Time for a New Start

Hello Everyone-
I am not even sure if anyone reads this blog but regardless I thought I should let you know it will be obsolete from now on. Jon and I have started a new blog, because this one isn’t as user-friendly as I’d like so here it is:

http://jsstainbrook@blogspot.com

enjoy!

Back in the land o’ Kimchi~

Well, we are officially back. And it has officially been FOREVER since I have written anything on this site! I apologize for the two month lapse, but as always we’ve had so much going on it’s been difficult even attempting to collect my thoughts much less write them down. We’ve been back in Korea now for 4 weeks and they have been crazy weeks. Before that we spent 5 wonderful weeks in Minnesota enjoying all of our friends and family!
This year is a bit different from last year mainly because we are in a totally new location, and we are the first native speakers to be here… EVER. We are making history baby! With that being said, we’ve loved it on Sinan. Jon and I love our schools and have really enjoyed the small class sizes, relaxed “island” atmospere, and the generosity of our teachers and other that are living on the island. It hasn’t all been peachy keen though.

While we were home we were informed that the houses that were promised to us wouldn’t be completed until the end of October so we’d be staying in some sort of pension. The Heaslips in one, Jon and I in a different one. Well the one for the Heaslips was ridiculously small, so we are all splitting one BIG one. It’s pretty crazy. But it has been very peaceful and I really think that God is blessing our time in the house and putting a spirit of calm and peace over the place. After the news of no home, Jon and I were then hit with the fact that the Heaslips would have a 3 bedroom home and Jon and I would have a 1 bedroom. Not usually a big deal, excpet for the fact that we’d been promised.. (not kidding this is the reason we signed the contracts) that we’d each have 2 bedrooms bigger than Ian and Amanda’s previous apt. Well needless to say Jon’s and mine is quite a bit smaller than promised. By this time Sinan had changed the housing on us about 7 times, and we were quite fed up with it. We even considered leaving Korea, but decided against it when they said we could pick out everything going in the house.
So that meant SHOPPING woo hoo! And, with someone else’s money! It was awesome being able to pick out literally everything going into those houses and not really having to think about price or anything. So that more than made up for it 🙂

Other than that, we’ve just been adjusting to life and gearing up to move into the actual houses!

I will hopefully be able to write more frequently now that we are back and in a routine of things.

Domo Arrigato Japan!!~ Fukuoka, Hiroshima, and Miyajima

Konichiwa Everyone! Jon and I have been back from our Japan trip for a week now and have been quite busy this week packing and cleaning! I figured I should actually update the blog and let everyone know how the trip was! Our first few days were spent in Fukuoka, Hiroshima, and Miyajima. Tomorrow I’ll finish up the other destinations.

So we started out in Busan and took a ferry over to Fukuoka, Japan. Our first night we stayed in a little hostel and had the most amazing ramen EVER, seriously i’ve never eaten anything so delicious!

The next morning we got up bright and early and started on our way toward Hiroshima. By far our favorite city in Japan. We started out at the Peace Park area, where the A- bomb building is .

the a-bomb dome, so incredible

these adorable children were all over the area painting and drawing

we also saw the children’s peace memorial which was in memory of Sadako and the other children effected

we also checked out the Hiroshima castle

In Hiroshima we were able to take the tram all over the city. We really enjoyed the smaller town atmosphere and we really liked that we could see everything in the area. I think the most impressionable part was the Atomic Bomb Museum. To see the destruction and havoc caused was so intense and I truly felt slightly horrible to be an American. I mean, I know that the Japanese were not innocent in any way shape or form, but the bomb is still having effects today, 64 years later! I mean c’mon how is that in any way ok? I truly just wanted to cry seeing all of the photos and things. Really an amazing experience.

