Bocky in Busan

Travels: Saigon & Mui Ne, Vietnam

2010-05-05T08:41:00.006-04:00

Vietnam was the country that I was the most excited for before we began our journey. Unfortunately, it was the biggest disappointment of our trip.
After the warm and friendly people of Cambodia and Laos we felt harassed and bullied by taxi drivers, street hawkers and hotel staff upon our arrival in HCMC (Saigon).
The traffic in Saigon was crazy and overwhelming, but also really amazing (for the first hour anyways). Crossing the road there required you to just walk out into a sea of moving motorbikes, who just parted, and flowed around you. It was terrifying but also really cool.
We took a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, a place where communist soldiers lived during the war. It was shocking to hear all of the comments about "crazy devil evil Americans" or the communist fighters who won special awards for killing the most Americans. I quickly realized that we would only be getting one side of the story! Interestingly enough, the Southern Vietnamese who fought alongside the Americans were not mentioned.
After leaving Saigon we went to Mui Ne, famed for it's beach and sand dunes. After a run-in with an extremely rude hotel/restaurant worker, we settled into a decent room and went out to erplore the town. The beach was not great ... at all, but the sand dunes were awesome. We went on a tour to the Fairy Stream, a fishing village and the red sand dunes. Well worth the time, money and the trip to Mui Ne.
From Mui Ne we took our first sleeper bus ... and that's when we really started to regret our decision to visit Vietnam.
To be continued ... I have a flight to catch!
xoxo

Travels: Phnom Pehn, Cambodia

2010-05-05T08:34:00.002-04:00

After an amazing time in Siem Reap we went to Cambodia's capital, Phnom Pehn.
Bigger, louder, dirtier and more confusing than Siem Reap, but still full of really lovely people.
We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. Both very upsetting, but informative and important to understanding Cambodia's recent history. They gave me a better understanding of the atrocities suffered, and of the amazing growth that has been made since the genocide occurred.
After 2 nights in Phnom Pehn we were ready for our next destination - Vietnam!

Travels: Internet Issues

2010-04-25T00:47:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I cannot wait to get home ... for the decent internet connection!

I have tried uploading photos to facebook, blogger and emails so many times, wasted countless hours, and have not managed to have any luck doing so in weeks. I'm getting very frustrated.

Now, I am in Vietnam, and Facebook seems to be blocked.
It was working in Saigon, the southern part of the country, but now in Mui Ne I am having no luck. Even proxy sites aren't working. Very frustrating.
Any tips on getting around this?

Things are still going well, but not being able to stay in touch with friends and family is very frustrating. At least I have more time for blogging...

On the menu for today: A bus ride from Mui Ne to Nha Trang (5 hours) and then immediately get on a bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An (11 hours). It's not going to be a fun day!

Oh- and my bug bite allergy has returned (it was suprisingly dormant in Laos and Cambodia). Usually my huge swollen bites only get bad around my ankles and lower legs, but I woke up last night realizing my biggest fear since I discovered this allergy to southeast asian mosquitos - facial bites!
Thats right, 2 big bites on the left side of my forehead, and one where my right eyebrow stops. They hurt, and I look like a monster. So far no pus, but they are soooo swollen. My corticosteriod cream + allergy meds regime isn't working. Cross your fingers for me.
The only positive? They are better than Botox - I've tried wrinkling my forehead, and no luck. Yay for the anti-aging properties of giagantic allergic reactions!
Clearly I am not a happy camper today.

More updates from Hoi An ... I need to go ice my face.

xoxo
Maddie

Travels: Siem Reap, Cambodia

2010-04-24T09:29:00.002-04:00

We left Southern Laos bright and early in the morning, and were ferried to the mainland. After an hour and a half wait for our bus to show up we boarded to find that all of the large reclining seats were full and we were stuck in small seats at the back of the bus.
We quickly arrived at the Laos/Cambodia border, and were in for an interesting experience. There was a "stamping fee", and fee to pass the health check, and an inflated visa processing fee. After being scammed and ripped off for an hour we were back on the bus, on our way into Cambodia.
We were supposed to arrive in Siem Reap at 9pm .. making it a 13 hour bus ride. We arrived at 1am. 17 hours. Worst bus ride ever!
We then set out to find a room, checking at 4 guest houses before finding one with available rooms. By 2am we were settled and ready for some sleep.

The next morning we woke up, and after a nice breakfast decided to head to the temples of Angkor. After buying the $40 pass we were ready to go!

On our first day we saw the complex of Angkor Thom, and we very impressed.

Our second day included sunrise at Angkor Wat, a midday break by our pool, then Ta Phrom (filming location of Tomb Raider) and a few other tmeples in the afternoon.

On the third day we made the best decision of our trip, visiting Beng Mealea, a temple about 75km from Siem Reap. It was described as the "big sister" to Ta Phrom, and it did not disappoint. It was set out in the jungle, and was totally overgrown with trees and vines, and falling apart. The guide led us through the crumbling ruins, and it was actually strenuous to climb over the fallen stones. It was one of my favourite parts of our trip so far. So so cool!

The temples near Siem Reap were incredible, and I'd love to return someday. Another great part of the city is the food. We ate really well in Siem Reap. One of the really cool things was that many of the restaurants we visited were in place to fund charities for disadvantaged families, people with disabilities, and children involved in street begging. Good food and good causes - a win-win!

Travels: Southern Laos

2010-04-23T06:39:00.002-04:00

We decided to spend our first day in the Si Phan Don (4000 Island) area of southern Laos on Don Khong, the "city" island. Lonely Planet introduced it as being laid back. That is the understatement of the year.
The island was almost too quiet. The only activity was sitting at a restaurant and enjoying the gorgeous view. We decided that we were looking for a bit more adventure so decided to rent a motor bike for the day. Luckily George had a bike in Korea, so I trusted him on the near empty roads of Don Khong!
We drove around for a few hours, enjoying the views of palm trees, fields, small villages, cows and water buffalos.
Unfortunately I suffered yet another accident, and badly burnt the inside of my calf on the boiling hot exhaust pipe when getting off the bike at one of our spots. It's still healing - almost 2 weeks later!
Upon trying to find internet we ended up at an internet cafe - which turned out to be in a family's living room.

Finding things a little too relaxed, we took a boat the next day to the more lively islands of Don Det and Don Khon which are further south.
We stayed for 3 nights on Don Det and really enjoyed our time there.
Although it was also quite low-key, there were great biking trails criss-crossing both islands, many restaurants and convenience stores, and even a few internet cafes that weren't in anyone's living room. Overall, just more convenient for tourists.

In our time there we rode bikes around the islands, stopping at a waterfall, and swimming with some locals, sampled some good food, sat on hammocks drinking Beer Laos and floated around the islands on inner tubes.
I also spent some time nursing my 2nd degree burn from the stupid motorbike. By day 2 the whole area turned black and I had some nasty scabbing, bistering and peeling. Attempts to put gauze over top to protect from the dusty streets and bike chain just made things worse!

We finally decided to tear ourselves away from Southern Laos in order to go to Cambodia, but it wasn't easy.

