Travel

Start Spreading the News!

Hear ye, hear ye. The Dunns have some exciting news. I know where a lot of your minds just jumped. No. It’s not that. Didn’t you read my last post? My uterus is still Baby-Free since 1987. (Though that would be just like God…tell him what you don’t want and SURPRISE! While He chuckles on his heavenly throne. “Hey Gabriel, check this out. Lily thought she was just gonna decide not to have kids. But look what I just did there.”)

So no, we are not having a baby (that I know of). Nor are we buying a house (no money), getting a dog (too much work), traveling to Europe (again, no money), joining the circus (no skills), becoming professional ballroom dancers (no rhythm), or taking up archery (although that would be cool.) What we are doing is moving…

…to South Korea. Mid-August. To teach English in a public school. Aaaahhhhhh!

How This Came About

First off, those of you who know me know that teaching abroad/living abroad is something I have been interested in for forever. So the interest is not new. We considered teaching abroad right after we got married, but ended up getting jobs in Illinois and decided it would be best spend our first year of marriage in a bit more familiar surroundings. Additionally, most of the places we were really interested in teaching (Europe/South America) were the types of schools where we would either have to get teacher certification/advanced degrees or would have to raise support like missionaries, neither of which we wanted to do. So that idea was put on the shelf.

Fast forward to this past fall. We were having dinner with our friends, Aaron and Caitlan Small, and they were telling us about some Christian schools they had visited on a recent trip to Indonesia that were looking to hire American teachers and provided housing as well as a salary. When Jonathan and I got home from that dinner, we immediately started researching those schools. Unfortunately, it turned out that we needed degrees in education to apply at these particular schools, but the fire had been lit. We decided to re-visit the idea of teaching abroad being more open to different areas of the world than we had looked at before. We felt that the timing was really good for us to be able to do something like this, and while we didn’t have a clear sense of direction yet, we decided to start exploring and see if God opened or closed doors.

Of course, Asia has the highest demand for English teachers of any area in the world right now, so we started exploring programs and countries there. Essentially what we found is that there were three categories of Asian countries:

  1. Countries where you need no qualifications to teach except for a high school diploma and the ability to speak English, but where you get paid about $300 USD/month, which is enough to live on, but not much more. (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia)
  2. Countries that paid teachers well and covered housing and airfare, but were also much more selective and preferred teachers with certification, years of experience, degrees in education and/or Master’s degrees. (China, Japan)
  3. Country that paid teachers well, covers housing and airfare, and only require that you have a degree in English or TEFL certification. (South Korea)

We decided to apply with recruiters who work in South Korea. We applied to the public school program (called EPIK) where you essentially apply to the program, have to be accepted and then public schools will fill openings from the pool of accepted teachers. We also applied to be considered for private school jobs (which are special language schools that kids attend after regular school) but those are on a case-by-case basis rather than a formal program.

After many months of working on applications and acquiring documents, we found out two weeks ago that we had been accepted into the EPIK program. We FedEx-ed our paperwork to South Korea yesterday.

What We Know

  1. We have been accepted to the program, but do not have contracts yet. We have been told that it is 95% certain that we will be placed and have contracts within the next 2 months. (Only extremely rarely does something happen to mess this up, usually the applicant having been dishonest about something or withdrawing themselves).
  2. We will arrive mid-August, complete 9 days of training, and then head to our schools and new home to start teaching.
  3. We will not know where we will teach until the job offer comes in. We have requested the metropolitan are of Daegu, which is in the southern part of the country and is the 4th largest city in South Korea (about 2 million). We were told that Seoul and Busan would be much more selective and would probably choose teachers with prior experience so we chose the next biggest city we could find although we don’t know that much about it. We are not guaranteed to be placed in Daegu although they will get our applications first.
  4. We will be provided with a small, furnished apartment free-of-charge. We will also receive a relocation allowance that should nearly cover our airfare. We will have health insurance and will each be paid a salary equivalent to somewhere between $1700 – $2000 USD/month. Our only expenses will be utilities, food, and transportation, though we plan to do as much traveling as possible while we are there. The money we save will help to pay off my student loans from Wheaton and my current grad school tuition.
  5. I will plan to continue my grad school classes distance from South Korea.
  6. We will be eating a lot of rice, sweet potatoes, and kimchi.

