Erds in Asia

ACHOOOOOOO-SOCK!

2009-10-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

The first weekend in October was Chuseok, which is pretty much a Korean Thanksgiving. I can safely say it's the closest thing to an American Thanksgiving because when asked what they do during this time, both students AND parents answer with, "EAT." They eat and eat and eat, then prepare more food to eat it later. It's a time to honor their ancestors and, for some, to go and visit graves and bow. Many of our students complain that they have to do this. However, they fail to mention right away that they DO get money every time they bow.

So because of the long weekend we were given thanks to Chuseok, and because the Korean Government let up on the swine flu quarantine rules, we were allowed to travel to Japan! It was an amazing time and the fun started ON the flight over! If anyone has the opportunity to fly Jeju Air... PLEASE DO! I don't think I've ever been on a flight that's so relaxed and fun! They came around with balloon animals and crazy hats SOLEY for the purpose of taking our photos! :D

Our time in Japan was short but we packed in SO much site-seeing. First we traveled to Kyoto and got to walk through bamboo forests, eat yummy sushi, visit NUMEROUS temples, went grocery shopping, encountered a monkey park at the top of a mountain, saw real Geisha's wandering the strees in Gion, posed with hundreds of wild deer for photos, got lost in the INCREDIBLY long and winding paths of Fushimi Inari, ate THE largest calzone known to man, and found treasures at the local Kyoto Flea market!

THEN, we went to Osaka where I got to meet up with my cousin and watch part of the Cirque du Soleil show, Corteo, backstage in his sound booth. Correction, the cheese box. Haha.. Apparently they call it that because it's super small and resembles a block of cheese due to the orangey color. It was awesome and somewhat strange walking backstage and seeing actors with facepaint so nonchalantly say "hello" to my cousin. Haha.. After we toured around backstage for a little bit, we ventured on our way to our final destination at Osaka's UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!

It was pretty much the same as the Universal Studios in Florida, except for the fact that EVERYTHING was in Japanese. Haha.. We even went to the E.T. ride (which, for those of you who've been to Universal would probably agree that that ride is a classic, aside from JAWS.) Well, unfortunately for us, this wasn't even a ride, but a walk-through and sort of behind-the-scenes tour narrated by Steven Spielberg. HOWEVER, it wasn't just narrated by him, because all of a sudden a Japanese voice was heard talking OVER Spielberg's. It felt like two people yelling into both of your ears at the same time. My brain hurt after that.

After Universal, we went back to our hostel for one last night of sleep (and an unexpected ninja photo shoot!)

All in all, this trip went so quickly and there was so much to do, it hardly seems like we were gone. And now we're back and into the swing of things in the dorm. This past week was no easy one either. I am reminded why God's called me here and how much He can use me in the lives of these students. Just this past week there was an uproar in a rooming situation and it was amazing to talk it through with each of them and to ultimately show them that there's a bigger picture here. These two are complete opposites of each other with certain qualities they'd like changed or worked on. The crazy thing is, I am almost CERTAIN that God ordained this whole thing from the start, which shouldn't surprise me, but is still so cool to see. Both girls have things they want to work on and the things that are driving each other crazy about the other roommate are the very things each of them want to work on! Neat how God works these things out, huh?

God's teaching me so much and revealing to me the very reasons I'm out here. The opportunity to travel out here is such a blessing, but there are so many more important reasons as to why God's called me here at this time. I honestly think about the kids that I'm ministering to and how I am paid to just pour into their lives every single day. These are things each of us is called to do and yet, I'm getting paid for this? It blows me away and yet I'm so thankful for every moment.

I love it here in Korea.
I love these people.
I love these kids.
And most of all,
I love my God.

Hugs, Blessings, and "chewy socks." ;)

Sarah

BEST DAY OFF... EVER.

2009-09-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

*WARNING...I would make some popcorn before you begin this post...just a suggestion*

God answers prayer.

I think this year I've really wanted to branch out and meet more Koreans who live in the area and not just students and those I work with on a daily basis. Sometimes it's just good to have a different change of scenery or faces, ya know? Well, on Thursday, Jana, Erin, and I went to go to the pottery village that's close to Daejeon. We got directions to Sutongol (수통골) from which we were supposed to tell a taxi driver directions and all would be fine.

Well...

That didn't happen.

We got off the 40 minute bus ride, found a taxi right away, explained that we wanted to go to the pottery village (in Korean of course), and the driver said he had no idea what we were talking about, we got out of the taxi and found ourselves stranded in the middle of no where with absolutely no taxis around whatsoever. A few minutes went by and I'm trying to figure out how exactly to get there and all of a sudden a car screeches to a halt in front of us and we hear "HELLO! WHERE ARE YOU FROM?!"

As we looked up, there in the car in front of us were three Korean ladies, all dressed in hiking apparel. We immediately said "America." and I think, all at once, we thought "THEY SPEAK ENGLISH! ASK WHERE THE POTTERY VILLAGE IS!" So Jana did so and the lady driving said "OH. VERY FAR AWAY." ...great.

So she motioned for us to follow her to the nearby parking lot. We got there and she explained that a friend was going to pick up her two friends and after that, she could take us to the village. We all thanked her but reassured her that she really didn't have to take us, if she just just send us in the right direction, but she kept insisting "No, I'm happy. I want to." So all three of us piled into her tiny little green car and pulled away, back TOWARDS the way we came.

Conversations flooded with broken English and about 20 minutes later, we arrived at the village, which was tucked away ever so snuggly into the hillside of the mountain. It was a cute area and the lady, who we eventually found out was, Namhee, said that she would love to guide us around the area. We found out also that Namhee is a Christian, is married, and has 2 daughters. She was so helpful and we really appreciated her translating help when it came to making our pottery.

We walked into a shop and found a couple happily working on painting pottery and Namhee explained that we'd like to make something on the wheel. It was awesome! (The guy helped us out a TON.. because I really don't think my pot would have come out so great the first time around...haha..)

The whole point of our trip out there was to make pottery that day, but looking back on it now, I realize that that wasn't even what made this day so memorable! Namhee watched and translated as we made our pots and once we'd had our full of pottery, she drove us back towards the bus stop where she found us. ON the way there, we passed bus 102 (which happened to be the bus we needed) and so she offered to have us over to HER HOUSE! Oh man... We felt like she had already saved us from the headache of getting completely lost. It was such a blessing to have met her and now she was offering to show us her place and give us food! So crazy!

We also found out that her hiking club goes out every Thursday morning and meets exactly where we got stranded earlier that day. So next week guess what we're doing?? If you said hiking a mountain with a Korean hiking group then, *DING! DING! DING!* You are correct! We'll be meeting up with them on Thursday and are all very excited to do so! So anyways, we made it back to her apartment up on the 17th floor, met Namhee's two daughters, who shared their violin and piano skills, as she fed us noodles, kimchi, and tea on the floor of her living room!

It was such a crazy series of events for the day, but how cool that God orchestrated this whole thing?! I have no idea how we would have found the pottery place on our own and how neat for God to bring Namhee into our lives and what timing! What an awesome way to spend a day off! God definitely answers prayer!

Hugs, Blessings, and new friends!

Sarah

What do you get when you put 1H and 1N together??

2009-08-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

...SWINE FLU!!

Unfortunately, this past week's events have thrown a curve ball into this school year. Swine flu has come to Korea and has hit pretty hard. So hard, in fact, that last week our school had 8 confirmed cases from random swab tests,and before we knew it we were shut down, news people flooded the school, and we, the staff, were given a nice, week long quarantine to our apartments.

You'd think it would be nice.. all that time with no responsibility? Well, I think I might have been indoors a BIT too long, cause I'm noticing my fish staring at me ALL THE TIME! I'm not even making this up.. I'll look up and my two fish are just floating there looking DIRECTLY at me and then all of sudden they look away awkwardly as if they're thinking "oh. uhh. I wasn't staring."

Seriously... I blame the quarantine.

However, it's brought about some pretty good things, in fact. Like, the beginning of re-watching ALL seasons of LOST. (I haven't gotten TOO far.. but I'm working on it.) Also, there's a heightened sense of cleanliness around these parts. My inbox has been FLOODED with do and don'ts and H1N1 preparation. There's anti bacterial gel in literally every nook and cranny. (We even got some antibac machines installed.. that spray.. MIST!! ..yeah.. sweet, I know.) We're taking temperatures nonstop. (This morning.. I woke up early and took all students temps as they arrived back on campus after the long "break." Those ear thermometers.. *shudder* for some reason I have a problem with sharing anything that goes in my ear..) And finally a new appreciation of mask wearing. Like the one in this picture.