Our 2 weeks in Laos were amazing, much in part to the warm and friendly people there. I would reccommend it to anyone, and I would love to go back someday!

Update

2010-04-21T06:56:00.002-04:00

I've been bad at keeping my blog up to date lately - sorry!

Updates to come on Southern Laos and Cambodia soon.

Tomorrow we head to Vietnam ... and apparently Facebook is blocked there - on no!

Hopefully I'll be able to access Blogger ... but if not I'll be back at it by May 8th :)

Travels: Vientiane

2010-04-17T21:44:00.002-04:00

Vientiane is the capital city of Laos. Although it's beautiful, there isn't a whole lot to do!
We arrived with our friends Kailey and Ethan mid-day, and after finding all guesthouses to be dirty and overpriced, we decided to treat ourselves for the night and checked into a new hotel ... for the low price of $20 (not exactly fitting our budget, but in comparison to home, a really good price).
On our first evening we went to Patouxai, Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe and walked around the surrounding park.
The next day we took a local bus (hot, sweaty and crowded) out to Buddha Park. The park was smaller than I expected, but had some neat statues, mixing Hinduism and Buddhism. Not sure if it was worth the long trip, but there wasn't much else to do in Vientiane.

That night we said goodbye to our awesome travels buddies and boarded a sleeper bus (a bus with twin beds instead of seats) to Southern Laos.

For me the highlight of Vientiane was the food. It was especially welcome after Vang Vieng, where I don't think we had any quality meals! There wasn't a lot to do, but it was a relaxing place with a nice, laid back vibe, and I enjoyed our short visit.

Travels: Luang Prabang & Vang Vieng

2010-04-09T05:07:00.003-04:00

Our first day at the waterfall left us with the impression that we'd found a pretty place to cool off and beat the heat. We weren't aware how much more there was to see!
A few people had told us to climb to the top, through a stream, past some wooden stairs, that it would be totally worth it. We set out to discover this less frequented area of the waterfall and were not disappointed.
After climbing up some trails, and then some stairs, we had to wade through a tiny branch of the waterfall ... over trees and rocks, which luckily were not too slippery. We were rewarded by reaching one of the coolest places I've ever seen. Near the top of the waterfall there is a large, deep pool, surrounded by more waterfalls, and cliffs perfect for jumping. It was exhilarating to jump into the cold water, and realize what an amazing place we'd found. One by one, people leapt in, and without fail surfaced with huge smiles on their faces. We spent the majority of the afternoon there, and it was definitely on of the highlights of our trip so far!

The rest of our time in Luang Prabang was spent eating good food, relaxing, and checking out a few temples.
On Wednesday we took a mini van to Vang Vieng ... the site of the infamous Laos tubing. The ride was about 6 hours long, and the winding, narrow roads made it quite stressful. Luckily it takes a lot to make me carsick, so I was able to read and ignore the bad road conditions. However, when I did dare to look up from my book I was rewarded with some absolutely stunning scenery.

Vang Vieng is basically a party town. It is filled with foreigners and bars. The major draw is tubing ... you rent an inner tube and float down the river, stopping at bars along the way. I was really excited to be in the water all day, but it turned out that most of the bars were in a small stretch at the beginning of the route, so after 2 hours we'd only moved about 100m. After that we skipped the bars, and just enjoyed the ride downriver, amazed at the scenery (if you haven't picked up on it already, Laos is gorgeous!). The tubing was fun, but there were so many crazy activities taking place that I was nervous the whole time that I'd have to put my expired first aid skills to use. Most bars have giant rope swings for customers to swing on. However, the river is so shallow in places that I was terrified watching people swing. Also, drinking and water sports is never a good idea, but Vang Vieng seems to take it to a whole new level!
Overall, a neat idea, but maybe I'm just a worrier ... it scared the $&@$ our of me!

Tomorrow we're moving on to the capital city - Vientiane for 2 nights, then onto Southern Laos.

So far I've enjoyed Laos so much more than Thailand. The atmosphere, natural beauty and the people are amazing. I'm really looking forward to the rest of our time here!

Travels: Luang Prabang

2010-04-05T07:43:00.003-04:00

Luang Prabang is in north central Laos and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a quiet, beautiful little town, with old French style buildings, lots of palm trees, and an abundance of friendly locals and travellers alike.

On Sunday morning we woke up, switched guesthouses and set out on foot to explore. After walking to Wats (temples), a river-side cafe, the market and an internet cafe we were hot and tired. It was in the high 30's so I guess that's understandable! We had dinner and walked through the night market with friends and then met some other friends for a drink. Luang Prabang has a midnight curfew, so we were home werl before then, tired after a long, hot and active day.

This morning we woke up early in order to be at Big Brother Mouse (a volunteer organization which promotes literacy) only to find that too many volunteers and not enough students had come to the morning session. Luckily they organization also publishes books for kids, and we bought a few pocket sized ones to distribute to kids along our travels.

We then visited Wat Xieng Thong, which was a beautiful temple on the river.

We had breakfast with our new friends, a couple (Ethan and Kailey) at a gorgeous restaurant over looking the river.

As the day got too hot (around 38 today), the four of us found a tuk tuk to take us to a waterfall about 30km from town. We were shocked on the way there to have a group of kids, and then a grown woman douse our truck with buckets of water. We strill arent sure if they are starting the new year festivities early, o0r if it's just a usual occurence! On the way home we were hit about 5 times, but managed to fight back with our own waterbottles.

We arrived at the waterfalls and spent a few hours checking out the different levels of pools, all a bright turquoise blue. It was so nice to have a break from the heat.

So nice in fact that we're planning on going back tomorrow ... but this time armed with water guns of our own!

Travels: Thailand to Laos

2010-04-03T11:27:00.003-04:00

After 2 amazing days at Elephant Nature Park we boarded a night bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, a town on the Thailand-Laos border.

We arrived at 2am, slept for a few hours, and were up again before 7 to eat breakfast, check out of the guesthouse and take a boat across the border into Laos.

After obtaining our Laos visa and changing some currency we were off on a series of very confusing stops, at a travel agency and a restaurant to be offered advice and services before boarding the boat.

Around 10 am we finally boarded the boat in Huay Xai and scored some amazing seats at the front of the boat (basically the folding back seats of a van!) and found that we had sat down with a really great group of people. The hours passed quickly and without too much discomfort we arrived in Pakbeng. The travel time was from about 10:40am - 5:30pm. After dinner and a few Beer Lao it was an early night, in hopes to be up early enough to score good seats once again.

Unfortunately we chose wrong - opting for a large open area of floor at the front of the boat instead of tiny wooden benches, because many people got on as the boat stopped at small villages along the river. For a few hours I had a woman sitting almost on top of me. The combination of the hard floor, cramped conditions, lack of sleep and the sweltering heat made today's journey (9:30am-6pm) a lot less enjoyable!

Upon arriving in Luang Prabang we set out to find accommodations with another couple, only to walk across town with heavy bags and get caught in a downpour. For the first few minutes it was a welcome relief from the heat, but we grew a bit frustrated as we found ourselves crossing a sketchy bridge (twice), waking through mud, and searching in vain for the place we had been told about. After a few team meetings we settled on the next place we found which turned out to be quite nice.