The day after Hiroshima we explored the island Miyajima. This island is one of the 3 most photographed places in Japan because of it’s famous shrine and temples.
The shrine… about 3 different photos 🙂

Jon and I with the shrine:)

later that evening

When we were in Miyajima we also decided to head to the top of Mount Misen. Because the cable cars were like 18$ to the top and back I decided we should hike up. Bad Idea. It was so unbelievably hot and we think that Jon may have gotten heat stroke. He was actually delusional at the top. It was so bad. So we decided that maybe we should take the cable cars down for 10$. We did take only two shots at the top before we high tailed it out of there.

It truly was beautiful, but so unbearably hot that we couldn’t handle it. So to cool off when we got to the bottom we found a river and cooled off 🙂

Then we headed back to Hiroshima and grabbed some Italian food 🙂 I think that these two days were both of our favorite days, and our favorite places to be in Japan. They were so beautiful and so unique! To see more pictures go here!

So close and yet so far away

Well, we are coming to the last couple weeks of the countdown!!! Woo Hoo!!!

The past week or so has been busy !!! Last week we had all the foreigners over for a homemade pizza/goodbye party. Everyone brought a topping and we were baking pizzas in the oven for a good 2 hours… but it was so worth it! We really did have a fantastic evening, and we really enjoyed having them all over. It was filled with a lot of laughing, singing, guitarring, and much more!

This week we had the same type of set-up but with our english co teachers. Quite a few of them came over and enjoyed some home-made pizza and rice krispie treats! They even bought us couple shirts and underwear!!!!!! Every shop you go to in Korea land you will see “couples” things and Jon and I have totally been wanting to get some, but now we don’t have to!!!

Couples Underwear and Shirts!!!

This weekend we are going to be heading to the DMZ and picking up some last minute things in Seoul! We are also hoping to catch the newest Harry Potter movies as well!!!! sooooo awesome!

Other than that we are finishing up school this week, and we’ll have four days of summer school. Then we’ll have about a week and it’s off to Japan!!!

Also, I’ve started my own personal blog mainly just with more of my daily personal thoughts. So if you’d like to check it out, go for it!

http://mispensamientoserrantes.blogspot.com/

See you all SOON!

The Pictures!

Boseong Tea Plantation and Teacher Sports Day

Wolchulsan Hike and Student Sport Day

Has it really been this long??!!!

Well, I have to say I’m qutie embarrassed that it has been SIX  weeks since I’ve last updated this blog!!! That is horrible! Jon also reminded me of that, and I then reminded him he also has two hands to type.  And he didn’t say much after that 🙂  

But, the Stainbrooks have been busy!!!! I can’t believe those six weeks have flown by this fast!! We’ve filled them with plenty activities though. Because I’m writing this from school, I won’t be able to upload pictures with the blog so I’ll do that later tonight but for now you’ll get a wordy recap of what’s been going on in our lives!

We’ve mostly been filling our time with trips to Green tea fields, hiking up a famous mountain nearby, going to the beach on a regular basis, and spending time with friends!  We have a few really nice beaches near us and have been taking full advantage of using our car to get us there! We also bought a small grill and a cooler so we’ve been having little bbq’s wherever we go which has been a lot of  fun as well!  At the beginning of June we also officially signed our contracts for the next year. So we are “for sure” coming back 🙂

I think the biggest news though is that we celebrated our 1 year anniversary!!!!! Wooo hooo!!!!!  Honestly it is still mind blowing to me that we have been married for a year. It has FLOWN by, and it’s even harder to believe that for the majority of that year we have seen none of our family and friends.  I’m really proud of Jon and I for making it through this first year on our own, just the two of us. And to be honest it has been a fantastic year!!!! Sure we’ve had our moments, but truly the transition from dating to marriage has been a lot easier than I thought and much more fun 🙂 I’ve enjoyed really establishing our relationship together and fell so grateful that we’ve had such a good year. I do sometimes wonder though how different it would’ve been if we hadn’t moved half way across the world. With the influence of family and friends… how would that have changed our relationship dynamic?? I guess we’ll never know, but it’ll sure be interesting to find out in another year when we are back in the states for good.

Other than that, we are just living life day to day. This week our school has exams which makes for a lot of down time at school. I use up this time to read, read, and read some more! so if you have any suggestions for books…send them my way!