That's me on the bus ride taking dorm students to their hometowns.. all over Korea.

It's been an interesting week for sure. Our school handled it really well and thankfully all students and faculty are recovering and gearing back up for the rest of the year. It's scary.. the germs and sickness and all.. but we serve a God who's bigger than sickness and who is CONSTANTLY attentive to our prayers. How awesome!

Please be in prayer for those still recovering, protection against future outbreaks, and a smooth transition back into a somewhat different kind of year.

Hugs, blessings, and DIAL soap,

Sarah

CARIBBEAN BAY!

2009-08-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

WOW.

That is all I have to say. Craziness ensued, as I expected. However, it wasn't all smooth sailing.

We arrived at Everland/Caribbean bay around noon and soon realized what we had gotten ourselves into. Saturday was August 15... which also happened to be Korea's Liberation Day... which means EVERYONE picked up and traveled somewhere.. and seeing that it was nearly 95 degrees out.. I think nearly 1/2 of Korea's population decided to venture to the water park. We found this out due to the masses of people waiting to actually get inside. We had to pick up a "waiting card" which would let us inside at 5pm. Sooo... what to do til then?

Lucky for us, there were foreigners standing near us who said that if we just bought the full day pass for the water park, they would let us go into Everland for the beginning of the day! EUREKA! Everland is the greatest! They have a wooden ride called the T-Express. I didn't have a camera this time, but if you want to see the ride, look back at my blog entries. I think there's one titled "A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE" and I recorded the entire experience. It's seriously a great ride. And I love coasters. I wish my roller coaster buff family could experience this with me.

So we sweated the ENTIRE afternoon and once it hit 5pm we booked on over to the water park and were herded through 2 lines and finally entered the wonderland of fun called Caribbean Bay. Finding a locker was a pretty big task and once Steph and I actually found one.. well.. I'm not going to go much into detail.. but trying to change into a swim suit in an EXTREMELY overcrowded lockeroom with hundreds of sweaty bodies...is NOT the greatest... oh goodness...

The wave pool was ENORMOUS and was actually quite creepy due to the HUGE waves. (err... wave. They wouldn't actually have tons of waves all at once, the siren would sound and a HUGE tidal wave would come flying towards you. But because it was so crowded the wave was just a sea of life-jacket-wearing Koreans sporting swim caps! haha...) I didn't have a camera.. but this video will give you an idea of what we encountered..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVGPTWuq3J4

Just. Plain. Awesome.

We rode a water slide that was more like a roller coaster too.. haha.. and then you can't forget the lazy river! :D

I'm glad to be back.. but BOY was that fun!

Hugs, Blessings, and swimmers ear!

Sarah

Where in the world is Erds???

2009-08-13T17:47:00.001-07:00

This summer has been seriously one of THE best summers I've had in a long while.

I lost my toenail.. FINALLY!

haha.. Just kidding.. that was NOT the highlight (however, I'm quite glad to be rid of that thing.) I flew home at the beginning of June and for almost every weekend following, up until the end of August, I traveled and visited traveled and caught up with so many people... It was just plain awesome! If I wasn't able to see you, I'm sorry. I visited Grandparents in Muskegon, the bean in Chicago, discovered lost lakes in Knoxville, biked the San Francisco bridge, visited Egypt in the children's museum in Indianapolis, Cedar point in Sandusky, was a bridesmaid for an amazing friend's wedding (the DAY before I flew out), and I even caught up with a couple ridiculous college buddies in the airport in Atlanta. And when I wasn't on the road, I got to spend quality time with those crazy Erdmann's. :D I love them.

And now I'm back in Korea.

It's strange how fast time seems to be flying by. Did I mention I spent my 24th birthday at home this summer?? (The package is on it's way, right? ha..) But things just haven't even seemed to slow down even after arriving here. (Or cool off, for that matter. I stepped off the plane with my swollen feet into very the THICK of a hot and EXTREMELY humid Korean summer. Not to mention the damage that was inflicted upon my lungs, due to the man who continually farted for the ENTIRE flight!! No joke. At least HE got sleep.)

I was allotted roughly 2 days to get over jet-lag and then the students arrived and we had the new student orientation for that first weekend. It was an amazing time of games, sweating, getting to know the new students and staff, completely taking over a movie theatre (to watch GI Joe), and slip n slides! (I was a bit weary about this one, due to a previous experience with a twig sticking up out of the tarp.) But it was awesome! And even a somewhat soft padded landing! :D

So now we're just about finished with the first week of school and I'm adjusted and settled into my newly rearranged apartment. WOOHOO! Oh, and yesterday I made a Korean friend... in the taxi. Haha.. he asked if I had many Korean friends (chingu), and I said, well, "outside of our school, no." so he gestured to himself and said "chingu." :D My first taxi driver friend. Life is good. Oh, and this weekend we may venture to Caribbean Bay. (The water park attached to Everland.. like a Korean Disneyworld. :D) I'm sure there will be MUCH to update after this! Until then...

Hugs, Blessings, and missing toenails,

Sarah

Philippines...

2009-05-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

Wow.. so I've been HORRIBLY busy lately and have forgotten to update you on my life. here's a quick update from my mission trip to Boracay, Philippines in April. Enjoy!

Sorry if the quality is a bit poor... I uploaded it to facebook and just copied it to here, so maybe I can upload directly here later..

BORED OUT OF MY MIND...

2009-02-22T02:36:00.000-08:00

So I've been waiting in the Rome airport now for the past 13 hours and have officially felt what it feels like to be homeless...

Yep... thrilling. I got here and had to try and find a place for me to lay down because when we arrived it was about 3 am in Korea. There was literally NO ONE around. So, luckily, I found some chairs that had the armrests broken and slept there for a few hours. It was funny though, because when I woke up, I poked my head up from my row and seriously the ENTIRE area was filled with people exactly like me. (Or maybe it was a clan of REAL homeless people and I had no idea...hmm.)

HOWEVER.. I DID say ROME airport, so yes, I will be traveling around Italy this week! :D It's winter break at our school and we found cheap tickets to Rome from Seoul, so put 2 and 2 together and you get one REALLY tired Erds, who's incredibly sick of airports. It won't be long now until one of the girls going with our group gets here. Oh, you're wondering why I didn't travel with them? Ha.. well, it's a LONG story and maybe I'll explain later, but pretty much when you book a flight, make sure you read through your ENTIRE itinerary when you get it in your email.. yeah.. it could save you lots of money and headache.

Ooh, but on the flight I found some interesting things in those magazines. You know the ones where everything is completely overpriced but they're hoping poor souls will actually buy something due to boredom? Ha.. yep. Well, I read COMPLETELY through the magazine because unfortunately our plane isn't quite up to date with the whole technology thing and so for our entire seating area, we had to share a small tv probably a little bigger than the individual ones you get on MOST flights. yeah.. so I had no say in what we watched. In fact, I didn't really watch any of the movies.. except for the looney tunes cartoons that came on later in the flight. I VERY MUCH appreciated that! :D BUT, like I said, I found some interesting articles and artists and would like to share them with you. You know, if you ever feel completely bored, check these out!

www.tracingtea.com ---> Crumpets anyone? I read an interesting article about these guys who are traveling across 3 continents and doing a documentary on tea! They're keeping a blog as they travel through the spring. haha.. That would be an amazing trip, if I do say so myself!

www.richardhutten.com ---> He's an artist with some pretty sweet ideas. Sort of crazy, but I loved the leaf magnets. Haha.. I guess some companies have filled their ceilings with these small 3D leaf magnets.. awesome. (they didn't have them on the website, so I posted a picture of them.. crazy cool!

www.yukenteruyastudio.com ---> Yuken Teruya is pretty awesome! He takes everyday objects and makes are out of them! Check out his toilet paper roll designs. Wow. Here's a picture...

Alright, I'll leave you now with a quote from the "AMAZING" information videos they show on the airplane.. this one had to do with emergency evacuations, if there were to be any.

"When leaving the aircraft, high heeled shoes should be removed."

Haha.. Seriously? I think if the plane's going down- I'm jumping with my shoes ON!

Hugs, Blessings, and EXTREMELY long layovers,

Erds

TO THE SLOPES!

2009-02-04T02:59:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was, yet again, another first for little Erdmann. The dorm students had a ski trip planned at Muju Ski Resort. (This place is probably the biggest ski resort in all of Korea.. so you know what that means?? crowdiness to the MAX!)

