Good Morning Vietnam!

After an extremely long 6 weeks of solid students, we boarded a plane for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Saturday, August 18^th.   Later that day, we took a second flight to Nha Trang, Vietnam; a coastal city on the eastern side of the country where we stayed for a week.  At least once a day I had the urge to yell, “Good morning Vietnam!” to no one in particular, and a few times I did. J 

NHA TRANG

I’m looking back at my journal to write this post and I feel a little nostalgic as I read about the paradise we experienced.  I wrote about sitting under a thatch umbrella, looking out over the turquoise water of the South China Sea, listening to the gentle waves and Russian.  (I’ll get to that later)  We spent most of our days enjoying being warm and relaxed with absolutely no agenda.  I read 3 books in 4 days and napped to my heart’s content.  The only thing that interrupted us was the steady parade of Vietnamese sellers.  Would we like water color paintings or fresh lobster?  Massages or bracelets?  Parasailing or snacks?  “Hello lovely, you want buy something?”  Regardless, the beach was glorious…and that’s where we parked ourselves for the majority of our trip!

fruit seller

At night for dinners, we met up with Andrew and Daphne, friends we work with.   We stayed loyal to a select few restaurants and my on my - they were delicious.  First of all, we ate at Texas BBQ and Steaks so many times that we got our picture taken for their wall!  We haven’t had good barbeque since we’ve been in Korea so it was a real treat for us. 

The owner, Wayne is from Memphis and makes a mean pulled pork sandwich.  We also tried Da Fernando’s, a great Italian restaurant; The Refuge, a French joint; and Same Same but Different Café.  We ate well in Vietnam.  After eating dinner, we usually walked around a few street markets, occasionally got some ice cream, but mostly just enjoyed the company of our friends. 

A side note: we learned that Russians make up 70% of the tourism in Vietnam so there were a TON of Russian tourists, Russian stores and Russian restaurants.  After the Vietnam War, when Northern Vietnam won, the Soviet Union (who had been backing them) helped rebuild the country.  There are now a number of direct flights from Russia to Vietnam and it was a beautiful beach, so I don’t blame them for coming!

Besides lounging in the sun, we also tried our hands at scuba-diving.  We had a 2 hour course in a pool to cover the basics one day and then we went out the next morning and did two 45-minute dives with a dive master.  It was incredible!  It was so neat to see sea life in its natural environment and even cooler that we could name a large number of them.  Luke and I had a saltwater aquarium in our apartment in Minnesota so we know a decent amount about coral and saltwater fish.  It was really cool to see monster-sized colonies of hard and soft corals and schools of brightly-colored fish.  11.2 meters at our deepest, we tried to mentally soak in everything.  Luke’s first words once on the surface were, “I’m hooked!”  We’re planning on diving again in the Philippines in October. 

On our last morning in Nha Trang, we woke up early to watch the sunrise.  We were expecting a quiet beach with few or no people.  Well, little did we know that 5:00am is the time that every Vietnamese person chooses to swim/exercise/lounge/stretch on the beach.  Who knew??

HO CHI MINH CITY (SAIGON)

We hit the ground running in HCMC.  We made up for all our lounging on the beach and walked EVERYWHERE.  We spent most of our time completely overwhelmed with the huge variety of knock-off products.  Luke bought a North Face jacket and I got a 70 liter backpack for a fifth of the price we would expect at home.  There were always more markets to explore and more vendors vying for our attention.  Everywhere we looked; there was something else we could buy for a great price.  So many colors, people, motorcycles, sellers; we were so over-stimulated, but it was a great time.  We walked around at least 15 different art galleries before we found an oil painting that we loved. 

Also while in HCMC, we took a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, the tunnels that were used by the Vietcong soldiers during the Vietnam War.  There are 200 kilometers of tunnels under HCMC and US army bases.  We watched an introductory movie about the war and tunnels and let’s just say it was a little slanted.  It talked about Vietcong soldiers getting medals for killing the most American enemies and the video spoke of a number of torturous traps the Vietnamese soldiers created for the American; metal spikes and booby traps.  Oh, and a direct quote from the movie:

“Like a bunch of roadside devils, American soldiers shot women and children, chickens and ducks, and they even fired into the ground and at Buddha statues.”

 We as American tourists were quite a surprise to everyone we met and at that moment we understood.  They really don’t like us!  We sat in the back and hoped that no one could tell where we were from.  I know the US did some terrible things during the war, but I have never felt so hated. 

The Cu Chi tunnels were 3, 6 and even 8 meters underground!

