Things are moving along as we're finding more opportunities to immerse ourselves in the culture.

I found a weekly Korean class for me to take that is very specific to my level, so that is a serious win. And it is while the girls are in school.  I went in today to meet the teacher and I was impressed.  As she administered the placement test, she taught me grammar in a very clear way, teaching me things that nobody has explained before!  I am excited to learn with her.  Also, after the placement test she said that my grammar is really advanced (which is a stretch) but that my speaking needs work.  I wanted to hug her!  My class back home in the states did not give a lot of speaking opportunities as it mainly focused on writing.  She was appalled by this, which says a lot about her teaching style.  I can't wait to practice speaking more and then practicing even more with family!  

Tonight we went and watched the taekwondo class that Lilly and Elise are going to take.  The majority of the kids in the class are black belts, like good little Koreans, but there are a few beginners. (their friend, Yeju, is one of them)  It is three days a week of exercise, discipline and speaking Korean.  Woot woot.  Elise is less than thrilled about it but I love making my kids do things that are good for them. (Hey, we're in Korea, right?)

Korean school is going well.  Lilly asks me if she can stay home every day (which is kind of a repeat from last trip here) and Elise started crying in class when they had to read their essays in Korean BUT they always come home telling me that it went well.  I am very glad that this school is a very gentle environment for them to learn Korean vs the Korean public school system.  Their classes are small (5-8 people), their teachers are patient and, with them being the youngest students, they're treated very well.  It is also a little more reassuring this time around as I now know that they will probably be crying when they have to leave in December, just like last time.  

We also had the Sister Missionaries from our branch over yesterday.  It was fun visiting with them but it was also nice feeling the sweet spirit that follows them.  They shared a message that accompanied the well known marshmallow video, talking about how much this trip can benefit the girls for years to come.  They talked about the many blessings that can come out of our time here and how the girls may not see those blessings right away, but that they will come.  I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that sent this message to our family, just when we needed it.    

what to do?

August 29, 2018

(Halmoni took me out for oxtail soup, which is at the top of Chris' very short "least favorite Korean food" list.  I loved it!)

Today was day 2 of the girls school and I decided something.  I have got to figure out something to do during the day.  Homeschooling my girls for the past The girls are gone from 9-3:30 and I am not used to having this much time on my hands.  The apartment is small so it was clean super fast.  I hung out with Halmoni and her social worker helper friend, Mrs. Hwang, for 2 hours.  We spoke Korean the whole time so I am thinking that counted as some serious study time. (by the way, Mrs. Hwang said my Korean is much better than last trip.  I was starting to doubt if there had been any improvement over the last couple of years so I am celebrating this!)  I had to explain to her Chloe’s dual enrollment program, which I possibly shouldn’t have even tried.  I am not sure if she understood in the end.  Beyond that, I studied. All day long.  It was a very long day and I need to find more things to fill it.  

I would like to start interviewing Halmoni so I may start doing that during the day.  Chris and I made a list of questions that we want to record her answering.  After I figure out all of the technology, I think the daytime would be ideal as there won’t be kids bouncing off the wall in the background.  I’ve scanned in all of Halmoni’s pictures, but I would like to record her telling me about each picture.  All attempts to find a place to volunteer have been unsuccessful as of yet.  If I sign up for a language class, they’re all at night.  With the kids gone all day I feel like it would be pretty jerky of me to run away two nights a week.  I’m going to keep looking for a daytime language class.  Oooh.  Mrs. Hwang IS trying to find someone to teach me how to make a hanbok (a traditional Korean costume), so that could keep me busy for a while.  I would love to learn the technique behind making these beautiful costumes and get my hands on a pattern.  But until I find something useful to do with my time, I am going to be forced into some lovely relaxation time at the jjimjilbang tomorrow.  Every time I have gone so far, I have been on a time crunch and only spent 1-2 hours there, which is down right criminal.  Tomorrow, I plan on spending as much time as I can stand there.  Halmoni is gone all day tomorrow, the kids are gone all day tomorrow and the jjimjilbang is calling. 

Hannah and I are heading over to check out a b-boying class tonight to see if she has the guts to join it.  I emailed them today to confirm that girls are actually allowed in a b-BOYing class and they are.  The next question is “Are there girls in the class?”.  We shall see.  Either way, it will be fun just to see the class in action.  

