Food and Funerals

Today is the day we find out which Institutes we are being sent to. But, that doesn't happen until after tea tonight. So I'm not going to talk about that.


Funerals
The Seoul Main institute where we have been treated to orientation is opposite a funeral home, called a Memorial Hall. It seems to have funerals continuously. It's also right next door to the hospital... However, the thing I want to comment on is funeral transport. Several times now I have seen bus loads of people following the hearse as it leaves the funeral home. I guess that it makes sense to have 1 or 2 buses of mourners instead of hundred of cars, given Seoul's traffic, but it is a new and surprising idea. (Having said that, I always thought having a wedding bus instead of bridal cars would be a great idea - a red double decker one!)


Food

I forgot to tell you the second most important discovery from my shopping trip last week - I found a place where I can buy Timtams!! Don't worry too much, I won't be eating many of them. Obtaining them involves a subway ride and I have yet to brave the subway on my own. That is an adventure for next week - or maybe the week after that.

Kimchi - I am making myself eat a tiny bit of kimchi everyday, that way if I get it put in front of me at someone's house I won't embarrass myself. I have found that if you have a tiny bit with lots of rice and wrap the whole thing up with seaweed, and don't chew too much, it doesn't taste too bad.

The Korean's have a unique way of cooking ravioli, instead of boiling and serving with a sauce as the Italian's do, they deep fry it and serve it as a pastry. Is an interesting experience, not distasteful but I have to say I prefer the Italian version.

Korean sushi is called kimbap it is more salty than the Japanese version but I rather like it. Over all I have been enjoying Korean food. Haven't found anything that I refuse to eat yet - well, as long as you only consider the vegetation foods. 


Have seen lots of different grains, nuts, seeds etc in the road side stalls so I'm looking forward to having my seven grain cereal again. A year ago I don't think I would have believed I'd be saying that now. 


And now it is time to get ready for breakfast - which has been almost entirely American food since I got here - everything except this really nice aloe vera drink.

Today's Adventure

Today was not shaping up to be an adventurous one. By the end of tea not an adventure had come my way and then I stumbled into a lovely adventure.

Went for a walk up that 'mountain' I was telling you about on Sabbath (something like 3 posts back) with the intention of getting photo's of the violets I missed on my morning walk the other day. A little old Korean man started talking to me in Korean, was quite concerned that I could not speak Korean. So he started walking with me and giving me a lesson in Korean. The names of flowers and tree's and all sorts of things, most of which I can't remember now - but it as fun in a weird way. At one point he pointed at one of the name tag label thingee's next to a plant, "English, English!" It was the Latin genus and species name of the plant, but I didn't try to correct him just sounded the word out for him. 'Aceraphyllum rossil' if I remember correctly.

With a lot of gesturing and posing we established that he was a Pastor and a Yoga teacher and that I was an English teacher working at the SDA Language Institute. We also swapped names - but I have to confess I have forgotten his ... :-(  Mainly because he introduced himself first and then when I told him that I was Cat and we sorted out that Yes it was 'Cat' and not 'catch' (which involved me saying 'Meow' a lot) he started saying 'you Miss Cat hahahahahaha' and having hysterics and then saying it all over again, several times - to my extreme bemusement. So that unfortunately drove his name right out of my head!

Eventually we came across another man who spoke perfect English and he translated. A very interesting conversation ensued, 'How could I teach English when I didn't speak Korean?' amongst other things. It turns out the man with the perfect English is the Pastor of the College Church which is one of several SDA churches on this compound.

So my day had a lovely adventure after all.

Blog - The Next One ...

Today, after classes and tea, we went to Itaewon, the foreign shopping district, also called America Town apparently. While there I saw lots of new things. And, took photos of many of them.

Most important news from this trip, I found a black twin set!!!!! I have been looking for one of these for two years, totally didn’t expect to find one in Korea, I was only looking for a cardigan and stumbled across treasure!! Exceedingly happy.

The first stop once we got off of the subway was ‘Africa Town’ – a street of shops which apparently looks like it belongs in South Africa. 

Pig Snout with your dinner any one?

Two way traffic on a one way street, and what’s not shown in this picture is the motor bike trying to squeeze around the other side of the hand cart on the right. Apparently the people operating these vehicles have not heard about taking turns ... 

Once out of ‘Africa Town’ we went our separate ways with promises to meet up at 8:30pm in front of KFC. That’s when I found my twin set :-D and also took pics of interesting stuff in shop windows. 

