Haeundae Beach

We spent Friday afternoon at Haeundae Beach with a couple from school – the Olsons.  Nancy will be teaching High School English and her husband, Rolf, is a Lutheran Pastor back in Minnesota and will only be in Busan for a month.  We walked about 30 minutes to the beach and rented umbrellas and chairs because it was SO hot.  One umbrella and 2 chairs costs 5,000 won, just under $5.00.  The water felt great and was so refreshing from the humid air and heat.  We stayed for about 4 hours just talking and getting to know them.  Below is a picture of the beach. It was pretty hazy out, but it was still beautiful.

We ran into a few other people from school, including a couple who lives on the other side of our building.  They also informed us that we get to pick out a new tv, which is great because ours doesn’t currently have a way to hook up to our computers to watch stuff online once we have internet.  We also found out that our $250 settling-in allowance is per contract, so dishwasher here we come! We found one for about $60 that just plugs into the wall.  We also might get a little mini toaster oven so that we can “bake” a few things.  Those things will require a trip to Costco soon because we have heard that it’s cheaper to get some of those things there.

Sunday we are going to church with the Olson’s. We are leaving extra time for getting lost, so hopefully we won’t miss it. J  We are really looking forward to finding a community of believers, so pray that we either feel that at this church or know we need to keep looking.  We are both so used to being surrounded by our Christian friends and family, so we are really craving that. We are so excited to become better friends with people at school too.  There are 14 new teachers – we have met 8 of them or so, I think.

Monday we hit the ground running. We will be at school from 8:30-4 every day until school starts.  They have scheduled part of each day to be in our classrooms though, so that’s good. All three of the Early Childhood teachers are new this year.  In the rest of the elementary classes, there is only one returning teacher.  At least we’re all in the same boat!

We ask for continued prayer in adjusting to the time difference.  We tend to get tired pretty early and then wake up around 6, and we want to get used to staying up a little later for when school starts.  Also pray that we can form good connections with people both at school and in whatever church we end up going to.  Praise the Lord that we seem to be doing so well at settling in and finding our way around our part of the city.  It is such a blessing to live so close to the school and have so many amenities just as close.  We can’t thank you enough for your prayers, and kind words of encouragement.  They mean the world to us!