As I said, I’ll put up some pictures from the past couple weekends tonight when I get home. And I’ll try to update the blog a little bit better over these next few weeks!

 

Oh and did I mention we are coming home in 7 WEEKS!!??? yeah…we’re pretty excited 🙂

The Busan Adventure

May 1-5th Jon and I had some time off of school to go on a little adventure. We decided to make a slightly (6 weeks early) 1 year anniversary celebration 🙂 We don’t have any time of around our actual anniversary, so we decided this was a good excuse 🙂 We headed out on Friday first to Naju to get my driver’s license! I can legally drive in Korea now! We then made our way to Busan. After we checked in at the hotel we made our way to the beach! Only one block away!!! It was BEAUTIFUL and nice and sunny 🙂 We just walked along the beach and looked at all the Koreans taking random pictures and running into the water fully clothed. We then hiked up to this area with some overlooks out onto the water.

We then ate a delicious dinner at Bennigans restaurant using a gift certificate we had. We then made our way back to the over look park and took some pictures of all the city lights.

The second day we headed out to some of the fish markets and to Gukje Market. We had a nice time just walking around, figuring out the subway, and figuring out where we were! We finally made it to the top of this mountain to see Democracy park, which is a memorial for Korean war veterans.

We did A LOT of walking on this day so we just decided to take the rest of the evening relaxing in our hotel. Day three we decided to explore a different market, Gupo market. This market is known of all of it’s fresh fruits and veggies and also for selling dogs…alive or not so alive…. Jon and I desperately tried to avoid that part of the market and we were quite successful, until the very end. We walked around a corner to find the subway and ran into this road just full of little puppies, chickens, ducks…. all alive…. and the animals that were not so alive were across the street, so we just walked with blinders on. After that we decided to hit up the new Wolverine movie. It was a semi rainy day and Jon had really been wanting to  see it we thought why not!?

Day 4 was SUNNY!!!! So first we hit up the aquarium and then the BEACH!!! It was so nice and warm out that we couldn’t waste the moment 🙂 It was so nice and relaxing to just lay there and do nothing, I absolutely loved it! It was the perfect way to end the minivacation!

The next day we headed home and enjoyed an evening before school started up again!

 

Here are some more pictures from our trip!

http://www.facebook.com/album.ph?paid=2698168&id=13918019&l=92e01e34d0

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2698173&id=13918019&l=3bc761906c

Volleyball, Field trips, and sexual harrassment…

I realize that is quite the random title, but Korea is a random place so it is quite fitting. We’ve dealt with all three of these realms in the past 2 weeks and for those of you not living in Korea I feel the need to explain these seemingly normal, typical things.

1) Volleyball

  Here in Korea it is ridiculously common for middle schools to have big volley ball games every Wednesday afternoon for the teachers. At my school it is about once a month and April is the first month I’d ever been invited. So when I think volleyball I’m thinking gym clothes, sneakers, and athleticism. Well, women in Korea don’t tend to do much in the way of athletics so I was really wondering if any of them would change their clothes, I asked my co-t about it and she said I should go for it. I explained I didn’t want to if no one else was, I already stick out enough I don’t need to make my self stand out more. So, no-one that I see in my office has changed, so I decide not too. Only to get to the gym and realize a few other women have changed… alright that’s fine I just won’t play. Well that plan would’ve worked had I understood Korean and made it off the course, I wasn’t fast enough so now I’m blocking. perfect. It went decently other than a few random stray hits and me tripping over my feet, falling in front of everyone, while the ball is on the opposite side of the net. After volleyball is another story. Why after playing a sport wouldn’t you want to gorge yourself on fried chicken and potatos, drink beer, and smoke? Seriously… how these people survive is beyond me some times. So that was volleyball.

2) Field trips….