See the incense burner in the middle of the front row? On Friday I saw it in the Museum. You can buy this handsome genuine imitation copy for a mere 150,000 won. (A picture of the original is in my 'Korea – Part 1' album on Facebook.)

Given my hatred of shoe shopping at the best of times, I think we can safely assume that I will never ever ever enter this shop – it is definitely not an example of the ‘best of times’!! 

One thing I really like about Korea is that they have lots of art in public places, these two were in the subway beside an escalator. 

Finally I will again finish my blog with a comment about plumbing. Popped into a ‘Quizno Subs’ to use the bathroom, the toilet seat was violet vinyl ... 

Camera's and Other Foolishness

Monday morning, before settling into an exciting day of ‘How to teach English in Korea’ I went exploring while waiting for breakfast. Have given up on the battle to sleep until a decent hour and am just dealing with the fact I am waking up absurdly early. Something I will actually be pleased about once I get back to the classroom – I’m a much nicer teacher when I am up 2 or 3 hours before the students arrive – and the students could be arriving as early as 6 or 7 am.

So on my exploring this morning I found a tiny patch of violets, they were mixed blue and white, lovely. Korea seems to be in that not so pretty part of the season where the snow has melted and the dead grass is disintegrating but the spring growth has not fully sprung yet. So the vivid green of the leaves and the gentle blue/white of the flowers were delightfully eye catching.  Then I saw a bird that looks kind of like a small raven but with a longer tail and white patches and blue feathers on its wings. Think I shall see if I can find a ‘Birds of Korea’ Book and indulge in some bird watching. Thank you Oliver for showing me how great that can be.

Foolishly I did not take my camera with me to photograph these discoveries. Note to self – take the camera everywhere!!!!

I have made an executive decision, I’m not going to try to describe Sunday’s adventures here – sorry, was a great (fantastic, awesome, wonderful) day and you can go and see the photo’s with accompanying commentary on Facebook. I only took 197 photo’s ... ;-) didn’t upload them all though, deleted the bad ones.

The advantage of this decision is that I won’t spend the next 5 days writing the story of Sunday and getting behind on the rest of the week. Instead I will endeavour to write a blog each day and post them as and when I can get onto the internet. (Today the internet connection is behaving itself quite marvellously.)

What else? I found an art supply shop today – second attempt, following precise directions (thanks James) made my way to the shop. Which it turns out I had been looking directly at on my first attempt to find it. Purchased a set of chalk pastels, some paper and some brushes, but I’m not going to open them until I arrive at my school. Thinking I will start with a series of flaxes I’ve had in mind for a while now.

To finish off this post I will confess that the shower has gone and made me a liar, after complaining about it in my last couple of posts I have serendipitously stumbled across the sweet spot for the last two mornings, where the water is hot but not scalding and not cycling into Antarctica! Long may it last!!!

And On the Sixth Day ...

Un-young-ha-say-yo that’s Korean for hello (if you speak with a Kiwi accent, a bit different if you have an American accent.)

Let me apologise for the lateness of this blog, when I started writing it, it was the sixth day, now it is something like the ninth day. My connection to the internet is very dodgy, plus I seem to get kicked off the moment my roommate turns on her computer, it seems to be that her computer signal is interfering with my signal. Have started writing the blog in ‘Word’ so I can just copy and paste it into the blog as the internet allows. This problem will be rectified on Sunday when we get sent out to our schools. (I’m rather looking forward to being in the classroom again.)

Going back in time...

Today marks the end of my sixth day in Korea and was also my first Sabbath. Have had a delightful day! Went to Sabbath School and Church, ate meals with my Orientation group and explored the ‘mountain’ behind the hospital. (It’s not really a mountain, more of a small hill.) It has a track along the top and various side tracks and also exercise stations where you can stop and lift weights or do flexibility exercises etc. One of the stopping places was a rock garden in the shape of a foot. The toes were lots of little stones set poking up in cement so that you could walk on them and massage the bottom of your feet. The heel and the rest of the foot were plants. The picture does not do it justice, but it was a high as I could get to try and give an idea of the foot shape of the garden.

This was taken from as high as I could hold the camera, the garden end is the heel and soul of the foot the toes in the far distance are made or little rocks.

The Big Toe

Looking across the toes

Somebody massaging their feet.

I tried walking on the rocks – they hurt, all the old ladies sitting on the benches around the edge of the garden laughed at the faces I pulled.