How We Feel About It

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Ok, mostly we feel like this, but it is also a little bittersweet and scary. We really love Raleigh and could see ourselves back in North Carolina when we are ready to settle down. This has felt like home to us and we will miss it, especially our friends.

One More Cool Story

My biggest concern with all of this was having to tell the family I work for that I was quitting and moving across the world, especially since the kids really rely on the stability that I (and their old nanny before) provide since their parents are so busy and all over the place. I was also hesitant to say anything before we were sure this was happening. After we got accepted to the program, I decided to go ahead and tell them we would probably be moving at the end of the summer so that they would have plenty of time to find a new nanny.

The day I was going to talk to them, the mom came out of her office (while I’m sweating and my pulse is racing) and says, “I just want to update you on our situation. We are moving to Shanghai on July 13th. We don’t want you to quit before them, but wanted you to have time to find another job.”

Which made it so much easier for me to say, “Actually I think I have a new job and it is teaching English in South Korea starting in August.”

Perfect timing or what?! AND now I will be able to visit them in Shanghai where they will have an incredible 4 bedroom apartment overlooking the river. Amazing.

So, sorry for the long update, but so excited to share this with all of you!

And also, we desperately need a home for our darling kitties for 1 year. We want them back when we return! If any of you would seriously consider taking 2 wonderful cats and loving them for a year, please let me know!

Of Shoes and Ships and Ceilingwax…and of Second Anniversary Trips Potentially Involving Jack Sparrow

 Hellooooo world! I’m alive! It’s been a really, really, really, really, really long time (as some of you very loyal blog-readers have pointed out.) I kept thinking I’d eventually have a large chunk of time to write a nice catching-up post so that I could then start posting more regularly. But nope. Never found that large chunk of time. In fact, I’m not so sure it even exists. So, instead of a lovely well-thought-out catching up blog, here’s the basic run-down:

Go to work. Go home. Go to bed. Go to church. Friends visit us, we visit friends. Easter in Ohio with the inlaws. Dilemma: Go to school? Don’t go to school? Stress, confusion, crying ensues. Decide to do a compromise and plan to start online classes through Fuller in the fall. New dilemma ensues: Stay in this job or get a new job? Still working on this one. Hoping for the new job option to work out soon. Next dilemma ensues: move when our lease is up or stay in the same apartment? Decided it was the best decision finance-wise to stay. Take up hot yoga. Sweat more than I ever have ever. Dye hair strawberry blonde-ish. Start reading Game of Thrones. Bake a lot. Talk. Laugh. Travel to Dominican Republic. Celebrate 2nd wedding anniversary. Take anniversary pictures with friends/photographers Asharae and Tim (will let you know when these pics are available.)  Mom and Anni drive up from Louisiana to visit. It is awesome. That’s pretty much it. Got it?

 So, backing up to one of the most interesting parts of that little rundown – our 2nd anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic. We got the most amazing deal through cheapcaribbean.com that was $12/night per person to stay at this all-inclusive resort in Puerto Plata. That meant that for the entire 6-night trip we paid $144. Which included unlimited food and drinks. Then we just had to pay air-fare (which was the hefty part, but still not so bad considering we flew right from Raleigh) and then extra for any additional excursions or items we wanted to buy.  Neither of us had ever been to the Dominican Republic, so we were both excited to see a new place and get a new stamp in the old passport.  That makes 13 countries for me. Getting gradually closer to my goal of 196. (Ok, but seriously, at LEAST 50.) I was particularly excited about this trip because, being in the Caribbean,  I figured I would for sure meet a pirate as excellent as Jack Sparrow.

Incidentally, I was wrong. I did not in fact meet or even see anyone as remotely excellent as Jack Sparrow, despite being in the prime location for it.

As you can imagine, the Dominican Republic is beautiful! The town we stayed in (Puerto Plata) is on the north side of the island, the opposite side from Punta Cana, which is the more popular vacation destination. Punta Cana is known for its incredible beaches. The beach at our resort was also nice, but the sand was not as sparkling white and the water not as bright aquamarine as it is other places in the Caribbean. What is unique about the DR is that there are mountains basically right up til you get to the ocean. It looks a lot like I imagine Hawaii does (from the pictures I’ve seen of it.) Very lush and tropical.

