Videos from the Nutcracker!

So, Michael thinks it is illegal for me to upload these videos and says his wife is a criminal--they had told us not to take any photos at the show, but I just had to sneak a few videos (no flash involved!).  I just had to have a little sound to remind me of The Nutcracker and our first Christmas in Korea! :)  Enjoy.

~Leslie

Merry Christmas! (a few days late)

 Merry Christmas from Korea!

No, that is not our Christmas tree.  It would have been lovely if it was!!  However, our Christmas tree is pictured below:

Ha ha.  It is a little table-top tree that the guy who lived in the apartment before us left here, and we decided we could just use it instead of buying a better one.  Our apartment is tiny, and there was really no point in decorating, as it was just us and we only had one day off of work to celebrate the Christmas holiday.  Christmas in Korea is just not a big deal.  Michael says it's kind of like Valentine's Day in the U.S. (except it is a National holiday so most people have the day off).  Honestly, people here really don't exchange gifts for Christmas--most people just spend the day with their significant other and enjoy a day off of work.  Since it isn't a big deal here, it made it less difficult for us to be away from family, since it's not like everyone around us was!

We did receive some packages from our parents with some goodies inside.  Here is me opening up the package from my parents.

My mom sent us some of her homemade pecan balls and spiced nuts.  They were so yummy!  I took them to work and shared them with my co-workers and some students, and they were all impressed that they came all the way from California! :)

I also was very excited to get a whole pint of vanilla extract!  I bought a 2 oz bottle of vanilla extract a few weeks ago from an import grocery store, and it cost me 11,000 won (over $8 US)!  So, now I should have enough to satisfy my baking habits for a little while!  I am loving being able to bake things in my toaster oven!!

Here is a collection of all sorts of goodies combined from both of our parents' packages.  It seems silly to get excited about Pasta Roni and Jambalaya mixes for Christmas presents, but honestly, it made us happy!  We really don't need anything, and as we have such a tiny apartment, we don't have room for much either.  We figure it is better to not accumulate a lot of stuff that we will just have to move later.

On Christmas morning we got up and went to eat brunch with some of our friends from church, Brad and Belle.  We went to an American style diner in Jeongja called Butterfinger Pancakes.  I had been there once before, but it was everyone else's first time.  This place serves breakfast/brunch foods all day long.  It is a bit pricey, but mashisoyo (delicious)!

Mmm!  I had Pecan gingerbread pancakes, with honey butter and apple compote, scrambled eggs with cheese, and rosemary seasoned potatoes.  What a great meal!

Here are Brad and Belle.  They are a great couple from Australia who are living here in Korea on their second go-around.  They both teach and are really involved with our church and head up the missions team--they are taking a group to the China/N. Korea border in February for a week.  They are actually the couple that picked us up and gave us a ride to church our first weekend here!

Then we came home for a quick chat with my family on Skype.  It was Christmas Eve in the U.S. still so my mom and dad and brother Andy were over at my grandparents' house.  Usually there is a houseful, but this year was the year for everyone to visit the in-laws, so they were the only ones there!  Kind of sad when you are used to having 30-40 people around.  Anyway, they all fit on the couch and we video chatted with them for a few minutes.  It was nice for my grandparents to get to see us, and I had Michael take a photo of me with them on the couch. :)  Papa is wearing his cap that we sent him that says Korea on it.

Then we had to rush back out because we were meeting some friends in Bundang to go see The Nutcracker ballet.  It was playing at a place called the Seongnam Arts Center.

The venue was very nice, but the lady told us we couldn't take photos.  We continued to sneak a few though, without the flash on.  Oh well!  Here are a few of us--there were three others that went and didn't make it into this photo.  In the front row are Brad (Michael's co-worker), Michael and me, and in the back row are Darrick &  Krista (some friends from church who just recently got engaged!) and Belle & Brad.

I really liked the backdrop that was up before the show started.

With the Nutcracker guy.

We got a photo of the ladies, but somehow the guys managed to avoid having one taken of them.  Here are me, Krista, Belle, Shannon, and Inhwa.  They are all friends from LifeChurch.