It's 6:30 AM, and everyone is gathering at the bus in front of the school and getting ready to head out at 6:30. I, on the other hand, am just waking up and beginning to run around in a frenzy due to the fact that I did NOT wake up to my alarm clock. (I knew it was a bad idea to reset it after waking up at 5:30 to turn the alarm off on the halls for students leaving for sports. I should have stayed awake. Oh well.)

Alas, I made it to the bus just before 6:30 and we set out on the road to Muju. On the way there our group stopped at a place to rent ski gear and it's here that I tried on my very first pair of snowboarding boots. There was a glow around me as they fit snuggly to my feet.. and I do believe I heard angels singing. ha.

Anyways, we reached Muju and a group of us "chaperoning" the trip decided to head up to the slopes. Not really understanding which are the easiest ones, we go to the one called "rookie" and figure it's easy enough. First, we wait in a line that looks like this:

My reaction:

Well, Dains and I have NEVER done any skiing/snowboarding in our lives and so everything about this venture to the top of the hill was slightly more than intimidating. I click my snowboard to my boots and I'm READY! Err... Ok, and.. GET UP! ....Hmm... Something must be wrong with my board because I can't for the life of me stay up. Or maybe it's because we're not really snowboarding on snow, it seemed to me like we were boarding down a huge slope of concrete with a bit of powder SPARINGLY sprinkled. It was solid ice! Hmm.. I eventually get up and me and Dains pose for a picture:

Alright, so let me, again, just say that I've NEVER gone skiing or snowboarding and so the entire way down the first hill it was .. UP.. DOWN.. UP.. DOWN.. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. And so forth. My arms got a workout.. that is FOR SURE.

What's today? Wednesday night.. So 4 days after that fateful day, I'm STILL having trouble using the muscles in my arms. Ha.. It's funny because you'd think that my legs would be sore, but no, not at all. It's all my arms and wrists.

HOWEVER, I was determined to get this thing, and so gradually I could stay up on my board for a few seconds, and then a few seconds more and then there was a moment where I actually stayed up for a good 30 seconds! Breakthrough, FINALLY! So about halfway down the hill (after much humilation from the many stares from Koreans passing me on the ski lift right above me) by Joe, I GOT IT! I didn't really do anything fancy, but I could actually stay up on my board and slowly move down the hill. This was monumental, folks.

So we reach the bottom, after a good 40 minutes, and realize that that was actually an intermediate course. Ha.. awesome. So we find the BEGINNER slope and all of us feel MUCH more at ease, and I could stay up for most of the way down. I did have some nasty spills.. face planting into the snow. But hey, I'm still in one piece! :D

Oh, and here's a picture from the top of one of the slopes. As much as I'd like to say I did THIS one, I actually had a hard time moving to the edge of this one.. seriously, it looks like it just drops off!

It was an amazing day, indeed! We ate Domino's pizza for lunch and only had a few injuries on behalf of the students. I'll definitely go again, but, maybe after my arms are fully functioning again.

Hugs, Blessings, and muscle spasms,

Sarah

Cruise Ramblings (in three parts)

2009-01-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of writings that just "came to me" while cruising the Caribbean. Now, just as a disclaimer, I was having fun writing this and don't think that I am completely bashing the going of cruises. I, myself, was a cruiser and had QUITE enjoyed myself at that. However, there are just some things I found rather amusing and thought you might appreciate my thoughts. Enjoy.

Dec. 26, 2008

ON PEOPLE:

So here I am on the deck amidst thousands of other Northern travelers. I'm guessing they're mostly from the north due to the fact that I am completely surrounded by a sea of both pasty, fair-skinned fellow friends, as well as those sporting the shiny red tomato look. I think, for some, and myself included, this is the only time we Midwest folk will feel the warm sun until the beginning of July. So as some (these said pasties) are more cautious with their approach to sunbathing by lathering on that 75+ SPF, wearing their clothes in layers, and dodging from umbrella to umbrella, there are those careless few, who believe baking themselves until their skin begins to constantly sizzle is the correct and "cruise-like" thing to do. Myself? I like to be slowly goldened, like a perfect s'more. You know the type, nice and toasted on the outside and warm on the inside, the kind of s'more that you pull off the poker and the entire outside just slips off the melted gooey innards. yeah.. those are great.

Oh, and I guess I've forgotten another cruiser, those few who's color seems to resemble both a lobster and burnt cookie. Ha. They think that because they've "fake baked" themselves all of fall and beginning of winter, that the sun will have no effect on them. Apparently the woman next to me believes this wholeheartedly. (Although, I'd have to say she's definitely more burnt cookie than lobster.)

And now that it's the day before we land back at our port in Florida, I think even those overly cautious are beginning to feel the sun beckoning them and have now decided to risk it all. We, the Erdmann clan, have also thrown caution to the wind by indulging ourselves in VIRGIN piña coladas. yeah.. someone save us, please.

ON LIFESTYLE:

Enough with the burning flesh, the entire idea of a cruise ship has had me chuckling every once in a while this entire trip. I just start to think about the 3,600 people aboard this ship (and that's just passengers!) and I think about how we're all floating here in the middle of no where, no land for miles. A floating metropolis! I mean, think about it from a sea creature's point of view. Your day consists of floating around and eating small fish and, all of a sudden, you hear this faint sound of marimbas playing off in the distance. As it gets closer you begin to make out the giant ship with the thousands of plump, red bodies strewn about, margaritas in hand. Just a bit unusual, right?

At the moment, I'm gazing at everyone lounging around in their beach chairs. The drink guys frantically waiting on them hand and foot. I think some passengers must stay in these chairs 24/7. I mean, I hardly blame them, trying to find 6 open chairs, let alone just one, is almost always a task. But the way that the chair has now begun to form around them is a bit disturbing. It's almost as if they're starting to actually become part of the ship. For example, take this man over here across from me. I think he hasn't even moved for several hours. Quite frankly, I'm a bit worried he might be dead. (And yet, he's still grasping that half-full margarita.. boggles my mind every time I see this.) Oh wait, he's flipping. False alarm.

So I can't help but be reminded of WALL-E right about now. Never leaving their space-age hovercrafts, these people don't even notice the wonder of creation or even those around them, for that matter. Sometimes it makes me nervous that I'll hear that "blue is the new red" aboard the mighty Mariner of the Seas. They do offer the drinks of the day, so I guess that's not too far off.

ON TOURIST SALES TRAPS:

Have you ever noticed passengers ears aboard cruise ships? Haha.. Ok, so that's a bit strange, but ever notice those funny round stickers placed behind their ears to ward off motion sickness? Yeah, it's all a scam. Now, I'm not one to rain on someone's parade when obviously someone out there is making big bucks. In fact, I wish I would have thought of it first! But come on, really? Do you actually believe those things keep you from seasickness?

I bet there was once a guy riding a ferry, who thought, "Hmm, I got a bunch of plain white round stickers and no money. What to do... what to do." While this man is trying to frenziedly figure out a way to use these stickers to somehow pay for his next meal, he begins to notice an extremely seasick man wobbling towards him. Nearly toppling onto the man with the stickers, he mutters cautiously and quietly so as to not let any unwanted lunch spill out of his mouth, "Man, I really wish I had one of those sea sick pills or bracelets." So, naturally, in fear for his life, and life being his only clean white jacket, he immediately grabs a small white sticker and begins to explain to the man that this small white sticker is a "SEASICK BE GONE PATCH" and nervously tries to place it on the man, only to have it end up behind his ear. The man thanks him and miraculously feels 100% better, or so he thinks. So that clever young man leaves the boat with a bag full of stickers and a plan to make millions. For, you see, it's those very stickers that everyone seems to be sporting on our ship. And I'm sure this sticker man is now perched at his desk atop the tallest building in a nearby city, stroking his cat and smiling sort of grinch-like at the thought of his brilliance. So, uhh, think twice the next time someone tries to sell you a migraine saving toothpick or a weight loss curing goggle set. You never know.

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!

2008-12-06T00:13:00.000-08:00

I need not explain too much here, but we visited a place called EVERLAND here in Korea and, well, it was pretty much a REAL Christmas Miracle. Watch the videos.. I'm sure you will agree... :D

(I had to divide this thing into 3 parts.. it was just too full of Christmas spirit for blogger.com to handle. ha.)

Cookies anyone?

2008-12-04T23:55:00.001-08:00

Alright.

Today I decided to go shopping for cookie ingredients. I found most of the ingredients, but a fellow teacher was looking for vanilla extract and so we got the lady at the counter to help us find the rest of our ingredients. We managed to explain to her with VERY few Korean words and mostly hand motions that we were making cookies. Thanking her for her help, we make our way to the register to buy our goodies.

