Ending Term 3

Hello! It feels like it's been quite a while since I've written anything, and in some ways not much has changed, but I suppose quite a few new developments have happened in Suncheon since I last wrote. 

Term 3 wrapped up in the usual way, with lots of parties and eating and games.  I made crepes for all my classes, including my debater girls.  They quite loved it and the other debater classes were quite jealous and wanted some, but I told the others that my class had really earned it this term.  For the first time ever they debated without reading their essays and used only an outline, yea!! Progress!  (Hopefully that trend is continuing this term even though I'm not their teacher anymore...) 

Gotta love the belugas

Term break was relaxed and stressful at the same time.  We decided for a number of reasons to stay home this term break and not due any extensive traveling. In some ways that's more relaxing not trying to cram a lot into a few days, but in other ways traveling is what makes a vacation seem like a vacation most of the time.  Being home meant, for better or worse, that we had more time to plan for the next term quickly approaching- ie getting our calendars ready for our classes, preparing our religion class material etc.  One very important thing that this new term was bringing was two new teachers.  Makeba and Ivy headed home, and after a lot of anticipation and confusion about who would be replacing them, we finally welcomed Leland and Nev to the Suncheon SDA English Institute.  They are an interesting pair, Leland is only here for one term (2 months), is a 63 year old man from the rural area of Eastern Oregon.  Nev is around 23, a recent graduate of Andrews University in ...something about marketing (?), from New York City, was in Busan teaching for 4 months, and now has 8 months left on his contract.  Their arrival caused quite the flurry of activity.  Previously, our institute had been using two apartments, one for Jon and I and one for 3 girls- Grace a Korean teacher and 2 female foreign teachers.  However, there was a third apartment in our possession not currently in use.  So when the main office had difficulty finding institutes for men, and we had an empty apartment, we got sent to men, which meant poor Grace had to move out and move to the empty apartment and leave the guys the other one.  Unfortunately, the previous teachers had left their apt. in a complete state of disarray, so Grace and I and some deaconesses from church took it upon ourselves to whip it into shape as best we could.  Although there was more that could have been done to disinfect and tidy the place up, Leland arrived just as I finished a major section of the cleaning, so he settled in, we showed him around the institute and around town, and took him to dinner, and had him over for lunch on Saturday as well. 

I love turtles

The largest crustacean on Earth...yikes!

Sunday we took some time for ourselves and headed to the much acclaimed Yeosu International Expo.  Korea LOVES expos, but this one was supposed to be really good, even for Korea's high standards.  So Sunday we headed out mid afternoon and took the packed free train to the expo, about 20 minutes away.  We saw the highlights, including a robot exhibition and a pretty awesome aquarium, and then had dinner at the international pavilion.  There were exhibits for tons of different countries, but all we were interested in was who had foreign food.  We found our heart's desire at the India exhibit and had deliciously authentic curry and chai for two for a mere total of $10.  Awesome.  We also found a churro and some ice-cream.  We went to a few more exhibits before settling in for The Big O show, the highlight of any day at the Expo according to most people.  They were serious about it too, the show didn't start till about 9:00PM, but people were already filling up the stadium around 4:00pm! Sheesh! Jon and I said, "no thank you", and enjoyed the Expo more before finding a seat around 8:45.  Of course by that point the stadium was packed like a sardine tin, and with the two of us not too fond of being turned into sardines, we used our heads and came up with a new plan.  You see the "big O" is a giant metal contraption they built in the bay for the expo, in the shape of a circle, and it would shoot up water in different directions and color it with lasers.    Well we figured it's a circle, so we would just find a seat across the bay where no one was sitting, brilliant! Brilliant that is, until the wind changed directions and all that water shooting up came crashing down on us.  The few Koreans who had joined us in our brilliant plan quickly fled the soggy scene, but Jon and I were determined to see this show, so amidst hiding our faces from the onslaught of water being blown in our faces, we peeked out and saw the brilliant light show, drenched and all.  It was fun.  And there you have the end of term 3 in a nut shell! 

Looking suave as ever

The Big O Show!

Yeosu at night