Oh, if I could count how many times over the past few days I have questioned my decision to pack up our crew and head to Korea!  Every time I start to feel this way, right after shoving those thoughts deep down inside me to keep my brave face, things work out.  So here I am, smiling and hoping that things will work out.  Hoping I am not scarring my kids, hoping they have a good experience here and hoping that we come out of this closer than we were heading in.   I know there are reasons why we came here and why we're supposed to be here for this extended period of time.  I just don't know all of those reasons yet.  I will tell you that sweet and wonderful wang Halmoni has been waiting for us to return for two years.  She saved our water bottle, my scale, the girls' brush and my 4 hair curlers.  If we had left a bobby pin, I think she would have saved that too.  And every older lady in the apartment building that we have talked to knows all about us and that Halmoni was waiting for us to come.  I am glad that we were able to give her something else to look forward to. (and hopefully she won't be looking forward to us leaving in December!)

Yesterday we went back to our little branch in Gyeongsan.  There were 20 people in attendance minus us and two return missionaries that were visiting. (siblings who both served in Korea...I love when that happens!) So the five of us now make up ⅕ of the attending congregation.  It felt like coming back home to see old faces. After the second hour, we realized that church was over.  Somewhere in the past two years, they have cut their meeting time to two hours and added a yummy lunch afterwards.  I'm not completely sure what their reasoning was, but I think it really does lessen the burden on individual members of such a small congregation.  When you have 3 hours of talks and classes, someone has to prepare that material and often one person has to prepare 3 different talks/lessons in one Sunday.  It makes sense and it seems to work for them.  Lilly loved primary because instead of just her and another boy, they have 3 lively junior primary kids that she gets to play with.  After church, Rachel and I scanned a bunch of Halmoni's pictures.  Among the treasures was this picture of Chris' mom.  Before this, the oldest picture I had of her was as a teenager.    I'm so grateful that Rachel found this album and made me sit down to scan them. (I'll post more later because they're pretty spectacular.)

Rachel and Collin heading back up to Seoul today to finish off their trip.  We loved getting to play with them and adventure about but as soon as they left, things did start to feel a little more routine.  Chloe and I rode the subway to the grocery store and brought home just enough that we could carry. (Emart had the nerve to close their location right across the street from our apartment!)  We went with dear sweet Mrs. Hwang (Halmoni's weekly helper) on an adventure to take a Korean test.  My Korean is so lovely that I thought she said that the girls' school didn't have a class anymore. The girls were happy to see us get on our very familiar bus, go on our very familiar route and end up getting off our very familiar stop.  The school had moved locations, which is what she must have said when speaking at the speed of light in Korean.  The girls start class tomorrow after being sorted into their houses via a pretty intense placement test.  Surprisingly enough, the two that said they guessed when they got frustrated are in the lower class.  And then we came home and made a routine Korean dinner.  All in all, a pretty routine day that we survived.  And topped off with popsicles.  Why? Because Emart may have shut down but a new Popsicle shop opened up around the corner.  It is a whole shop full of so many different types of ice cream.  Oh, and because the humidity is trying to kill us.

the train to busan

We were sitting around the apartment yesterday feeling pretty hot and planning a day trip to Gyeongju for Saturday when we checked the weather. The typhoon had switched directions, making a trip to Busan doable again and Collin was hunkering to meet Busan. The kids threw a change of clothes in their backpack and we booked it to the train station, barely missing our train. Just kidding. We only thought we had missed our train.  I may have tried to get them to reopen the door but I learned a valuable lesson. Always check the train number before pounding on a train.  We ventured into downtown Busan with me being promoted to lead tour guide since Chris wasn’t here.  I found I may not have paid very close attention to my surroundings when he was leading us around Busan two years ago.  

A few things that we learned from our trip:

•Busan is more fun with a seafood lover at the helm.  Some of the girls love seafood but they didn’t even know where to begin when ordering. 

•Don’t hop onto a tour boat before asking where it takes you. It could be fun though!

•If you have lost your cat in Korea, look for it around Busan Tower.  We saw more than 20 cats wandering around on our way up.  It is now dubbed “고양이 공원”. 

•Koreans (who sure do love their umbrellas) aren’t as wimpy with rain as I thought.  They will play in the ocean in the pouring rain.

•If you look hard enough in the direction of Japan on a cloudy day, you can convince yourself that you see Japan. The mind is a wonderful thing.  

•The street food in Busan is alive and well but choose a tempura stall that re-fries your order instead of microwaving it. 

•Guest houses are the way to go.  They have yet to let me down, they’re cheap, they fit our family AND every one that I’ve stayed at has used great decision making skills when choosing their fonts, graphics and decor.  This trip, we stayed at Kimchee House @ Busan Station and they did not disappoint. 

•You may be mistaken for an American tv show when you have a huge family walking down a street food alley with two GoPros. 