Some people (me included) hid themselves in a small underground hiding place and others tried shooting AK47s, M16s and other big guns and rifles.  It was a little disconcerting hearing real machine guns going off around me in the jungle, and I have never been more thankful that I haven’t had to experience war firsthand.  We had the chance to go down into a section of tunnels and even though it was widened for tourists, it was still so cramped that we were the first ones to ditch after 20 meters.  We had to hunch over so low and still our backs hit the low ceilings…claustrophobia!!!

After our tour, we came back to our hotel and wandered around a little more.  The next day, we took a cycle tour of the city to see the Reunification Palace and the Jade Emperor Pagoda.  Motorcycles flowed past us quickly and cars honked furiously, but that seems to be the norm here: one hand on the horn and one hand on the wheel!  We had one last foot massage, split a smoothie to spend the last of our Vietnamese dong and then headed to the airport for our red-eye flight.  “Goodbye Vietnam!” ;)

May, June and July have been exciting months in Korea.  Spring and summer were and are beautiful.  Flowers and green were happily welcomed as we said goodbye to the brown and mundane of winter.  Luke and I wowed the Koreans with our flower knowledge and we enjoyed learning about the new perennial flowers and crops that grow in this region.  Since we live out in the boonies, I have become enchanted by rice paddies.  

There is a special planting machine that spits out the little sprouts of green in the flooded fields surrounding our school and we have watched as the plants have matured.  Farmers wear wide-brimmed hats and walk thigh-deep in the muck to tend to their crops.  I find the mass expanses of rice paddies mesmerizing.  I have been able to enjoy them so much because we drive past them all the time on our scooter(!).  We bought a scooter in May to help us from feeling trapped in our small town and it has been a Godsend!  It’s red, 125cc and perfect to get us around the Korean countryside.  In fact, we took a LONG ride this past weekend to the Boryeong Mud Festival, but more on that later…

OH MY WORD!  We found a Mexican restaurant!!! As you may know, we have had some troubles with finding foods that we like and we finally found the PERFECT place! Unfortunately it’s a few towns away in Daejeon, but that hasn’t stopped us from eating there 4 times in the past couple months. Susana and Jacobo are from Mexico and they have a restaurant called Takorea…and it’s delicious.  In fact, we are going back this weekend for their taco festival. Simple pleasures in life J

Actual work:

We finished with Basic Program, the lowest students we’ll have all year and now we’re on to the highest students.  The Advanced Intensive students are 14 year old, 8^th graders who have varying levels of English: 1 student yesterday said a total of 10 words during her entry interview and another spoke so smoothly I could have closed my eyes and believed I was speaking to a native speaker.  I am teaching a 4-lesson unit on poetry and Luke is teaching biology.  I enjoy this unit because the kids surprise me with their creativity.  Here is an example clerihew poem we wrote together:

Justin Bieber dances like a PRO.

He is famous and handsome OH!

This Canadian is also rich and YOUNG.

When he sings ‘Baby’, girls scream at the top of their LUNGS.

Since our last post, we have done a bit of traveling around the country.  In the beginning of June, we took the KTX train (a train that went ~200mph!!)  to Busan, a beach town on the south-eastern tip of Korea.  We ate some western food, ran into a friend from Bethel and spent a nice day relaxing on the beach.  It was fun to finally spend time outside and enjoy the warm weather. 

Over Luke’s birthday weekend in June, we flew to Jeju-do, Korea’s beloved island, the “Hawaii of Asia” as they call it.  While I don’t think we would agree with that statement because of the lack of white, sandy beaches, we had a fun weekend regardless exploring a new place.  Andrew and Daphne came along for the festivities and the four of us rented a car to get around.  What a wonderful idea that was, but even more wonderful was the English GPS that we had!  Aside from a few strange remarks she kept repeating (“you are now approaching the danger zone”) it was so helpful! We practically drove around the entire island in 2 days and saw so many cool things thanks to our great direction giver. J 

We visited Jeongbang waterfall, took pictures at Oedolgae Rock, Jungmun Saekdal Beach and a place on the coast with some crazy lava rocks called Jungmun Daepo.  The boys tried some unbelievably fresh seafood from haenyo, women divers who are popular in Jeju.  

They stay underwater for up to 2 minutes without oxygen and retrieve muscles, sea cucumbers, octopi, conch shells and other assorted, unidentifiable ocean “delicacies”.  $20 bought them a small variety and an unforgettable experience. The haenyo ladies sliced the live creatures right in front of us and quickly rinsed with what we hope was fresh water.  All in all, I’m glad I was on the other side of the camera!

