This morning we went to a church that is nearby with our fellow teachers. It's a big Korean megachurch with an English service at 11:30. There was about 70 people at the service and it was nice to see other caucasian people! The church still had more Koreans (practicing their English, or they used to live in an English country) but it was nice to be among people who you knew would understand you! Apparently, a lot of the congregation is from Canada too. We met one girl who had lived in Banff for a while.
The service was very nice with familiar songs and a good sermon. We will definitely be going back, and it's nice because they also offer Korean lessons after the service! So we're hopping to try that out next week. As well, the church plans lots of outings and events throughout the year. In a couple of weeks they'll be playing volleyball and the week after they're making a trip out to a national park close to Cheongju to do some hiking. We're hoping to tag along for the trips.
After church we walked over to E-mart, which I would say is a mix between walmart and sears. First we had a healthy lunch of McDonalds that was deeeeeeeeelicious! No matter where you go in the world, McDonalds is always the same! Then we proceeded to E-mart, which is simply HUGE! So much to look at! We didn't take a lot of time to look around however since we were with the other teachers, we simply got the necessities. Hopefully next week we will have a chance to explore the store a bit.
After we got home, we put on some shorts and decided to go for a walk and explore a bit since it was so nice out. We climbed up a hill to the mountain like area along our neighbourhood and took a leisurely walk around the neighbourhood and ventured outside our neighbourhood a little bit. We definitely lucked out in where our school is situated. We're in the neighbourhood San nam dong, which is brand new in the past 10 years. Looking at other neighbourhoods, ours definitely looks a lot classier, cleaner, and taken care of.
Tonight we also made our first dinner in our apartment. The previous teachers had left behind some chopped up pork, so we made some type of hawaiian pork, fried onions, potatoes and salad. Pretty simply, but it was a nice feeling to do some cooking and eat some familiar foods like potatoes!
Tomorrow is Monday and we'll be on our own teaching for the first time, so we both plan to do a little prep work tonight to make sure we're ready to go for the morning. Wish us luck on our first day!
P.S. here are a few pictures from our afternoon:
A small garden right by our apartment
Our school is in this building on the top floor, our classrooms look out onto the street
this is our neighbourhood grocery store
The nastiest spider I've ever seen!
It was HUGE!!!
This is our neighbourhood
Some little park that we found. Apparently, there's toads and frogs here too, but we didn't find any...
Love the pictures! Nice to see you had some good weather too. Maybe you need Morgan and Lauren to help you find those frogs!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that you found a church that you like - but more importantly, that you can understand! It'll be nice to go every Sunday and connect with others from home. Maybe it'll help avoid homesickness. And that spider gives me the heebiejeebies!
ReplyDelete