  Or picnic as the Koreans say.  For field trips in the states there are permission slips, large chartered busses , parent volunteers, and a sack lunch. In Korea there are no permision slips, kids just have to find a way to show up at the place where the picnic is, there are 8 teachers in charge of 250 students, and we eat kimbap, oysters, and drink beer… And the kids show up in really expensive, nice looking outfits. No t-shirt and jeans here. Quite a few of the girls all got into trouble for wearing mini skirts/shorts after all the teachers specifically made the announcement to NOT wear those things. And of course at the end of the trip quite a few of the kids got busted for drinking and smuggling alcohol along, but honestly what can you expect when the teachers are also drinking at the field trip!?

3) Sexual Harrassment…

  This is a not so funny random Korean topic and honestly really frustrates Jon and I to know end. We’ve had to scenarios dealing with this and both are just so ridiculous. The first scenario is with two of my female co-t’s and one of the male co-t’s and his buddies. My two co-t Ha ni and Kate (her english name obviously) have expressed how uncomfortable they feel around these men. Ha ni hates sitting at her desk and will always try to come sit by Kate and I. Last week I found out why. Apparently these men have been talking to them about pornos, having sex with random women, and making other sexual comments to my female co-t’s. So they both ask me what would you do? My answer… they’d be fired! I’d tell the principal, vice principal, administration! But in the US they would definitely be fired or you could bring up some sort of law suit. In korea… you just have to take it. It would be “rude” for a younger, female teacher to tell her older, male co worker to stop. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I am still so mad about this, imagine going to work everyday and being so uncomfortable in your desk. It’s ridiculous. The second scenario. Some of Jon’s teacher’s and the third graders went on a school trip to Seoul for 3 days. We asked about the trip, a few kids got busted for booze (big surprise) and one boy got in trouble for sexually harassing another boy while he was sleeping! He took the kids pants off of him and was looking and I’m assuming touching him. The boy that got harrassed was completely embarrassed and attempted to run away. Jon’s teachers found this funny and laughed about it!!!! These are 15 and 16 year olds not curious 5 year olds. And the horrible part is they still have not punished the boy that harrassed the other kid. They say they “don’t know how to punish him” bring him to the police dang it! Call his parents! Do something!  I very rarely get this upset over cultural differences but this is serious and even as I type I’m feeling so full of rage it’s just not good.

So that is a little taste of some typical “Korean-ness” Other than that we got a chance to experience the Moses Miracle in Jindo last weekend. Twice a year the tide parts and you can walk from one island to the next… it was really awesome. And this weekend Jon and I are bound for Busan! We have a five day weekend and are kind of celebrating our anniversary.. we don’t have any time off around our actual anniversary so we are celebrating a little early!

Hope spring is finding it’s way to MN!

4 months to go!

Hello Everyone!

 I apologize again for the break in blogging but we’ve been busy here in Kimchi land! Every weekend is booked solid and is for the next 3 weeks! So the past few weeks Spring has definitely been making a headway, flowers are blooming, everything is turning green, and it’s WARM! I’m even starting to get a little color.   3 weeks ago we were able to see the Cherry Blossoms with Jon’s co-teacher and her daughter. The night we went was a bit chilly though, and the blossoms weren’t fully out, but the week after they were full bloom and they were EVERYWHERE! So beautiful, and such a pity that they don’t last longer. Two weeks ago, we were, however hit with some bad news. Our friend Ian’s  younger brother Gabe passed away. So Ian had to quickly rush home to the states to attend the funeral and everything. I went and spent a weekend with Amanda and Eoghan and that Sunday Jon came and we celebrated Easter! It was a little weird to be at church on Sunday and still it didn’t feel like Easter, we are so used to  a big celebration and in Korea…there isn’t.  This past weekend We spent another weekend in Mokpo to celebrate OE’s 1st birthday! It was a beautiful day outside and so many people came, I would consider it quite the success. And I think the birthday boy had a great time too!  