On Luke’s actual birthday, we woke up early and headed to the Kim Nyoung Maze Park in our multi-colored rain ponchos and then wandered in the Manjanggul cave, an underground passageway made by lava.  

A spot in the maze for pictures :)

We also experienced the mysterious road.  We were told that cars roll upwards on this road so understandably, we were a little skeptical.  Well not only does your car really roll up a hill, but Koreans by the dozens walk backwards down the hill…?  Truly mysterious I tell ya! We stopped to take pictures of the black sand beach and Seongsan Ilchulbong Mountain.  We collected sea glass by the water and we ate at Outback Steakhouse for Luke’s bday dinner!  He got a really awkward Korean birthday song and dance by a group of 5 nervous servers and then we drove back to our hotel.  We woke up early the next morning, caught our flight and were back at work in the office that afternoon.

Ok, now the Boryeong Mud Festival! On Saturday, we were on our scooters by 7:30am…started on our 4 hour journey to Boryeong, a coastal city on the western side of Korea.  We drove along back roads and highways and found a few spots we’d like to return to and explore sometime soon.  It was a long ride, but it felt nice to be moving and going somewhere.  Once in Boryeong, 4 hours were spent lounging under a beach umbrella, eating western fair food, taking periodic dips in the ocean to cool down, and painting ourselves with “special” Boryeong mud that supposed to be good for your skin.  

Luke and I got fried – I guess we may have to invest in the 50++whitening sunscreen they sell here.  About 20 minutes into our return journey, I burned my right calf on the muffler and now I have a pretty nasty wound.  

I hope it heals in time for our trip to Vietnam in August.  I am looking forward to the $5 foot massages and I want to be able to fully enjoy them!

One of the Koreans is teaching us Hangul bit by bit and it’s fun to read some street signs…even if it does take a few moments to make out the words.  The bus stop signs say 버스 which is translated to Buh-se.  I guess it’s about time we did something useful with all our free time!

As always, we miss you all and thank you for reading. Sorry it’s taken us so long to update!!

Rachel & Luke

I guess the salad dressing cap wasn't on all the way... :)

Spring in Korea

How time flies! It’s been weeks since we’ve updated our blog and we are sorry for the delay!  Office time quickly turned into classroom time over the past month.  Today, we completed our fifth round of a 3-day camp for 5^th graders.  The program is called Basic Course…and I guess I wasn’t aware of just how basic these students’ English knowledge would be.   We are becoming more adept at understanding classroom Korean…or the gist of short Korean phrases.  Some people look at us strangely and ask if we speak Korean after we’ve successfully answered some basic, generic questions.  They don’t believe us when we say no so we get talked at a lot here.  Oh well, we’re getting really good at smiling and nodding J

Captain Luke

For the first three weeks, I was in charge of the situation room: Gameroom.  I taught Guess Who.  That’s a really hard game to explain to an ESL student!  They probably spent more time flipping around the boards than actually playing the game, but oh well.  I tried and they seemed to have fun with it.  Luke taught restaurant and the students were a little destructive with the fake fried chicken, side salads and ice cream sundaes.  We have since moved on with our teaching requirements and I much prefer teaching Hollywood Studios.  They kids make a commercial comparing Coke and Pepsi and it’s pretty cute J 

New car ceremony: 

The director of our school bought a new car a few weeks back.  We were invited to his new car ceremony and it was quite an experience!  There was a pig’s head where people placed money after bowing and offering rice wine to the car…??? It was strange.  We had a big snack afterwards of pig feet, pig ears, chicken and red bean rice cakes to celebrate.  “Toto, we’re DEFINITELY not in Kansas anymore!”

Sometimes I feel like I need to write about all the crazy things that we have seen or done over here in Korea, but save for a few interesting stories, this post is more about our ordinary life here in Cheongju.  We live in the middle of nowhere.  Farming is the primary way of life out here so it is extremely quiet, very picturesque and we have the glorious blessing of living in the middle of some beautiful mountains. 

Spring has finally arrived and all of a sudden we are accosted with color!  Sadly, the cherry blossoms and forsythia have finished their short week or so of flowering (don’t worry, I took about a hundred photos), but after a weekend of torrential rains, the pink, red and white rhododendrons are so happy and the hills around us are full of green.  New flower buds are popping up everywhere and we are so excited about the warmer weather.  Walks have returned to our everyday routine.  We went on one yesterday and realized that Japanese maples are prolific here!  We ventured off the path for a few yards and there were hundreds of small trees sprouting up.  Trying to figure out if there’s any way we could bring some home…

A couple of weekends ago, we had the opportunity to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival in Seoul with Jesse and Dawun.  Entire streets were lined with these trees and I spent the majority of my time trying to capture their beauty through our camera lens. 

