Today is Liberation Day in Korea so happy Liberation Day to all!  We're enjoying our last week here in Korea and seeing all our friends one last time.  We had Christina and her husband Philipp in town this week and we had a good time, despite the heat.  We visited Gyeongju on Tuesday to see all the historical sites.  We spent Wednesday visiting a spa and then a temple. Our good friend Kim took us to a temple and we had the very special experience of having tea with a monk.  He was quite the tea expert and described the differences between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese tea. 

We had the pleasure of joining Mr. Lee and his wife for one last dinner last night.  They took us to a nice restaurant and we enjoyed duck and great conversation.  We were so touched when he gave us one of his paintings as a goodbye present.

We've got a busy few days left as we finish up our goodbye's and start the process of packing for our return home!

Our week of vacation is over and I'm sorry to say it wasn't that eventful.  We did make it into Daegu most every day and got Bella's vaccinations taken care of for the flight home.  We are starting an intensive camp this week that runs 12 hours everyday so we've packed our advil and we're almost ready to go!

We had some students over for lunch yesterday and had a delightful time.  Knowing what an effort it is for them to communicate in English it's touching to see them make such an effort.  They brought us two gifts to say goodbye - one was a small snow globe (so we could still see the snow even back in Texas they said) and the other was a travel coffee cup.  It was very sweet.

We've decided to compile a list of our top 10 things about living in Korea - so here goes:

1.           It doesn’t seem weird to bring your own toilet paper to work everyday

2.           You respond to the name Sam (teacher in Korean)

3.           You chow down on the butt of a loaf of bread and call it a meal

4.           You will never think of a squid the same way again

5.           A dixie cup of water is all you need in a day to drink

6.           Spelling simple English words are a challenge - for example, you can no long recall if the word fair is spelled F-I-A-R or F-A-I-R

7.           The bathroom smells like a bad port-o-potty at a construction site even when nobody has used it.

8.           Air conditioners, clothes dryers and dishwashers seem like items of luxery (or is it luxury??)

9.           It’s now second nature to use your elbows to box people out as you hold your place and line and make your way to the cashier

10.       You search for the freshest drink at the grocery store and consider yourself lucky if the expiration date passed less than a year ago.

Alright folks, until next time.

Robin and Brittney (English names they have chosen for themselves)

In case anyone is counting along with us, we have one month until our return to the good 'ol USA.  And while we've had a tremendous experience here in Korea, it has sure made us thankful for our American passports. 

This past week was filled with English camps and we're back at it again this week.  Brad is at an all day camp for Elementary students and I'm doing half day camps for middle schoolers.  The camps can be a little grueling just because it's a long time to spend in one room together - especially when there is such a huge language barrier.  However, it's a smaller group of students and for the most part, they are really excited to be there.

Last week was our last days teaching in our middle/high schools and we said goodbye to all our students.  In one class the students brought in food and we had a little goodbye party, it was quite touching.  Their mother's had ordered hamburgers from the local Lotteria (Korea's version of McDonalds with a Korean twist) and some soda.  We all chowed down on hamburgers at 9:45 AM.  We were given several gifts by the students and one of Brad's students wrote him a note (using impressive English skills) to say goodbye.  It left us feeling loved.

We enjoyed a great dinner on Saturday night with one my fellow teachers and his wife.  It was a wide assortment of veggies and whole fish.  We had a great time enjoying their company.  We tried to catch the movie Batman on Sunday in Daegu, but it doesn't arrive in Korea until sometime in August, so we'll have to wait on that.

My sister Whitney turned 25 years old yesterday on the 20th, so Happy Birthday Whitney! I love you and miss you!

English camp...

Those are hearts they are making with their hands

Dinner on Saturday night

Happy belated 4th of July everyone.  We had a wonderful Independence Day celebration in Seoul with some American Friends.  We started out at On the Border - and it was fantastic.  Granted, it wasn't Mexican food from San Antonio, but nonetheless it was something different from rice and fermented veggies.  We spent friday night in Seoul and took a tour to the DMZ (demilitarized zone) on Saturday morning.  This was really interesting as we got to look over the wall and see North Korea (which looks surprisingly like South Korea) and view a museum. North Korea has drilled an estimated 20 tunnels under the DMZ in the past trying to launch an invasion on South Korea.  South Korea has found 4 of the tunnels and we were able to walk through one of them - it was very steep and quite a work out!  The other aspect we found interesting was that the land around the DMZ is all roped off as in the past North Korea placed land mines there and they are still in the process of neutralizing them all.  Our guide advised that they believe they have found and neutralized 30% of the mines. After the DMZ our guide dropped us off at The Hard Rock Cafe which was great because we didn't even know there was one in the country.  We indulged in our second American meal for the weekend.  We took the train back on Saturday evening and spent Sunday just resting.

We also got to see the thousands of protestors marching the streets rallying against the importation of American beef.  They are concerned about Mad Cow disease and despite scientific evidence to show otherwise, they continue to protest.  At this point however, it would appear the issue centers more around their anger towards their government than the actual beef issue.  However, we were warned by the American embassy here in Korea to avoid protestors and especially not to provoke them.  (Like we needed to be reminded of this...)

I say resting, but really we were trying to keep cool as it hit 91 degrees yesterday.  We woke up sweating on Sunday morning and went out to try and find an inexpensive air conditioning.  We couldn't find anything less than $400 bucks that didn't include the installation fee.  So we're determined to build perseverance and stick it out.  We did purchase another fan and stuck that one in the bed with us. 

On the Border

The DMZ

Can you see N.K?

Hard Rock Cafe

We're back at another week of school.  Brad is playing Family Feud with his students and I'm organizing games of The Price is Right.  Our English camp from last week is over and we are grateful as we found the late nights rather grueling.

Monsoon season started last week and the rain has really been coming down.  In a way this is nice because it brings the temperature down a little bit but after the rain there are some hot and wildly humid days.  We have a portable fan pointed at us at night time and dream dreams of days we had air conditioning in our apartment. It's in these moments we realize that we are not made out of that "tough" stuff.

We spent the weekend relaxing and enjoying the extra sleep.  We did our bimonthly trip to Costco yesterday and brought back the goods!

We have made reservations for our trip home and right now we plan to leave Korea on August 21st.  What happens after we land in the U.S. is still unknown and we are praying for clarity and direction as far as jobs and living is concerned when we return. However we are looking forward to things like Walmart, a wide variety of foods and of course, all our favorite restaurants.