Imreadyforchange’s Weblog

So, I started blogging and then I decided to give up blogging because it took a lot of time. However, now that there are SO many changes happening in our lives, I thought I would try to keep others updated.

Firstly, if you haven’t already heard, I am 7 weeks pregnant! Baby Im is due at the end of October. S/he was a complete suprise, but we feel very blessed to be able to love Baby from the very beginning.

It has been a rocky couple of weeks between nausea, vomiting, starting school, and working. I have cried many times as I run to the bathroom to do my business. I have also run out of a few classes and the office to spare the embarrassment of doing my business in front of others.

It has been difficult to stay positive admist all the changes, but as I reflect upon what I can learn from this pregnancy, I am really learning about self-sacrifice and about unconditional love and the giving of myself – all great lessons that will bring me into motherhood and beyond. So, perhaps this is God’s way of training me from the very beginning.

For those who are experiencing morning sickness (actually, ALL DAY sickness), here are a few things that have worked for me: little amounts of food every hour or so; mostly high in protein. Ex: a handful of peanuts, peanutbutter and apples, a little bit of chicken, chicken soup. I get up slowly in the morning and try to eat something before I dash off. I have dried banana chips by my bed. I hear all the time that crackers work for others, but I think I ate too many in the beginning and now I gag at just looking at the box. I can’t drink water – it won’t stay down – so I drink Powerade (good to replinish the electrolytes), and Gingerale mixed with Pierre so that it isn’t too sweet.I can’t seem to drink juices either, except orange juice.

Korea has been hard on the pregnancy because of all the smells. I walked to the grocery store yesterday and seriously smelled maybe 25 different smells in a 15 minute walk. It was constant gagging. HORRIBLE!!!!

For those who are not pregnant, but are friends with those who are pregnant, I offer a few suggestions:

1. Be understanding – the first trimester is the most difficult and your friend may be absent from the usual get togethers or “just not herself.” Chalk it up to the hormones.

2. Try not to eat super smelly foods around them.

3. Korean food has a way of staying on your breath like MAD (I’m sure other foods do as well), so if someone offers you a mint, please take it

4. An extra portion of grace is what we need!

So, after almost TWO weeks without internet in our new home, we finally got it installed yesterday. I would say it was worth the wait since we got a sweet deal and also a gift certificate in a large sum that will go towards my husband’s long awaited Wii. I don’t think our lives (or our marriage) will ever be the same We’re so competitive – I think we need to get games that require us to work as a team rather than against each other.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back in the blogging world. I feel like I’ve experienced SO much already and have so much to share. Here’s a few things that constantly remind me I’m not in Canada anymore.

1. U-turns galore – the urban planners for Seoul must have really enjoyed u-turns because they have specific lanes for these things to happen in. As well, there are many times when you are driving that you cannot turn somewhere, so you have to make a u-turn.

2. Running reds – I don’t think I could ever drive here! There is an unspoken rule that if you come up to a red light and see that by running it you won’t be harming yourself or others, then GO! A friend explained it in a way that sort of made sense. It’s almost as though if you stop for the red when you could actually continue driving you could be putting others or yourself in danger by  wasting everyone’s time.

3. Construction – and I thought Montreal was bad! Nope, in Korea, construction happens anywhere and at anytime! They are replacing the sidewalk near our place and they go ALL night. Whether it’s 2:00 PM or 2:00 AM, they are drilling away. At least they are considerate – when they haven’t had the opportunity to put the concrete down, they put blankets down on the sand covered ground so that your feet don’t get dirty. This, in theory, works. However, I have gotten my heels stuck in the fabric more than once and almost fell on my face a few times. How did I get SO graceful?!

4. One size fits all – in smaller clothing stores, they have one size of shirts. Being new in Korea, I wasn’t sure if Iwould fit into that “one size”, so I thought I would try it on.  As I’m removing the shirt from the hanger, the sales lady comes rushing over and starts speaking in a loud voice to me. I have no idea what she’s saying. She then starts to use hand gestures – making a big X with her arms, shaking her head and saying, “No try….no try”. I put two and two together….gotcha…no trying on things. I ended up not buying the shirt from the store.

5. Waiting forever for a taxi – taxis are relatively cheap here. You get in and the meter starts at 1900 won, which in Canadian dollars is about $1.50. So, depending where you are going, sometimes it’s worth it to take a taxi. However, if it is a busy night (like the weekend), it may take FOREVER to try to flag down a taxi. Apparently – though it is illegal – taxi drivers will stop, roll down their window and ask you where you are going. If it is too close to where they are at that moment, they will continue driving. We were downtown one night with another couple and we waited 45 minutes for a taxi! We had about 10 to 15 taxis stop to ask us where we were going and drove off without another word. That night we ended up taking the bus home.

All in all, Korea has been a wonderful and enlightening experience. If it wasn’t for my extremely supportive (and fluent) husband, as well as our many great new friends, it would have been a much rockier start.

So, my husband and I arrived 2 days ago to Korea and already I feel like I’ve learned SO much and have met SO many amazing people.

I’ve already made some pretty dumb mistakes like mixing up shampoo and conditioner, which made my hair look really grossly greasy. I’ve also learned not to flush paper towel down the toilet unless you want to flood your bathroom. I’ve also learned that to heat hot water in the place we’re living, you need to turn on the heat for the floors and then turn on the water for a bit and then turn off the water and wait for a few minutes before it heats up. I don’t understand why.

