Everything's Coming Together!

So this week we were able to accomplish several things that were on our to do list and needed to get done.

1) We got our Alien Resident Cards! Initially we thought we would get these cards pretty soon after our arrival but it took a good month and a half to finish the process. Our school director has been very helpful in this whole process and for that we are very thankful! Having these cards gives us the same privileges as a Korean citizen. So we are officially Alien Residents!!!

2) We opened up a Korean bank account. Again, our school director and co-teachers were very helpful with this! The bank workers spoke mostly Korean, the website was initially mostly in Korean (until they helped us change it to English) and in Korea, they have so many passwords and extra security measures for banking and online banking. We could not imagine the nightmare it would have been to try and set this up on our own. It is going to be hard enough remember which of the three passwords to use at which time in the sign in process and which of the special codes to enter when required. But now we are able to receive our monthly salary as a direct deposit into our bank account and we can now pay our utilities and phone bill online! So again we are very thankful!

3) We got a Costco Gold Star Membership. This is something we had wanted to do for a few weeks now but we had to wait until we got our Alien cards. The membership is cheaper here too! Costco is about as close to familiarity as we will get when it comes to food in South Korea. We recognize a good amount of the products and brand names and it helps provide an alternative to eating Korean food three times a day. Don't get me wrong, we are starting to like some, even most, Korean food, but we feel if we continue to eat it in moderation (once or twice a day) this next year will be a whole lot more enjoyable in the food department. We are thankful for Costco!

4) We are registered for Korean health care. This took longer than expected as well but now we are covered for the year! We no longer have to make phone calls to our insurance agency in Canada to extend our health coverage! We are thankful!

In light of all this thankfulness, today is Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving). We get an extra couple days of rest from school thanks to this holiday, we are off until Thursday!

At our school this past Thursday and Friday, we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with the kids. One Korean tradition for this holiday is to wear hanbok, tradition Korean clothes. So on Thursday, the teachers (us included) and all the kids, wore tradition Korean clothing for the morning! On Friday, we made a special food called songpyeon, a rice cake (dough made with rice flour stuffed with a sugary filling). The kids got to work the dough, put in the filling and close it up (and they loved sharing with Karmen and I, let's just say we were not hungry for lunch that day). It was fun to learn about and participate in a Korean holiday.

Traditional Hanbok

The fruits of our most recent Costco run!

A nice walk by a creek in Seoul!