Laubers in Korea: Life in Busan

Hello friends and family! It's been quite a while since we've had some time to update you after moving back to Korea last February. We'll attempt to catch you up in the coming months.

As always, thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, support, and updates as we live in Korea. Though keeping up with everyone we'd like is difficult, we appreciate your text messages, emails, and posts on various social media accounts. What did we ever do without the internet?? Those of you who are older have permission to roll your eyes because you probably realize I have zero memory of a life without internet.

Let's rewind. Last February, Andrew and I said goodbye to my mom and dad at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. Our journey back East took us Atlanta -- Dallas -- Vancouver -- Tokyo -- Busan. Looking back, I was in complete auto-pilot mode because I have zero recollection of how we managed to get from the airport to our hotel.

We knew this coming year would be far different from our first year spent at CEV in Changnyeong, where we depended on our bosses for more than we realized. In Busan, we were forced from the get-go to be completely independent. This meant finding our own apartment, managing the logistics of the lease, me finding a job, etc. As the haze continued to clear away from our jet-lagged brains, we set out on foot to explore an area of the city in which we thought might be nice to live. Seomyeon is known as Busan's most "downtown-like" neighborhood. It's home to the Busan International Finance Center, the intersection of two major subway lines, and a restaurant/nightlife scene that we're feeling too old for. We stumbled upon a new apartment building called The Cube, took a look at some pictures, spoke with management, and toured an apartment all in one day.

With translation help from our good friend from Changnyeong, Ryan, I took care of sealing the deal on our new big city apartment while Andrew was on a visa-run in Japan. Now, we've been settled at The Cube for over six months, and while it hasn't gotten any bigger, we've managed the small space well. We live on the 18th of 21 floors.

Here are a couple views from our window:

We initially moved to Busan because Andrew received a job offer with Silla University as an English Instructor. He settled into his first semester with the help of his awesome coworkers. Andrew's first semester began in February and ended in May. During that time, he taught seven sections of the general English education course for freshmen, two sections of English conversation class for higher level students, one Global Business Success Center course for students seeking internships at a Hyundai plant in southern Alabama (bless their hearts), and mentored four "English buddies" each week. He was quite busy but handled it with ease and grace.

Here are some pictures from Silla's campus at a particularly beautiful time, cherry blossom season:

Pictured below are a few of Andrew's classes from his first semester at Silla:

Then, he taught a three week summer course before embarking on a well-deserved vacation. Andrew's current semester began at the beginning of September. Along with second-level English and Conversation courses, he's getting to teach Introduction to Philosophy, his true bread and butter.

For the first month of our time back in Korea, I like to say I had the "Housewife Visa", because it would have been illegal for me to do anything but nest into our apartment and be a spouse to someone who had a job in Korea. Not to brag but I also accomplished those tasks with ease and grace.

But as nice as it was to visit multiple grocery stores every day, eat all the samples at the bakeries, prepare completely ridiculous and elaborate meals, and pretend to be a cast member of "Desperate Housewives: Busan", I needed to get back to work. I interviewed for a couple of positions in which I'd teach adults and decided to accept a job offer from Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company. Don't worry -- I'm not teaching nuclear engineering or operating any important equipment. It's actually a unique position. KHNP has partnered with The United Arab Emirates to open the first nuclear power plant in the country. Since the common language between the engineers is English, KHNP has hired a dozen or so native English instructors to improve their language and conversation skills. Each day, I teach an average of 4-6 one-on-one lessons as well as occasional group classes. It's been interesting to work within a Korean company and observe the Korean work culture that is so often talked about, usually related to stress, bureaucracy, and long and unnecessary work hours.

My work is located on the coast, so I often enjoy the scenery with a lunchtime walk:

Our work lives are far different from those in CEV, as you can tell. As lovely as it was to spend literally every waking moment together, Andrew and I are enjoying our separate workplaces. Our life is much more settled in Busan, and doesn't involve leaving every weekend to get away from life on the rice paddy. We both miss teaching cute Korean children, but teaching adults has given us a new perspective and is stimulating in ways that teaching children was not.

You might remember that we attended an English speaking church in Daegu, a city that was about 40 minutes from CEV. We've been back a handful of times since living in Busan, but the commute is further and a bit more expensive, so we don't make it to Red Door as often as we would like. Additionally, my work commute requires me to take a train 45 minutes each way every day, so riding another 3 hours round-trip to Daegu on the weekend seemed a little taxing. However, we've found a nice English service at Choryang Catholic church in Busan. Most of the attendees are migrant workers from the Philippines with a few other nations represented. It's been a really great option for us in Busan.

Nearby our apartment is Busan's largest park, Busan Citizen's Park. It was once an army base that has now been converted into miles of walking/running paths, playgrounds, picnic areas, etc. We spend a LOT of time here.

We're also fortunate to have Busan's largest meat/vegetable market less than a 10-minute walk from our door. I've enjoyed getting to know the sellers and increasing my tolerance of the smell of raw meat and fish.

Another thing we've enjoyed a couple times this summer is Busan Lotte Giants baseball games, where we eat with chopsticks.

Busan fans are loud and proud and directed by the cheerleaders and "hype" man. It's hard to remember that a baseball game is going on.

As I mentioned, our day-to-day lives are pretty "normal". As individuals from two land-locked states, we've loved living 20 minutes from the beach. We're still able to feed our hiking needs, as Busan has both sea and mountains. Many aspects of our lives in Korea are easier this year, but what never gets easier is the distance from our families and friends; we miss you dearly! We're thankful for the ways in which we've been able to stay connected throughout our time in Asia.

Andrew will be back with updates on our travels together to Taiwan and his own to China and the States to celebrate his dear Grandmother's 90th birthday.