The show was great.  The funny thing was, though, all of the ladies seemed to fall asleep at times during the show (myself included) while the guys were all awake and really enjoying it!  We ladies enjoyed it too--we were just all really tired from preparing for Christmas!! :)

After the show, we walked around a shopping center and ate Vietnamese food with some of the people that went to the Nutcracker.  We love Vietnamese food!  I also managed to get a photo taken with the signature Korean headdress of winter.  haha As soon as it starts getting cold, all of the kids walk around with these animal hats on their heads.  They are cute, and some of them are so awesome that they are a hat, scarf, and mittens all in one!  That's what this one is, I just didn't take the time to wrap it around my neck.  If we stay in Korea long enough to have some kids, we are definitely buying these for our children.  They are hilarous!  Korean's love cheesy things, and I love that about Korea!  

Where's the waegukin (foreigner)?

It kind of cracks me up how they go all out and decorate for Christmas, but then no one really celebrates it.  They did the same thing for Halloween.  Kind of odd.  

All in all, our first Christmas in Korea was a good one.  It was very strange working every day except Christmas, especially for me, since I've always had nearly 2 weeks of vacation from teaching.  However, I have decided that very few other jobs require the time and energy of a teacher in an American public school, and therefore don't require the vacation that an American school teacher needs.  Teaching at a hagwon here in Korea is nothing like the amount of time and energy and stress that went into teaching in the U.S.--I've been basically working 7 months straight, and I don't feel like I am going to go insane!  I could barely make it more than a month without a day off in the past!  It's kind of nice to see how the rest of the world lives, and to be out of that bubble of an American teacher's life for a little bit.  I'm sure all the teachers out there can probably relate to that.

We hope and pray that you all had a wonderful holiday season.  We love and miss you all very much, but we do feel blessed to be where we are right now (even though we are so far from family and loved ones).  The wonderful thing is that God is the same no matter where in this world we are, and we are still able to serve Him and trust in Him even when we miss our families and friends!  Praise God for sending His son to the earth to save us.

I always thought I was a good teacher...

and here's evidence!!

Look who we saw!!

So, we were walking down the streets of Itaewon yesterday in Seoul (some girlfriends and I went shopping) and we saw this guy basically mobbed by Koreans, getting photos taken with him.  Okay, I am not going lie...when I first saw him I was thinking, is that Evander Holyfield or Mike Tyson?  He was a HUGE guy!  I realized when I got close that he wasn't either of those two guys, but he was obviously famous, so my brave friends (yes, we acted like lame tourists) and I decided to get our photo taken with him.  Does anyone know who he is???

Okay, if you guessed Bob Sapp, you are right.  He is a mixed martial arts and K1 fighter.  Click here to read about him.  Of course, as soon as I showed Michael the photo later he knew who he was.  Anyway, we were pretty excited!  That's Nicole (my Kiwi friend), me, Bob, and Jee Yeon (my Korean friend).  Notice he is sporting his Big Black shirt (the guy from the show Rob & Big).  Poor guy, though.  We walked back by about 30 minutes later and he was still being mobbed.  Oh well, I guess that's what you've got to be willing to put up with to be a star!! :)

~Leslie

Wedding Bells

Okay, so I am trying to catch up on blogging for the past two months...

