Happy New Year - 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Happy New Year! Tonight we ate Korean food for the first time without someone who could translate for us. We decided to venture out on our own. It was an adventure. We looked around for a while and finally found a place about three blocks away. That was only after we had randomly walked around for about 2 miles. We just wanted to explore and get out of our apartment for a while. We haven't set up the internet yet and haven;t really purchased a lot for our place yet. It is kind of boring right now. I know it will be better once we get a few more things for our place. We also have a lot of planning for our classes on Monday. The only other thing that remains to be seen is whether or not there will be a foreign teacher meeting this weekend downtown. I haven't been by their facebook page in a while. We need to check it out soon.

For now, Happy New Year.
새해 복 많이 받으세요!

I know it is going to be exciting!

Hospital

So we woke up this morning and were met by Sean to be taken to the hospital so they could run tests and check out our status for our medical form required by immigration. We have to get this done before we can apply for our alien registration card. We went through quite a few hoops, but nothing to serious. They drew some blood, took a chest x-ray, height, weight, heart monitored, drug test, and a few others.

We started the process and got to the final interview when we were informed the doctor upstairs forgot to run one of the tests so we had to go all the way back upstairs strip down and have a heart monitor done. Finally after getting dressed again we went back to the original office for our interview. They asked us some questions and we left finally almost two hours later.

The upside of things is that during our tests it began to snow outside. Jack looked like a little kid. The expression on his face was priceless. My husband is a true Floridian. He has only seen snow one other time in his lifetime. He was trying to catch it on his tongue. It was hilarious.

After a full day, we are going to fill in for a few classes and then we are off to buy a few items for our place. Mostly necessities. We will get any luxury items after our first paycheck. ha ha I am nervous about the teaching as well, but I know it will be okay. :) More later.

We are here.

We arrived in Seoul early Monday morning and took a bus ride from the airport to our city. On the way we drove through beautiful mountains and tunnels, not that I was awake to witness any of it as I was completely unconscious in my seat knocked out from a Airborne cocktail and NyQuil. Apparently I have been sitting next to the sickest person in my vicinity. On the bus even the older gentleman sitting ahead of me sounded like he was going to hack up a lung.

When we arrived we were greeted at the airport by Sean, the same person who conducted our phone interview at the school. He took us out to a really great lunch and then took us to a really great hotel for the night because our apartment was in the process of being cleaned. We fell asleep at three in the afternoon Gwangju time. BIG mistake as we were up by three am and watched movies the whole night. We found a website online and watched Alvin and the Chipmunks Sqeakual. We then met Sean again that next day and were taken out to another great lunch with Pizza. The pizza was interesting to say the least, but not entirely bad either. I enjoyed it along with the awesome seafood pasta. From me that means a lot because I do not like seafood, but it ROCKED!

After lunch, we went to see our school for the first time. We met the teacher we are taking the place of and got to ask a million questions. I think she was tired of us by the end of the day. haha We met our school director as well. He was really nice and we think we are going to get along very well. He and his wife were both very nice.

Later in the evening we moved into our apartment. The directors from the other campus dropped off some house warming gifts for us. They brought us some kitchen stuff as well as some nice bedding. It was very considerate of them. We finally got to bed around nine after we unpacked a little bit. It is starting to feel a bit more like home.

Goodbye everyone. We depart in just a few hours. We will arrive in Korea on Monday morning. I will update as soon as I am able to. It may be a while. I am sure we will be busy at first.

안녕 모두들. 우리는 단지 몇 시간에 출발합니다. 우리 한국은 월요일 아침에 도착하는 것입니다. 내가 마자 수있게 업데이 트됩니다. 그 동안 수있습니다. 난 우리가 처음에 바쁜이 되리라 확신합니다.



(For the above text I used Google translate. I am just hoping I did not inadvertently butcher sentence structure or use profane language by accident) haha



Farewell! 안녕히!

PACKING PHASE 2

Can i just say that Space Bags (Vacuum Storage Bags) are a gift from God. I have packed twice what i thought I could in the allotted amount of baggage for our airline and it is all within weight range. The bags are deceiving because they are small, but still heavy. It through me for a loop at first. I then began to pack them in the smaller suitcase which now weigh fifty pounds. Our large suitcase was used for our random things like shoes, makeup, some of my favorite shampoo, and a few other things we needed.

Packing so far includes:

Clothes
Coats/Jackets
Swimwear/Sunscreen
Some toiletries
Shoes
A few Hats
Camera
Laptops

Let Phase Two commence. I have been scouring through our house looking for items we have forgotten or couldn't locate. I am just about at my wits end for all of this packing nonsense. I wish could just take a t-shirt, a hoodie and a pair of tennis shoes and be set. I however know that my exceptionally girly and needy side just wouldn't stand for that. If ever there was a time I wish I, who is not very high maintenance to begin with, were even lower maintenance. Oh well, until then, the packing continues...

OH MY...

So much to do. My to do list is stacking up. I was looking over what I need to accomplish tomorrow and the list is staggering. I cannot do anything after that because most major businesses are closed for the holidays. While I am excited and thankful for Christmas, it is beginning to stress me out. haha. Tomorrow begins with another fateful trip to the dentist, a mad fury of transferring, paying, and managing bills, Cancelling phone services, and about a million other things. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I have to pack. :D What a day! Now if I can just fall asleep I will be doing good. It is 2:23 in the morning and I have to be at the dentist at 8:00 am. I can tell this day is going to be a crazy one...

Working on my Korean

Well over the last few days I have come to the realization that I have no clue as to a basic working knowledge of Korean. I have been working on my alphabet and basic words and phrases, but I am afraid I am butchering the language. Hopefully by this weekend I will have at least a little bit more down.

Here is a great site I found on another teachers blog that has been very helpful:

http://langintro.com/kintro/first.htm

Our departure is in five days. Wow. Just wow. I finished purchasing our last few necessary items for departure and will hopefully be finished packing within the next day or so.

On a side note it is also my two year anniversary today. I wonder how you say Happy Anniversary in Korean. Unfortunately, I have a dentist appointment following my checkup yesterday when I found out I had a couple cavities. I was informed by my dentist I should get them taken care of before we leave. I also need a cleaning but I figured I could get that done in Korea. Oh well, enough for now.

Consulate Interview

We scheduled our interview for next week on Wednesday. We are SO excited. We should have our visa by next thursday and are scheduled for departure on December 27th just after Christmas. I can't wait! 16 DAYS!

The Visa Numbers Are Here!!!

It seems like it has taken forever, but the entire process has not taken that long at all. We received our visa numbers today from our contact with our school in Korea. We are so excited. There are only two more steps before we can leave for Korea. We are going to have to send more paperwork, then go in for our interview. Once that is completed they mail out passports back and we leave for the great city of Gwangju. It seems like the long process has suddenly sped up a lot faster than I am perhaps mentally and even physically ready to deal with. I am getting a bit overwhelmed with my to do list over the next two weeks. All of this Korea stuff, packing, visiting my family in Atlanta, and about a million other things. Also, we got another nice surprise in the mail today. Our copy of Rosetta Stone (we ordered levels 1 & 2) came in today. We are off to buy Jack's new laptop tomorrow and when we do, we will install it and get started learning the new language. Jack keeps joking saying that I am going to learn the language and he is just going to tote me around with him as his translator so he doesn't have to learn as much. I am simply not having that though. I am going to make him do his lessons as well. That way if he needs to find a bathroom or something he can do it on his own. haha.

Crystal