Our resort had a great beach with these amazing canopy beds you could lay around on and read and nap and have nice people bring you fruity beverages and snacks. It was perfect for people like us (well, like Jonathan) who burn as soon as the sunlight hits their skin. (I actually burned too the first day, but that was only because I waited to long to put on my sunscreen.)

One day we took a cable car ride up to the top of the tallest mountain in the area. The mountain was called Isabel de Torres (not Mount Isabel, just Isabel de Torres.) I hated dangling from that heavy cable car thousands of feet in the air, but I loved the view.

Up on top of the mountain is this Jesus statue that is reminiscent of the giant one in Brazil. Our tour guide (Manny) was very experienced at photographing this historic icon appropriately.

Once we came back down the mountain in the scary cable car they took us on a tour of the city. It looks pretty much like all of the South American cities I’ve visited in the style of the architecture and the way random museums and factories are crammed in right next to houses and convenience stores. We went to a rum factory, but the machines weren’t running so there wasn’t much to see. Then we went to a jewelry “factory” which was actually just  three people polishing stones in this little dugout. We also went to a cigar shop and watched a cigar maker roll up some cigars. And later we went to a fort that had been important in the DR’s war for independence. I did not get much out of the audio tour, but the fort had a beautiful view of the port.

Another day we ventured off the resort to go to Ocean World. Ocean World is like a dinky version of Sea World. It is small and has only a few attractions, like a dolphin show, a sea lion show, and a shark show. No Shamu. What they do have to offer is this exhibit called the Tiger Grotto. They randomly have two tigers (one is white, but he was sleeping the whole time) who live in this habitat with a pool in it. The pool has glass walls in parts and on the other side is a nice pool for people.  So you can swim up to the glass and the tiger will swim back and forth on his side and you can feel like you are swimming with the tiger even though you are separated by a glass wall and are totally safe. It was the coolest thing ever. The tiger was soooo beautiful. I wanted to bring it home with me. If Princess Jasmine gets to have Rajah, why can’t I have a tiger? Just another way Disney has ruined me for real life.

See! No fair!

Another highlight of our trip was learning that we apparently love Indian food. At least the Indian food they served us at the resort restaurant, Moomtaz. We got reservations there because it was the only place available on the night of anniversary and we thought, “We can try it and if we don’t like it we’ll just go to the buffet later. “ I only wish it had not been our last night. It was the most delicious food ever. A total surprise since neither of us thought we liked Indian food. Now we are determined to find an Indian place here in Raleigh that’s up to par.

The only negative part of our trip was some travel delay on our way down that actually ended up cutting out a day of our trip, but we are working on getting some reimbursement for that.

It was so good to have time to relax and rest, to enjoy each other’s company in an un-rushed way. We were able to reflect on how far we have come together in the last two years and how excited we are about where we hope to go together in the future. In the last year we moved across the country, started new jobs, made new friends, visited old ones, learned to run 13.1 miles, worked, and played, shared excitement and laughter and frustration and disappointment.  There are a lot of days when we feel frustrated that we don’t see the bigger picture of what we’re supposed to do in life – what careers we should pursue or where we should live or if we should be in school or if God really has a plan for us that doesn’t involve us wandering around aimlessly. And I especially panic that I’ll never do anything that matters, even to me. But at the end of the day, we are so, so thankful to have each other. And to know that even when we don’t know anything else, we are together and we are always for each other. And that makes us deeply joyful, even when we have to return from the beautiful tropical paradise and go back to spending 40 hrs a week staring at a computer screen.

Hope you enjoyed the travel spiel. Expect more from me soon!  🙂

There and Back Again: The Story of Two Running Princesses

Get ready for a marathon blog. Both because it’s gonna feel really long and because part of it will actually be about running a marathon. Well, half marathon anyway. Ready….set…..go!

So after my eventful Valentine’s Day at work, I arrived home to find a vase full of roses, a big box of chocolates, and my husband cooking away in the kitchen. For those of you who know Jonathan, you know that he is not the kind of guy that enjoys cooking, so this was genuinely a really big sacrifice on his part. He told me to go relax until it was ready and when I came out again, he had the table all set beautifully with the candlesticks and everything. Yay husband!