Our small city has a pretty small selection of foreign restaurants so we take advantage of our infrequent visits to the capital to get our fill of familiar foods.  We had Mexican food at “On the Border”, fried chicken at “Frypan” and great sandwiches at “Joe’s Sandwiches.”  We also did a quick run to Costco to grab some essentials: 5lbs of cheese, 8 cans of beans, a large box of Oreos, an even larger bag of tortilla chips, sticks of butter for baking and a double box of Honey Nut Cheerios. 

Jesse lives in Ilsan, a city north of Seoul and he has a lake near his apartment.  On Sunday morning, we walked over to the park, rented bikes and rode around the 3 kilometer loop, stopping every so often to photograph a pretty flower and to take a short reflexology walk!  It was a glorious morning.  I have missed bike riding with Luke! 

Two weeks ago we had a field trip.  We got the day off from work and instead, we all spent the day enjoying the great outdoors.  We started at Nongdari, the oldest bridge in Korea; built over 1400 years ago and still usable!  Impressive.  We hiked across and then walked to a huge lake that was nearby.  A nice leisurely walk there turned into a mountainous, up & down, rocky hike back to the bus.  It was a good haul.  We were sweaty and tired, but it was a joy to be outside on a work day looking at mountains and flowering trees.  The cherry blossom trees were just stunning.  I couldn’t stop taking pictures!!

We ate bulgogi for lunch at a restaurant and then took a quick trip to a bell museum.  After that, we headed toward an old 3-story temple and on the way, we saw a bear farm.  They raise bears and kill them for their bile which they use for medicine I believe.  It was so depressing to see all those bears in such small cages LL  Once we arrived at the temple, we wandered around and inside, took a bunch of pictures and then made our way to a park where we had a chic-nic, a chicken picnic with our co-workers.  It was quite a day, a beautiful day to be outside and a great way to spend a work day!  Thank you CBFLIS!

This past weekend was the first one with NO RAIN so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent our entire Saturday outside with our neighbors, Andrew & Daphne.  We wore ourselves out going on a long walk, we had a delicious picnic, tried to play tuho (a Korean game with arrows and a bucket), and hit tennis balls to each other in a big field.  To top off a wonderful day in the sun, we had a huge barbeque dinner and great conversation on the patio area of our building.  Thanks God for your beautiful creation that we get to enjoy!!!

Sports Day:

I promise we do work sometimes, but yesterday was not one of those days!  Yesterday was sports day.  We went over to the school next door and played volleyball, ping-pong and soccer-volleyball.   Let me rephrase, mostly we just watched the intense Koreans play sports while we cheered them on.  Luke tried soccer-volleyball which is exactly what it sounds like.  You have a net like in ping-pong that comes to about 3 feet high and you kick a volleyball over the net to the other team.  You can let it bounce between hits and you need to get it over in three or less kicks/headers.  Of course there was chicken and spicy Tofu for a snack (?) and lots of relaxing had by all.  I would have loved to play but I’m wearing a brace on my left wrist from a stretched ligament so I tried ping-pong but could be of no help to the CBFLIS volleyball team.

We are officially 5 months into our contract, 7 months to go!  Weird how time flies!  We’re sad to be missing the graduations of Joe, James and Savanna and moving in Jen and Joe into their new house in Charlotte.  We’ve missed birthdays and holidays and it’s sad to be away from family this year, but we are making wonderful memories here in Korea and we look forward to being with friends and family in 2013!

As always, thanks for reading.

Luke & Rachel

The office

Back in the office.  I’m sure it seems as if we do nothing but travel, but I assure that we have been sitting in the office for the past 3 weeks, working.  However, you must think of the word “working” in the LOOSEST of terms.  You know the phrase, “So little time, so much to do.”  Reverse that and you have our office situation.  My motto for the past 3 weeks has been, “So little to do, so much time.”  Writing my lesson plan and going over every possible material I may need for our next program took maybe a of couple hours.  I drug that out for an entire day simply because I had the time, but beyond that, I have spent my days reading, watching movies, writing our blog, filing our taxes, catching up on emails, writing letters, planning weekend trips to Seoul and just general web browsing.  The basic program begins on March 21^st and it cannot come soon enough.  We’ll have 5^th graders for short 3 day/2 night programs until the end of May and we’re looking forward to a change in schedule. 

