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