Many of you know that my "big" brother, Karl, married his wife Amy on September 21st in the mountains of Lyons, CO just outside of Denver, where they live.  Michael and I were fortunately able to take 3 vacation days from our jobs and make the whirlwind trip from Seoul to Denver in a span of 5 days to see them, attend the wedding, and spend a short time with some family and friends.  We left Seoul early on Saturday morning and returned late Wednesday evening.  We felt like we were walking in a fog most of the time while we were there because of the extreme jet lag, but it was well worth the trip.  It was great to be able to witness Karl & Amy's marriage ceremony and the love that they have for each other, as well as to get to meet many of their friends who mean so much to them in Denver.  If any of you know the Kukta family very well, you know that we three siblings may look strikingly similar, but we each have our own unique personalities and interests (Michael says we are the three most unlikely siblings he has ever met--of course, he is the master of hyperbole).  Karl is definitely the hippie, philosophical, intellectual sibling.  He has a degree in English, loves to play the drums of any sort, and enjoys sharing obscure music with people (he and Michael are similar in that respect).  We are two years apart and most of my life I was known as "Karl's sister"--he was pretty outgoing and was friends with everyone and I was very shy and reserved (haha, I know, many of you did not know me in those days).  I think my love for baseball and musical knowledge can be attributed to Karl--I grew up watching him play Little League and later high school baseball, and he knows all about pretty much every single musical artist or band known to man (I know my fair share, but I pale in comparison).  We went to high school together for a year, attended and graduated from the same university, and even took a class together in college (his hair was longer and mine was short and our professor first asked us if we were twins--kind of strange).  Anyway, we've had our share of ups and downs over the years as most siblings do (especially girls who are beaten up by their older brothers :), but we've always for the most part been able to enjoy each other's company, which of course is rare these days seeing as we've lived in different states/countries for about 5 years now.  So, it made me very happy to be able to take part in his special day and to see him so happy and content with Amy, my new sister-in-law.  I first met Amy about 3 years ago when she came to San Diego with him for Christmas, and liked her immediately.  Now, I don't know her as well as I would like to because of the distance factor, but what I do know is that she is a very kind, caring person who gives so much of herself to help others.  She is very artistic and creative and has a huge heart for people (and animals!).  They are similar, yet different, which makes them complement each other.  I look forward to maybe one day living closer to them so that we can spend more time together and develop a deeper relationship.

So, I am going to post just a few photos from the day (I don't have as many as I wanted to because my camera batteries died just as I started to take photos--argh!  That seems to be a trend these days). 

Here is Karl waiting patiently for the wedding to begin.  I was sooo happy that he finally cut his long hair off.  It looks great. :)

Amy and Karl with their friend, Mark (?), the officiant, during the ceremony.

Their dog, Osso, the "ring bearer," along with Rogelio and Mikey (?)  Obviously I am not remembering names so well...I think it has to do with the fact that we were in an airplane for the same amount of time that we were on American soil.

Amy and Karl.

Andy, our little brother, whispering sweet nothings in Karl's ear. :)  That's also Ben Ebert next to Andy, an old friend of Karl's from our youth group days.  It was great to see Ben again.

 A kiss!

Both of my dad's siblings made it to the wedding, from CT and CA, and here they are with their spouses, sitting around and laughing.  This was the first time the three of them had all been together in a long time.  It was good to see my aunts and uncles.  We did miss Gramma Kukta, though, as well as the cousins on the Kukta side.  This is Uncle John & Aunt Sue, Uncle Dickie & Aunt Barbara, and Dad & Mom.

We also missed most of the Wilson clan, Papa and Grammy, and most of the aunts, uncles and cousins. Cousins David, Sarah, and Jenny were able to make it and so did Aunt Kathy.  It was great to see them!  Here's a photo of me and my beautiful cousin Jenny!

Here are the two cakes.  They not only looked great, but they tasted delicious (and believe me, I had plenty of each--its hard to find delicious cakes in Korea).

Cutting the cake.

Andy, little brother, giving his "best man" toast.

First dance.

Here's a photo of our family, not the best quality.

Here's another one (I copied it off of the wedding photographer's website, but I am citing it right here so I don't get in trouble).

Here's a photo from the day after the wedding as we headed out.  Me, Karl, and Andy.

We headed to Denver to meet up with some of my best girlfriends from college, and former roommates!  We shopped a little, ate a great dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, went to Starbucks, and then headed to Heidi's house to crash for a few short hours before we flew home to Korea.

Here are Jenny, me, Michael, Anne, Dustin (Heidi's boyfriend), and Heidi.  What a great time to see them and to get to meet Dustin!

So, that concludes our long-weekend trip to the U.S.  Wish it could have been longer, but we were able to do what we needed to do!  More catching up to come soon...