What else? There is sooo much to tell! Have been keeping a list so that I don’t forget anything. Won’t tell it all here – too much, will save some for the boring days. – So you might not hear those stories till after I get home ;-)

I have decided against rigging up the shower with string. Fast reflexes are more important. Have also discovered that the hot and cold has a cycle it works through and playing with the position of the tap does not help at all. All it does is interrupt the cycle and restart it in another position. So does flushing the toilet, and people turning on any other water source in the house.

We have been going through classroom protocol in our orientation sessions. One thing that amazed me is that we took 20 minutes to discuss how to mark a roll. Then I have to remind myself that the others in the class are not teachers and maybe it’s not as straight forward to them ... (Still 20 minutes??) The actual classroom procedures to this point are quite simple, lots of 'repeat after me' and drills. But I think the second half of the lessons will be more interesting – we learn about them tomorrow and Monday. 

The Korean people are very friendly, I find myself smiling and nodding a LOT! They also are very eager to practise their English and will say 'Hello' and stop to chat if they can. I was in a little corner store the other day, waiting in line to pay and a boy of maybe 12 walked past, “hello” he says very loudly and then, “I pronounce good” and runs off giggling with his friends. I had to laugh, his pronunciation was excellent – his grammar on the other hand ... lol. 

On Friday afternoon we went to the National Museum of Korea – basically Korea’s version of Te Papa. Was very interesting, took lots and lots and lots of photo’s, the best ones are on Facebook. The building is impressive, and all the exhibits are interesting and informative. I’m going back on my own sometime, will get one of those machines that give you a guided tour. There is so much there you can’t possibly see it all in one day, but I’ll do my best. I think my favourite part of the museum was the building itself, the detailing and other features. Was designed with an artist’s eye. At Amazing Facts lots of my class mates were into photography, and from looking at their pictures I realised that a photo does not have to be a ‘memory snap’ it can be a piece of art. I’m finding as I walk around I’m seeing things much more in terms of ‘how would that look framed up in a picture?’ And totally enjoying myself! Think I may have to buy one of those cameras you focus yourself eventually, however at the moment my little point and shoot camera does everything I require.

This is taken at just outside the Museum where the architecture gives the effect of a giant window frame.

Hidden messages that most people miss.

A happy turtle!

Taking pictures on the fireworks setting by mistake - I love the effect it gives of these three Buddha's

Beautiful - no idea what it's for, except for catching dust.

While waiting for the group to reassemble to go home three students from one of the local universities came up and asked if they could interview us for an assignment for their English class. The boy who interviewed me begins with ‘What is your name?’ progresses through ‘how old are you?’ (I told him to guess, he said 20, friend for life!! hahaha – I don’t care that he was obviously lying!!) next question was ‘how long have you been in Korea?’ 6 days, and then I get ‘What would you do if I asked you to marry me?’ when I finished laughing he finished the interview with ‘What would you do if I stole your wallet?’ One wonders if these two concepts are linked in Korean society??

Also at the museum, I went to the bathroom, my first public toilet in Korea, was not one of the squat ones, although I have been told I will come accros them. This was a traditional European toilet, but there were two things worthy of note about the bathroom:

1. The paper towels for drying hands were really rolls of toilet paper – apparently this is quite common and we have been informed that it won’t be unusual to see toilet rolls hanging on the walls of restaurants. (The serviettes on the tables at the cafeteria is actually a box of tissues...)

2. The Koreans value privacy as much as we Kiwi’s do. Was reassuring to see that there were no gaps around the door of the stall. That was my first culture shock experience when I arrived in the States, the Americans have traded privacy for safety and have big gaps around the stall doors in public bathrooms. As a result you have to be very careful where you look in the mirrors when washing your hands or you will see way more than you bargained for!

Left: Scary American toilet door with BIG gaps.
Right: Nice private Korean toilet door with NO gaps.

Back to the future ...

One of the things I read in the online course I had to do before coming is that I was likely to have just as much culture shock from the other missionaries as from the Koreans. This is turning out to be true. Most of the people in the orientation group I am in are from South Africa, listening to them talk has been an education all on its own. Especially the girls. Technically they are women, but I am older than everyone here by miles (they’re all between 21 and 29 in age I think – so are the boys) and find I have to keep reminding myself that these are women, who have successfully completed degrees. Not students who have escaped from my classroom. It is funny we’ve been taken down into the subways a few times now and I found I had to fight the urge to count heads,  by the end of yesterdays trip I had managed to suppress the urge to an almost in audible whisper – was relatively easy as it turns out, and oh so restful! Very very nice not to be the person who is in charge of everybody’s safety, and filling in RAM’s forms etc.

