in the hands of time

Well, hello from South Korea. We have passed our three month mark. Its true what they say... the newness does wear off and it has for us. I am not at all saying that we are not enjoying our lives here, but lets just say that now we are down to life~ the "real nitty-gritty" as my friend Nacho Libre once said. We are now facing a form of culture shock (for it does come in many forms) and are getting used to being in a foreign land. The vacation is over. We now have a 13 month visa in our passports...this is for real, folks. Now, on to more exciting news... here's what we have been up to lately:

1. Robert bought a guitar! FINALLY... He has been missing his terribly and was debating whether or not to have it shipped, but decided it would be much cheaper just to buy one. I am so thrilled to be hearing him play again. Recently he has been teaching himself how to play Blues from Youtube :)

2. I baked for the first time since arriving!!! Now, before you say "Wait, didn't she say she didn't have an oven?! Was that a falsehood just to make us feel sorry for her?!" Let me quickly put your minds to rest. Life is terribly hard without an oven (*smirk*), so I resorted to other means. Many of you remember my rice cooker banana bread, which is a smashing success, if I do say so myself, so I figured, hey why not? Muffins would work too, right? Well, sort of. Here are the results:

So I put my steamer in there and steamed them, and they kind of turned out 

more like Chinese dumplings....

 Then I thought, "I'm just going to try them in the toaster oven.." 

And guess what? They actually worked!!

 Toaster oven muffin meets Dumpling muffin

3. We had a big "Going Away" party for our friend Chris. We obviously had a ton of fun but are sad to see him go. In the short time of being here, he was one of our closest friends. 

Believe me when I say that I didn't go to sleep for a very long time on account of the copious amounts of sugar and coffee that were ingested! 

Thanks Roger, Jasmine, Hannah, Inseok, Sean, Susan and Jamie 

for making this such a fun evening! 

And of course... we will miss you, Chris!! 

4. Then, after church we had another going away party for him, which ended with a lovely walk by the Han River... unfortunately my camera could not capture the beauty but it was a gorgeous view! 

5. The hospital messed up and didn't test for two more things. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except for the fact that when the hospital turned in our paperwork to the government, the government said they had to re-evaluate the hospital since they weren't adhering to the recently changed 12 pt. checkup instead of the previous 10 pt. one that we had received. So, we just had to wait and then finally this morning we were able to go back for 5 minutes to do the other 2 tests. Poor Robert is so anxious for his motorcycle and all he needs is his Registration card to pick it up. It will be soon. Once the paperwork clears, someone from our school will go to the immigration office and get our cards. YAY!!! 

6. I experienced my first migraine. Not cool. This place has a way of taking your immune system for a spin. I rarely got sick before but here I have had multiple spats of illness. Anyway, not to dwell on the negative. It was just one evening and after Robert got some medicine from the pharmacy (our Pharmacy is run by a doctor who studied in the states so his English is very good), I was good to go in a few hours. One of the co-teachers said migraines are quite common here due to the intense heat. Hopefully that was my last for awhile. 

7. I continually get pampered by my students. Its the cutest thing ever! The other day I let one of the classes have a party because they had finished their book and a few of them came bringing me little chocolate bars and pastries. Then today a group of my older girls gave me face masks. They said it was because I was kind :) I love those kids! 

So, we are finishing up this week and then its a long weekend. Our Memorial Day is Monday so we get the day off. We're pretty  excited. We were invited by one of our co-teachers to attend a church group mini-vacation with her family. They attend an English service and there will be another foreign couple going as well. It will be really fun to be with them and to spend the holiday with people! 

Until next time....