The lady, can't remember her name, grabs the bag of sugar, STUNNED, and starts laughing as she tries to get the other ladies attention. They both start laughing and after a while, me and Lynds begin to feel a bit uncomfortable and wonder what exactly we grabbed off the shelf. Our lady tries to explain to us what it was we found, but unfortunately can't find the English word in her phone. We grab another bag of sugar but first make sure it IS sugar, which it was, before she rings it up.

We were about to leave the store, when our lady, determined to tell us what we ALMOST bought was, pointed to her computer screen and we read those dreaded words...

"monosodium glutamate."

HAHAHA... We both starting laughing and all four of us could now join together in the laughter of what COULD have happened to my cookies.

Can you imagine, "Would you like an MSG cookie? Fresh out of the oven!"

Haha... Oh man. Who puts a giant bag of powdered MSG next to the sugar.. I mean, not EVERYONE speaks Korean here! haha.. Good times.

Thanksgiving Feast...

2008-11-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

Ah, Thanksgiving Day at last
When we mere mortals break our fast
And all of us, both great and least
Sit down before a bountiful feast
We lift our prayers to God on high
Then stuff ourselves with pumpkin pie
Cranberry sauce and candied yams
Homemade rolls and turkey gams
Taters smashed with driblet gravy
Beans of green, and string, and navy!
Turkey breast and cornbread dressing
All get munched…after the blessing
Till it comes out of our ears, our eyes, our pores, even our tears!
We eat a lot, and then some more
While keeping one foot on the floor
We eat until we’re all done in
And then sit down and start again!
Thanksgiving Day, ah, what a treat
To eat and eat and eat…and EAT!

Haha.. this poem is amazing. And if any of you listen to or still listen to Adventures in Odyssey, you know EXACTLY what I mean.

Anyways, if you were wondering, my sickness has no begun to leave my body. I'm not exactly sure what I had, but I'm thinking it might have been some form of laryngitis or bronchitis. Nevertheless, it's going away.

ANYWAYS, it's definitely that time of year for hats and mittens and THANKSGIVING FEASTS! As much as I wanted to be back with my family for Thanksgiving, this feast will certainly be one to remember. My ACTUAL Thanksgiving feast involved... drumroll please... MEATLOAF.

No joke. On Thanksgiving night, we had food in the cafeteria and it was meatloaf. Haha.. I totally felt like the kid, Randy, from A Christmas Story who sang "Meatloaf, beetloaf, I hate meatloaf." But ALAS, there was a ray of shining light off in the distance because lo and behold we had our Thanksgiving feast that very next day and what a feast it was! The table went from one end of the gym to the other and it was filled with yummy goodness. There was even a Korean addition of Kimchi on the table. (Haha.. it's just not a meal in Korea without Kimchi.)

Anyways, here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving Night!

The last one is of the RA's and Brent, our fearless Resident Staff Leader! :D

This was truly a Thanksgiving to remember...

Hugs, blessings, and Thanksgiving kimchi!

DE-militarized... I think not.

2008-11-24T23:48:00.000-08:00

I'm going to begin this blog by saying how incredibly lucky you are to be READING this instead of hearing it from me in person, because as of right now, I have absolutely no voice, whatsoever. Last Thursday I contracted some sort of illness (most likely a cold... with a bit of laryngitis, possibly?), had a fever one night, and for the past 5 days I haven't been able to talk much, let alone belt out some great Christmas tunes. (I've been put into the Christmas mood early this year due to our downstairs lobby being decorated already, which then, spurred me on to also set up and decorate my own tree in my apartment. And yes, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but still...)

So over the past few days I think I've accumulated a MASSIVE pile of tissues, almost using up an entire box, I drank almost all of my instant Lipton soup mixes, and have guzzled down a strange concoction of Dayquil, Nyquil, Halls Vitamin C's, and "Riiiiiii-collll-aaaaaaaaa's!" :D I'm hoping to feel better soon.. we shall see.

Anyways, I've been meaning to update you on my recent travels to the DMZ, De-militarized zone between North and South Korea. A few weeks ago, a bunch of us traveled to the north to see what exactly the border looked like, and to my surprise, there really IS a concrete border between the Koreas. No joke. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We arrive early in the morning at the USO building, and then head off for our bus trip north to the border. On the way, our tour guide gives us some interesting facts and because of the static microphone and her accent, from what I gathered, I'm still very confused as to why it's called DE-militarized. The strip of land, about 2.5 miles wide and about 150 miles long, is THE most heavily armored border in the WORLD. Soo... yeah... De-militarized? Boggles my mind too.

Anyways, we arrive and are taken to the US base where we sat in a room and watched a presentation done by a US soldier about the history of North and South Korea and the infamous DMZ. It was also then that we signed a paper that stated "The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action."

...yeah.

NEVERTHELESS, we all signed our lives away and walked onto the bus that would take us to Panmunjeom. On the ride there, we weren't allowed to take pictures but definitely passed signs that read "This is a mine area" and it was then that I realized how much I was leaving my life in the hands of our bus driver. Every uphill twist and turn I felt a bit squeamish thinking what would happen if our bus accidentally drove off into the mine-filled brush. Oh, and we also got badges so that the North Koreans would be able to identify each of us and not just pick us off.. I was very thankful.

As we got off the bus, we were again reminded "Do not point at, gesture, or talk to the North Koreans." The atmosphere of this whole tour was very exhausting. I think the majority of the time, I tried to remind myself not to make any sudden moves, like grabbing my zoom lens out of my pocket and switching it out. (I wanted to take NO chances..ha.)

We made two lines and since ours was the first, we were also first to go inside the MAC Conference room. (Or otherwise called "T2" that stands for temporary 2... funny how places keep temporary buildings FOREVER and yet still call them temporary- like portables in high school.. hmm...)

This is the building that lays right smack dab on the Military Demarcation Line (yes, there's actually a concrete line marked out in case anyone were to just start walking the direction of North Korea and be confused at all.) I crossed over that very line into North Korea that day!

and is also where North and South Korea hold meetings. (Convenient how they don't even have to cross borders in order to hold meetings, right?) So we make it inside and here's our US soldier tour guide, Harvey, explaining just where exactly we are.

[movie clip: sorry, I'll upload it later, when I get better internet]

Anyways, we decided to take some pictures with the Korean soldiers standing watch by the door and just as I'm about to walk up to him, another man decides to take a picture with the dude and totally puts his arm around him. HAHAHAH.. I think my face was like "Oh man.. we are going to witness a SMACKDOWN." It would have been only a mere mistake had we NOT been JUST informed to not touch the soldiers and if we did, they had full permission to do whatever they wanted to us. (And I dunno about you, but when you see a man in uniform standing in a taekwondo stance.. umm.. well, you don't mess with him.) Well, the poor man soon realized he got himself into a pickle when the soldier totally shoved him to the side full force. (It was quite exciting to watch.) But then it was almost my turn to take a picture next to him.. haha.. so this was my face.

So I still got one next to him, but DEFINITELY kept my distance.

But it was really crazy to be so close to North Korea. Like I said before, you feel like so many eyes are on you the ENTIRE time, it's a bit exhausting, but definitely a crazy memory, indeed. Here's a picture of how close everything is. There's a soldier on the other side who had binoculars and was just scoping us out, which was a bit unnerving because just as I switched out my zoom lens, I looked up and he's staring right back at me. EEK.. I think I might have jumped a little. ha.

Also, if you look closely at the Korean soldiers glasses, they're definitely wearing Ray Ban aviators. (Supposedly they're very intimidating...totally makes me think Top Gun though..) Also, the soldiers were ball bearings in the bottoms of their pants so that when they march it sounds like more people.. interesting, right? I was really confused at first and wondered what exactly it was making that noise, but definitely didn't want to touch them to find out..ha.

And here's a picture of our group minus Mike in front of North Korea and the DMZ...

Well, moving right along, we leave that area and head out to a lookout place and check out a NK village called Kijŏng-dong, or otherwise known as the Propaganda Village. Supposedly some people think that there's really nothing there at all but soldiers patrolling because the lights in the village will turn on and off at EXACTLY the same times every day. The name also was given because they would blast information to the South Koreans with giant speakers about their country and leaders, etc. Oh, and their flagpole..haha.. I guess there's a war of who's flagpole is the tallest because at one point, North Korea had a really tall flagpole and then South Korea added theirs right next to it, which was taller. So what happened next? The North Koreans add their 525 foot flagpole with a 300 lb. flag flying on top of it. We were lucky to see it flying because, I guess, when it's raining, the flag is so weighted down that it doesn't fly.

