Wildlife for Sale

This is just to make sure you start to read the post. This is my subway/bus card. Something like a metro card. Matthew's card is just a normal looking one, but we wanted different cards so I got this one. What exactly do you think it means?? Bunny and the Whale, like Jonah and the Whale? Your guess is as good as mine.

It was wonderful to have a short week this week. Tuesday through Friday. Happiness is ours. We love our students, but since we are still settling in it was nice to have Monday off. This next week we get Friday off because we’re going to a Teachers’ Retreat at something called English Village. We’re excited because we will be seeing the people we met at orientation!

Wednesday we had a glorious surprise. Two things in the mail! One was a birthday card for Matthew from Grandma (for those who don’t know: the New Jersey Grandma). In the card it wished us many adventures…very appropriate =) The second item we received was a BOX! A package! And wonder of wonders…it was filled with all types of goodies! Jolly Ranchers, Teddy Grahams, Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Trail Mix, and…Dove Dark Chocolate. Those of you who don’t know, Matthew loves Dove Dark Chocolate (he gets this from his dad). Mama had sent them to us! Each of the items were specially chosen because she knew what we liked and had been craving (prior to Korea, and definitely in Korea!) We have savored each candy…mmmmm. Also in the box were two cards! One was for Matthew’s birthday, and the other from my little church back in Pennsylvania. Each person in the church had written a small message to us. It meant so much to hear from all of them and know that they were praying for us.



(selfishly guarding her prize!)



(a grin only food can bring)

This week we also got an email from my housemate Kristin. She is safe in Chad, Africa and is serving as a Student Missionary there. I was thrilled to here from her, and ask that you keep her in your prayers as she serves God there.

This week we also send in absentee ballot application things. It was good to find the post office and mail something to the good old USA! They were really nice at the post office, and hopefully the papers we sent work and we can vote.

Today after work/school was over we wanted to do a little more exploring of our city. We tried a bit during Chusok but hardly anything was open. Today we had a good time exploring and found some great stuff! We went to the underground shopping and walked a while and went up some stairs we hadn’t been to yet, and found ourselves on the opposite side of the train station. We had heard that good things awaited those who went to the other side of the train station and they were right!

We found a Paris Baguette store. These were everywhere in Seoul, but we hadn’t seen on here yet. It’s a bakery shop and the stuff there always looks delicious! There is another bakery like that near our apartment, but at Paris Baguette the signs are in English as well as Korean, so we can identify what we are buying. It helps to know if it’s just deep fried bread that you are looking at or a delicious donut with sugar on it. There tends to be more than just one item in Korea that looks like it has sugar coated on it, but is only deep fried bread.

The smells of the shop were too enticing, and since we get paid in six days (yay!) we decided to buy something for 1000 won ($1.00) and split it. We got some custard-cream-filled-cookie-something-or-other. There was less custard/cream than we thought, but it was good!




I had also been telling Matthew that I hadn’t seen any cute coffee shops around here (there had been tons in Seoul) and I wanted to find one. That way I could have my White Chocolate Mochas. =) Well, today we found many coffee shops. There had to be at least two per block where we were. We found two coffee shops that had English (one was actually the same company, Ediya Coffee as we’d had in Seoul). There was also one coffee shop that was so clean and cute looking we might just try something there and see what they’ll give us. Live life on the edge and all that good stuff.

Feeling very accomplished with our discoveries we decided to go back to the apartment. Going back underground we walked on the other side of the shops so we could look at different things.

Here is what we found.




Chipmunks! For sale as pets!! I personally think that the people just caught them and stuck them in the cage. I felt terrible for them and so did Matthew. He secretly got the pictures for me because I wanted to show you all. At the same shop there were lizards, beta fish, tiny hamster looking things (very cute), a hedgehog, beetles, and grub looking things. A strange assortment to be sure. We might go back and buy a beta fish once we have money. The prices for the fish were pretty reasonable. We don't know how much the chipmunks were...maybe we could buy them and release them into the wild!

Tomorrow will be three months since we’ve been married! It seems to me much longer and shorter than that. A lot has happened and changed since our wedding. Thank you again to everyone who made that day more perfect than we could have asked for!

Here are a few pictures of our apartment life. This is to show the mini-sink we have.





And this is our beloved air conditioner. Don’t you wish you had one just like it?



One more note: We have a friend who has been diagnoised with a very serious cancer and we ask that you keep her in your prayers. We are not certain how much time she had left, but please pray for Valerie and her husband Brad. They were here in Korea before we came and they encouraged and inspired us to try it here. They are true servants of God.

We never know how long our time on earth is--make sure to let those you love know it.

We love and miss you all!