Over President’ Day weekend we traveled up to Princeton, NJ to see Jonathan’s brother, Patrick, who is in his last semester of seminary there. It was the first time we had been to Princeton and not only did we have a great time hanging out with Patrick, but we also loved seeing the campus. Princeton is beautiful, lots of old gothic-looking stone buildings. It looks like it should be in England. The rest of New Jersey left a little to be desired, but Princeton itself is a gorgeous campus. While we were there we also took the train into NYC for a day and just walked around and hung out in the city. I met up with a friend of mine from high school who now lives and works in the city.

 

Grand Central Station

The following weekend was my half marathon in Disneyworld! I flew down to Orlando on Thursday night and Christina and I and her mom spent Friday at the Magic Kingdom and the running expo we had to go to to pick up our race packets. I LOVE the Magic Kingdom. When Jonathan and I first started dating I explained to him that I planned to live there someday and I hoped he’d be ok with that. It’s still my plan. On Friday night Christina surprised us with dinner at the restaurant in Cinderella’s castle! I’d never done that before! It was the coolest thing ever!

Do you see how excited it makes me?!!!

 

Peter Pan was there and he was teaching this kid all about how to climb on railings!

On Saturday we got up early and braved the crowds at Universal studios in order to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As if meeting princesses the day before wasn’t enough….I think I’ve changed my mind. I now want to live in Hogsmead. Or at Hogwart’s. We had butterbeer (which tastes like cream soda and butterscotch) and lunch at the Three Broomsticks and now I can die happy because I’ve been there. There are tons of other really cool things in that park, but we left pretty early because our feet were tired and we had to be at the marathon no later than 4AM the next morning. Yikes!

Hogwart's!!!!

Butterbeer. Yummy.

Inside The Three Broomsticks

So Saturday night we went to bed at 7:30 or so (no joke) so we could get up at 2:45 AM and have our coffee and breakfast and get our gear on and drive to the Epcot parking lot by four. Then we had to walk about a mile to where the starting line actually was and there they put us into corrals A-H. There were 19,000 runners decked out in tutus, tiaras, and full-out princess dresses. About 5% of the runners were men and they were also dressed up—most in tutus that matched their wives or whoever they were running with, but I also saw one man dressed as the boy scout from Up and another guy who was Lumiere (he was my favorite.) Please note our tutus. We made them ourselves!

Starting Line! They set off fireworks from the top for each corral as they started.

We were in corral F and we had to wait another hour or more before we started running, so by the time we began we were soooo excited to start! At every mile marker there  were characters there to greet us and if you wanted to stand in line you could stop to take a picture with them. We only took pictures with characters who didn’t have a line.

We ran through the castle! And then we stopped really quick for a picture. And then we ran some more. This was about 6 miles in.

Us and Mushu! This was towards the end

We kept thinking as we ran that eventually we would get to a point where we stopped passing people and were with people going our pace (there were a lot of people walking significant portions of it) but we never really did. The amount of people there kind of kept our pace slow which helped us be able to run the whole 13.1 miles with no walk breaks! We were proud of ourselves.

 The best part of the race was definitely running through the Magic Kingdom. The race started outside of Epcot and we ran a few miles down the road between Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, then into and through the Magic Kingdom, back down the road to Epcot, through Epcot, and out to the finish line. Even with the crowds, one bathroom break and a couple of stops for pictures, we finished in 2hrs and 37 minutes. We placed 6,450 and 6,451 out of 19,000. Not too shabby for our first endeavor. Unless you consider that the girl who won the race did it in 1 hr and 18 minutes. But that’s inhuman. Really. We were given beautiful medals for finishing. I have yet to decide where to display mine (when I’m not wearing it, of course.)

We did it!

It’s been hard to come home after all the excitement. It’s sort of a letdown to be done with this thing we’ve been training for for so long. It’s also a letdown to no longer be somewhere where people always address you as “Princess” or “My Lady.” People in the corporate world just don’t know how to treat a woman. We are pretty much addicted to races now. At least Disney races. I don’t think we’ll be able to stop. Team “Eat Our Fairy Dust” is out of control. Our ultimate goal (several years from now when we are experienced and also rich enough to pay for it)—to run the marathon that circles the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. Who’s with me?!!

Mount Kilimanjaro. For reals yo.