More on Luang Prabang soon!!!

xoxo
Maddie

Travels: Elephant Nature Park

2010-04-03T10:13:00.005-04:00

Just over an hour out of Chiang Mai lies a little slice of heaven - Elephant Nature Park. We had heard about the park years ago and had been dying to go ever since. On Wednesday and Thursday of last week we were lucky enough to do so. The park is home to 30 rescued elephants, about 70 dogs, and countless cats, cows and water buffalo. It is a conservation centre, so the focus is on the elephants - no riding, painting or other such exploitative things. It was started by an amazing woman named Lek, who is so inspiring. Her compassion for animals in a society where it is not commonplace is remarkable, and it was really neat to see the way that all of the animals at the park reacted to her.

We were picked up early Wednesday morning and taken to the park, where we were given a briefing on safety and some coffee. After that we helped to feed watermelons and bananas to an older elephant. It was a really neat experience, and I was so excited each time she grabbed fruit out of my hand with her extremely dexterous trunk. FYI: Elephant trunks are covered with wiry hair, and tend to be pretty snotty/drool-y, but are really really cool!

After more elephant feeding we were fed an amazing buffet lunch, and then got into the river with the elephants for bath time. It basically involved us throwing buckets of water on them while watching out for any floating elephant poo.

After watching some of the younger (and more uncontrollable) elephants have their bath time we went inside to watch a documentary about elephants in Thailand. I was shocked to learn how terribly they are treated, and how awful the tourist attractions are. We learned that all trained elephants go through a technique called crushing, in which they are built into a traction-like apparatus, and tortured for days on end to break their spirits and establish the mahouts role as boss. This is not an ancient or out-of-date practice, all elephants who are ridden, who are painting, who are street begging, or who are working in the logging industry or farming have gone through this terrible experience. The video footage was so disturbing, and the fact that this is so common and accepted is horrible. We also learned that the use of hooks by mahouts is the most common technique for training and controlling elephants. The mahouts at Elephant Nature Park are not allowed to use hooks, and are all being trained to treat elephants with more respect than the average mahout. I was so glad we chose to support a place that rescued elephants from abuse, as opposed to one that abused elephants for our touristy enjoyment.

After the program ended on day 1 we had "free time" which we chose to spend at the baby elephant corral, encouraging a mischievous little boy to come over for a scratch behind the ears.

The first day ended with another amazing meal, and then we chose to have Thai massages before bed. The "70 dog chorus" managed to keep us up a lot of the night, but aside from that the accommodations were great!

Day 2 stated early with breakfast and a walk through the park to "meet" all of the elephants. We approached each pair or group, learned their (mostly devastatingly sad) stories, and if they were friendly, were able to feed or pet them. This was my favourite part of the experience, getting up close and personal with so many elephants, but it was also so sad to hear about the terrible things these animals had suffered through. There were so many injuries, from broken ankles, to a broken pelvis, to blindness (caused by purposeful human attack), to a land mine injury. However, this reality check was enough to turn me off of elephants in the tourism industry forever and further cemented my belief that the work being done by the park is a great thing. At the end of the 2nd day I found myself wishing I was staying for a longer time, and vowed to return someday for a longer volunteer experience. As we left the park, a staff member pointed out some elephant trekking camps on the road back to town. After spending 2 days looking at healthy and happy elephants the contrast was shocking and disgusting - the trekking elephants were so thin and kept in horrible conditions. I wish that the truth about this terrible industry was known by more people.

Elephant Nature Park is truly a wonderful place, and I was so happy to have been able to experience it.

Please check out the website: http://elephantnaturefoundation.org/ to learn more about the park, and the elephants who live there ... and think about visiting the park if you are ever in Thailand!

(pictures to come if I can ever find some high speed internet!!)

Travels: Chiang Mai

2010-03-29T07:33:00.003-04:00

We rolled into Chiang Mai early on Sunday morning after a cramped and uncomfortable 12 hours on a sleeper bus.

The entire bus load of people was taken directly to a guesthouse, given coffee and forced to listen to a pitch from the tour company that ran out of that guesthouse. As soon as it finished we left to find other accommodations, but probably should have stayed at the first place, as it had a swimming pool! I think we'll check back in tomorrow and spend the day lounging by the pool.

We found a room for about $7/night and after catching up on some sleep decided to check out the Sunday market and the Sunday market street. We bought a few things but had to walk away from some really cool stuff. You could spend a lot of money in Chiang Mai!

In the evening we walked a few kms to the Night Market to see the goods. We also discovered a Subway restaurant ... I might have to go there before we leave for Laos.

We also went to the office of Elephant Nature Park to book our visits. Unfortunately they are very busy so we aren't able to visit the park until Wednesday, meaning more time here than we'd initially planned. However this is something we'd both been dreaming of since university, so well worth the wait! We'll be going for an overnight visit on Wednesday.

Today, with time to spare we decided to visit Tiger Kingdom. Like Tiger Temple near Bangkok there is controversy surrounding the park, because it seems unbelievable that tigers would allow people to touch them, lay on them etc. We were torn between our desire to see tigers, and our ethical concerns. After visiting the park I feel a bit better. The tigers that you can visit have all been bred in captivity, and are used to handling by humans from birth. They are mostly uninterested, and just lay there, panting because it is so hot. Whether they are drugged or not, I can't say, however, as we walked around and saw all of the tigers who were not "visiting" that day, we saw the majority asleep anyways. Also, the tigers we were in the cage with proceeded to get up and change positions while we were there, and to go for a dip in their pool shortly after we left. Either way, I believe that although captivity isn't ideal for any animal, that it's the lesser of 2 evils. Tigers are still hunted illegally in Thailand, and here they are safe, healthy, and able to reproduce. So although its sad to see them caged, they are not chained, have large, clean enclosures, lots of shade, pools, and staff that seems to enjoy working with them. We spent 15 minutes with the newborns (2 months) and 15 minutes with the adults (1.5 years) and then were free to walk around the park and look at all of the other tigers. Overall I was happy with the experience, and was glad to see that the park was large, clean, and that the tigers appeared to be very healthy and well cared for!

