Brunch and Coffee Shops!

I love cute coffee shops and weekend brunch.  My area is full of them! You can turn down any corner and would be amazed by the amount of quaint adorable places to eat and have coffee.  Here is one of the brunch spots we visited last weekend.  Page was delicious and had a great atmosphere.  We all agreed we would go back again soon.

My co-worker Laura goes to get coffee everyday from a wonderful coffee shop by school.  When I first walked in with her they were playing Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" and I instantly fell in love.  It feels so warm and cozy inside.

Won't you be my neighbor?

It's starting to get cold in Korea.  I hope this Atlanta girl can handle it.  I have seen lots of snow flurries.  Here are some pictures of my neighborhood. This is the main drag Jukjeon-ro.  It has tons of restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores.  This is one of the routes to school in the morning.

My school is located in this building.  It is on the top left corner.

This is the front of the school building.

View of Jukjeon-ro from up high.  Lots of lights!

My life in Korea!

Hi all :) So here is a sneak peek into my wild ride of a life in Korea.  I have had a wonderful first three weeks.  I am adjusting more and more each day and this is definitely becoming a new normal.  My apartment is super cute and I was fortunate enough to have TWO rooms instead of one, and a FULL bed instead of a twin.  Double WIN! Seoul is amazingly energy efficient so in the building we have only motion censored lights that go on and off as you come and go.  I use a 4 digit code to get into my building, as well as a personal code to get into my apartment.  No keys involved, thank goodness. For those of you who know my experience with keys!  Work is only a short 10 minute walk from home.  I work from 9:45am until 6:10 each day with an hour lunch. I teach Kindergarten class in the morning to 12 adorable little ones, we have a lot of fun.  Then I have afternoon classes with older elementary aged students.  

There are 12 other foreign teachers in my school, so I walked into a wonderful group of new friends.  

Waking up on Thanksgiving morning alone was a little surreal.  But I am feeling the love from halfway around the world and here in Korea.  On Friday night, my coworkers and I had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner.  It was so much fun.  Of course as one of the southerners,  I brought sweet tea and macaroni and cheese.  It was lots of fun and felt like the perfect Thanksgiving away from home.

I will never be able to express to my family and friends how much I appreciated them encouraging me to do this and seeing more in me than I saw in myself.  Its been an unreal journey.  As with everything not all is perfect, but it's pretty darn close!  I have already learned so much about myself, others and realized that I can really do anything :).  My life in Atlanta is wonderful, but life abroad is something you should never miss out on. 

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. If you have questions or pictures you'd like to see, I'm happy to take special  requests!

XOXO

My new home #202

Magic keypad with secret code

Main entrance

My fancy building

My bed that was hard as rocks.  A little better now with a mattress pad (Korean term: yo) and an egg crate.

A wall of closets and storage!

fancy wallpaper

Lady liberty was ready to welcome me!

Every month there is a party for the children who had birthdays in that month.  This is a picture of my class and I celebrating this past week. 

This is my Korean co-teacher Lucy.  I am so lucky to have her :)

Thanks Katherine ;)