Me and my new friend. 1st grader. She visits me every day.
Whoa! Two months in a foreign country? Am I still the same girl who went to college 45 minutes away from home to stay close to her parents? I'm two months into my year-long contract as a Guest English Speaker with the EPIK program in Korea. It's been amazing so far. I'm learning so much about life here. I think it's because I not only moved to a foreign country, I've up and moved out of my parent's house. I've got bills to pay, and I feel good about it. My school life is amazing. I knew that I would like being a teacher, but I didn't know just how cute the students would be. I also didn't know they would be filled with so much love. Every day, I'm amazed with just how much they impress me. One day, two of my students ran up to me before school started and did a jeol (a formal bow where one bows all the way to the ground to show the highest level of respect). I was overcome with giddiness and couldn't stop laughing. Now, everytime I go to that school my students say, "teacher~ Respect You~" and I reply,  "student~ I love you~!" *cue bursting heart*


 I think I'm doing pretty well here. I mean, I haven't gotten lost. Well...there was that one time I ended up at the bus graveyard. But other than that, I've gotten on all of the right buses. I can make my way around pretty easily. I was really lonely living so far from everyone, and I'm so tired after school that I can't casually head to the city to have dinner with people every day. But it's okay now because...

...Nicholas is here~!


Nicholas got here April 3rd, and while he's been adjusting to life here and teaching at a private academy, called a hagwon, we've been eating out a lot, and doing some sight seeing around the city. I will now shower you with pictures. 

selfies, of course.
a beautiful bamboo fence around a playground.







Elephant graveyard, bus graveyard...same thing.

There's one thing that you never want to fail when you're traveling, and that's your GPS. Imagine being in another state using your GPS and getting lost. Ugh, sucks, right?

Now, imagine being in another country, where you (after years of studying) barely speak the language, and your GPS calls it quits.

Now imagine that same scenario, but this time, your GPS is just a straight up liar.

That's what happened to me this past Saturday. Nicholas and I decided to just travel around Daejeon and see what we could get into. After a really nice Japanese Ramen lunch, we got on the bus (with the urging of Google Maps), determined to head towards the downtown area. Imagine our surprise when the bus we get on (thanks Google) goes in what seems to be the opposite direction. But, what do we know? We don't get off, because maybe this bus takes a different route downtown than what I'm used to. Well, eventually we get to the end of the line. The bus pulls into the bus graveyard. Where buses go to die get prepared for another route.

The bus driver looks into his rear view mirror at us, and seeing the looks on our faces, takes pity. He asks, in Korean, where we are headed. I let him know that we were trying to get to Eunhaeng-dong and he laughs and laughs. Then, he tells us we need to walk in *points* that direction to the bus stop and wait for the bus to get us. So, we prepare to start walking, a little defeated because we felt like we wasted bus fare. Then, as we start heading towards to bus stop, the driver gets off of his bus and yells for us to come back. The bus we need just happens to be leaving, and we should get on it. The best part? We didn't have to pay again. So, yeah, eventually we made it to our destination, and the memory is definitely a pleasant one, but at the time, I remember just feeling so betrayed by Google Maps.