Will round this entry off now and try and post it, then will start in on describing our trip to the theatre yesterday – awesome!!!

Have a blessed week until I write again

Love to all

Cat

Korea, The First Day

So here I am in Korea the land of Adventure and Surprise, at least for me. Had a very easy flight from NZ to Korea - after much agonising about what to squeeze into the suitcase and what to leave behind I arrived at the airport in time to be upgraded from economy to business class. Imagine my joy as I tipped the seat back to horizontal, stretched out the foot rest and luxuriated in an hour or two of sleep. And ate my meal off of real china with metal cutlery and was served fine food that is so much better than those little plastic box meals in economy. I think I may be spoiled for economy class forever. Seeing as I was flying Korean Air I think it is safe to say my first impressions of Korea was an excellent one!!

Flying in to Korea was interesting, there are some exceedingly long bridges, 

lots of blue roofs (and green ones and red ones, but I liked the blue ones), 

odd shaped fields with lines of white closely packed in them - upon landing I discovered that each line of white was a long long field house. (Plastic over hoops stretched the entire length of the field, but big enough to stand up in probably 3 meters wide.) 

The airport most reminded me of the Denver airport in Colorado, long corridors with those flat escalator things. (Why do people get on those things and then stop? What's the point of that? I thought the idea was to walk on them to get where you’re going faster!) Had to catch a subway from the terminal where we disembarked the plane to another terminal where we reclaimed our luggage and were processed. However, unlike Colorado I have yet to see a statue of a giant blue horse with flaming red eyes! 

Was met by about a dozen people at the airport - the two official people from the Language Institute holding a very large sign (about 4 times bigger than any other sign, and there were lots of other sign holders) and 9 or so other people they had collected off various planes. One of the official people commandeered my luggage and added it to the van load of luggage from all the other people. So much luggage that none of us could fit in the van. So the luggage was driven to the Institute, the humans had to catch a bus and then the subway finishing with a quick walk. Was grateful for the walk, after sitting for 12 hours on the plane and another hour and a half on the bus and subway it was heaven to stretch my legs. 

Driving through Seoul I was amazed with the amount of shops, an hour on the bus and we didn't get out of the shopping zone. Finally collapsed into bed with just enough time to make one more first impression before closing my eyes - the bed is very hard, but wobbles from side to side with gay abandon, rather like a rock with a bad case of the shivers.

Woke up for my first day of adventuring rather early, so at 7:30 with still an hour and a half to kill before breakfast my room mate and I decided to go exploring. Here is a picture of me about to begin exploring in front of the apartment where I'll be living for the next 2 weeks. 

Exploring was interesting, bumped into a stereotype I didn't know I had. I had only ever really pictured Asian men as business men or scientists/doctors, walking round in suits with brief cases or white coats, and suddenly I was seeing them digging ditches and setting up stalls and all sorts of other things which logically they must do seeing as someone has to do it and there aren't many non-Koreans around to do these things.

This is a picture of the Language Institute buildings. The Language Institute is on a compound that includes the Adventist Hospital, a Church, an ABC book shop (going to explore the insides of that today) and a bunch of other SDA stuff.

Something I noticed is that apart from the main thoroughfares the distinction between footpath and road seems to be more of a suggestion than a command, with cars, pedestrians, scooters and bikes seeming to move at random.

And the overhead tangle of electrical wires is rather frightening in places – wouldn’t want to be under them in an earthquake!

  

After breakfast and worship we were all taken to the Bank to open accounts, amazingly fast. Had an interview with the bank teller and half an hour later received an eftpos card and a bankbook. Very pretty – the bank is called the Rainbow bank on the card – but not on the door. Another interesting thing, from the outside you have no idea that this building is a bank. At home banks have ‘presence,’ here it looked like just another shop until you went inside.

Walking home from the bank we went past a street stall selling all sorts of fruit and veggies, among them little tiny oranges about the size of a cherry tomato. Had to buy some just to see what they were like. You eat the skin and all and they are delicious!!! Sweet and sharp at the same time.

