Over the weekend...

Sunday, April 13th

Saturday was rather uneventful...we spent the day at home.
Here are a few things and pictures...

Lots of trees are blooming and beautiful. Is this a tulip tree? or magnolia tree? The superintendant at the school makes a joke with my name: he points to the tree and says "Wanda-ful!"
The green field at the top-left is a sea of garlic.







Here is a squatting toilet. John's first experience with it was interesting!






Sunday we first went to the Korean service in the morning. John took the camera along and here is a picture of the Korean church. The picture of the group below are girls from the church. Then we did make it into Seosan for the English service in the afternoon. We were going to take the bus, but then Kyung Hee and Ae-Ran offered to take us in since they also wanted to see what the English service was like. A few native-English speakers attend...one from Canada, one from the south (but has traveled extensively as she grew up in the military), and two from South Africa. For 2 reasons, it was almost like something of a surprise at first when the Canadian came up, extended his hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Scott. Welcome." First: in Korea you bow, not extend a hand. Second: you wait to be introduced...do not introduce yourself. I guess we've been acclimating in that area...at first I had to catch myself from sticking my hand out at them since it would cause a moment of awkwardness. Now, the bow comes more naturally, and I almost bowed back to Scott! But it was really nice to be able to just talk in person without wondering how much is actually being understood, especially when we inadvertantly use slang. The English service was in English, but by a Malaysian and very accented. Afterwards, we talked some with the others and found that Scott is teaching about 10 minutes away. He has been in Korea for 3 years now and has gotten the courage to cautiously drive. He says it would take him 20 minutes to get to our house instead of 10! We got home and all took a 4-hour nap! Guess we all needed sleep! Then, we made some "cupboards" for the kids out of the luggage containers. They enjoyed being able to personalize them! I begin teaching tomorrow...the English books I'm supposed to teach out of have not come in yet, so John said to "just wing it." Mmmmm, easy for him to say!! He's going to give me some pointers on beginner lessons. I hope the books come in really soon!