I've changed blog sites... http://meejung.wordpress.com/ [View Full Entry]

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Sat. May 31st Today we had plans to meet the rest of our family at a seafood restaurant for lunch. Our Aunt & Uncle along with some other family members were coming to Oppa and Ani's house first. When we saw our Aunt and Uncle for the first time in 20 years, it was a really surreal moment. I wanted to recognize their faces...but I didn't. You could tell just by looking at them, they'd had a very hard life. They seemed really happy to see us and there were a lot of tears shed. Our Aunt was so cute - [View Full Entry]

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Sun. June 1st Today was move-in day for me into my apartment in Anyang. I was tired of living out of my suitcase and was pretty excited about getting settled in. With our 10+ bags of luggage in tow, we headed south to Anyang in a taxi van. There we met my co-teacher - Yi Hyun-Hi and she showed us around the apartment. At a first glance the apartment seemed okay. I thought it was a bit small but certainly liveable. She walked us down the street towards the subway station, where there was more civilization and modern living. My co-teacher [View Full Entry]

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Fri. May 30th So today is the BIG day! We had plans to meet our family at 3pm at the Holt Adoption Agency. We had no idea what or who to expect...I thought we'd maybe meet our Aunt/Uncle from Andong or a cousin the case worker had mentioned on several occasions. I didn't allow myself to have any expectations so I was prepared for anything. We arrived at the Holt Agency about 30 minutes early - thinking we'd get settled in before our relatives arrived. Well, we actually happened to run into them on the sidewalk outside the Agency. They knew [View Full Entry]

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Thurs. May 29th Today decided to do some real sightseeing. With Matt - our travel guide - in tow - we headed out to see some palaces. Our first stop was at the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the next was the Changdeokgung Palace. At the Gyeongbokgung Palace we saw a reenactment of the Royal Guard Changing Ceremony. This is the largest and grandest of five palaces and was originally built in the late 1300's. But a large part of the palace was ruined by the Japanese and has since been rebuilt. While the palace was really beautiful and interesting, I had just [View Full Entry]

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So I'm finally here - after months of anticipation! Since Matt and Laura left to head back to the states on Tuesday, it no longer feels like a vacation! This last week has been such a whirlwind - it's amazing how much my life has changed. I'm currently sitting in my new studio apartment, with my wet laundry draped everywhere and my jeans drying on the heated floor. Today was my second day at the school...before I expound on my interesting school experience thus far, I'll backtrack to our first day in Korea. Day 1 - Tues. May 27th Today I [View Full Entry]

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Wed. May 28th The next day we peeled ourselves out of our really hard, uncomfortable beds at a pretty leisurely pace and headed out to do a little shopping. At this point we hadn't heard anything about my luggage so I figured I needed to buy a few necessities. We decided to head to Myeong-dong (which is supposedly "The undisputed no. 1 shopping district in Seoul") and also explored Namdaemun Market on the way. We decided to head there on foot so we could check out downtown Seoul...a lot of men in really shiny, silver suits and women running (really - [View Full Entry]

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