In the afternoon we were all taken to the hospital for a barrage of tests, blood, urine, eyes (they tested me with my glasses on??) hearing, teeth, chest x-rays, blood pressure, height, weight. These were for our Alien Registration card that we have to get to be allowed to stay. They mixed all our names up and mislabelled the blood and urine. I was at the front of the queue which unfortunately meant that I had to give more blood once the error was discovered and pee in another cup – this was problematic seeing as I’d just exhausted my supply in the last cup. However it lead to another discovery. The cups at the public drinking fountains are little paper bags. I guess they are cheaper than real cups and store in much less space.

My first blog in America waxed lyrical on the plumbing so I thought I would do the same here. Korean plumbing is not so amazing as American. First you’re not allowed to put loo paper down the toilet, have to put it in a rubbish bin next to the toilet, which leads to an interesting smell... Second, the shower, it’s a handheld thingee – has a holder it can be placed in but the holder has only one direction – straight across the shower at a height that causes it to lightly glance over the top of my head – about 8 inches taller and I’d get a face full. Am going to buy some string today and see if I can rig something up so that I can actually have a shower where both hands are free. On the other hand the water seems to lurch between scalding hot and freezing cold without an intermediate setting so maybe there is a reason for holding shower head in hand – quicker reflexes.

When I was a kid I used to have a re-occurring dream of a big old house with lots of nooks and crannies, priest holes, secret staircases and hidden rooms, Now I’ve found a city like that. I think I’m really really going to enjoy my time here in Korea (contrast showers and all). 

Being A Bible Worker

Thought I really better get the record of my Bible Worker adventures up here before I leave for Korea (in 3 more sleeps) and start blogging about all things Korean!  I might be just a little teeny bit excited ;-)

Anyway back to the Hamilton adventures and what I learned from them...

My adventure in Hamilton being a Bible Worker actually began in Palmerston North. Finally got to go back to my Home Town!! Had a wonderfully blessed weekend, turned out that Sabbath was a regional day so I got to see many more of my friends than I would have been able to otherwise. Got to have 'deep and meaningfuls' with  most of my favourite people (Sorry to the ones I missed!) and even had the lovely surprise to discover that one of my favourite people from Australia was in town - being one of the guest speakers for the regional day - so got to have an 'unexpected and therefore extra special, not nearly long enough' chat with her.

On my last day in Palmerston I went out to my old school, LAC. First surprise was that it's been repainted - no longer pink! A definite improvement!! Saw lots of my old students - you've all grown up sooooo much!! And again had a lovely time visiting with as many people as I could squeeze into the couple of hours I had there before I had to head off to the airport. The interesting thing though was that as I was leaving I could look back at the school without regret. I totally enjoyed my 12 years teaching chemistry at LAC, learned a lot, made some wonderful friends and grew as a person, but I have absolutely no desire to go back and do it again, there or anywhere else. As I drove away from the school I was left to ask "God, What next?" (Not counting Korea in the 'What next?' because that is just an one year adventure, not the rest of my life.)

And then I got to Hamilton where the question was answered - at least it was answered in that I got a vision and a taste of what I would like to do. Now I will just have to wait and see how God is going to make it happen because I have no idea how to make this happen for myself.

Interesting things that happened in Hamilton:

1. This is my only complaint, the car that I was lent to drive by the excellent people I stayed with while I was in Hamilton (Hi Vivienne, Hi Maurice) was a very nice European car, which means that its blinker switch was on the opposite side of the steering wheel to what I am accustomed to. (The same side as on American cars.) After driving it for a month I am finding it rather difficult to adjust back to normal cars and find I keep flicking on the wind-wipers when I want to go around a corner. Not exactly helpful.

2. I meet an internet friend in the flesh for the first time (Hi Linda) we had a grand time getting to know each other - she is currently learning Korean in a course she is doing, I love serendipity. On our last meeting I dragged her out to the Mormon Temple with me, because I was curious. It was a 'dah' moment for me - should have expected it, but I didn't, the whole tour of the visitors centre was an indoctrination exercise. Interesting and sad, Interesting to see how they present there beliefs without mentioning any that a traditional Christian would find odd in this introductory session. Sad because the lady who talked to us was obviously sincere and quoted scripture often, but some was twisted to imply things it doesn't actually mean in the Bible and some was just misquoted, additions to the actual Biblical text which I must admit rather shocked me.

