There's a first time for.. EVERYTHING!

"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...

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?

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

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!

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...

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!!