Travels - Bangkok & Ayuthaya

2010-03-27T04:45:00.003-04:00

We managed to get everything in Korea packed up and left Busan on Thursday night. Even though I've been ready to leave for awhile, I really realized how great of a year it had been, and how thankful I am for the whole experience.
After taking the KTX to Seoul on Thursday, we spent the night at Quan's house, then caught an early flight to Bangkok. The flight was terrible - turbulence the whole time, and a huge amount on the landing. However, we flew Jin Aur, Korea's new budget airline and it was pretty entertaining. There were party beats playing when we got on the plane, and the flight attendants were wearing brightly coloured polo shirts, jeans, ball caps and converse sneakers!
When we landed after 6 hours we were tired but ready to explore. We took a taxi to meet Nick, George's high school friend who has been travelling for about 6.5 months (On a side note - check out his amazing website - http://theworldonatoilet.com/). Nick's uncle has an apartment in Bangkok, so we were lucky enough to stay there. We ventured out to eat some street food for lunch ($1 each and delicious) and then took a water taxi towards the Grand Palace. The boat ride was pretty wild. We took a tuk-tuk ride to the Grand Palce, only to find out that it was closed for the night. We were lucky that next door was Wat Pho, which was still open. We explored the grounds and saw the main attraction, a giant reclining Buddah.
After Wat Pho, we walked to nearby Khao San Road, a famous backpackers street. On the way there we walked through the main protest area, and found ourselves surrounded by red-shirted protesters. Luckily the mood was quite festive, and many people were just relaxing, selling goods and giving massages.
Khao San Road was overwhelming. The most foreigners I've seen since leaving for Korea a year ago. There is incredible shopping, and tons of nightlife, but it isn't somewhere I'd want to spend much time.
This morning we woke up and took a van to Ayuthaya. We've spent the last 4 hours biking around to all of the temple ruins on the island. It is hot here today - in the low 30's, so we're taking a break in a nice air conditioned internet cafe. The sights here are amazing ... red-ish brick temples and ruins set in large parks ... it's really spectacular. I spent the first hour running around like a kid in a candy shop, but was soon too hot to express how excited I was! It finally hit me how awesome it is to be here, and how many amazing things I'll see in the coming weeks.

This evening we're going to watch the sunset over an off-island temple, and then boarding a bus to Chiang Mai at 8pm. We'll arrive tomorrow morning at 7am ... that's right, 11 hours on a bus!
Luckily it has big reclining seats, a/c and a bathroom, so we should be pretty comfortable.
More updates and pictures to come tomorrow once we're settled in Chaing Mai!
xoxo
Maddie

It was a sad day, bad day, sad day, bad day

2010-03-24T01:06:00.002-04:00

This is my last post from school ... sad, sad day.

I just taught my last class, said all my goodbyes, and probably terrified the students and staff with my splotchy-faced crying!

Some days it was hard to realize, but I was really lucky this past year. The staff and students here are wonderful and treated me with a lot of kindness.

I will miss Jangan Elementary School :(

Leaving town, leaving town.

2010-03-19T02:40:00.003-04:00

Less than a week left in Korea!

This is my last weekend, I have 3 days of teaching left, and only 7 sleeps until Bangkok.
Where did the time go?!

I am so excited to do some travelling and then return to Canada, but I am really going to miss certain aspects of Korea.

Oo Mi has arrived home safely!!!!!!!!
I highly recommend petairline.co.kr. The representative did an excellent job, and patiently answered my millions of questions, and saved us the stress of having to navigate customs by ourselves.

Speaking of recommendations, here are mine:

Bocky's Best of Busan

Non-Korean Food: Blowfish in Songjeong makes the best burgers in the city hands down and there are 2 adorable pet cats to play with; Sunset Lounge in Mipo has a wide selection, and specials each day; For Vietnamese food, Pho Mien in the Benecity building in Dongbaek is phenomenal; for amazing Japanese BBQ go to Jangsan station, exit 4, walk straight to Hinomura (S set is great for 2 people); Mexican food - Taco Senora, Haeundae.

Korean food: well, aside from the classics at o-shops (orange signed Kimbap shops, otherwise known as 김밥충국) such as kimchi jiggae, cheomchi dapbap and kimchi bokk eum bap there are some excellent Korean foods to be found. In Jangsan I like mix things up between bbq, sundubu and shabu shabu and George swears by Geomjatong.
For navigating O-shops, check out this awesome blog post:
http://maryeats.com/2006/11/16/kimbap-nara-menu/

Sights around Busan:
Haedongyounggungsa temple, Songjeong
UN Cemetery
Beomeosa temple and hiking
Oncheonjang cable car
Seokbulsa temple
Busan tower
Botanical gardens, Oncheonjang
Igidae Park

Drinks:
Blowfish, Songjeong - great summertime beach bar, awesome staff
Thursday party, Gwangalli - can't beat the view
Rock and Roll House, Haeundae - again, great view

Shopping:
Nampodong outdoor and underground
Seomyeon underground
PNU

And there you have my favourite places in Busan!

Everything is changing. Changing really fast.

2010-03-10T21:23:00.004-05:00

The beginning of a new school year in March has brought many changes for my final month of teaching.

The grade 6 students have graduated and moved on to middle school, and we have many new kindergarten and grade 1 students. I'll really miss the grade 6 class, they were a great group to work with.
My co teacher, principal and vice principal all transferred to other schools, so all of the people that I deal with have changed. Luckily this change has been positive, as my new co teacher is very nice, and my principal actually speaks English!
In Korea, teachers are expected to change schools every 3 years, which makes for an ever changing staff. Very unfortunate in my opinion, as I have fond memories of the community-feel of my elementary school. Many of the teachers remained at the same school for the entire time that I was a student (gr. 1-8), which provided a really nice, stable atmosphere.

You'd think that with the frequent moves, teachers here would be good at packing up and moving on with minimal fuss, but there were so many ceremonies, dinners, tearful speeches and sobbing students that it must get exhausting to go through each year as the school's staff suffers major turnovers.

A positive aspect is that there are lots of social events at this time of year. So even though all of my EPIK friends have left Korea, I have plenty to keep me busy. I've had a number of dinners with last year's staff, and last night had the first social event with the new group of teachers. I got dragged to Noraebang (kareoke) and was forced to sing. For anyone who doesn't know, I have the worst voice! I'm not tone deaf and I know I'm not hitting the notes, I just cannot do anything about it! So of course, singing in front of the entire staff of my school is mildly embarrassing. Luckily most of them had consumed too much soju and beer to comprehend how terrible I was, or to remember it today (I hope).

These days George and I are focusing on selling the many things we've acquired over the year, and getting our lives in Korea wrapped up.
Still to do: applying for a pension refund, sending more clothing and our computers home, sending our final pay cheque to our Canadian bank accounts and finally, sending our cat home.

We adopted Oo Mi in August from the parking lot behind our favourite bar, and we're happy to say that she' coming home to Canada with us. Well, not with us, as we'll be travelling around for a while before heading to Canada, but she'll be flying herself, and living with George's mom until we return (thanks Peggy!!!) Luckily there is a service in Korea that specializes in sending pets, called Pet Airline Korea. It's not cheap, but we've heard great friends, and we're hoping Oo Mi gets home safe and sound without too much stress!

With glowing hearts!

2010-03-09T01:38:00.003-05:00

The Olympic spirit found me, even in Korea.

I can't believe my terrible luck though ... the Olympics were on Canadian soil ... in the one year that I was not!

Watching the games in Korea was a totally different experience. Overall it was extremely frustrating. The English speeches were dubbed out during the opening ceremonies, the only events shown were Korean-dominated events like speed skating and figure skating, and the coverage only lasted a few hours a day.

Coming from a home where the Olympics are watched religiously, this was a major disappointment.

However, in my year in Korea, I was the most proud of my roots during the Vancouver games. It was amazing to see Canada's pride and victories, and even just watching the athletes enter the stadium during opening ceremonies brought tears to my eyes.

One extremely positive thing that I gained from the games (and the awful coverage in Korea) was an intense pride in Canada, and an appreciation for the Olympic culture, interest and obsession at home!

Check out this incredible video:
Stephen Brunt Video Essay

These are a few of my favourite things...