3. Linda also showed me that my faith and trust in God was not as strong as it ought to have been. We were comparing our beliefs (Linda is not a Christian) and as part of the conversation she said something that suddenly made me realise that she had more faith in her Goddess than I have in my God. The conversation came around about the same time as the discovery that all my references had been lost by the Australian office and I was left questioning if I was actually going to get to go to Korea seeing as I still had to obtain all the references again and get approval to go from two committee's and then the tickets could be purchased and there was only two weeks to do all these things. One of the things I learned at AFCOE was to 'rest' on God and let Him take care of my problems. And here I was fretting about small things like references and committee's when God made the entire world in one week, and I had two weeks for my problems to be sorted out. So  after hearing Linda talk I had to silently apologise to God for my lack of trust and faith and give the problem back to Him. And it all worked out, 3 more sleeps :-D (Thanks Linda for the insight.)

4. In Hamilton I got to do some work with the full time Bible Worker there for a few hours each week. Jeremy and I knocked on doors, did surveys, invited people to have Bible studies and conducted some Bible studies. All good but what I particularly enjoyed was working with the church members. The reason I got to go to Hamilton is because their Pastor (Michael Falzarano) wanted me to train his church in the Cycle of Evangelism, they are doing a big series later in the year and he wanted me to do the introductory training, get people revved up to go out and invite their friends to the meetings, to be someone different than the people they usually see. So I got to do a 10 min segment before the service each week talking about different aspects of the Evangelism Cycle and what practical things people could be doing at each stage of the cycle. On Sabbath Afternoon's I was able to teach interested church members how to answer tricky Bible questions that they might be asked. I also got to do a couple of other sessions, How to Give A Gospel Presentation' and 'Writing Your Testimony.' Plus I got to join a couple of small groups for their Bible studies and run a couple of sessions. I loved it!!!!!!! I loved teaching again, I loved interacting with people who wanted to know what I had to teach them, I loved knowing that what I was teaching was the most important thing in the world. What I would like to do is work with the members of our church, teaching them how to deepen their experience with Jesus and how to present Him in the most attractive way to other people. Whether that is by travelling around churches and spending a few weeks in a place then moving on and doing it again, or by teaching at an AFCOE (that would be awesome) or being an Evangelist/Revivalist, or in some other way.

5. I got to preach the sermon one week, did my testimony, based it around the Parable of the Sower with the hard/thorny/rocky and good ground. Tried to show how God has taken my hard/thorny/rocky heart and is slowly and laboriously turning it into good soil. At the end of my sermon while I'm standing at the door shaking hands one man says "Thanks for the great sermon, I only slept a little bit." ... ummmmm what do you reply to that?? I smiled and nodded. Am choosing to take it as a compliment ... What was very cool though was that a few of the children and young people seemed to be impacted by it and one mother told me that her often rebellious young son stayed behind after the sermon to have a little prayer before leaving. Seriously, our testimonies is the one thing that we can share that make Jesus real to other people, when they see the changes that Jesus has made in us, the victories He has given us, the truths He has taught us and how that transforms us, it makes them want to know Him too.

6. Another thing I learned: I have always been one of those people who enjoy the 'special' speakers and watch with a touch of amusement all the people who 'flock' around the speaker afterwards. Well I would have been very lonely with out those people. I meet some lovely fantastic people in Hamilton and have determined that from now on I will join the 'flock.'

7. Finally, (Not the final thing I learned, just the final thing I plan to record here), I found out why people had been giving me strange looks when I would tell them I had spent four months at AFCOE learning how to be a Bible Worker. Here in New Zealand AFFCO is the name of a big freezing works up north. (In case you don't know, a freezing works is basically a factory where animals are slaughtered and processed for eating.) I learned to say instead that I had been to Amazing Facts for four months and taken their Evangelism course. Then the next thing I would be asked was "Did you meet Doug Batchelor?"


Now I am going to go and have one of those sleeps. Wishing you all a lovely day.

Cheers

Cat

Approaching A Korean Adventure ...

Did you know that in Korea you can get a kimchi burger at McDonald's and a kimchi pizza at Pizza Hut? This is one of the fascinating things I have learned about Korea since I have decided to go there. (I am not planning to sample either of these delicacies as I do not like kimchi!)

Teaching English in Korea is something I've wanted to do for ages - about 20 years to be exact. And on my bucket list I have 'Live in a non-English speaking country for a year,' and 'live in an apartment building.' Now I will get to cross both of those off the list :-) making way for even more exciting prospects.

So how did this adventure eventuate? I hear you asking ... and I reply 'It was like this ...'

