Spencer Family Blog: February 2010

Things are going reasonably well here. We are adjusting to Korean life. We love the food and the hills and the language is coming along. We've figured out the bus system and have begun visiting friends on the other side of town and generally exploring our new city. Daejeon is a really nice place to live. Today we had some spring-like weather with temperatures in the 60's (Fahrenheit of course) so we went a hiking. We were going along and all of a sudden we came across a lamp post in the middle of the forest. I thought immediately of Narnia and had to take a pic. (As usual, you see the Daejeon sky scraper apartments in the background.)
P.S. Click on the picture if you want to really see the lamp post. It's not completely obvious when you see the picture little.

This week has been one of the most stress inducing and interesting weeks of my life. First off, the director of Owens school threw a party for us and even had an American style cake made. If you can't see it on the picture it says "well come to Korea" The Korean people place great importance on social networking or "ujong" . This has been quite an awkward challenge for Owen and me. We are trying to learn to meet the social expectations that we face here every day but a few instances have been quite embarrassing to say the least.

Here is the front of our apartment. All of the buildings in our neighborhood or "dong" are faced in granite but the actual buildings themselves are made out of ordinary things like brick. We live in the penthouse at the top of the building. In our dong, there are always some sort of business, usually a restaurant, on the street levels.

Here's the view from one side of our apartment. This particular view faces a bank of hills in the east. It's quite lovely to watch the sunrise from this vantage point.

Yesterday we went for a hike in the before mentioned hills and we came across a series of tombs of ancient leaders from this community. It was quite surprising to suddenly find it while we were hiking along.

A view of Daejeon looking down from the tombs.

Two of the cutest men in the world.

You see these signs everywhere in Daejeon. They look so happy don't they? All of the signs are very cute and happy looking, just like every girly girls dream. It makes Owen a little queasy.

Today we also attended our first church meeting. The elders here were quite accommodating in attempting to translate for us. The Koreans love analogies! Aside from the obvious language barrier, we were surprised at how normal and similar things were. I had a very interesting experience in Relief Society that further testified of the power of the Gift of the Holy Ghost and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true but I will save that for another post.
We've met some serious struggles in trying to get around because A) Koreans don't use addresses at all! They spend several minutes telling each other using landmarks how to get places which we cannot do because we can't yet communicate, and B) the public transportation is ridiculously difficult to use. Even native Koreans who have lived in Daejeon all of their lives say "Oh it's too tricky! Take a cab." We are planning on using a cab to get to church from now on. The missionaries have graciously offered to call us a cab every week so that we can get to church. We are also considering buying a car in a couple of months as we are able to save enough money for such a thing and after we go to Seoul and get our Korean drivers licences.
The other culture shock thing that we actually knew about but still are unnerved by is the lack of furniture. No body has any sort of furniture aside from a bed roll and a small table 0n which to eat. Even at church there weren't any couches in the foyers!

The title of this post is a phrase that we here constantly whenever we are out. it means "Fat Americans!" Yes, we are fat and I find that even I am quite tall compared to everyone including the men. Owen is literally as tall as our apartment ceiling which shocked and amazed our new friends from work. It's quite funny. I always feel like the jolly green giant whenever I am cooking because the stove and counter is a good 7 to 8 inches shorter than I'm use to.
Another funny thing is that people here use windows just as much as they use doors. The Internet guy came over to install our Internet on Thursday and he was leaping in and out of our windows like an agile cat. I felt like a docile heifer chewing my cud and watching the whole spectacle in amazement. It was quite something to see.

Lastly, people wonder why we are now living in Korea. The short and accurate answer is that we felt strongly guided by the Holy Ghost to come here. There are moments in every day since we've gotten here that I think we must be insane but whenever I pray about it, I receive that comforting assurance that this is indeed where we are suppose to be right now. It is a blessing even though it's hard.
Dylan fits in with the kids here like a glove. His temperament, personality and looks are exactly like the Korean kids. All of the people we meet thinks that Dylan is the most handsome boy they have ever seen. Dylan has even taken to saying to me in the morning "Mom, I don't think I should do my hair today because I don't need any more ladies in love with me." I"m glad that he feels so cool and loved.
More later