~Leslie

5 Months...

No, I am not five months pregnant! Don't get your hopes up--it will more than likely be a few more years before we attempt to try for that. :) No, today marks the five month point in our lives here in South Korea. The time is flying by! I guess that's what happens when you have fun, right? This move has been so good for us for many reasons (with the exception of the fact that we are far away from our family and close friends). God has truly blessed us in so many ways, even ones we weren't sure we would see. We knew that in coming to Korea, we would be able to save money for the future (and maybe use some to pay off school loans). That is an awesome aspect of living here. We are able to save half of our income and live on the rest very comfortably, while getting to go places and see things that we would normally not be able to do. Part of my goal in coming here was to be able to save up enough money over the course of a few years so that if and when we do happen to return to the States, and maybe "settle down" somewhere, that we will be able to better afford me staying home and hopefully having a baby. I know it's not what a lot of women want to do these days, but I truly desire to be a stay-at-home mom and raise my own children when the day comes. I really look forward to that day, and I know that being here and kind of sacrificing my desire to have a baby now, will help that be a bit more enjoyable for me in the future. Plus, I know it's not God's timing yet. :)

We also knew that we would get to spend more time together, which has been great (most of the time ;). It's been nice to get to see and spend more quality time with each other a lot more often than we did when we were working in the U.S.: Michael as a full-time minister and me as a full-time elementary school teacher. Those were both pretty life-consuming jobs that seemed to take up all our time and energy. Though we both have jobs teaching here, it is soo different from teaching in the U.S. and we can pretty much get all our work done at work and not have to bring things home with us. That has been awesome.

It's interesting how living in Korea as a foreigner is for the most part a very laid-back lifestyle. Now, don't get me wrong--the Korean society is not laid back at all--we find that most people here are very last minute with things, but then there is such an emphasis placed on image and appearance, which makes for a very stressful environment. It's no wonder Korea has such a high suicide rate. However, as a foreigner, you learn to quickly deal with last-minute changes to your schedule and such, and the rest of the time, life is pretty chill. You know, sleep till 10 or 11, get up, lazy around and get to work by 2:30 or 3. I think I can say that the last five months have definitely been a "restful" period on our lives.

We have started to get busier though, especially this last month, as we have started to get more involved with things, particularly with our church and people there. We were soo blessed to "stumble" across Life Church Korea after being in the country for only 4 days, and have had the privilege to get to meet and know some really amazing people with hearts for God and ministry, and just make some awesome new friends! Life Church is a fairly young church, probably between 2-3 years old, that was started as a ministry of a church in England of the same name. The pastors, Jack and Jenny, are supported as missionaries to Korea, and the church is very focused on missions and sending people to unreached areas of the world, particularly India, Nepal, and other places. There is a good combination of Koreans and foreigners that meet together for worship--probably about 2/3 foreigners and 1/3 Korean. We meet at the campus of an International School in Suwon, GSIS (which, consequently, I am thinking/praying about us applying to teach there next year). Jack and Jenny also just recently opened up a coffee shop (which doubles as a church office), called the Mosaic Cafe, in a nice area of another city not too far from us, so we have been frequenting it often for jazz concerts, art mingles, and bible studies. Michael and couple of other guys started a men's bible study on Wednesday mornings at Mosaic, and in a few short weeks it has grown to about 5 or 6 guys that have been meeting regularly. I had been meeting with some ladies at the coffee shop to just chat and have good coffee/dessert (though Michael swore it was gossip meetings :), but now we've actually started doing little bible studies as well and are going to hopefully begin doing a Beth Moore study soon (thanks to my mother-in-law being willing to send us one from their church!). I have been working with the children on Sunday mornings, teaching once every month or working in the nursery, and Michael has filled in for the youth minister once when he was out of town. We are confident that God has placed us here for a reason and are seeking to know what that is, besides just saving money and having a good time. We feel like He is slowly showing us what He might have planned for our lives in the future, if we can just figure out how to listen well enough and obey His call.

One wonderful note of praise is that I have now gone for I think 3 weeks without having any kind of flare-up of my colon! I had been struggling for the past few months with a flare-up of my disease, since about when we hit the 1-month mark of being here, and was starting to get very frustrated and down about it. I was going to the doctor weekly to get more medicine and try different things, but now it seems to have finally calmed down, at least for a little bit. I have pretty much cut milk out of my diet and am limiting my spicy food and caffeine intake, and it seems to be helping. One thing I am having to deal with is the realization that this is something I will most likely live with and suffer through for the rest of my life. I know the Lord can completely heal me, if He so chooses, but I also have to face the reality that He may choose not to. It's been hard, as a person who has really never been sick much in my life and could barely swallow pills without gagging, to sometimes take 25 pills a day (that is not my normal dosage, just extra during difficult times)! I just keep leaning on the Lord and trusting that even in this, He will be glorified. So, I praise Him for calming my colon down this month. :)

