Construction Site

We just had to share this video.  I am sure that it breaks every code for construction work, but this is what we saw outside Justin's classroom window one afternoon.

Shinsegae

After working all morning, we decided to spend the afternoon at Shinsegae (pronounced "Shin-say-gay"), the world’s largest department store.  This place is absolutely massive.  It is over 500,000 m², making it nearly twice as big as the Mall of America.  It has 10 floors of merchandise, and like 4 floors just for a golf driving range. It has absolutely everything.  There are clothes on every floor, including the brands Calvin Klein, The North Face, H&M, Gap, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Crocs, Armani, etc.  It also has 2 food courts, a grocery store, a food market, and an entire E-Mart inside.  The food court has Burger King, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, KFC, and several other Korean/Chinese/Specialty restaurants.  I think we went up and down the entire place twice just making sure we covered everything.  There’s a mattress section, a bookstore, a movie theater, an ice rink, appliances, accessories – basically, there’s everything you could ever think of and more, including a Sky Garden on the 9^th floor.

One of the best parts is that as a Foreigner you can take your passport to the Information desk and they give you a coupon book.  Then before you leave, you take back a receipt, and they give you a free tote bag! There is no limit to how many you can get as long as it is on different days.  And since Korean stores don’t give you bags with your purchases, these tote bags come in handy pretty much every day. 

There really isn’t a whole lot more to say about this place, because the pictures really do say it all.  Enjoy!

Welcome to Shinsegae! This is just the entrance! There is an entire Subway stop that comes out in this store.

This shot is not even from the top floor!

Touch screen wall by the movies

View from the Garden on the roof

Other view from the garden

The Sky Garden

Our big purchase - two books that were wrapped like this by the cashier

Ice Skating Rink

Another view of a small portion of the store

Korean Chinese Food

After our long, but successful first week of school, we headed to the Subway to go to John and Katelyn’s house (friends from church) for dinner.  What we weren’t expecting was the Korean Cultural experience that we so wonderfully were treated to.  For dinner, John called in an order to a Korean Chinese restaurant.  Apparently the Koreans say they do Chinese food better than the Chinese do.  We were so impressed with his ability to actually phone in an order and then were equally impressed when the right food came.  What we weren’t expecting was to receive our meal on real plates.  What is that? They told us that after you finish eating, you put all of your plates back outside your door, and later on someone will come back by to pick up your dishes.  Again, what?? So of course we ask how much the delivery charge is, but it’s free! It’s the same price to eat in the restaurant as it is to get it delivered and picked back up.  Unfortunately, we are not advanced enough in our Korean, seeing as we don’t even know how to say our address yet, to order food over the phone.  Something to strive for, though. 

The food was very good, too.  We had Sweet and Sour Fried Pork and several different sauces to dip it in.  There were also noodles, fried rice, and mandu, which is a sort of dumpling.  Koreans LOVE their side dishes, so we probably had close to 12-15 dishes for 4 people.  Everyone then just dips their food in the same bowls.  It was such a treat to have something other than chicken for dinner!

We are so excited to have made these friends here!  They live almost an hour away, but it was well worth the trip, and really it didn’t seem that long at all.  We were sad that we left our camera at home, so unfortunately there are no pictures to document this excursion.  Next time!

Meet the Teacher Night

All in all, Meet the Teacher Night was a successful night! I don't know why we keep getting nervous for things when they all turn out so well.

The first part of the evening was spent up on the "Sky Garden" (aka the roof) with snacks.  We mingled with each other and a few parents for a while and then headed down to our classrooms for presentations.  Since I only have two students, it was pretty simple for me.  Maria's Mom doesn't speak English, so she came in with a translator and just looked around for the most part.  Jade's parents, who I had already met, came in for about 10 minutes or so.  We just chatted and I explained our daily schedule and toured the room.

Justin's was a much busier night because he has so many students.  We are beginning to wonder if they will somehow split the class if it gets any bigger.  BFS generally has very small class sizes, so his class of 21 is pretty uncommon.  He is hoping to get some of the bigger furniture moved out because there is not much space left to move around. A lot of his parents were worried about the class size, but other than that, it went well!

Below are a few pictures of our rooms that are set up for the parents to see along with a few projects that my kiddos have completed.

