. The food is also incredible, and not very expensive. It is definitely one of our favorite places here in Gwangju.


Smoothies. I haven't told you about smoothies yet. Everywhere here you can get fresh fruit smoothies for a dollar. They are made right in front of you and they are incredibly delicious. You can get pineapple, strawberry, kiwi, orange, nectarine, melon etc. We get smoothies almost everyday at lunch. We already know we are going to miss the smoothies when we get home.


Anyway, this is really long so I will send it now. I hope that all of you are doing well and we would LOVE to hear from you!


Love, Jon and Emily Reesor

Life in Gwangju - August 8, 2005

Hello Everyone!

I thought that I would do a quick blog update today at the fresh beginning of a new week here in Korea! We were very excited to find out today that Jon's last day of summer intensive is August 19th, a lot sooner than we thought it was! We are very happy about that, and it means soon our schedules will go back to being a bit more normal!

We had a good weekend, it was fun to hang out with some of our new friends here in Korea. We hosted a bible study at our house on Saturday, attended by two other foreigners we have met, as well as two Koreans. We had a great time together, and afterwards we ordered in Pizza and Fried Chicken and played games!! It was such a treat to play games again. As our Canopy friends can attest to, we are big game lovers!! We still do miss poker night, and settlers though. Lee and Holly, if only we could somehow snap our fingers to have you here!

It was very nice to have a Korean in the house who could order food for us to be delivered. It was such a treat! They come insanely fast here, and all food delivery people drive motorcycles like crazy people here!! You will often get cut off on the SIDEWALK by motorcycles who are trying to get out of traffic :)

On Saturday afternoon we went to a coffee shop with some friends and one of our friends ordered this very fancy looking drink...Isn't it beautiful??

I have made friends with some old women who sit on benches beside our apartment building. They speak no English, but they are totally fascinated with this foreigner who comes and sits with them. They touch me a lot, fan me with their fans, look through my bags, and speak a lot in Korean, but I really want to show them Jesus' love even if I don't speak their language. They are so precious.

Jon and I are planning on starting Korean classes in September and I think that will really open up a lot of doors . Its strange having no clue what people are saying most of the time.

We bought some really cool shirts here the other day. I got one that has a picture of Bambi on it looking guilty and it says "Bomb!" on it. I don't know what it means exactly but it makes me laugh. I also got a Pippi longstocking shirt. Jon got a Batman shirt and some other comic book shirt. The clothes here are really cool and REALLY cheap!!

Its funny the combination of things that you see in buildings here. Everything in Korea is built "up" because there isn't any space, so in one building near us the main floor is a convenience store and hair salon, above that is a church, above that is a boxing club (sounds like the canopy) and above that is "Dr. Kim's internal medicine" weird eh??

When we had the bible study on Saturday, one of the Korean fellows, Phillip was getting ready to leave. It was kind of late so I said to him in a very concerned voice "are you sure you are going to be okay to get home??" and he said, "um yes, I AM Korean!!" I forgot that he could actually talk to people and he knows his way around. I am so used to us being so clueless!

I have some quick funny Korean anecdotes for ya:

at church the man who does announcements says "okay everyone, big hands" when he wants people to clap.

at a different church we went to the announcement guy was talking about some sign up form and he said "I will pass out after the service"

they have a brand of clothing here called "Canadian woodcutters" and their slogan is f***in' freezing! Its written on all of these shirts. I don't think people realize what their shirts say :)

the TV shows that are in English that you can get regularly here are Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Nanny.... I have no idea why!

we went to a board game cafe the other day and people had these giant orange toy hammers they kept hitting each other in the head with (see picture below)




sometimes, in those crane games (you know the ones where you can win stuffed animals at home) there are live hamsters as a prize!!! I have also seen phones, bras, and alarm clocks in crane games here.

there is a "Alien" themed Dance Dance Revolution room here in Gwangju!

Alright, I think that is about all from us here for now. We love you all and we miss you so much!!

Love, Emily and Jon

more pictures from Busan

My Ice Cream Cone is 32CM tall!!









This is the mineral bath at our hotel













These umbrellas are like this for as far as you can see down the beach!













We miss you!!!

pictures from our trip to Busan

This gives you an idea of the amount of umbrellas on this beach!!!

Lots of speedos!!!

August 3, 2005 Update

August 3, 2005

Hello Friends and Family!

Greetings again from Korea! I know it has been a while since our last update, I feel like I haven’t touched base in so long! We hope and pray that this email finds all of you well and in good health. We miss all of you very much! It is sometimes hard to be away from Edmonton, especially during the summer festival season! This is the first year in a very long time that I haven’t been a “festival junkie” back home! We are doing well though, and certainly are enjoying our summer here in Gwangju!