The most important lesson? Always be willing to throw a change of clothes into your backpack and run off on last minute train trip.

side note: My korean skills are a bit rusty but they are getting us around.  Tonight we hopped into the elevator with some Korean women who said their floor level to each other and I confirmed in Korean and pushed the button.  They were so surprised that I understood. (yeah...I know numbers. sort of. The darn Koreans have two numbering systems but that's a story for another day) They proceeded to discuss our yummy smelling fried chicken and we had a nice little chat in Korean.  Small successes.

popsicles are saving our lives over here in this humidity

a small sampling of the many many stairs down to the boat 

a true oceanfront restaurant

sometimes a spontaneous boat ride to a mystery location can be the highlight of your day 

turning 40 in Korea

Today I turned 40.  Or do I turn 40 tomorrow?  I'm thinking of milking the international time flop and celebrating my birthday on Korean time and Pacific Standard time.

I started off my day walking down to the park with Lilly and Elise.  They are thrilled to be so close to so many parks again.  After breakfast, I headed to a "mok yok tang" or bath house, which I have been bribing myself with for the last couple of weeks.  (You can do this, Sarah.  Just 2 more weeks and you will be moved and going to a bathhouse!)  It worked.  I made it.  And I got to go to a bathhouse on my birthday.  Bathhouses are a little more rustic than Jjimjilbangs in that I think they're a more regular part of peoples' day.  This particular one was a 5 minute walk from our apartment and it was full of women of all sorts of ages and body types.  It wasn't quite as clear cut as the jjimjilbang in ways of signage so I may have stepped in a pool that wasn't a pool and dipped my washcloth in a place that it wasn't supposed to be dipped in.  The nice ajumas (older married women) there set me straight and gave me a lot of opportunities to practice Korean.  There was actually quite a bit of Korean practice going on there and despite it being a little bit of a scary experience, my goal is to go back weekly.  It is such a quintessential Korean experience where you are participating in their culture head first.  Love it.  And the feeling you get when you pour ice cold water on yourself after sitting in the hot tub is rejuvenating.

What else did we do today?  We went to the Seomun Sijang (market) with Collin and Rachel, introduced them to Artbox (a shop with all things adorable and Korean), shopped our favorite bookstore and ate some tasty "subway chicken".  Subway chicken actually has a more complicated and hard to remember name, but it is sold in the subway so, of course, we have dubbed it subway chicken.  It was hot and humid with a typhoon headed our way so we were sweating like crazy and praising the rain when it finally arrived. The whole day was great but at the end, all of the family pulled together a birthday dinner since Rachel's a big mouth.  We went to our Aunt's Korean bbq joint and stuffed ourselves with all of the fam.  It really did feel so good to be back with all of these people who I came to love so much on our last visit.   They got me a beautiful cake made out of little rice cakes and we left the dinner with plans for Lilly and Elise to do Taekwondo with their friend, Yeju, and for me to tutor Yeju in English.  So, all in all, a wonderful way to turn 40.  My favorite way to spend my birthday is always with my family and today I was surrounded by them. 

Korea 2018: scared like crazy

Well, we are on our way to Korea.  This happened last time we went to Korea, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised at these feelings I’m having on a bigger scale.  Fear.  I hate fear.  It keeps me from doing so many things.  My little introvert self stays home from events, doesn’t invite people over, backs out of commitments…all because of fear.  This fear is kind of like having a baby fear.  About halfway through each pregnancy, I come to the realization that I am in over my head.  Not only do I need to go through labor again, but I realize that I have another baby on the way that I will most likely screw up.  That’s a little like this Korea trip.  The tickets were purchased and plans should have been coming along, but we were too busy moving to really prepare.  I stopped studying Korean because I was too much of a nut case.  I started worrying about Chris’ grandma and her ability to put up with us for 4 whole months.  I started wondering if we would wear out our welcome with other family.  Chloe and I have some pretty epic plans to play around with videography while in Korea and I’m realizing I have no idea what I’m doing.   So I am now aboard an airplane that is a few hours away from Seoul and I am scared.  Not emotional wreck scared but pretty yucky on the inside.  We have a grocery list of things that we want to see, do and accomplish in Korea but right now I’m just hoping we can survive.  There you have it.  Confessions of this “adventurous”  and scaredy cat momma.    

Our little trip bucket list has little and big adventures on it.  Most of the things on there probably won’t happen but we are going to try our darndest to work our way through it.   We’ll try to blog away as we explore and, who knows, we may even make a couple of videos.   As for now, I am praying for peace and guidance so we can make the most out of this trip.