Remember back in 2009 I took a years leave from LAC and spent some time travelling around NZ. Then I needed a job so I was applying to all sorts of non-chemistry-non-high-school-teaching jobs? And only got four replies, and of those four only one worked out - in 2010 I ended up going to BHHEC, the health retreat in South Dakota? But not before God surprised me by sending me back to teach high school in Sydney for the last half of 2009.

OK so having remembered all that context here is where Korea fits in. One of the non-chemistry-non-high-school-teaching jobs I applied for was to teach English at the SDA English Language Institutes in South Korea. And I never got a reply! Now skip forward about 18 months. I've done the teaching stint in Sydney, had a wonderful time at the Health Retreat in South Dakota and am half way through the Evangelism Course  at Amazing Facts. And I'm wondering 'What am I going to do next??' So of course I do the obvious thing and pray about it. One Sabbath morning not long after I had started praying this prayer I wake up to find an email in my in-box. From Korea, it says, essentially, "We just found your application, we thought it was spam, you are more than qualified for the job, do you still want to come? When can you start?"

Given the prayer I had been praying it was an easy jump to assume that God's plan for me was to go to Korea to teach English and Bible. But, there was a little voice planting doubt in the back of my mind saying 'Don't get too excited, you're not really going to get to go...'

I did want to go but was also listening to that little doubting voice so I prayed that 'if I wasn't supposed to go that God would close the door and open another one and that I didn't want my not going to be the result of my just giving up because it got hard but it had to be a God thing.'

Well I can report that every step of the way has been a battle!!!!!

First thing was with the collection of all the documents I had to get to apply for the visa. Nothing went according to plan:

1. Had to get an photocopy of my degree certificate notarised by an Australian Notary Public - because it's an Australian degree. So I headed off to the Australian Consulate in Auckland because I figured that that was the most likely place to find an Australian notary Public. And I was right. But, they refused to notarise the photocopy because they said that it was not possible to do the second thing I needed to do with the document - which I will explain in point 2. They said that Korea was not a party to the Hague Convention (which turns out to be wrong) and that I couldn't get an Apostile on a photocopy regardless of if it had been notarised or not. So I came home and sent an email to the Australian Passport office, who are the people who do Apostile's and about three days later got a very unhelpful reply - copy and paste from their website which I had already read and did not answer my question. So then I tried to ring them, after battling my way through the 'press 1 for this and 2 for that' system and ending up at the same answer phone each time I eventually left a message with my phone number - and never got a reply. With time running out I decided to try my luck at the consulate again, but this time not tell them why I wanted the notarised photocopy. So I drove the 45mins back to the consulate again, paid the exorbitant parking fees again and prayed. This time the mission was crowned with success.

2. The second step in the process was to get an Apostile seal on the notarised photocopy. I had decided based on what the first person I had talked to at the consulate had said that I would post the notarised photocopy and the original of the certificate and a covering letter explaining that I wanted the Apostile on the photocopy and not on the original but that I was sending both so that they could see the original. The problem with this plan was that when I graduated I had proudly got my degree certificate framed and the framers glued the certificate onto the backing board so I had to pull the frame apart to even get close enough to the certificate to make a photocopy and then post certificate with attached backing board (75cm by 50cm) but not wooden surrounds to Oz. So I get the biggest courier envelope I can find - which turns out to be just the right size and send it all off to Oz. Three days later I get an email from Oz say 'You didn't need to send the original, and we don't have an envelope big enough to send it back to you please organise yourself a courier.' My Mum helped with that - actually she did everything, seeing as she actually knows about international couriers. However even there there was problems.

3. I had to get a criminal report from the NZ Ministry of Justice to prove I'm not a criminal and the I had to get an Apostile on that - but this Apostile had to come from Wellington as it was a NZ document.