2010-02-26T01:42:00.005-05:00

So, I've officially passed the 11-month mark. It's crazy how time flies.

With less than 4 weeks left in Korea I'm starting to think about the things that I'll miss, the things I won't and the things at home that I'm the most excited for.

Things I'll miss about Korea:
- the wonderful friends I've made here
- my students ... they are just so cute
- Korean food ... especially kimchi jiggae and korean bbq
- our amazing apartment
- running along Haeundae beach, eating at Haeundae beach restaurants, Haeundae beach in the summer, coffee dates on Haeundae beach ... getting the point?
- the gorgeous Busan scenery
- hiking
- Blowfish
- being treated like a celebrity/ movie star ... great for the self-confidence!
- random acts of kindness by Koreans ... too many to count, but they have all been appreciated
- my easy, easy job
- every day being a new adventure
- the amazing home delivery system

Things in Canada that I'm excited for:
- seeing friends and family again - it's been too long!
- dexter, my puppy
- wide open spaces (oooh selwyn, how I've missed you)
- driving a car
- food, food and more food ... Wendy's, Pizza Villa in Bridgenorth, Frosted mini wheats, Greek food, ketchup chips, veggies and dip, Starbucks chocolate chip banana bread, pitas, deli sandwiches, good salads, salt & vinegar crispers ... the list goes on and on. Clearly I'm not a healthy eater, and I foresee a massive weight gain in my first month home!
- summer in the Kawarthas
- going to a real gym and getting reacquainted with a Bosu ball
- living in a familiar culture. As interesting and educational as life in Korea is, it can also be difficult and frustrating at times, and I'm excited for things to be familiar again. Not having to worry about the language barrier, social customs and constant staring will be a welcome (and relaxing) change.

Now ... things I will not miss about Korea:
- the lack of personal space, and disregard for the personal space of others. In my time here I have been shoved, pushed and bumped into more times than I can count. It can get very frustrating. I understand that Korea is incredibly crowded compared to Canada, so it just isn't practical to say "excuse me" to everyone in your way, or "sorry" to people you have sent flying, but it's still something that bothers me.
- the smells! Kimchi, fish paste, garlic, old man kimchi-burps, sewage ... Korea can be a smelly place at times, and I don't see myself missing this assault on my senses!
- not understanding what the #*&% is going on. Yes, it's an adventure everyday here, but it can be tiring to never know where you're supposed to be, what you're supposed to be doing, or the proper way to do things. I've definitely developed a new-found respect for immigrants to Canada who face a language barrier. I can only hope that Canadians are as helpful to these people as Koreans have been to me, because it really is tough at times.

Overall it's been an incredible year, and I've learned about myself, met some incredible people, gained a better understanding of another culture, and seen some beautiful places. I am so happy that George decided to come to Korea with me, that we adopted OoMi and that we've been able to share this amazing, stressful, crazy, beautiful experience. I have no regrets about this year. Korea is a great country to live and work, and I'd recommend the experience to anyone who is willing to be open minded, and has a sense of humour.
The next month will involve a lot of goodbyes, packing and some trips to sights around Korea that we haven't seen yet.
I am so excited to return to Canada ... there really is no place like home!

It's the final countdown!

2010-02-16T22:58:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention in my last post ...

5 WEEKS FROM TODAY IS MY LAST DAY OF TEACHING IN KOREA!!!!

After that, Southeast-Asian adventures, then back to Canada-land :)

One love, One heart

2010-02-16T21:32:00.002-05:00

From January 29th - February 7th George and I were on vacation.
Our destination: Boracay, Philippines!

The journey there was torture: 4:20pm caught airport shuttle near our apartment; 7:30pm flight to Hong Kong; overnight in Hong Kong airport; 8am flight to Manilla; transfer terminals and wait; 2pm flight to Kalibo; 1.5 hour bus ride to Caticlan; 10 minute boat trip to Boracay. Total travel time = 26hours.

The time spent in Boracay was amazing. We met up with George's high school friend Nick, and his girlfrined Lianna. It was so nice to vacation with people, as opposed to by ourselves. Not that we don't enjoy each others company, but it was nice to have a larger group, especially with what Boracay had to offer.

The weather was near perfect, only 1 rainy afternoon, and only for a brief time.

The food was spectacular. Keep in mind that after 10 months of Korean food I'd find any decent western food great, but regardless, the options in Boracay are amazing. Our dinners included Indian food, Greek food, Pizza, Pasta, Italian and Fish and Chips. Lunch was at the Heidiland deli. Every. single. day. And it was amazing! Korea does not do good sandwiches, so being able to choose bread, meat and cheese from a nicely stocked deli was incredible. My #1 Boracay food recommendation for sure.

Beer in Boracay was cheap, cheap, cheap. Cheaper than water, in fact! Needless to say we drank quite a few. We had 3 nights out ... involving San Miguel, sitting on the beach, listening to awesome live music, and making our own music at a Karaoke bar!

We've already covered the good company, weather and food ... but the best part of Boracay is the beach.
White Beach has made many lists of top beaches in the world, and it was not hard to understand why. The sand is clean, fine and sparkling white. The water is clear, blue, and just cool enough to be perfectly refreshing. Although there were many people on the beach, its huge, so everyone is spread out and there are always umbrellas and beach chairs to be had, and enough space to not feel crowded.
I also managed to be motivated enough to run most mornings, and white beach was the perfect place to do so!

Although we spent the majority of our time on the beach, we also explored the island a bit. We walked the 10 minutes across the island to Bulabog Beach, a famous kiteboarding and windsurfing destination. Since we only wanted to sunbathe, swim and "mask" (snorkelling without a snorkel ... duhhh), we didn't stay long on this beach.

We also made a trip to Puka Beach at the northern end of Boracay. It's famous for its coarse sand and sea shells. The day we went to Puka beach was the only overcast day of our trip. The beach was near deserted, which was pretty cool, but a storm started to blow in so we left after about an hour.

Another afternoon was spent on a sailing trip around the island. We stopped at the southern end for some snorkelling, which was amazing, but after seeing some jellyfish, and recieving a weird tingling sensation from being in the water, we made a hasty retreat to our boat. Half of our sailing trip was on the windy side of the island and it was WILD! We were caught completely by surprise, as all we'd ever seen was the calm and serene water off of white beach. 50% of the trip involved being soaked by waves and clinging onto the netting that was our seats, afraid that we'd be washed overboard. Overall, an exhilarating afternoon!

The people of Boracay were also extremely friendly. Our hotel staff, restaurant staff, really everyone we met. Even the men who constantly harassed tourist to buy sunglasses, boat trips and atv rides were polite and didn't go too far. I felt much less harassed and less uncomforable than I did in Thailand.

The only downside of the trip was my extreme allergic reaction to Boracay's mosquitoes. I've never had a problem in Canada, and the bugs in Korea and Thailand do cause me to have bigger than normal bumps after being bitten, but I've never experienced anything like I did in Boracay. My lower legs were covered in swollen, painful and agonizingly itchy, puss-filling bites. I was even limping for about a day. After antihistamines and after-bite failed to help, I went to the medical clinic on Boracay. After a steroid shot, and prescriptions for antihistamines, cream, and something to fight the infection I was on my way to recovery. After 24 hours the bites had stopped being freakish and disgusting - thank god!
Now I just need to figure out how to avoid this next time I head out on vacation, because I wore bug spray but still got eaten alive.

