Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Hello Again

It's been a few weeks since we've written and I'm wondering if people are starting to lose interest. I hope not. When you go on vacation, you remember how to relax, but you also forget your normal routine of life you were living before you went on vacation. That's where I'm at right now. I'm back from vacation (have been for a week and a half), but it's taking me some time to remember how I got everything done in the time I am given. So it's been pretty hard to do it all and the blogging ball got dropped. Sorry about that, my faithful ones who check this regularly.

Right now I'm at Nowon English Village, a different branch from the Suyu one that we normally work and live at. Rebs is in class, "training". The teacher she's with said she was tired and was just going to have the kids play games. She's tired because she's filling in for someone. But this is just an example of how laid back Nowon is compared to Suyu. For those of you who don't know, Rebs is going to be transferring to Nowon starting next week. The job came open a couple months ago and she wasn't doing so well with the type of environment that Suyu is--spontaneous and chaotic mostly. I've been managing okay. I think I just learned when to check out and mind my own business. But it's hard sometimes because you have to not care too much about anything you're doing. That type of environment encourages complacency. So I walk the fine line of non-caring complacency and intentional laid back teaching.

How did I start talking about Rebs and end up on myself? Anyway, Rebs is transferring. She's looking forward to it, where you sometimes work full days, and sometimes you don't come in until 2pm. You have a break in the middle of the day from noon until 4pm always. The classes are smaller and the administration is supposed to be reasonable. It's a small enough environment that it's easy to build relationships and when something's wrong, it can actually be fixed. There is a very small chain of command so things are less likely to get lost in translation.

Why am I here, you ask? Well, all this week, Rebs and I are working at a restaurant. Yes, I know we came to Korea to be English teachers, but leave it to Korea to decide we're going to be restaurant employees for a week and it to make total sense in their heads. We did it last night, but had no idea what was expected of us until the moment we started. We had been told to wear a white shirt and black pants because it was a nice restaurant, and that we would be working from 6-9pm. Other than that we knew nothing but to come to Nowon. So we showed up here and looked around a bit. Rebs observed a class while I read a book. Then at 5:15 a girl rushed in who we'd been told would take us there. She acted in a hurry and said, "okay, I'm ready to go." She said it as if we should have been expecting her at any moment. So, being the smart people we are, we followed her. When we got to the restaurant, they had us change clothes and sit down. We met the owner who spoke broken English and then ate dinner. Then the people from Gangbuk district office, the people who had arranged the event, showed up. All the people acted scared because these people were of much importance. I think if you don't stand up and give certain people the most respect, you can get in alot of trouble and lose your job. So we met them and shook hands. They decided to sit down and practice on us, even though we didn't know what was going on still. They practically picked Rebs up out of her chair and handed her a menu. I guess it was time to start. She took their order and talked with them. They had her sit down. She talked with them for several minutes. Then some other customers showed up and it was my turn. This ended up being what we did all night. Take orders and sit and talk with people. I guess you can consider that work.

Anyway, I have to go now and do it all again.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Pohm/Dee-chan by bing khao (Thai for we're going climbing)

Sawadee kop,

Dusty and I will be in the glorious kingdom of Thailand Feb 4th - Feb 16th and are not planning to see or touch a computer until we return to Korea. Therefore, you probably won't be hearing from us unless something crazy happens such as we contact a serious infectious disease; get bit by a poisonous snake, scorpion, or centipede; taken away in a tsunami; or robbed by a crab-eating macaque (monkey). Leave it to me to be dramatic and cause everyone to worry. Just so you all know, the likelihood of any of these things happening is very slim but we did purchase travelers insurance so we've taken necessary precautions.

We got our vacation extended four more days by taking a few days of unpaid vacation. We are both extremely excited! As of now, all we have is our plane tickets and the name of the place we're planning to stay the first night (we arrive at 1:00am in Phuket). So, the rest of our vacation is totally unplanned. We've packed a climbing/travel guidebook, gear, and a few clothes and who knows where the wind will take us. This is the most alive, free, and unburdened I've ever felt in my adult life.

As you can see, I've added a slideshow to our blog and many of you have asked if we can upload more pics. I'll try to do that soon after we get back. I just added several albums to my facebook so if you are my friend you can just check them out there. If you're not my friend, well then you're just going to have to wait. We'll be sure to take plenty of pictures while we're in Thailand and will be sure to post a blog when we return so you all know we made it back safe. We love you all.

Sawedee kaa,
Rebs

Friday, February 1, 2008

Preparing for the New World

If you didn't know already, Rebs and I are going to Thailand. In fact, we're leaving this coming Monday night. Work has become quite slow recently because of the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year to non-Koreans). So our administration put the offer out to anyone who wanted to take an extended vacation. We could take unpaid days to continue our vacation. So as of yesterday, we are no longer going to Thailand for 7 days, but 12. Yes, 12 days of sunshine, beaches, huge multi-pitch limestone cliffs, and lots of fruity drinks and Thai food.

This vacation has been long awaited by us because we had about a month and a half of non-stop Korean kids, 10 days at a time. If you emailed or skyped us, you know how exhausted we were sometimes. We are soo looking forward to actually getting tans and wearing t-shirts and shorts in the middle of winter. I think the weather in Korea has been pretty much the same as it is in America right now--cold, cold, and more cold.

This vacation hasn't come without a few setbacks though. Two weeks ago, we ordered a new climbing rope and quickdraws, both essential to sport climbing, which we will be doing alot of in Thailand. We ordered it just in time to get it here before we left. But yesterday, we got a letter, instead of a package in the mail, saying (after having a Korean co-worker translate for us) that our package was stopped and waiting in customs. We had to call and fill out an online form, all of course in Korean. The line was busy, but today we had our coworker call again and this time we got through, only to find out that we are going to have to pay an 18% customs tax. So our gear is now costing us roughly $200 just to get it here. On top of it all, we get to go to customs to pick it up on Monday before we go to the airport so that we can take the gear with us to Thailand. Ahh, the life of Korea. I guess I don't really care that much because in 3 days we'll be in Thailand.

One interesting thing for you and a very different thing for us is that this is our first vacation that we are taking having not planned at all. Granted, we have many ideas of what we would like to do. But many of the people we've talked to here suggested we just show up without plans. Most of the Thai people speak English and usually it is less expensive to do it this way. Be proud of us; it's a big step for us. We've always booked at least where we're staying before we show up. But the thing with Thailand is that there are so many different places to go around the area of Phuket that you never know what you're going to find. We know we want to go to Railey and climb. We want to go to Koh Phi Phi (where they filmed "The Beach") which also happens to have rock climbing. Rebs wants to ride an elephant. I think that will be funny to watch and take pictures. We're going to take both the digital and film cameras, and will hopefully get some great pictures for memories and some cool abstracts as well. Rebs wants me to re-teach her how to use the film camera. We'll see what I actually remember first. But it should be fun either way.

So anyway, if you write us email or facebook messages or whatever and we don't answer, you'll know why. We're not taking our laptop with us because it's kind of a liability in a 3rd world country. I don't want to have to carry it on my wherever we go. and parents, don't worry, we got traveler's insurance for while we're there. we're being responsible. :) hopefully we'll have some awesome pictures to share with you when we come back.