Good News Everyone: We're Hired!

This blog won't really get rolling until we're actually in Korea, but I wanted to start with a brief post about the position we accepted and establish our intention of blogging regularly for those who are interested.

We got the idea to teach in Korea back in the fall by talking to a pretty awesome high-school friend of Dan's and his pretty awesome lady counterpart.  In the following months, we contemplated, researched, considered, discussed, decided, and-- eventually-- filled out forms, payed fees, waited in lines, licked envelopes, and-- even more eventually-- posted resumes, emailed, spoke to agencies, compared, deliberated, and accepted.  We've taken a job in Gwangju (or Kwangju, if you prefer), a city in southern Korea.

This position appealed to us because of the short work days (3-9pm), the age of the students (Jr and Sr High), and the above average salary.  If you Google Gwangju the first thing that pops up is the Gwangju Massacre in 1980-- despite this rather bleak association, it seems like a nice city-- known for its cuisine, progressive history, and art scene.  It's the sixth largest city in South Korea, so there will be more than enough going on for our purposes. It also has great hiking and scenery just beyond the city at the Mudeung Mountain.  Guess I'll have to take up hiking, huh? 

Over the next two to three weeks we'll be packing up our apartment in Omaha and heading home to Philadelphia for a while before we take off (with a brief visit down to DC to see the Korean consulate).  Once we arrive, Dan and I will keep this blog updated with our experiences and with plenty (read: too much) photography-- to keep our friends and family in the loop.  

We are incredibly excited to be in a classroom (no more sales!), to experience the way another culture lives, to eat strange foods and see strange things, to have a bit of an adventure before we get old and boring.  

But, before we can do any of that: packing. Ugh.

Thanks for reading,

-Meg