On the way home, George and I had an even longer journey. We left Boracay around 3pm, took the ferry to Caticlan, and then a terrifying van ride to Kalibo. We boarded a 7:30pm flight to Manilla. We decided to go to a hostel instead of sleeping in the Manilla airport, but I'm not sure how good of a decision that was. The lonely planet- recommended hostel was full, so we were taken to another nearby hostel but a tricycle-taxi. Not sure what made us agree to that, but we failed to realize that this open aired trike that was moving slowly against traffic in a somewhat more dangerous city than we're used to wasn't the smartest option - until we were in motion. We laughed it off and arrived a the hostel in one piece. However, it was the grossest, smelliest, most disgusting place I have ever seen. We were both so tired, and wanted to shower and sleep before our 5am wake-up, so we stayed there anyways. The next morning we flew Manilla-Hong Kong, and then Hong-Kong-Busan. Finally, 30-ish hours after leaving the beach we were home.
The travel was such a hassle, but Boracay was definitely worth it!

So that was my Boracay vacation ... it was an amazing time, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. Since there was so much western food, and everyone spoke English, it was an easy and relaxing week. It's not one of the great "cultural" destinations of Southeast Asia, but it is a superb beach destination!

(pictures to come soon!)

Well, I think you're crazy.

2010-01-27T20:38:00.004-05:00

Korean Tv commercials are hilarious ... here's one of my favourites (and it's sequel):

Won Cashing 1

Won Cashing 2

So bizarre, but hilarious.

Another one, with Lee Hyori, Korea's sweetheart. She is in about every second commercial!

Interpark

Interpark 2

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting.

2010-01-21T19:35:00.002-05:00

So, with a beach vacation looming, I've been on a real fitness kick lately.
I've been joining George at the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) Gym that he goes to for weekly conditioning classes.
If you're interested in watching videos of what goes on at Korean Kartel Gym, check out the website! I'm in a bunch of videos under the conditioning section.

www.koreankartel.com

We've also done some good hiking around Busan the past 2 weekends. First was a hike from Beomeosa temple along the Geomjeong Fortress to the cable car in Oncheonjeong. The second started at Oncheongjeong station and went up the mountain, through Nam Moon Village and to Seokbulska, the stone temple. The weather has been perfect for hiking and I've found myself asking why I haven't done more hiking this year!

That's what I'm doin' these days.

2010-01-21T19:20:00.004-05:00

January in Korea has been pretty uneventful.
Regular school hours do not apply - all schools have Winter Camp schedules.
For me that means 3 weeks of mornings-only. Can't complain about that. Although I am only teaching grades 1 and 2 ... I miss the kids who actually speak English! The positive is that I am home by early afternoon and have lots of time to exercise, read and just relax.
I have completed 2 weeks of camp, so after next week I am free. George finished his camp last week, so has been enjoying his time off. We only have one week of overlapping vacation, and have decided to visit Boracay, Philippines. A quick google image search will show you what we are in for. I can't wait!
The weather here has been very random, jumping from -1 to 16 in the space of a few days. On the coldest days it is absolutely freezing at school since windows and doors remain open, even though heaters are blasting. I can just hear my dad saying "Close that, we're not heating the great outdoors!"
The best thing about Busan's winter is that it is almost always sunny. We've only had about 2 or 3 rainy/cloudy days in January. This makes for some great conditions for outdoor exercise like jogging and hiking - both of which I've been doing a lot of!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

2010-01-04T21:08:00.007-05:00

Christmas in Korea was different, but actually quite nice!

George and I went to Songjeong beach on Christmas Eve, and sat and enjoyed the view and the nice weather. After a Blowfish burger and a coffee date at Starbucks, we decided to hit the movies and see Avatar. Not very Christmas-y, I know, but an incredible movie anyways!

On Christmas Day we were awake by 8am (the latest I've ever woken up on Christmas), and opened presents and had a nice breakfast.
After a relaxing day we met up with our friends Cliff and Laura and went to a Christmas buffet dinner at the Grand Hotel in Haeundae. For 50, 000 won we had a choice of Western dishes like turkey and stuffing, seafood, all kinds of Asian fusion food, desserts, and best of all - wine! It was nice to dress up and enjoy a fancy dinner, and do something big and festive.

After dinner we met more friends at Blowfish for some Christmas drinks. It was an early night, but a surprisingly good Christmas away from home.

Some things that were very different from Christmas in Canada:
* It's more of a couples holiday here ... a big date night.
* All the kids at my school had to come in for a half day on CHRISTMAS EVE!! Madness! I let them listen to carols and make Christmas cards.
* Although Christmas is recognized, it's not celebrated in the same way that we're used to at home. Kids might get 1 small present, adults don't really exchange gifts, my principal was shocked that I gave her a Christmas card.
* While at home, everything is closed on Christmas, and people have big dinners with family, here it is a holiday to eat out with family, your significant other, or friends. It's also a big drinking holiday for expats and Koreans alike.

I had a nice Christmas here, thanks to gifts and decorations sent from home, skype calls to family, and my wonderful boyfriend and friends here in Korea. As good as it was, I never want to spend a Christmas away from home again!!!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

2009-12-17T01:07:00.002-05:00

Well, it's almost Christmas in Korea ... 8 more days to be exact.
It's hard to be in the Christmas spirit when the temperature just dropped below zero for the first time, the sky is blue every day and there is no hope of snow.
It seems more like October in Canada...

I love Christmas, so I'm not letting the lack of snow ruin my holiday celebrations. Luckily, Christmas ornaments and decorations are easy to find here, so our apartment is decorated and looking great. I've finished all of my Christmas shopping (except for part of George's present), and we have holiday parties to look forward to. Tomorrow we are hosting a Christmas Sweater Party (a very important Laurier tradition), and on Monday I'm doing a Secret Santa gift exchange with some friends. We are also hoping to go skating on Christmas eve, to a fancy dinner at one of the beach-front hotels on Christmas day, and to some kind of Christmas concert or performance before then!
Even though I am missing snow, my family and friends, holiday parties, and all of the Christmas traditions at home, there is still enough to do here that I will have a nice (although very different) Christmas.

