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