Three Month Mark

I can’t believe a quarter of my journey in Korea has already been completed. I feel like there is so much more I want to do, but I also feel like I have done a lot of the things on my “list”. Updating my blog has become a bit a challenge since my day to day activity has become so normal that I feel I have nothing to report.  However, I will do my best to update my loyal followers now.

Since I got back from my summer vacation, I went white water rafting with a tour group called Discover Korea. About 10 people from Pyeongtaek came. This was the first time I used a tour group, and it was nice not needing to plan anything. We met in Seoul at 7:30 and then took a bus to Hantan River, which is on the north east side of Korea. It took about 2 hours to get there. I felt like we were so far away from everything and it was so green and beautiful. I had such a great day and it was so nice being outside.

A lot of changes have also occurred at school. The biggest change (for me) is Brooke, the other teacher at my school has completed her year in Korea and will be leaving on Saturday. I have gotten to know Brooke very well in the last few months and I will definitely miss her. I feel that my experience here would have not been the same without her and I am so fortunate to have met her.

The principle and vice principle will also be leaving. They are going to work at different schools. I hope this doesn’t affect anything for me. It's customary for teachers and I am assuming principles and vice principals to stay at a school for only 3 to 5 years and then they change.  On Tuesday we had a goodbye dinner at a very fancy Korean restaurant. One of the teachers completed the evening by playing his guitar and singing.

The teacher who will be replacing Brooke arrived on Thursday. She has been staying with me. She was supposed to live in Brooke’s apartment, but is highly allergic to cats so I volunteered to move to her apartment, which kind of works out since the apartment has a bigger bed that my parents will be able to use while they are here. It has been a pain moving and I am sad to lose my nice view of the city but it works out best for everyone.  

So yes my parents are coming! They will be here on Sunday, and I am so excited. The other big news is that my sister just started working in Korea and will be here for a year! This was so unexpected for me and I am so happy to have her here to share my Korean memories with. I am sure we have many adventures ahead of us. There is so much to look forward to in the next 9 months, and I am so happy I made the decision to work in Korea, but we’ll see if I still feel the same once the holidays roll around.