Last weekend we went to Seoul for an EPIK reunion. It was basically a big goodbye party for all of the teachers who have decided not to re-new their contracts, and more importantly, was a free weekend in Seoul!
We left Friday morning (another perk, missing a day of school) and arrived in Seoul before noon. There was enough time for a quick visit to Forever 21 before checking into our hotel. Although the majority of the rooms were updated and nice, George and I were stuck in an old, creepy and somewhat dirty room. Really the only negative part of the weekend.
On Friday we had some lectures, group discussions, and a talent show. After a steak and wine dinner (yummmm), we were taken to see JUMP!, a comic martial arts performance. I had already been lucky enough to see NANTA, so thought JUMP! was good, but not incredible. Those who hadn't seen NANTA really enjoyed it. I guess I'm just a spoiled brat!
On Friday night we went out in Seoul with our EPIK friends and some friends from home who teach around Seoul.
Saturday was spent at Kyongbuk palace, the Folk Museum of Korea, and a sea food buffet. (Again - transportation, hotel, tourism and meals were FREE. So lucky, right?)
After the reunion ended George and I decided to check out the Seoul Snow Jam. There was a big-air snowboard competition taking place in the middle of the city. Everything had been built for the one weekend, and was in a gorgeous location, with mountains as the back drop. It was also the most crowded place I've ever been, with just too many people to be really enjoyable. We managed to brave the crowds and the cold for about an hour, but that was all that I could handle.
I returned home with some friends on Saturday night and George stayed another night with his friends.
Overall it was a great weekend, Thank you EPIK!

Do you remember the time?

2009-12-03T21:38:00.008-05:00

I've seen some strange things in the past day...

Last night George and I went for dinner at Shinsegae Department Store. We decided to eat in the food court that overlooks the skating rink, and happened to be just in time for a performance.

We stayed for three scenes of one of the weirdest skating shows in the world. The level was very, very amateur. The performers appeared to be Russian. One scene involved a woman standing behind a table filled with bells, she proceded to ring different bells to make music. Another scene involved ice fairies waving sheets around. My personal favourite was a Wizard of Oz inspired scene. There was a Dorothy, a lion, a tinman, someone who looked like a big gold Christmas ornament (scarecrow??) and a giant bear who wasn't even on skates. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone watching this show. After about 20 minutes I was exhausted from laughing and had to leave.

Shinsegae has some awesome Christmas decorations ... I was happy to see them!

Then, this morning: I get into the elevator after my run and a girl is standing in the corner, clearly drunk, and all of the buttons from 1-8 were pressed. I get in and press my button. Her little teacup dog escapes into the lobby, we have to wait for him to come back. The elevator stops on 2, her dog makes another escape attempt, she doesn't get out. We stop on 3, same thing. By this time I'm getting a little annoyed, but don't know if I want to speak to this drunk girl in Korean. She finally looks at me and points to all the lit up buttons and says "You?" (confused as to why I'd pressed all of the buttons). I point to 16 and say "Me", then point to all the other ones and say "You?". She laughs hysterically, and unpresses all of them except her floor.

Fast forward an hour and I'm walking to the bus. I go to the convenience store at the gas station near my bus stop to get a bottle of water. The 2 attendants (grown men) were sitting on their lawn chairs, in matching parkas ... and matching animal toques. Like the animal touques that small children wear. A tiger and a bear I believe. Unfortunately I was too shy to ask them for a picture, but here's one for you to get the idea...

Korea makes me laugh today :)

It's been awhile...

2009-12-01T22:47:00.004-05:00

...since my last blog.

Some things were going on at home, and I just wasn't feeling up to writing.
I'm long overdue on an update.
November was a difficult month. There was a lot of grey rainy weather, unhappy stuff at going on in Canada, and a lot of school-related stress. Overall, not my best month in Korea. Luckily I have wonderful friends here and at home, an amazing family and boyfriend, and a kitten who provides me with hours of entertainment.

So what have I been up to?

Dadaepo 10km race:
- a run along the ocean at the far southwest end of Busan (I live at the far east end, so it was quite a hike to get there)
- this was also George's first ever organized race - he finished 10km in 49:50 - I'm so proud!
- I managed to cut my time of 53:54 (October's Gwangan Bridge Race) down to 52:09. It hurt. But again, very proud!
- A great course and a lot of fun.

Blowfish Turkey Trot:
- our favourite bar in Busan is located on Songjeong beach. George and I go in at least once a week for dinner, and love it there because of the great atmosphere and the staff who are all so nice. Anyways, Blowfish had a Turkey Trot (for American Thanksgiving) this past weekend and George and I both entered.
- It was a short (approx. 2km) run on the sand of Songjeong beach ... running on the loose sand sure was hard!
- I placed 1st (of 2) of the women and George was 1st of the men (out of 5).
- We each won a free meal (best burgers in Busan, if not all of Korea!), and all of the participants shared a free keg after the run
- A really nice, fun Saturday afternoon

Open Class:
- Native English teachers who work for EPIK had to enter an open class competition that began in the late spring/early summer
- I made it to the third round ... I think mainly because a lot of people dropped out/ refused. By being one of the top 5 contestants in the Haeundae district I am guarenteed my choice of school and a raise for next year. Since I'm not resigning I get nothing ... so really quite a pointless contest. Oh well.
- It was a lot of work and stress. I felt a lot of pressure from my school to perform well. Other EPIK teachers and their Korean co-teachers came to watch my class, which only added to the pressure.
- Overall it went well ... nothing spectacular, but a good solid class. I'm proud of myself for being able to stand up and teach in front of so many people, and I'm so glad that it's over.

Visits:
- We had 2 wonderful visits this past week, from Baerg, who teaches in Seoul, and from Dave, who is George's brother's friend and is currently studying in Japan.
- It's always nice to see people from home and there two were no exception :)

Who wants to visit next?????!!

All the leaves are brown, And the sky is grey

2009-11-12T21:28:00.006-05:00

I posted recently about how fall had been so far... complaining about the cold.

And then last Saturday the temperature climbed to 23, it was beautiful and sunny, and George and I spent the day on the beach. Pretty amazing weather for November 7th!

Just when I decided to give fall a chance, things took a turn for the worse. It's been rainy, windy and grey all week. I haven't seen sunshine since Saturday and it's starting to get to me. Also, with this nasty weather, it's been dark pretty soon after 5pm. That coupled with the rain and wind has really hurt my running schedule this past week.

Not good, since I have another 10km race on Sunday! Hopefully the training leading up to this week was enough to get me decently prepared. George and I finally braved the weather for a run last night, and aside from a bit of drizzle at the end of it, managed just fine. I'm hoping to beat my time from last month. I think the fact that I won't have been suffering from a cold for 3 weeks leading up to this race will definitely help. I also think that adding George to my training regime will also have done amazing things for my speed ... he's just so much faster than me! What better motivation is there than getting beat by someone who hasn't done physical activity in almost a year!?
I'll be posting race results and experiences on Sunday or Monday.

Also this week in Korea, yesterday was university entrance exam day for all 3rd year high school students (kind of like SATs). The whole country rallies around these students. All businesses and schools begin their day at least one hour later to minimize traffic. For 20 minutes during the listening portion of the exam, no flights are allowed over the country.
Crazy, right? Talk about putting extra pressure on these kids by magnifying the importance of this exam to ridiculous levels ... shutting down the airspace - really!?
My co teacher didn't tell me about this day so I arrived at school at the regular time and was the only one here (aside from the security guard, lunch lady and a few kids) until about 9:40. The extra hour of sleep would have been nice...
Here's an article further explaining the tests ... very interesting:
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/11/13/200911130047.asp

Overall things are going well here, minus the weather. Christmas decorations are making their way into Starbucks and some of the major department stores ... I am excited to see them/ sad that I won't be home for Christmas. I will however be on a beach somewhere in Southeast Asia, so it's not all bad!