Nursery School with some art hanging

Jade's projects

Justin's classroom

First Day of School Picture

Take a look at our picture before our first day of school!  We have indoor shoes and outdoor shoes at school, so take special note of our "outdoor" shoes we wore.  Because of this, we ended up taking all of our dress shoes to school so that they can all be "indoor" shoes. We're actually breaking the rules in these pictures because Korean Homes are "No Shoes" homes as well (except for slippers or bathroom shoes).  We do follow that custom in our home except for the occasional last minute item that we don't want to take our shoes back off for.  

Check out the school website for our biographies and photos that have now been posted.  Notice our extra round faces that were so graciously "touched up" by the photographers.  These photos also appear on our school ID's that we have to wear all the time.  When we got our pictures taken, the photographer didn't know what to do with my wavy hair, so he made me comb it out before he would take the picture.  Something so simple turned into a very interesting experience and outcome! 

Back To School

Our first two days at school have been successful!

Nursery School went very well! My two students, Maria and Jade, are precious!  Maria is Russian and only knows a few words in English like colors and numbers.  Jade is a very quiet and shy little girl. We combine a lot with the Pre-K class, which has 7 kids.  Our day consists of a few times apart for literacy and math lessons (which we really aren't starting until next week), and then we are together for all of our centers, lunch, recesses, and story time.  I already feel like we have been in school longer than two days, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!  The kids are great and for the most part speak English very well.

Justin's class  has gone well too! It was a bit crazy the first day, but today was better. He enjoys his kids, but his class is about to go up to 21! He has the largest class in the entire school.  He has mostly been doing introductions and pre-tests for subjects, so he is really excited to get into real content starting tomorrow.

Thursday night is Meet the Teacher Night, which we are a bit nervous about because we have heard that many BFS parents can be difficult or overbearing, in good and bad ways.  I have already met Jade's parents, and they were very nice.  Justin has met one Mother, and she even gave him a bottle of wine that cost 60,000 won (roughly $60)!  We are not allowed to keep gifts over $25, so we gave it to the Vice-Principal. He said if it's a gift we really want, they'll just hold it until the end of the year for us so it doesn't influence how we treat students.  We have heard stories about parents giving purses that cost thousands of dollars!

All in all, we have had a very good first two days of school! We are definitely tired and ready for the weekend already, but that's okay.  I know that I am enjoying my days more than I anticipated at times.  This whole teaching thing was so new to me, but my kids are just so cute! We don't want to post pictures of them on our blog or anything, but you can look forward to seeing some of their faces at Christmas!

Thanks again to all of you who prayed for us as we geared up for this week! God is so faithful and has provided such wonderful opportunities for us here in Busan.  It is so easy to find things to complain about, but we just can't get over how amazing this experience has been, even in just the last three weeks. From finding a great Church and meeting friends, to a great apartment, to great students, we are incredibly blessed.  Our prayer request right now is for continued strength and wisdom in how to best teach our students.  They range from very bright to not knowing English, so that balance can be difficult, but it is so rewarding at the same time.  Pray that this coming weekend will be relaxing but that we will also be able to get things done, and also that Thursday night would go well as we meet parents.  We are blessed to have so many of you praying for us!

1 Chronicles 16:8    Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done. 

BFS Classrooms!

Our classrooms are finally ready, we think! We spent all of Wednesday through Sunday in school, organizing, setting up, doing some decorating, and planning for the first week of school.  We are so grateful to finally say that we feel ready for the first day!  There are more things we would have loved to do, but we are very happy with where we ended up.  The purpose of this post is really to just show off our classrooms that we worked so hard on and to ask for prayer.

As we begin the school year tomorrow, we ask for prayer.  We are already quite exhausted from preparing for this, so pray for rest and energy and strength for this coming week.  Since we really didn’t get a weekend, we will be running on adrenaline a lot of the time.  Pray that Monday isn’t too incredibly chaotic, although we expect it to be.  Pray that amidst the chaos, we are filled with peace and confidence that we are doing our best. 

As stressful as the last 2 weeks have been, we are so excited to meet students and get the year going!  Justin officially has 19 students to begin the year, and I have 2, one of whom does not speak any English. Pray that when challenges come, and we know they will, that God will give us wisdom and strength to get through them.

More updates to come this week! We're missing a few of our classroom pictures, but otherwise, enjoy this glimpse of the Nursery Classroom and the 3^rd Grade Classroom at Busan Foreign School!

Listening Station

Word Work Station

Writing Station

Art Supplies and storage

Justin's Schedule and Homework Assisgnments

3rd Grade Rules