Korea

Hello everyone,

Jolene and I have been here a little over a week and enjoying ourselves greatly. The first few days were a bit hectic as we were trying to adjust to jet lag, observing and teaching classes, and moving from a motel to our apartment. Our apartment does have two bedrooms but it is very small. Jolene and I bet on whether it is bigger or smaller than our last apartment. I said it was bigger. Jolene won. With a grand total of 277 sq. ft. our new apartment is about half the size of our one in Dana Point.

We live in the neighborhood of Poong-Am in the City of Gwangju and are about five minutes walk from the two schools we teach at. Jolene's schedule has her teaching 4-7 year olds for five hours in the morning and 1st and 3rd graders in the afternoon. My schedule is a bit different as I teach two 6 year old classes in the morning and have a full schedule in the afternoon with kids from 1st grade to 8th grade. Our classes have a wide range of English levels. At 5:10 p.m. I teach four kids the basics of english including Hello, my-name-is, and listen-to-the-teacher-because-I-don't-speak-any-Korean. At 8:00 p.m. our class discusses the greed of king Midus and whether the Greek god Dionyseus was cruel or just.

The food here has been great. Jolene and I have both found favorites in the Korean cuisine. Jolene likes the Kimchi soup and the flavored milk (banana, stawberry and coffee), while I like the Korean BBQ beef wrapped in lettuce leafs with sardines, pickled onions and a red-pepper, garlic sauce. We have made some friends here who have been escorting to various places in the city and helping find the authentic Korean food places. I must say that Jolene and I both agree that the best food we have tasted here has been the Sushi. It is far superior at nearly half the price compared to American resturants.

Our classes are on summer break right now and our friends have gone so we will be trying to figure out what we are going to do with our time. We want to travel a bit but it is fairly expensive at this time of year and there is still plenty of things we want to see here in Gwangju. We will update you all next week when we return and hopefully we should have a host of pictures to accompany this boring text. Thank you all again for your support and interest in our lives and experiences.

Cheers,

-David and Jolene