After nearly 24 hours of travel and no sleep, we made it to Busan!
In Ft Wayne we had to purchase a return ticket for me (Megan) because I
didn’t have a Visa. Thankfully we were
able to buy a refundable ticket. We made
it to Busan around 9pm on Sunday night.
Customs here was a breeze – they didn’t even ask for a return
ticket. He just told me to get my status
changed within 90 days! As soon as we
got to baggage claim we saw all four of our bags already on the belt. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Our new principal was waiting for us at the airport, and we took the
school bus back to our apartment. We are
on the 13th floor of our building, and it technically has 3
bedrooms, although we’re not quite sure how even a twin bed would fit in the
third. We have balconies on both sides
of the apartment, and the school even just had air conditioning put in for us! That was a nice surprise. There really is a pretty nice cross breeze
without it, but it’s pretty hot and muggy, so we are very thankful for AC.
We tried to stay up as late as we could that first night and finally
went to bed at about 11:30. We were
hoping that the later we stayed up, the later we would sleep, but we were both
awake by 5:00. We spent that morning
putting clothes away and trying to settle into our new home a little bit. Thankfully there was also some food already
in our apartment for us for breakfast and lunch.
Around Noon we were picked up to go see the school and to go grocery
shopping. The school has just begun
construction on a new building, and they are refurbishing the old building at the
same time. We got to see both of our classrooms,
which was very exciting! My classroom is
really small, but as of right now, I only have 1 student! There is one table with about 8 chairs, a
good amount of reading books, workbooks, worksheets, lots of decorations, and plenty of
resources to go along with the ones that I brought. There is also what the Vice Principal told me
was a “small tv” which probably at least 52 inches. He said that because every other classroom
has a SmartBoard. I have several
educational movies, a tiny bathroom, two sinks, and little lockers. I have my own desk with a printer too. Justin’s classroom is pretty big (probably at
least 3 times bigger than mine) with 13 desks, 2 very nice computers, a whole
separate seating area with nice couch-like chairs, all of his textbooks and
workbooks, and an entire cabinet of supplies, posters, and hands-on
materials. It was really fun for us to
finally get to see what we have been wondering about for so long. We also got to meet a few other teachers and
most of the administrative staff.
We then went on to EMart, which is kind of like a WalMart and Target
combined. We get $250 for a settling in
allowance, so we were able to get an iron and ironing board, a desk, a chair, a
clock, some kitchen utensils and other supplies. We also got some groceries to last us for a
few days. EMart is probably only a 10
minute walk, but thankfully we got to go in a car because we walked out with so
much stuff! There are closer places to
get most groceries, but we are planning on going back to EMart soon to look
around more. There are 4 floors (at
least) and we didn’t even see everything.
They have these escalators to go between the different floors that are
flat inclines like moving sidewalks. The
carts have these rubbery blocks on the wheels that somehow cling to the
escalator and you don’t have to hold the cart!
It was pretty cool.
On the way back to our apartment they pointed out a golf driving range
(Dad!) just down the street from us and the school. There are electronic stores everywhere as
well as coffee shops with free WiFi so we plan on using those quite a bit until
we have internet. We won’t be able to
get internet or phones until we have our alien registration cards which
apparently will take some time.
We came home from all of that and hauled everything up to the 13th
floor, put it all away, made our first dinner in our tiny kitchen (chicken,
noodles, and veggies). We were exhausted
by 6, so we decided to take an hour nap – except that turned into a 2 ½ hour
nap. Oops. So then we had to get up and try to stay
awake as late as we could. We have a few
English channels on our tv, so that’s helpful.
On Tuesday we spent the morning going through things in our classrooms
and unpacking all of the boxes that we shipped to the school. Thankfully we have received all of them
already! We organized a lot of what was
already in our classrooms and are feeling pretty good about getting school
started! We were also able to Skype with
my parents for a few minutes at school, so we took them on a “tour” through
both of our classrooms.
It has been a great first few days in Korea! We are getting more and more excited each day
for the start of school! Thank you all
again for all of your prayers and words of encouragement! We miss you all very much!
Psalm 108:4 For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your steadfast love reaches to the skies.
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