A sweet picture of both North and South Korea all in one picture.. clever, right? ha..

Next, we make our way to the DMZ museum, which, I might add, told us a VERY idealistic view of the whole situation. I dunno what everyone else saw, but I definitely didn't see butterflies and flowers abounding with life everywhere you turned. No... only soldiers, barbed wire, and signs explaining there are live mines in the area. BUT, after our EXTREMELY fast tour of the museum, (seriously, they give you no time in these places, I think we spent a total of 10 minutes in that place.. no joke. Which also reminds me of our trip to the gift shop. I think our tour had roughly 80 people and when you cram that many people into a small little gift shop and expect EVERYONE to buy their souvenirs in less than 10 minutes.. I mean.. ridiculous, right? I barely had time to make my way through the crowded mess. The thought had occurred to me to jump up onto a table and crowd surf my way to the cash register, but I didn't want to make a scene. ;D

this is me in front of the museum with a statue of a soldier..haha..

We were then taken on a tour of the underground tunnels, or incursion tunnels, that NK had been making into SK. As of now, there are four tunnels that have been discovered the first found in 1974 and the latest in 1990. These run about 3,000 feet past the Demarcation line and when they were found, the North Koreans had explained that they were simply mining coal, but the SK's soon found out that was false due to the coal they had so strategically PAINTED onto the walls. Nice. Anyways, it was a LONG trek down and even LONGER way back up, but it was fun. You definitely feel GIANT inside of these tunnels, because as I am about average size 5'4" there were many times where I'd hit my head/helmet against the rock face shooting down from above us. Now that I think about it, it was this very thing that I was laughing about during the tour down underground. About every minute or so you could hear the clanging of heads hitting rock..haha.. quite entertaining actually. Oh, and on the way back up, we were met by about 500 elementary kids who noticed we were a large group of Americans and so they kept yelling out "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" haha.. So for HONESTLY 10 minutes, I kept saying "Hello... hello... hello... hello... hello.. hello.. Michigan.. hello.. hello... hello... hello..." and so on..

FINALLY, they take us to a lookout to view North Korea one last time. The only thing they told us was that we could only take pictures behind the yellow line. Simple enough. Well.. here's our view behind the yellow line...

Haha.. so it was definitely a task actually getting a picture of North Korea. We all stood right on the line and reached as high as we possibly could to get some shots.

But I managed to use my zoom lens and a few good shots, so there you have it.. a view of North Korea BEHIND the yellow line. :D

Wow. again, I have seriously made this thing MUCH too long. It was a crazy day, but definitely a fun memory! Thanks for reading and until next time...

Hugs, blessings, and yellow lines

HAPPY PEPERO DAY!

2008-11-11T16:20:00.000-08:00

Now..you're probably wondering what in the world is a pepero? It's an interesting little Korean cookie snack. A pepero is a small, thin cookie stick dipped or filled with chocolate and November 11 is claimed as Pepero Day.

I did some research and found out that Pepero Day is sort of like a Korean version of Sweetest or Valentines Day. Pretty much every store today has GIANT teddy bears outside their store and tons and tons of candy, mostly these strange little peperos. You buy the pepero, maybe one box, 2 boxes, OR a GIANT gift box the size of my body filled with stuffed animals and way too many peperos to eat yourself, and hand them out to people you care about. So I'm thinking to myself, who came up with this idea to celebrate chocolate covered cookie sticks? I can only imagine the owner of Lotte (manufacturer of "pepero") talking to his team of marketing people, and so this is how I believe it went down"

"It's November and our numbers are WAY down with these here pepero sticks. Anyone have any ideas to boost sales?"

"Hmm.. We could package them differently? Add new flavors? Make a new exciting cartoon advertisement?"

"Nah.. we've tried all of that and it just doesn't seem to be working."

"Oh, I know! We'll make the month of November, 'Pepero Month'!"

"A month is too long. How about just one day."

"Ok, make it November 11, the date is all number ones (11/11), so it looks like PEPERO!"

"Eureka!! November 11 is now "Pepero Day!" You're a genius, Stan! ...You're name is Stan, right?"

Yep. That's how I believe it all came about, but feel free to disagree. Sort of a funny thing to be celebrating, but seriously, GENIUS marketing move for Lotte. Someone's making millions from that decision.

So from me, and every other Korean, to you, I wish you all a very Happy Pepero Day!

Hugs, blessings, and plethoras of pepero!

Sarah

There's a first time for.. EVERYTHING!

2008-10-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

"We're the first to talk on Mars. Hey Julie, I'm the First to walk backwards on Mars. First to blow a kiss on Mars. Hey, you're the first to blush on mars."

"How'd you like to be the first guy to die on Mars."

"Well, sorry, Mr. First to Show Inappropriate anger on Mars."

I couldn't help but start this blog entry off with a quote from "Rocketman," an amazing film, if I do say so myself. But sometimes, even I feel like saying things like this here in Korea. For example, I'm the first Erdmann to click their heels while walking down the street in Daejon, Korea. Or, I'm the first person from Michigan to start a collection of pictures taken with Koreans wearing Detroit Tigers hats.

(haha.. it's true.) Now, granted I could count my ENTIRE time here as a "first", and so I'll just share a few with you today.

Anyways, I'm sitting here in my apartment, holding my arm, because I just received a flu shot the other day from the school, and it's getting sore. So then that made me think back to the beginning of the year when we had to get physicals for the school and had to... GIVE BLOOD.. dun dun DUN. yeah, it may come to a surprise to some, but Sarah Erdmann has never given blood out of her arm.. only finger pricks. Haha.. I sound like such a little kid. ANYWAYS, soo.. yeah.. it was interesting. (No, I didn't cry.) But, well, having someone take a needle, stab your arm, watch as your blood leaves your body NEVER to return, and then, on top of that, hear the nurse tell you something in Korean is probably not the most comforting thing to happen all at once. I just looked at her with a "thanks for that, I don't understand a word you just said" smile and walked out. First time giving blood EVER happened to be in Korea. Haha.. I laugh about it now.

I don't think I was completely coherent at the time, seeing that I was in such a fog of not knowing exactly where I was or what time it was due to jet lag. We were fed in and out of rooms with more testing. I felt like I had to keep saying to myself, "Fear nothing, expect anything." We all got chest x-rays done, as well as being measured by the "fatness measuring" machine. (Seriously, that's what it was called.) Oh, and you couldn't forget the contraption that measured your height. You stand there and just as I'm about to say, "Uhh... what am I supposed to---" BAM! I'm smacked on the top of the head by a lever that comes down and bounces off your head to get your height. ha. But yeah.. crazy day, which brings me to the most recent "first" experience.

It all started Wednesday morning, October 29, at 7AM. I woke the kiddos up and took them to breakfast. No big deal. I'm walking back to my apartment and contemplating whether or not I should shower and get on with the day, OR jump back into bed for the next hour or so. (Let's just say, you all know me so, this wasn't a tough question.) I was sleeping VERY soundly and then around 9:28AM... "BOOOOOOM!" I'm rudely awoken by the room shaking and I'm laying there on the couch trying to make sense of what exactly was going on. I jumped up and out of bed and it had stopped. I looked outside. No smoke. Nothing. No sirens. "Earthquake?" yep. Later that day I found out that there was indeed an earthquake in Korea, probably around a 3.4 on the official earthquake scale, and I live to see another day. However, that definitely was one of those Twilight zone moments.

Speaking of Twilight zone, that reminds me of a CRAZY thing that happened just a few weeks ago. A few of us were at the mall downtown and as we were walking outside, we walked up to the taxi line and just as I was about to grab the handle to the taxi door, I noticed someone sitting inside. So we went to the next taxi. However, as we reached the door again, we noticed someone sitting in the back of that taxi as well. I'm thinking to myself, "Why are they just parked here? Their availability light is still on!" So we then look up and all say in unison, "Woah."

If anyone has seen the movie "The Happening" you might understand how I felt at this moment. (If you haven't seen it, you're not missing much.) Anyways, in the movie, just before people start killing themselves, they freeze there for a minute or so, not moving a muscle. Well, this day in Korea, we looked out onto the busy street and cars were parked up and down the street, people were standing on the side of the road and it was... SILENT! It was incredible! (but eerie at the same time.)

We remembered that we had been warned about this so we wouldn't freak, which is probably what I would have done, had I not known. I guess every month from 2:00-2:20, they stop EVERYTHING for a drill. It's like a giant fire drill for the entire country, you know, in case there was an attack of some sort. Needless to say, it was interesting.

