One week down!

God gave us a great gift on Friday--internet in our apartment!! This means that I can now download the pictures I take onto the laptop and share them with you all. It is a wonderful thing to have back, though it didn't kill us to go without it for a week. Now all I need is more pictures of Sokcho!

Here are a few of the interior of our apartment. We live on the seventh floor of building 506 in Buyoung Apartments. Each building has about 12-14 floors, so they're pretty big. Since we are a couple, we have a larger apartment (if you're one teacher, they usually set you up with a studio or shared apartment). We have our bedroom, a den (study), the bathroom, and a living (dining) room that all shoot off from the kitchen. We also have a balcony off the living room (where the washing machine is), which has the view of Mt. Seorak. It's been a bit hazy/cloudy here this week, which is why I haven't been able to get a good shot of it yet.

Today was the first snow I've seen this winter, both here and in the USA. It didn't last long, but it was neat. Paul and I slept in very late on our first Saturday off, and then headed to downtown Sokcho to find the market. The market had squid, shrimp, all sorts of fish we don't know how to prepare, along with some vegetables and fruit. It's all open-air, and we had fun passing through. I even found a second-hand stand that had some fun coats to try on. We both realize though that we need to try a bit more of the food here before we feel comfortable enough to buy it at the market to prepare at home.

Last night, after our classes were finished, Paul and I met up with two other teachers from our school, Ara and Kirsty, for our introduction to Korean beer. Ara, who has lived in Korea awhile and knows his beer, tells it like this: "The beer fairy smiled on several Asian countries: Japan, Laos, the Philippines, China. When she got to Korea, she'd run out of sweetness." Korean beer isn't awful, it's just not very strong. It's like Michelob Ultra. But it's wicked cheap. We had a five-liter jug of it on the table, which cost us around $5. They took us to a bar downtown called "The Western", which had a picture of cowboy Clint Eastwood on the menu--pretty funny. Kirsty's roommate, Helen, and her coworker, Kelsey, met us there, and later so did about 9 other foreign teachers from Sokcho. It was really fun to be out with folks our age, drinking, and talking. It made Sokcho feel more like home. It was also great to talk with folks from all over the world: England, Australia, South Africa, Canada, the States.

The first week went well...better than I thought it would. I believe we'll have fun teaching here, once we truly get the hang of it. This week was just super busy because we're not used to preparing for six classes each day. But most of our students are really nice and take us seriously. I have a few younger kids that keep me humble, but that's all right. I'm grateful to have the chance to work with several ages...it keeps me on my toes.

Tonight the wind is howling outside and it has begun to rain. I believe we'll be staying in and chilling. We feel pretty entitled to enjoy this weekend! Tomorrow we will meet our friends again for lunch, and then our directors have promised to take us out for Korean barbeque, which is quite tasty. And if we can figure it out, we'll try one of the churches here. Apparently there are two Catholic churches in Sokcho--we just don't know where they are yet. But we learned that one of our fellow teachers, Gloria (Korean), attends a Presbyterian church here. Maybe sometime we can try her church.