the cost of being allowed to work in korea

working in korea has been a wonderful experience for me. i have been to about 16 or so countries on my vacations, i have made some of the best friends, i have had a great time as a teacher (both at the preschool and university levels) and i have even met the love of my life.......but every year things just get more expensive and frustrating when renewing our E2 visas. (this is the working visa for english teachers.) let me give you an idea of how much it cost me last month:

my criminal background check sent from canada.................$40
my criminal background check stamped at the embassy.......$50
my renewed E2 visa fee with multiple re-entry status..........$75
my medical check...........................................................$90

total cost to renew my E2 visa.........................................$255

this is not sponsored by my workplace and therefore, comes out of my pocket.

koreans love to tell us that we make a lot of money as teachers and often ask us outright exactly how much. Although we do make a good amount, we do give up some things by living this far from home. i will miss the birth of my first niece/nephew in a couple of weeks, loved ones have passed away and milestones are being celebrated all without my presence---just to name a few. Some taxi drivers and some belligerent old people seem to enjoy telling us that we make too much money and like trying to put us in our place. i only wish my korean was advanced enough to explain the sacrifices we make.

who knew??

.......i am dating a chef?? i came home on monday night to a wonderful dinner of chicken tikka masala.....complete with naan bread! i had no idea teddy could actually cook and liked doing it. it was delicious. last week teddy made some battered chicken with sweet and sour sauce. it was also very delicious. i look forward to his next creations while he enjoys his extended vacation. here are 2 photos i snapped before devouring some......

the chicken tikka masala and the naan bread. yummy!!!

the chef himself serving up some of the yumminess!

boy do i have a long way to go!

the following is a great email i just received from one of my university students. it tells me something.......i have a very long way to go with some students!!!

Hello.I am department of law XXXX XXx XXX(his name isn't important)(2004211034)Cannot attend to a class being sorry.An excuse will not call it.I will attend exactly from the following class.I promise.Again being sorry............

.....and i love it!

hongkong and macau

so, because teddy had to leave the country when his working visa expired, we decided to make a bit of trip out of it before i went back to work. we originally wanted to go to thailand (or anywhere else beachy) but flight schedules wouldn't give us much time on the beach, with only 5 days for travel......so we decided on hong kong. not a bad choice at all.

.....unless it is super foggy and a little rainy the whole time you're there! we couldn't really understand the hype about hong kong when we were there, but now have come to learn it's because we didn't go to see the massive buddha in the mountains or go to victoria's peak. we just didn't bother because it was too foggy to see anything. we did have a great time though. walking the streets of hong kong is interesting, the food was good, people are polite and the break from korea is always good. we decided to take one of our days there and go to macau. that was really fun. it was a formerly portuguese, so that made it interesting and different.

here are a few photos.....

here we are at a random pretty spot in hong kong.

the same pretty spot farther back.

what the skyline looked like for all but our very first afternoon in hong kong.........fog, fog, mist and a little more fog!

another view.......

couldn't see the top of some of the buildings! goodness they sure have some tall ones!

teddy on a random street in central hong kong.

the dim sum restaurant where we ate.

us enjoying some delicious dim sum!!

hong kong at night.


teddy and i on the ferry to macau.

a view of a part of the skyline on the island of hong kong, from the ferry. our hotel is in there somewhere!

one of the many massive casinos in macau!

that same casino later that night. so much light!

mcdonalds, macau style.

what not to write on your arrival card.......

address in korea: the moon
purpose of travel: go to the sun
occupation: astronaut

.......teddy found out pretty quickly that this wasn't as funny to the immigration officer as he'd hoped. she was so confused, asked her partner if there was a space station in our part of seoul and actually thought teddy was an astronaut!