Things here don’t seem too different. I’ve eaten more western food than Korean food, which I find so ironic since I’m living in Korea. Their burgers, fries, pizza and ice cream taste equally wonderful. We tried “potato pizza” today which is basically pizza with wedges of potato – surprisingly delicious.

The church here has some pretty cool ministries. They have their own cafe with wireless internet, a clothing store where shops donate fashionable clothing to it so people who don’t have a lot of money can shop there and still look trendy, they have a cafeteria that serves food at reasonable prices and because we work for the church, breakfast and dinner are free woot woot…I don’t have to do dishes or cook

Public transportation is fantastic. The bus and metro system are wonderful and pretty cheap, about 90 cents each trip. Taxis are pretty reasonable too.

Finding housing has proved to be more expensive and smaller than we had expected and some places have been a little sketchy. One place we went into had poo on their couch. HA…we decided not to live there! We’re confident that we’ll find a perfect place that meets what we’re looking for and where we can get to know our neighbours.

More details to come as we get more settled in. I’ll also include pictures as I remember to take them instead of just admire with my eyes.

With the colder weather arriving, my mind has turned off Thanksgiving  and has turned to Christmas. Christmas is my favourite season of the year. I always try to buy gifts for my family and friends that has some sort of meaning. Whether it is an inside joke, remembering a few months back that they had said, “Oh, I want this!” or a handcrafted gift, the most important thing about gifts to others is that it communicates “I love you and I really thought about you when I made/bought this present.”

This year I wanted to do some a little out of the box. I want to give – not only to the person I love, but also to the cause of freeing women/children whom are caught in/trafficked into the sex-trade industry.

I came across this organization called Nightlight Design. It is a Christian ministry in urban Bangkok that reaches out to women and children exploited in the city’s sex bars. It aims to intervene when children are solicited for sex trafficking and to provide women with job training and employment through a self-sustaining business of making jewelery.

The money that is made from the selling of the jewelery items go toward paying salaries and benefits of the women whom work at this organization, purchasing the raw materials, rent of the workspace, and the staff salaries.

So, this year, I thought I would purchase jewelery pieces for the ones I love and to also support a worthy cause.

Check out www.nightlightbangkok.com for more information or to purchase jewelery items.

T minus 8 days until our one way ticket lands in Korea. We’ve said a lot of our goodbyes and are currently in Vancouver spending time with Daniel’s family before we head off.

I now find myself in the mode of trying to think of things I will miss, so that I will pay extra attention to them now or appreciate it even more. I don’t want to be living proof of the cliche, “You never know what you have until it is gone.”

So far I’ve come up with:

1. Fresh air – apparently the pollution is pretty bad there. They don’t recommend outdoor physical activity. I don’t know how you can appreciate this aspect more. I guess I breathe a little deeper here.

2. Canadian Autumns – how can you beat the changing colour of the leaves and that sound of leaves crunching underneath your feet; not to mention that perfect temperature of wearing a sweater and jeans but not having to wear a jacket.

3. Car rides – Daniel and I love car rides. For some reason we’ve had so many great conversations while driving. We will be going “green” while living in Korea, so public transportation it is!

4. Understanding what people are saying – though I plan to learn Korean while we are living there (and thanks to my mother-in-law, I am currently learning the Korean alphabet), it’s going to take A WHILE!!! Thank the Lord we will be ministering in English and that there is an international community. Grocery shopping will be a pain in the butt though. I need to learn how to say “toilet paper” in Korean – that would be horrible to have to act out :S

5. Rooms – the apartments we are looking at seem to be very “loft” style. I’ve always wanted to live in a loft style home, until I realized that I really like walls.

6. Family and friends – nothing can replace!

Our First Goodbye - Montreal.

Our Second Goodbye - Family in Ottawa.

When I want time to slow down, it leaps and bounds away.

When I want time to go quicker, it crawls at a hair-pulling speed.

T minus 16 days until we’re on the plane to Korea . . . time in Canada is slipping through my fingers.

I just spent the weekend with my extended family for Thanksgiving and tried to cherish every single moment with them. I found myself trying to create memories where I could bottle inside and hopefully recall when I feel homesick or too far away. How do you say goodbye? I keep saying and hearing from others that “it isn’t goodbye, it is see you later.” I really pray that is true and that we see each other sooner rather than later.

With Skype, Facebook, Blogging, IM, etc. . . we will be able to stay in contact, but somehow that only provides immediate comfort and to stop the tears from flowing while the actual face-to-face goodbye is being said.

I don’t know what the purpose of this blog is. I guess it’s kind of an apology blog if we were hoping to get together but it never happened. Maybe it’s also an apology if our goodbye wasn’t as spectacular or meaningful as you thought it would be. Maybe it’s an “I’m sorry” if you were hoping that some tears would be shed as we parted ways. No matter how our goodbye was or lack of a face-to-face goodbye, please know that I really do cherish your friendship and that I would still love to keep in contact.

There are a few things in my life that I have said “never” to:

1. I would NEVER marry an Asian.

2. I would NEVER date someone long distance.

3. I would NEVER marry someone younger than me.

4. I would NEVER move to Quebec.

5. I would NEVER start a blog

Hahaha . . . the word “never” has a strange way of coming around and biting me in the bum.

So, here I am, a few weeks before moving to Korea and I am starting a blog. I thought it would be an ideal way to stay in contact with others and to let them know what my husband and I are up to. Also, the blog would give others an opportunity to leave messages (yes, that means YOU) and for me to post pictures.

I will try to keep it updated at least once a week, most likely on the weekends, so come visit my blog often