Also, this past month I went to the Passion conference in Seoul. It was amazing. It was actually David Crowder's first time ever in Korea, so that was fun to experience. But even more so, it was incredible to worship with thousands of Koreans, in both English AND Korean, during that weekend. These Asians really know how to worship! And there's something awesome about going to a completely foreign country and still coming together as a Body to worship our Savior.

(pictured, David Crowder, and then Choua and I outside the Olympic Stadium in Seoul.)

Finally, this is my first time ever being an RA. I was on a leadership staff in college, but never an RA, an RA for High Schoolers. It's strange because sometimes I feel like their mom and then there are times where I just feel like the older sister because I'm really only a few years older than some of them. But I'm loving every minute of it!

I'm going to go off on a tangent because recently I had a conversation with Laura, the dorm mom, about our dorm and the kids and how each kid is so different and sometimes it's difficult to feel like you're on the same page with each of them. Each of these kids comes from such different backgrounds, but the majority of them come from very privileged non christian homes. Their parents are doctors, professors, scientists, and famous opera singers. They sell Jets and are owners of giant companies, like Bennigans. (Yes, it's still thriving here in Korea, even though I think most of them shut down in the States.) You name it, probably one of these kids' parents does it. So this automatically puts my role as their RA and spiritual leader in a difficult place. They have been given everything they need in their life, so there's no need for a Savior or Heavenly Father. So my heart hurts for these kids. But now, just imagine what some of them will do someday. They've all had some sort of international experience and have been pushed to be the best in education that they can possibly be. These kids are the cream of the crop and just think what amazing things they could accomplish for Christ, if they'd let Him into their lives. Just some things I've been thinking about lately.

I still need to update you on my crazy time visiting the DMZ. (De-militarized zone between North and South Korea) I even stepped inside North Korea! Interesting, right?

Well, stay tuned for more updates.. as in.. a couple days from now. Ha..

Hugs, blessings, and Korean Tigers Fans!

Sarah

Just call me Mav...

2008-10-03T22:48:00.001-07:00

So I've been appointed a new nickname, given by my fellow RA, Scottie. From now on, I will be known as "Maverick" here in Korea. (Stop laughing..ha.)

I updated not too long ago, but if I don't write another one, I'll get WAY behind. (So much has happened.. I'm constantly on the move here..) So a couple weeks ago we had a Rugby Tournament. It was so much fun! However, waking up at 6AM on a Saturday morning doesn't usually start a good morning, but after a long bus ride to Seoul and getting warmed up, we blew those rugby-goers out of the water. (And when I say blew them out of the water.. I exaggerate.. a little.) We actually didn't do too horribly, considering most of our team was new to the game about a month ago. But I guess it's a pretty big tournament in Seoul because some teams flew in from China! (crazy, right?)

At first, we were shaking in our boots because after arriving to the grounds, we began to notice how amateur our team was. haha.. Some of the teams had legit team outfits, numbers AND last names on the back to make it even worse! Our team, well, was given used TCIS dragons tennis t shirts (oversized, I might add). But regardless, it was an amazing experience! There were different divisions (all girls, all guys, mixed, and youth teams) and so in our division (mixed) we got 5th out of 8 teams! AWESOME! we won 3 games, tied 1, and lost 1. (The team we lost to were BEASTS! no joke.)

What's rugby without an injury, right? ha.. Yeah, so it's touch rugby, but I definitely got tackled to the ground.. landing on my head and then scraping up my back pretty bad. No concussion though, so I felt ok after sitting down for a while.

THEN.. we had SEW here at TCIS. I actually got to design the t shirts for this, which was quite exciting! (However, the guy who printed the t shirts put the logo on sideways..guh.. oh well.) So THIS is how they were supposed to look:

Oh well.. they looked cool regardless. But we had an amazing SEW. They flew in a speaker, Tim Milburn, and a band, Station 2, from the States and we got to hang out with them for a couple weeks! It was a blast and always a nice thing to meet fellow Americans here in Korea! :) It's sort of ridiculous, but I actually knew who the lead singer of Station 2 was! Crazy story, but he had come to Woodside Bible (when it was still called Troy Baptist) when he was in a previous band, Thirsty 4 more. I felt somewhat like a groupie when I explained that I had his music on my itunes and could finish lines from songs when he started singing them. haha.. ehhh... oh well.

some girls from my dorm hanging out during the SEW games (Soojin, Angela, and Esther)

me and Jennifer at the Station 2 concert!

Station 2 at the outdoor concert near LaVita, a coffee shop right outside the school grounds

FINALLY, fast forward to this past weekend where a few of us traveled to the southeast of Korea to the Jinju Lantern Festival! They celebrate this every year in memory of probably the worst period of Japanese invasion here in Korea. Supposedly, in October of 1952, General Kim Si-Min led his troops of a mere 4,000 and killed close to 20,000 Japanese. So this celebration is definitely one of Korean national pride. Soldiers would float lanterns down the Namgang river to let family and fellow troops know of their safety inside the castle. Cool, huh? Well, these were not just ordinary paper lanterns.. they were HUGE.. and there were so many of them! It was awesome.

(this one even breathed fire!)

Also, to our surprise, we got to experience a real Korean bullfight! No matadors, just bulls fighting each other! We got there and pretty much just walked in. Did we have to buy tickets? WHO KNOWS!? So we sat down and enjoyed the fight along with every other senior citizen in the Jinju area.. haha. (Seriously, I think we brought down the average age by 40 years!) It was crazy though..

Here's a video of us at the bullfight. There were brief moments of excitement, like when one bull TOTALLY tackled the other, but unfortunately I didn't capture that on film. I did however get this little snippet.. Oh, and at the end we're all making "oh gross" noises because these bulls had seriously been going on for so long but didn't give up, so they were OBVIOUSLY getting tired and showing it by hanging their giant tongues out of their mouths. ha.. awesome.

But that concludes everything going on right now. Thanks for your prayers from before, but as far as my animation classes go, I'm actually taking another break until after Christmas. (It's a long story, but pretty much they signed me up for the wrong class and the class I wanted to be in was already filled up... sooo.. I decided to wait until the winter term to start up again.) It's a bummer, but I feel good about this decision and I know this will give me more time to spend with the girls on my hall and just "be" here. (Maybe this will even be a good time to work on my illustrated book that my sister and I have yet to write! :) God has already answered so many prayers since I've arrived and I'm so thankful! Thank you for keeping in touch and I pray God blesses each of you today!

Hugs, blessings, and upside down t-shirt logos!

Maverick

Sooo... where's the trashcan?

2008-09-29T05:05:00.001-07:00

That phrase could quite possibly be the theme of our trip over Chusok because I think Korea is in a shortage of garbage cans. I probably held onto some garbage for a couple hours in hopes of finding where to put my trash. Unfortunately, I think some people gave up hopes earlier than we did, because every once in a while you'd come across a pile of garbage DEFINITELY not in the right place. ANYWAYS, Chusok is a Korean family holiday where everyone gathers at the eldest family members house to partake in food, spend time together, and remember their ancestors. (It's probably like a Korean version of Thanksgiving) However, since all of my family is millions of miles away, a group of us decided to become our own family and head south to Busan for the weekend.

Getting tickets was quite the ordeal. Chusok is probably the busiest Korean holiday, so if you don't get your tickets early.. well, you don't get tickets. Fortunately for us, we DID get tickets, however; they were standing room. Haha.. So a couple hours on the KTX (fastest train in Korea), "playing" euchre ( I say "play" lightly because most of the way there we were arguing on the rules.. Canadian vs. American..hmmm..), and sharing in the NARROWEST hallway ever with the food cart lady, we arrived in Busan!

We almost made a horrible mistake of jumping into a taxi to find our hotel, only to soon realize that our hotel was RIGHT across the street from the train station. Haha.. I can only imagine the face of the taxi driver as we ask him to take us to our hotel.. the hotel that's 5 feet away. Nevertheless, we find our hotel and get checked in and decide to go find the BEACH! Now, I was expecting it to be EXTREMELY busy because it was Chusok, but in fact, the beaches were COMPLETELY bare! (I guess I heard you don't really want to be at the beach in the summer because literally, you can't even see the beach due to the masses of umbrellas lining the shore. No joke.. I've seen pictures.) But no one was around! It was awesome!

So we chilled, swam a bit and then found a place to eat.

