Almost 2 months down!

Hey everyone!
Well, guess what today officially marks? 8 weeks of living, surviving and (surprisingly) liking Korea! Everyone tells us that the 3rd month is the worst, as far as constantly having the nagging thought "Where the heck and I, and what am I doing here?" But, I'm going to be optimistic (an eternal optimist, I know) and state that maybe the worst is over? We still get bouts of homesickness, but they seem to be quieted a bit by our little weekly routine. I'm sure next month will test our patience a bit with this place, since it will be Christmas and all... but we'll see.

So, we have posted some pictures from Halloween (most of you have probably seen them already). It was a fun day, but it was also ridiculously exhausting! The kids were all bouncing off the walls (literally!), so after 11 hours of working you can imagine how tired we were. Anyway, I must say that celebrating Halloween in Canada is much more exciting than in Korea.

If you're wondering where the pictures from Gyeryon-san mountain are, there aren't any. We forgot to bring our camera last weekend, too bad. We had a good time hiking with our directors, their kids, sisters and another foreigner. It was good times. The weather was absolutely perfect for hiking - really crisp but still pretty warm out. We loved it.

We had a pretty busy week at school. Our report cards are due on November 15th, and Andrew has 10 to do and I have 11. So, any spare time we had at work this week was spent writing up report cards. I find that report cards are really a waste of time. First of all, most of the middle school students don't even show their parents the report cards from English school. Also, we aren't supposed to use any negative words or give the kids any bad marks on their report cards. So, it becomes ridiculous writing a report card for a kid who never does his homework, doesn't pay attention in class, fails tests and makes the other students cry. Anyway, I guess it's part of the job and the culture.

Taekkyon is going great! We're both enjoying it so much. It's so incredibly challenging, it's awesome. This week we started learning how to use a weapon called a ho-pay (that's what it sounds like anyway!). It's sort of like a flat block on the end of a string. Anyway, I'm pretty terrible at it - I have next to no muscle in my arms (as you all know) so I don't have any power behind it. (Needless to say, there won't be any videos of me with my ho-pay posted) Maybe in a year though I'll be able to look fierce with it! Just maybe....

We've had a busy weekend so far. We went hiking to Gyeryon-san again this weekend (we're becoming regulars!) with one of the guys from our Taekkyon class (Ji-Hyun). We walked to the second peak yesterday which was MUCH more difficult than the first. The second peak is more like "rock climbing" than hiking. At parts we were literally scrambling over boulders next to big cliffs, so scary! Anyway, we made it to the second peak safe and sound. It was a really good hike. Andrew's pretty tired from it today. Anyway, I put up a few pictures of it on our flickr page.

Then, last night we met a couple of our friends (both from Canada!) downtown. We went to an English bookstore, out for supper, and then on a mad search for poker chips. The search for poker chips somehow lead us to a bowling alley, which was a little unexpected. Korea makes such good use of it's space, so a bowling alley seems a little counter-intuitive I think! Anyway, we had a good time. I'm so happy we're starting to meet people, it makes our weekends SO much more interesting!

We've been getting a little antsy to do some traveling like some of our friends and families have been doing lately, so we've planned a trip to Seoul next weekend. Not too sure what we're going to do there yet - probably do some serious shopping as I think we're due. Maybe start picking up some Christmas presents. Also, I found a really cool show for us to go to on Saturday night. It's a non-verbal sort of cooking show where the people use pots and pans to make music.... okay it sounds a little wierd, but everyone says it's amazing. Check out the link if you're interested! http://www.nanta.co.kr/

We're thinking of you all doing midterms (glad it's not us!), traveling, working, and just being busy with your own lives. We hope everyone is doing well!

We miss you!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XO

P.S. I'm making Pumpkin Soup tonight, isn't that Martha Stuartish of me?! I'm pretty excited!