I know a lot of people are probably wondering how long we plan to stay here in Korea. Our contracts with our current hagwons will up the first week of June, and we are thinking that we probably will not renew our contracts with them for another year. We do like our jobs, as I said, they are seriously some of the easiest jobs we've ever had. However, we REALLY want more vacation time, and we don't get much of that working at a hagwon (we get 1 day off for Christmas this year--bummer!). So we are exploring our options right now. We are not opposed to staying another year or two and trying to either get jobs at public schools, or possibly an International School as I mentioned before. We definitely feel that this is the best place for us to be right now, and we are happy with that! Of course, God may tell us to go, and if He does, we will. But, more than likely, we will return for another year after this first one is up. We do plan to make a trip back to the States next summer, though, in June or July probably, to get some good Mexican food and see all of you! We will keep you posted, though, as that is still about 7 months away.

I will leave you with a couple of photos of us from the past month, and I promise to update next with more photos and details about our fun adventures as of late, including our trip to the U.S. for my brother Karl's wedding, the Andong Mask Festival, my 28th birthday, and a visit to the orphanage.

~Leslie

at Black Angus for my birthday steak dinner!


Haha, for some reason this photo is cracking me up.

Just a teaser...

I know I haven't updated in a while...it's long overdue...but here's what I've had to put up with!  More to come soon (I promise)...

Happy Chuseok 2008!

This past weekend we got a nice 4-day vacation!  It was Chuseok, which is basically Korean Thanksgiving.  It is one of the biggest holidays of the year.  We both got gifts from our work, Avalon.  They LOVE to give gift sets here.  One of the most popular gift sets is a huge box of multiple cans of Spam.  Koreans love Spam.  While we didn't receive a Spam gift box, we did get pretty exciting gifts.

I got a Unilever gift set.
It was full of wonderful Dove/Vaseline soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion!  This should last us for the rest of our year in Korea (if we use it sparingly :).
Michael, on the other hand, got a gift I could definitely have lived without...
A Dong Won Tuna gift set!
It had 22 assorted cans of tuna...as you can see, Michael had already eaten 5 cans by the time I took this photo (we got our gifts the week before Chuseok actually).
I hate the smell of tuna, but I will have to live with it for the next few weeks.  Mmm...hot pepper and vegetable tuna!!

We did have a nice weekend, though.  We went to the largest amusement park here in Korea, Everland, on Friday with several of Michael's co-workers and rode the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world, the T Express!!  It was a ton of fun.  Not quite Disneyland or Six Flags, but still pretty awesome in it's own right.  

Jared, Tim, Michael, and me on the Human Sky.

On Saturday I relaxed and finished reading my sci-fi book, The Host by Stephenie Meyer...excellent read by the way.  Michael went to a baseball game in Jamsil with most of the guys from work and had a good time.  Sunday we had church and relaxed, went over to some friends from church's apartment that night and played a game with them, and then Monday we went to a church Chuseok party at the new coffee shop, Mosaic, that our pastor Jack and his wife Jenny just recently opened up in Jeongja, Bundang.  We played games, drank yummy coffee, had a barbecue (YUM), and socialized.  After that, I got to go experience my first Noraebang (literally singing room) with some fun girlfriends.  You pay about W20,000 for an hour and basically get your own room equipped with 2 microphones, neon/disco lights,  and a whole surround sound karaoke room!  It was tons of fun.  I have posted photos on my Facebook page if you want to see us in action. :)

Here we are--me with some new friends...Amy, Ji Yun (정지연 or Jung Jee Yeon), and Naomi.  They rocked it out!  We will definitely have to do it again.

Thus concludes our first Chuseok in Korea.  Maybe next year we'll take a trip somewhere like Japan or something. :)  

In a few short hours we have to wake up and head to the airport for a very quick trip to the U.S. of A.!  My brother, Karl, and his fiancee, Amy, are getting married on Sunday in Lyons, CO.  We're flying to Denver for about 2 1/2 days!  haha Yes, we are insane, but I think it will be worth it.  We're excited for the wedding and to be able to see some family and friends for a short time.  I'll post when we get back and of course will most likely have more photos.

Anyeong haseyo!!

~Leslie