Korea still is such a precious corner of the world to us, and we are learning so much daily about the beautiful country and people who live here. The Koreans in our neighborhood are starting to get more used to seeing us walking around so we don’t get quite as many stares. I still have women touch my face, laugh when I walk by (good naturedly!), want to carry my bags, and offer me seats on the bus or subway. Apparently my red hair is quite a novelty here, so people do take my picture on their cell phones quite often. They don’t tell you they are doing it, but the “I’m taking a picture” cell phone stance is pretty unmistakable. Its fun though, you feel like a bit of a celebrity, and I am just grateful that the attention is positive rather than negative!

We just finished a week long holiday, which was such a treat! The first few days of our holiday we just hung around here in Gwangju. I finally got my alien registration card, as well as my passport back, which was a major load off. All of my visa stuff came through with no problem also! We were planning on going to Seoul, but ended up going to a different city here in Korea instead. We chose to go to Busan which is on the east coast of Korea, about a 4 hour bus ride from here. It was absolutely beautiful there! Once we arrived in Busan we managed to navigate our way on the subway all by ourselves! The subway system is massive, and we were on the subway for almost an hour traveling from one end of the city to the other. Busan is right on the ocean and we stayed right by the beach, it was so incredible. We got to swim in the ocean a few times, and the water was wonderful. The beach was so so busy, it was just a mass of umbrellas from one end to the other. We had a great time! Our motel had a mineral bath with hotspring water right in our hotel room! It was the coolest bathroom I have ever had in a hotel! Busan is definitely a place we would love to return to, being by the water was an awesome treat.

Jon is back at school starting today, still working the crazy long days. I am able to help him quite a bit getting stuff ready and making up worksheets and stuff, so I am keeping busy as well. We find that one of the hardest things here in Korea is figuring out what to eat. We are gradually adjusting though, and are coming up with a few more things to cook.

It has rained quite a bit here recently which has helped to cool things off. I am not constantly covered in sweat now! Tyronne’s (a teacher that works with Jon) family just arrived from New York and it is a real treat to have them here. His wife’s name is Gabriella and she is originally from Romania, and they have two kids, a two and a half year old girl and a 9 month old son. They are just precious! We went out for dinner with them last night and it was so fun to hang out with the kids!!! Their son is just starting to walk and Arwen is just a honey. They are definitely a hit with the ladies who work in the market!!

We have found a church here in Gwangju that we are going to try out for a while. They have a really great English service and the community is great! We have also joined a bible study with some other foreigners which is great also.

Anyway, this is probably long enough to be boring now!! We would love to hear from all of you, and if you have any questions for us about life in korea we would be glad to answer them in an upcoming update!!

We love you all and will talk again soon!

Emily and Jon

Ps. If you would like to see some pictures of our life here in Gwangju, or would like to read past updates, check out our blog at http://reesorsinkorea.blogspot.com

July 19, 2005 Update

July 19^th, 2005

Hello again from Korea!

Jon and I hope that this update finds each one of you well and enjoying summer! We keep track of the weather in Edmonton, and it looks like you are having some great sunny days! Here it continues to be very hot, but the humidity has decreased a little bit. We are definitely out of the rainy season now, so every day there is a beautiful blue sky and the mountains surrounding us are in clear view.

To keep cool, Korean women either use umbrellas (which they use for everything from sunny days to snow apparently!) or these really funny looking visors that are like a big tinted safety shield – looks like something we would have sold at Century Vallen! The umbrellas can be quite annoying at times because Jon and I are both taller than the average Korean so we often get umbrellas in the eye on the crowded streets.

Jon and I had a really great weekend here in Korea. On Friday night we went “downtown” to see the sights, but primarily to go to McDonalds!! Downtown feels like you are stepping right into any movie featuring an Asian city (like Lost in Translation). There are street upon street of stores carrying the hippest most current clothing styles. There are a lot of shirts here with English writing on them, but most of the time the English makes very little sense! Downtown also features the most western selection of stores. There is a Starbucks, KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse, TGIFridays etc.

On Saturday Mun Hwa, the school Jon teaches for had an event planned to welcome us and another new teacher named Tyrone. Originally we were supposed to go and climb a mountain, as I had mentioned in a previous email, but in typical Korean style plans changed at the last minute. Well actually, we were already driving up the mountain as our plans were changing…It started to rain so the cars just kept driving and driving up and down the mountain apparently waiting for the rain to stop. The rain never did stop so we ended up driving back to the school and eating lunch there. We had an awesome meal of some traditional Korean food and then we headed off to a “singing room”, called a “Nori Bong”.

The singing room was very fun! You basically go into a room with a big screen TV, two mics, and some tambourines and sing karaoke together! Since you are only in the room with the people you came with it’s not as scary as a karaoke bar and you can really let loose! We had a great time building a relationship with the Korean teachers at Jon’s school over this activity!