Now roll on the 2nd of March, it's a Wednesday night, I've managed to collect all the other documents I need but the photocopied, notarised, apostiled degree certificate (and the glued and oversized original) are still in Sydney while I have not seen the criminal report at all, so have had no chance to even get the Apostile on it. The next day (Thursday) I was going to Palmerston North (550km south) for the weekend and all the documents had to be posted by Friday to arrive in Korea in time to get a visa issuance number - so that then i could go to the Korean Consulate in Auckland and get the actual visa. Anyway I'm looking at the impossibility of actually completing this task and thinking - 'Is this where it gets impossible?' And I almost emailed Korea and told them I would not be able to come, that the door was closed. But something held me back from actually sending the email. Instead remembering that PN is only an hour and a half drive from Wellington I emailed the Apostille office and asked if it was possible to walk in and get an Apostile straight away? Prayed about everything - some more - and went to bed hoping that te criminal report would turn up in the mail in the morning. In the morning criminal report had not turned up but I had a brainwave. I rang the Ministry of Justice also in Wellington and asked if it was possible to come and collect the criminal report. I explained about having sent the forms in almost a month ago and needing to have it that day to get my visa. They eventually agreed that they would do me a favour and issue another criminal report (I have since got the first one in the mail - weeks later) to me if I cam to their office on Friday. So Mum contacted the courier people to deliver the stuff from Oz to their Wellington Depot, I emailed Korea and they agreed that if I could email them scans of all the collected documents before Monday then if the actual documents themselves were not there they would be able to begin the process, but the original documents had to be there by the end of the week.

So with more Hope in my heart I went first to PN, then on to Wellington carrying with me all the other documents I needed, and everything just fell into place. I arrived at the Ministry of Justice Records Office and walked out 5 mins later with the Criminal Report clutched in my hand. From there went straight to the place that does the Apostiles and 10 mins later had that as well. The degree certificate package duly arrived at the Wellington courier depot and was collected and that only left getting a passport photo - I had forgotten that. And that was the only drama of the day. I'd also forgotten how windy Wellington can be and had left my hair down for the day. That resulted in me being turned into a brunette dandelion the moment I got out of the car and necessitated the purchase and use of a hairbrush before any photos could be taken. Praise God I was able to email scans of all the documents to Korea by the end of the day and post the originals on Sunday morning. Visa Issuance Number was sent to me about a week and a half later.

4. A few days after that I had my  interview at the Korean Consulate, left my passport and was assured that it would be sent back to me with the visa in it within the week. About one day before I was supposed to get my passport and visa I got a phone call from the consulate saying that their visa system was not working and that they were going to send my passport to the embassy in Wellington and that it would take a few more days to get the passport and visa back. But it didn't I got it the very next day. And it turned out to be  blessing as I was living in Hamilton by then (getting to practise being a Bible Worker) so I was able to organise for delivery to come directly yo me, rather than via my sister. (Which is normally what happens to my mail.)

5. Another drama, I had to get a health form filled in, but the doctor did not want to sign the form as he was not my personal GP and had only seen me once before and that over a year ago + my blood pressure was up, stress - I wonder why ... (Is fine again now!) Eventually he agreed to give me a few weeks grace and said that if I could get blood pressure under control he would sign the form but would add a note to say that this was based on the medical history I gave him as he filled the form in. My Personal GP lives hours and hours away and hasn't seen me in something like 4 years. So I don't think he'd have done any better.

 6. The current drama: Before the school in Korea will buy my plane tickets I have to do two things 1. get the visa - done, and 2. be approved to go to Korea by the General Conference (part of our church organisation for my non-SDA friends) and before that happens I have to be approved by the office in Australia. And they have lost my references. Which were sent to them ages ago! I'm supposed to be leaving in about 10 days and the tickets have yet to be bought and this is again one of those situations where there is nothing left that I can do. (I hate those!) So I'm praying very hard and I would appreciate it if you would all pray too.

In the mean time I'm packing my bags because I do believe that Korea is where I'm meant to go next. Today I was reading a 'Note' by Pr Dan Augsberger entitled 'Are You Serious When You Pray? and realised I had never actually asked God if it was His will for me to go to Korea - had just assumed it was and had asked for Him to close doors if it wasn't. So I prayed then and there about if it was His will, and then at the bottom of the note was a bit about how we should all either go on missions or support someone else going on missions. An immediate answer - I'm available and willing to go. So will just have to have faith that in the next 10 days everything will be sorted out and I will end up in Korea.

Guess this is just the next lesson in 'building faith 101' for me. The one that follows me driving half way across the states to Weimar because I believed that was where I was supposed to be even though I did not have the money to cover the fee's and had no idea if I would even be allowed to stay in the country, and had to drive a stick shift on the wrong side of the road ;-) And that turned out to be a wonderful blessing!! So I'm fully expecting Korea will also be a wonderful blessing!! (Even if I can't avoid the kimchi pizza...)

PS I now have one of the references. the first time the references were sent I'd got my referees to send references directly to the Ozzie Office, now I have contacted them again and am getting them individually re-sent to the office and cc'd to me.