It is difficult for me to think of titles for blog posts

One free afternoon, Becky, Katie and I taxied to Daejeon station where we found some crazy busy commercial streets, a giant underground mall, and a great market right next to the station.

A street in downtown Daejeon.
Here is a view of downtown Daejeon. There are two downtowns, and I think this is the older one.

Took this photo for Brandon. I found it for sale in this giant underground mall that was pretty overwhelming--so much merchandise and beautiful people.

This is the huge outdoor market around the train station. This is more like my kind of shopping! The food chain, laid out in front of you.

Over the weekend Simon and Haejung took us to JeonJu, a city about an hour and a half from Daejeon. Here we are standing before a very old Presbyterian church that segregated men and women into separate seating areas.

Here we are visiting the museum for the Presbyterian Medical Mission, dubbed Jesus Hospital, that has been providing medical service for over a hundred years and represented some of the first Western interaction into Korea.

Then we saw JeonJu Hanok village for some traditional architecture and traditional crafts. The area is well-known for its history of paper crafting, and there was some pretty awesome paper work, as well as textiles and pottery. Also, bibimbap is a famous dish from JeonJu, so we happily sampled.

Me playing a traditional Korean game (and dominating, obviously). Thanks, Katie, for the picture.

I like this juxtaposition of old and new architecture.

Yesterday we worked out our work schedules for the first few weeks, and I am very excited about where I will be working! I will be primarily at the Samna Center working with foreign migrant families. This includes everything from working with kids to playing soccer to doing arts and crafts with migrant women to having English conversation with adult migrants. Time will tell what I actually find myself doing and how I try to add to the thorough mission of the Center, but for now I am anxious to get into the trenches. I will also be teaching English at a church on Saturdays. All three of us will be quite busy, since we will be continuing language classes.

The weather has turned beautiful and hot. The food continues to be delicious and my taste buds are able to handle more spice little by little. We successfully spoke at an English-language chapel for roughly 2,000 students (successful meaning we did it, though what was understood by our audience is yet to be determined). We have much homework for classes, but we are now proud owners of our very own bus passes. Finally, we are continuing to be welcomed by a great community here and remain thankful for the help from our program directors.

The picture below sort of summarizes my time here so far, a state of happy confusion.