A little recap of our time since our four-country vacation:  There was a holiday on March 1^st, so we went into Cheonan with some friends, a town about 2 hours from our school.  We roamed the streets, had some Korean style fried chicken for dinner and washed it down with a pint of Baskin Robbin’s ice cream J

The next day, on our weekly Homeplus grocery shopping trip, we bought a blue Betta fish.  We named him Park Ji-Sung.  I was jealous of Jenn and Joe’s newest addition to their family, a French bulldog named Louie so I wanted a pet too.  On a sad note, by the looks of him this morning, I’m not sure we’ll have him much longer!

Last week, one of the ladies in the kitchen taught Daphne and I how to make bulgogi, a traditional Korean meal with veggies, soy sauce, other spices and really thinly sliced beef.  It was a really interesting experience watching how a Korean kitchen works.  First of all, any unneeded water was poured on the floor instead of in the sink, so all the workers wore rain boots.  Secondly, all measuring was done in one small paper cup.  Full meant one cup and a little at the bottom meant a few tablespoons.  Oh and the craziest thing:  they’d cook and taste with the same spoon the whole time.  Koreans have this strange non-fear of germs.  They’re convinced that because they eat kimchi, fermented cabbage, they can share spoons and cups with everyone else and be safe.  I for one do not understand this philosophy and I am unwilling to test it out.  Let’s just say that kimchi is NOT my thing.  While we were waiting for the bulgogi to finish cooking, some kitchen lady shoved a veggie and squid pancake in my mouth and it was surprisingly pretty good!  Apparently it’s a sign of friendship if someone feeds you with their bare hand.  I guess I made a new friend that day J

There are two new developments in our lives here in Korea.  We have begun to make Amish Friendship bread and we are in our second week of P90X (the intense 90 day workout).  You may find that these two things clash a bit, and I won’t disagree with you on that point, but I will admit that I work out so that I can enjoy such delicacies as friendship bread and chocolate.  Every muscle in our body aches from the wide variety of workouts P90X has subjected us to, but it’s a nice way to wake us up in the morning.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress! 

Last weekend was spent in Seoul.  We saw Cookin’ NANTA, a traveling Korean show that is a mix between Stomp and Blue Man Group.  A group of ‘chefs’ did a comical show that incorporated drumming beats with knives on butcher blocks and spoons on large plastic containers.  We stayed at a jjimjilbang on Friday night and spent the day exploring around Itaewon, Namdaemun Market, and Insadong.  We got our pictures taken with some Korean cheerleaders and their “Smile and you’ll be happy” signs and we met a really talented finger print painter named GuGu Kim.  It was the first day that truly felt like spring in Korea so we took advantage of it and threw off our jackets for the day!  When hunger struck, I was quite impressed with Luke’s stellar navigation skills as he weaved us through back roads to find Korea’s version of Chipotle/Moe’s: Tomatillo.  We left around dinner time to head back home and went to bed early. 

On Sunday, I accompanied my friend Daphne to my first and probably only Korean wedding.  We were greeted by the receptionist who gave us buffet tickets.  We scooted around ladies in hanbuk (traditional Korean clothing) as we picked out salads, sushi, meats, fruit and some strange desserts.  After, we found seats in the wedding hall and waited for the bride and groom.  Here’s how the ceremony went down:

·       The mothers walked solemnly to the front wearing hanbuk dresses and lit candles at the altar after a few bows. 

·       The bride walked down the runway (yes there was a runway!) with her father under some swords with her father. 

·       People stood in the back of the room talking throughout the whole ceremony.

·       The groom’s sister’s boyfriend serenaded the couple and they cried.

·       The couple bowed low to each set of parents.

·       The groom danced for the bride after a strange cheek kissing game. 

·       Family pictures

·       The bride and groom changed into traditional Hanbuk wedding garb, most of the guests left after the first ceremony.

·       The bride and groom served alcohol to special guests two at a time and bowed low.  These people had to give money to the happy couple and this ceremony would apparently pay for the entire honeymoon!

It was all very exciting and I went home exhausted from the weekend festivities to hang out with my hubby for the night.    

We’re still on a high from the package that arrived in the mail from Tennessee and we found a market in the nearest town that sells fresh strawberries, so all in all, we’re doing really well.  A few of you have asked for our address so we thought we’d make it public.  We were happy to discover that sending mail back and forth is quite cheap!

Luke & Rachel Roe

536-43 Nongdari-ro

Munbaek-myeon

Jincheon-gun

Chungcheongbuk-do

Republic of Korea

365-863

We miss you all and hope that everyone is doing well.  We love you!

Luke & Rachel