The next three weeks hold just as much activity as the past few weeks! This weekend we are going to a Samgyeopsal party at our co-teacher maribell’s husbands garden. The Azaela’s will be in bloom so we are looking forward to it! After we will be going to Jindo island to the Moses Miracle! The sea seperates and you can walk across to another island! I told Jon he should grow out his beard, and wear some robes and bring a stick so that we could recreate the old testament, but he won’t go for it… what can ya do! Then, the first weekend in May we have a 5 day break from school! woo hoo! We are heading to Busan for a romantic get-away weekend, even though we’ll only have been married for 10 months, we are going to “celebrate” our anniversary as we have no time during our anniversary 🙂 We are both really excited to explore more of Korea. And finally, the weekend after that we will be going to a green tea festival! Which will bring us to mid-May… and then it’ll be 3 short months until we are HOME!!!!!!!!!!! As you’ve probably realized, I’m beyond excited that we’ll be home so soon! It’s going to fly by and we are both looking forward to time with friends and family!

Besides our busy weekends we’ve also been busy gearing up to buy a car! We weren’t planning on it until June, but our pastor said earlier was better. So tomorrow Jon has the day off and will go to get his driver’s license and go to check out the car and maybe buy it!? crazyness!  We’ve also outside as much as possible lately and enjoying the lovely weather.  We also had two more people from Duluth move to Korea. Nicholas and Jessica Lusk  are at their orientation week, and we are really looking forward to meeting up with them and getting to know them better. They will be in a town about 30 minutes from us. Other than that we are just living life and enjoying our last few months in Haenam!

Love you all and miss you!

p.s. We will post some pictures and the links to the albums when we actually get the photos off of our camera 🙂

April already!?

Hello Everyone! I apologize for the blogging hiatus! This past month quite literally flew by.  This past month has been busy and yet relaxing all at the same time. We started back at school on March 2nd and have finally gotten into a rhythm of classes, schedules, and routines.  March is the beginning of the year for Koreans, so it was filled with all that “new year of school” excitement and busyness.  But we are able to avoid most of the busyness by not being homeroom teachers, thank goodness 🙂

I know for me I was severly dreading this year… and I mean dreading it. I was complaining and generally just had a horrible attitude. Jon on the other hand was merry sunshine compared to me and tried to keep me optomistic.  I was really just burnt out from teaching (after teaching 3 nights a week on top of reg teaching last year) and I was worried about co-teacher issues, since my last one wasn’t exactly great.  Turns out I was dreading it for nothing! This semester has been 10 times better than last. My new co teacher is fantastic and we get a long really well! Jon and I are only going to be teaching one night a week and it will be another teacher workshop.  So, thus far, we’ve both been really happy with the classes and everything… that and the more it flies by the sooner we are to a visit home!

So while school has been busy and a lot of our evenings have been filled going to the gym, working out, and school dinners  we’ve managed to keep most of our weekends relatively low key. Which has been awesome!  A lot of lounging around and just enjoying being at home. Jon found a soccer team that plays on Saturdays for a few hours which is a huge blessing! He’s been looking since we got here so I’m really pumped that he found a team to join. Other than that, (I’m not sure if we mentioned it)  we have made the decision to stay for one more year in Korea land. We will be moving out to sinan county, out onto the islands with our friends Ian and Amanda. With the way the economy and job market is back we figured it might be our best bet to sit tight for one more year. So we will be home for a visit from Aug 20 -Oct 1. Other than that big piece of information…there is not much else to report from Korea…

We have however gotten some news from family back home! Mainly from the Heinrich/VanVickle side… first we will be an Aunt and Uncle for the 12th time in June, my sis- in-law Jamie is due, and for the 13th time in September! My sister Rebecca (who has 3 small girls) is due September 24th. So exciting! We also found out the my brother Nate and his wife Jess have finally sold their house and will be moving in 6 short weeks to Alaska! Nate will be working with our bro-in-law Eric. So a lot is happening at home and we are really excited for all of our family 🙂

I’m sure there is more to report, but at the moment my mind is blank. This friday we are headed to see some Cherry Blossoms and this Sunday is Eoghan’s first birthday! So we’ve got a busy weekend coming up… We will try to update more often!

 love you all and can’t wait to see you again!