THEN... we found the best things ever! SWEET bumper cars in the middle of nowhere! You put in 500 won and they go for a couple minutes and play SWEET music! It was pretty much amazing.. not only because it was incredibly random, but when we all got on them, tons of little asian kids joined in the fun. :) Probably one of the best memories of the trip!

Saturday we woke up early to get to the fish market. (I wanted to get there when they were first getting the fish in for the day.. at 4AM.. but no one else wanted to get up that early.. so we went at 8AM) The crazy bustling shopkeepers, jumping splashing fish (yeah.. some of them jumped out of their glass tanks..so you had to keep an eye out), and INTENSE fishy smells.. it was incredible.

I found a booth completely filled with fresh shrimp! :) mmmm....

After the fish market, we did some site seeing and saw a temple, lighthouse, and a pebble beach! It was a good thing we took this trolley ride, otherwise I think I might have keeled over. Just at the lighthouse alone, we counted over 400 steps JUST walking back up from the rocks at the bottom of the lighthouse.

Later that day we traveled to the Busan aquarium, which was so much fun! (I don't know what it is about aquariums, I mean, they're all the same, but for some reason, it just never gets old! :) The one thing that was extremely cool about this aquarium was they had a HUGE shark tank! They even offer shark dives inside the tank, and a few of us girls were prepared to take the plunge, but unfortunately/fortunately (ha) they weren't doing dives because of Chusok. (So maybe next time?)

haha.. the last picture makes me laugh.. resembles a rock with a face. But in the seal tank, one guy was swimming swimming swimming and then all of a sudden he crashed and dove down and ran right into the window with his eyes closed and everything. his nose was all pressed up against the window and I wish I would have gotten that shot..hahaha.. I laughed so hard. But then he settled backwards into this position, so at least I got him right after the fact.

haha.. this one kills me too.. We found this shirt in a store.. Detroit.. BEANS??!

It was a great time to relax and see a whole new part of Korea. In fact, during Chusok, I actually traveled to the most southern part of Korea (Busan) to Seoul, the most Northern part. ( Of SOUTH korea..) ALL IN ONE WEEKEND! It seems like alot of traveling, but when you stop and think how big South Korea really is.. I guess it's not TOO impressive, because Korea is about the size of Indiana. But this Chusok was definitely filled with tons of memories and I'm so glad I could have spent it with some amazing friends I've made here!

Well, I'm starting up my animation classes this week and so if you've read this and think about me in the next month or so, could you please keep me in your prayers just with adjusting to taking classes as well as ministering to these kids. We had our dorm staff retreat this past weekend, so it was really great to hear from a couple dorm parents from Africa about their personal experiences and be encouraged in our ministries. It's so easy to just turn what we do here into a job, but I'm praying that I don't lose focus of why I'm here. This is a job, but it's so much more a ministry. Thank you for your prayers.

Hugs, blessings, and garbage can shortages

Sarah

2008-09-04T23:34:00.000-07:00

I know, I know.. You're looking at this blog and thinking to yourself.. "Holy smokes, how long is this thing? I only have 3 minutes so I'll just read the first sentence and zip through the pictures." To which I would say, "Please don't let this NOVEL-sized blog scare you from reading. It really is quite interesting. Or at least I think so. Thank you."

Has it really been over a month since I arrived in Asia? Wow.. what a whirlwind of adjustments. First the time zone and climate (Did I mention that it felt like a million and one degrees outside PLUS humidity?), to adjusting to my surroundings (knowing simple things like finding my way home from school) to more difficult adjustments like taking a taxi ride to Homeplus and back... ALL BY MYSELF.. knowing VERY little korean. (Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself.) Finally, one huge adjustment has been my new role as an RA here at TCIS. I'm not going to lie, the hours are ridiculous at times but I have got to have one of THE COOLEST jobs around. The community here is so unbelievable and from day one I have felt so at home. My dorm parents, fellow RA's, and faculty (new and old) have been such an encouragement to me and have had so much patience with me learning EVERYTHING. PLUS, I get to hang out and live with the coolest high schoolers I know. I went from a family of 6 to a family of 42 practically overnight... and I LOVE IT!

So I guess since the one month date has come and gone, I feel I better reflect on the new things I've discovered about Korea and how I'm adjusting to an Asian lifestyle. What better way to do that than to describe Korea to you through the 5 senses! (Haha.. I know, cheesy, but I've got WAY too much to say, and I felt that this was a good way to break it up.)

SOUND:
I've never lived in a big city before. (and when I say "in" I mean, I look out the window and I see NEON.) This place never sleeps. From early morning, I hear a man in a truck driving slowly down the road with a speaker at the back blasting the same message over and over and over and over.. and OVER again (I think someone said he's selling cats... but that information could be wrong)
Well, here.. let me just explain with this...

yeah... that goes on FOR.EV.ERRR. (Sandlot anyone??) Anyways, it's really loud and I can't understand him but can hear him through closed windows. Next, CICADAS. Wow. Goodness, those things are loud! I've seen them before and you've also probably heard their buzzing, but one cicada, no big deal. Hundreds of MILLIONS of cicadas? Standing under a tree with those things above you, it's almost impossible to hear the person next to you. The funny thing with those is you can hear their mighty roar and yet can't see even ONE. (Well, until they're dead.. then you see them.) Then finally, you have the busyness of a downtown city.. The cars... people... trucks... construction.. it's a noisy place.

However, amidst the crashing and honking of horns, there's the language. I know close to absolutely no Korean and as frustrating as it is at times to not communicate with those around me, at the same it it's actually quite peaceful. Let me explain. If I were back in Detroit walking around- wait.. I wouldn't be-let me rephrase- If I were back in Chicago walking down the streets, I'd be listening to millions of conversations and words being expressed-words that aren't always the most uplifting. Just think about all the bad language we're bombarded with just walking down a street or aisle in the store. Whether we want to or not, those words are entering our minds and thoughts constantly. So here in Korea, I can't understand conversations, which sometimes ends up making a stressful day a very peaceful one where I can just think to myself in solitude. An interesting thing, right? Solitude in a loud huge city.

SMELL:
Have you ever smelled something like a perfume, warm cookies, or an attic smell and it instantly throws you back to some distant memory? Smells really bring up nostalgic feelings, I've found. Well, I have a feeling that it will be really hard to find one of those here in Korea, due to the fact that everywhere you turn, there is a new and sometimes less exciting smell around the corner. The cause of this? Open sewers. Yes. Who really knows what we're smelling every day? Also, if you didn't already know, Asia loves their seafood. Especially dried seafood. (I bet if you wanted a dried sea cucumber you could probably find it somewhere, or they'd special order you one, most likely.) Now... I like seafood. Alot, in fact. I mean, shrimp is probably my favorite food at the moment, but when you're enjoying , let's say, a soccer game with friends and get a waft of fishy air, my first reaction isn't "mmm... seafood." But here in Korea, you don't order boring hotdogs, but instead a dried WHOLE squid wrapped in foil. We went to watch the Daejeon Citizens a couple weeks ago and the guy in front of us ordered one. oh, the smells.. Needless to say, I'm not used to the dried fish.

*will the squid culprit please raise his hands???

In fact, I tried some the other night. Jwipo. But I'll explain later. HOWEVER, smells don't always have to be a bad thing, right? I mean, the food is soooo good! And walking by restaurants can bring some AMAZING aromas of edible goodness, which ever so nicely brings us to the next topic...

TASTE:
Nearly everything I've tried and eaten I have loved. Seriously. It's a bit on the spicy side, but so yummy. Only a few times have I felt like I might die... and once it was because I was fooled into thinking it was a harmless chive. I was VERY MUCH mistaken, for it twas not a chive, but a scary VERY SPICY pepper! Phew.. makes my eyebrows sweat at the thought of it. But I've tried Bi bim bop (which translates into "mix mix rice" or something like that), mondu (like a pork dumpling) and kimbob! (the yummiest sushi-like roll ever!) It's all so good and to eat a huge meal here (that I never finish) is less than 7,000 won (roughly $7.00) But the jwipo... hmm.. It's a fish that is dried and baked ( I think) with some sort of sugary flavoring. So think.. texture of beef jerky/ dried mod podge and the flavor of fish and a candy bar. Interesting? ...very.