On Sunday we went to church which was cool. The church itself was HUGE, and their English service was a pretty good size as well. It’s hard though, because the service seemed to really be geared to Koreans who wanted a venue to practice their English rather than for native English speakers. Consequently it’s a lot of SLOW speaking and explaining things, but it was fun anyway! They had a big lunch after the service that they invited us to stay for so that was awesome.

We are starting to experience Korean department stores, which are crazy! The other day we went to an electronics market, which was just huge and packed with every sort of device imaginable. Today we went to “Home Plus” which is kind of like Wal Mart except that it has 5 floors! There they had some western comfort foods like cheese, Campbell’s soup, and tortilla chips.

I am really excited because I have an opportunity to do some volunteer work at a girl’s orphanage starting this weekend. They are looking for an English tutor to work with the girls and I am so juiced about being able to serve in this way. This coming Saturday we are going to a BBQ at the orphanage to meet the director and figure out what days will work. I also may have an opportunity to be an English tutor at a drop in center here in the city, which is also run by the orphanage. God is really opening up doors for me to serve people and I feel very blessed!

Anyway this email is long enough for now, thanks for reading! We would love to hear from all of you and find out how life is “back home!” Any emails we get mean so much to us trust me!

As promised, I have our “snail mail” address now, for now please send any correspondence to Jon’s school, I only have our address in Korean characters!

Jon and Emily Reesor C/O MunHwa Language School

67-14 Jang-Dong Dong Gu

Gwangju 501-060

South Korea

July 14, 2005 update

Greetings friends and family!

I (Emily) have arrived safely here in Korea, thanks to all of you who prayed for us, your prayers were certainly felt! My journey here came off without a hitch, as all of my various airport transfers; customs, baggage checks etc. were seamless! I encountered an abnormal amount of air turbulence on all of my flights so I was feeling quite sick when I finally arrived here in Gwangju but other than that I arrived in one piece as did my entire luggage.

I have adjusted well to the 15 hour time difference. It helped that I slept very little on any of the planes so going to bed when I got here was no problem!! I have been here in Gwangju now for 4 days and it really is an amazing place! It is also wonderful to be reunited with my beloved husband and to put late-night long-distance phone conversations behind us for a while!

From where I am sitting right now, I can look down over our balcony and see the Market below us where there are many stalls with fresh produce, fish, household goods, eggs, and of course – Kim chi!!! In the distance there are mountains all around, not like the Rockies but very green and lush. I also see row upon row of tall apartment buildings, and 16 churches!!!! All in all quite a different view that what I am used to, it is a lot to take in all at once.

We have spent my first few days here with Jon showing me around our neck of the woods here. We have gone out to eat Korean food twice now, and also to a nearby pizza and pasta place (one of very few places you can find cheese in Korea). Today we also went to the immigration office with a man from the school so Jon could pick up his resident alien card and I could apply for mine as well as for my spousal visa. Pray for the safety of my passport, it has to stay at the immigration office for a week while they process my visa and that always makes me nervous!

Prices of things are remarkable here. Yesterday we bought 12 red peppers for $2.50CDN! At the Lotteria, which is kind of like McDonalds, you can get really good ice cream cones for $0.30! Juice is also very inexpensive as is clothing.

The Korean people are very kind and respectful. We are definitely two of VERY few white people in this neighborhood but everyone is very nice. Sometimes people do laugh at you, I have no idea what at, more then likely I am doing something strangely! It is strange and hard not knowing the language, especially because people generally don’t get it when you don’t understand so they just keep talking to you in Korean. We are beginning to learn how to read the letters though, which really helps in figuring out what things are.

On Saturday all of the staff and spouses from Mun Hwa are going on a quasi field trip to Mudong Mountain, which is near here, so I am looking forward to that. We may also go to a Nori-bong, which is kind of like a karaoke bar I think.

Anyway, we love and miss all of you and appreciate so much your emails, please keep them coming. We definitely want to stay in touch with all of you as much as we can. In the mean time, may God richly bless every one of you.

Love always, Jon and Emily Reesor

Email: jonreesor@gmail.com

emilyreesor@gmail.com

Phone: 011-82-62-651-8941

The first leg of our journey has begun!

June 25, 2005

Greetings friends and family!

Today marks the official beginning of our adventure in Korea, well at least for half of the Reesor clan! Bright and early this morning (4:30 to be exact) we arrived at the airport in Edmonton to see Jon off on his flight. I (Emily) talked to him last when he called from the airport in Seattle, where he changed planes on his way to Seoul and eventually Gwangju, our home for the next year.

Jon is doing well at last report and is currently flying somewhere over the ocean...

We will continue to update our blog and hope you enjoy hearing from us!

Love, Jon and Emily Reesor