*this was taken just moments before my spicy chive of death scare*

I've discovered some drinks that only in Korea you might find. Drinks like "Pocari Sweat" and "Milkus", both of which are a cloudy color resembling a drink that had milk residue in the bottom before the new liquid was added. Aside from the color, these drinks are actually really good! The first resembles the flavor of gatorade while the other is like a carbonated orange creamsicle. The craziest drink I've tried so far is called Aloe. It is exactly what it's called. My first thought was, "Wait, shouldn't I be applying this on my skin to soothe a sunburn?" You would think so, but this aloe, you drink. The flavor wasn't so bad but the many chunks of aloe were a bit difficult to swallow. And the flavor grape...not the flavor of the green fruit grapes, but the artificially flavored tootsie pops or grape gummies... well, I always wondered why it was always the flavor it was because it never seemed to taste like the fruit I was eating. Here, the grapes taste EXACTLY like the grape flavor we eat back at home... so it DOES exist! haha.. I used to think it was just made up. the grapes taste like grape flavor and the SNOZBERRIES taste like SNOZBERRIES! (..willy wonka?)

SIGHT:

As far as sight goes, I arrived on July 31st to a very smoggy city of Incheon. It was so humid that I felt like I could collect buckets of water right out of the air, if I tried! From my window, actually, I could always tell how humid it was going to be by whether or not I could see the distant mountains. (Therefore, determining whether or not I should actually try to do my hair. ha) But so far, Daejon looks pretty similar to a downtown area at home, except for the arcade games that line the streets. (You know, the crane games? Except here you can actually win the stuff, it isn't just a scam to get your money. Yeah, I know the pain we've all felt trying to win that stuffed animal, but the claw just wasn't strong enough to hold the weight of a feather.) But They LOVE their arcade games and have complete rooms EVERYWHERE devoted to just that. I think I already commented on the Karaoke rooms? Yeah.. it's awesome.

One thing I've seen though is the respect here. Whenever you say hello to someone who's older than you, you bow to them. Also, simple things like handing money to someone, you wouldn't just hand it to them with one hand. Out of respect, you would pass always with two hands, and if you couldn't then you put one hand on your passing arm. Some words are even spoken differently depending on who you're talking to. So I've got so much more to learn, but I'm excited to start taking Korean language classes.

* This was taken as we were arriving to the hotel for our retreat. I couldn't help but chuckle inside from all of the bowing taking place.. it was like being in a Marx brothers movie... and I secretly felt like walking by the line a couple more times. I mean, come on, wouldn't you? I felt like a celebrity walking down the red carpet.. but you know.. a bit different.*

*our dinner entertainment on the retreat. I thought they needed an extra member of the traveling group*

But the Koreans are so helpful here, and EXTREMELY generous! Wherever you go they throw in free stuff! I went to a store called Innis free and got a W3,000 container of lotion and at the checkout the guy kept throwing in "freebies." He kept smiling as he pulled some other sample packet into my bag and explained what it was in his best English. "This is cotton.. for face. This is lotion for body. Wash, for face." I think I got more than what I even spent at that store. Even at the big supermarkets, if you keep your eye out for them, you can score yourself MANY of these freebies. For example, I was shopping for a garbage can for my apartment and I found one with a cleaning glove thing taped to the top. Even when I grabbed a lotion, out of no where an employee came rushing by to take the one I had out of my hands and make sure I got the one with the free miniature body wash taped to the outside. They look out for us here.

The other day I went to the store to get some pretzels and couldn't find them, so I tried asking someone if they had any. (I think I said "pretzel" in about 10 different ways to see if any of them clicked.. "pretchel?" "prettssal?" "prechal?" nothing seemed to work.) I also think it was a wrong move, on my part, asking the lady I did because she worked in the cosmetics department across the aisle. As I'm motioning to my mouth that this is an edible food, she ever so nicely points me to the makeup aisle with the lipsticks. Seeing that this is going no where and although she's trying to help me, she discovers that it's not makeup that I'm looking for, but food. Good, we're getting somewhere. She finds a couple other workers nearby who are all giving me the same confused face. So I explain that it's like a cracker. "Ahhhh..." they all say. Remembering my artistic talent and my degree in Illustration, I fumble through my bag to find an old receipt where I begin to draw the shape of this mysterious cracker. By this time, more and more Korean workers are beginning to crowd around me deciphering my impossible clues. I've got probably around 8 workers "helping." (Either they were genuinely EXTREMELY helpful to all drop their normal duties to help me find a bag of pretzels or just excited to practice their English with a real live American.) After all of that, I left Homeplus empty-handed... but had quite an interesting experience. Sarah Dainsberg got me some pretzels from Costco nearby. (And the bag will probably last me a full 2 years here..haha.)

TOUCH:
Hmmm.. touch.. WELL.. I've joined a touch rugby team here! Haha.. I'm excited, but a little nervous because we have a tournament coming up in a couple weeks already. (Yeah.. and I'm still learning.. pass BACKWARDS!) But it's been so much fun! Speaking of joining things, I've also joined a Taekwondo class taught by one of my girls here in the dorm. She's a junior in high school and has taken 10 years of Taekwondo...black belt. Haha.. yeah.. and you'd never expect it either. So who knows, maybe when I come back I'll have some sort of belt.

Although, as far as feelings go, I am absolutely LOVING it here in Korea and TCIS. It takes a while to get used to something new and there's always that period of adjustment, but I feel so supported here, it's amazing. I made a logo for the middle school chapel series titled "The deep end" and in some ways I feel exactly like I've been thrown into the deep.

The first few weeks were times of furiously just trying to remember people's names, procedures and try to act like I know what I'm doing, when in all reality everyone here knows I don't. Haha. But God has really answered my prayers of finding genuine friendships and renewing some old ones as well. :) (these are my co workers)

Now that I've got names out of the way, it makes my job MUCH easier. If you're reading this, you have in some way been such a huge blessing to me and I miss all of you very much. I know God has called me here and is confirming that daily. We serve an awesome God and I can't wait to see what He does this next year, back in your lives and here in Korea. Thanks so much for reading.. I'll try and keep this more up to date next time. But until then..

Hugs, blessings, and pretchels :)

AT LAST!

2008-08-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm finally here in Korea!

Wow.. what a journey.

15 hour plane ride, 3 checked bags (all here safely, by the way!), and a 4 hour drive back to Daejeon. Longest day ever. Oh, and they weren't kidding about the humidity. I'm from Michigan, so we get it pretty bad, but WHOA.. nothing like feeling like you're breathing water into your lungs. Also, with korea being 13 hours ahead, jetlag was soon to kick in. I think I'm over it, for the most part, but it was quite the accomplishment for me to stay awake past 9pm. (and if you know me, I can EASILY stay up until 2am back in Michigan)

So exactly have I been up to this past week? Right when we got here, they had us going every hour. It's a good thing too, otherwise I might have zonked over into my bowl of spicy soup and rice. They took us to some really cool restaurants nearby, and my favorite so far, Manna House. You walk in, take your shoes off at the door, and are immediately hit with a wave of heat, which only got worse as you made your way to the table. You sit down in chairs with no legs, and your feet go down into the floor (the Table is pretty much floor level.) It was so much fun! They brought out raw meat and you threw it into the boiling hot water (which is pretty much blowing onto my face at this point.. condensation building on my face.. yeah.. pretty hot in there.) BUT IT WAS AMAZING! You take out the meat and put them into little lettuce wraps. MMM... so good.

I'm finally done unpacking my suitcases and my goal is to make my apartment look and feel like home. We went to a couple stores to get essentials, like Homeplus, Costco (yes, they have costco here), and homever (which, I might add, has a pretty sweet theme song playing throughout the store.. haha) Oh! The other night we went to Norebong, and if you haven't heard of it, I'm just going to tell you it's the coolest thing ever! Its pretty much karaoke but only for you and your friends. You reserve a room entirely for your friends, lounge on couches, and sing. The only part that was a little unnerving was that they score you at the end. Ha. I guess, here in Asia, they take these things pretty seriously too. (When we went, you pretty much sing at the top of your lungs as lights flash and pretty random video footage is played behind you.) However, they have individual rooms on the side of the road called norebong closets, where you practice for such nights as these. yeah, they take it pretty seriously.

This past week has been ridiculously busy and I'm meeting so many new people and feeling very at home here at Taejon Christian. I met all of my girls who will be on my floor this next year, and I'm even more excited for the year to begin and have them all move in on Sunday night. Thanks so much for your prayers and I'll try and write again soon.

Jetlagging,

Sarah

PHEW...

2008-07-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday confirmed the fact that I most definitely am leaving for South Korea next Wednesday as well as calmed all of my nerves that seemed to be freaking out just a little. I received my visa/passport in the mail! YAHOO!! haha.. for a second there I didn't think I'd have my passport back to even just make my flight! Now that that's figured out--- ON TO THE PACKING!!