Miss everyone at home xoxo

Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my!

2009-11-12T20:02:00.003-05:00

(more like giraffes and a penguin, but good luck finding a lyric to match that!)

George and I decided to spend Halloween in Seoul, the capital city of Korea. Our good friend Wade was finishing up his contract the following week, so we were able to say goodbye to him, see some other friends in Seoul, and get a weekend away from Busan.

We took the KTX (Korean high speed train) from Busan to Seoul on Friday night. The train travels at speeds of up to 300 km/hr, so it only took us 3 hours to reach Seoul. Unfortunately the city is massive, and Wade's place (our Friday night accommodations) was about 1.5hrs from Seoul Station. We arrived late Friday night and after just hanging out for a bit decided to get to bed in order to rest up for the next day.
I had all kinds of ambitious touristy plans for Saturday, but we woke up to rain. After gorging ourselves on pastries we made the trip back into Seoul before noon. George's friend from high school, Quan, lives about 5 minutes from Seoul station, so we decided it was a safer bet to stay there on Saturday night, in order to make it to our train home on Sunday.
The rain showed no sign of letting up, so instead of seeing Seoul Tower, going for a cruise on the Han River, or exploring one of the many palaces in Seoul, we went to a major shopping district and spent the afternoon browsing. I did however get to fulfill two of my goals for the trip - to shop at forever21, and to eat a Subway sandwich (it was disappointing).
Saturday night was Halloween so we got in costume and went out on the town. Koreans don't really celebrate Halloween, so there were people stopping to gawk at the crowds of foreigners in goofy costumes. I had a great night, and it was made better by the fact that my costume was the comfiest I've ever worn!
Seoul was great, but I could tell from a short visit that if I lived there I'd spend a lot more money. The shopping, food and the bookstores would eat away at my pay cheques, so I think it's safer for me and my wallet to be in Busan! I also like how Busan is so much smaller - nothing is really more than an hour away, ever, and that's really nice.
I had a great time in Seoul, and I can't wait to go back and actually see some of the sights that I wanted to see!

Baby it's cold outside

2009-11-03T20:54:00.002-05:00

So, fall has definitely arrived in Korea ... and this Canadan is having trouble coping!!

Up until this week our fall weather has consisted of temperatures between 13 and 21 degrees .. pretty nice! Suddenly, on Monday, the temperature dropped to about 2, with the high during the day only around 10. What a change ... it's terrible.

To make matters worse, Korean school are not good in cold weather. They are built so that the classrooms are all on the side of the school that gets the morning sun, which warms them up nicely. The hallways however recieve no sunlight, so are freezing. To further the problem, all of the hallway windows are open. I need to wear my coat to walk to class, or go to the bathroom ... which is also not heated. The kids all walk around in coats all day too ... it seems like closing the windows would solve this problem ... not sure why they have to be open. My office is in a portable behind the school, and recieves no sunlight, so is actually colder than the outside temperature. I haven't taken my coat off yet this week! The floor heating is nice, but takes hours to warm up. I think I'll be investing in a space heater to survive the winter. All morning I've been taking breaks from typing to sit on my hands becuse they are numb from the cold hahah.

The super fashionable Korean girls are still super fashionable .. even though the temperature has dropped. Miniskirts are still everywhere, and I've yet to see anyone wearing an actual coat ... just cute blazers and thin, cropped leather jackets. Brrrrrr!

Hurry up and wait, so close but so far away

2009-10-26T03:01:00.002-04:00

So, I have a Kinesiology degree, and one of my major reasons for coming to Korea was to help me decide what path to take next. For the last few years I've been torn between going to teacher's college or doing a compressed nursing degree. I finally made up my mind about a month ago that Nursing is a much better choice for me. It's been such a relief to finally make that decision ... and takes a lot of stress out of my life.
I just applied to school today ... wish me luck!
Trent Compressed Nursing, fall of 2010? I hope so.

Now that that's major decision making is out of the way I just need to wait and see if I'm accepted, then figure out what I'm going to do from April-September of next year once I'm back in Canada.
Hmmm...

Take time to realize

2009-10-26T02:32:00.004-04:00

Well, almost at the 7th month mark ... it's scary how quickly the time is passing! As excited as I am to see everyone at home (and don't even get me started on how excited I am for the food), it's sad to think that we only have 5 months left here.

However, the last few weeks have been great.

On the 17th a bunch of our friends gathered in Gwangalli to watch the Busan Fireworks Festival. My language exchange partners and co-teachers had all highly recommended it, and I was not disappointed. It was definitely one of the coolest things I've seen in Korea so far! There were 40 minutes of steady fireworks, which were set to music, and were launched above, below and around the gwangan bride ... which of course also had a pretty great light show going on to add to the fireworks. Enough talking ... check out some video! The first video is the end of the opening number, the 2nd video is to a section that was set to "doe a dear" from The Sound of Music. The final video is part of the finale. Enjoy :)

I'm pretty sure I spent the entire 40 minutes with a stupid grin on my face ... it was just soooo good. If you are in Busan for this event next year (yes, it's an annual thing), then GO!

This past weekend George and I also decided to go to the UN Memorial Cemetery in Korea. It's located near Kyungsung University ... I think the closest subway station is Daeyeon. Anyways, we really weren't sure what to expect, but were both very impressed. The grounds are massive, and covered in trees, grass (which we never see in Korea), and beautiful monuments, statues and flags. It was created to honour those killed in the Korean War. It was beautiful, peaceful, and really forced us to think about how far South Korea has come since the end of the war. Definitely high on my list of Busan reccommendations, especially if the weather was as perfect as this past weekend :)

And that's the way it is.

2009-10-14T03:23:00.003-04:00

Laura, Erin and I are successfully registered for our 2nd 10km race in Korea! It's not until November 15th, so I have just over a month to get healthy, and it better shape. I would like to take a couple of minutes off of my time ... we'll see how that goes!

Good news - the 6 mystery pills 3x a day prescribed to me at my 2nd hospital visit seem to have worked - my cold is finally gone!

I went to the Busan Foreign Language library at the Haeundae Beach Tourist Centre on the weekend, expecting to walk out with some new reading material. However, it turns out that they will only loan books to Korean citizens, or those married to Koreans. Boooo. I miss the endless supply of great books at home. I also really miss cottage cheese (random, I know).

Aside from that, everything is going great here. The weather has finally cooled off, and dropped as low as 14 degrees today. The flip flops may need to be put away soon.

Above: some pictures from a relaxing Sunday afternoon in Haeundae ... sweet car!

All of the people start to rush, start to rush by

2009-10-11T20:15:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I ran my first race in South Korea. It's been a hassle trying to find races and register when I don't know the language! Luckily, a Pusanweb post helped me to find a Korean woman whose husband is an avid runner. She informed me of the Busan Ocean Half Marathon Race, and Laura, Erin and I signed up for the 10km distance.

We have all been battling colds for about 3 weeks, and our training has suffered. We arrived at the race yesterday sniffling, coughing and feeling unprepared and NERVOUS!
Some ridiculous sights soon helped us to relax a little bit:

- there was a group led stretch ... hundreds of people were participating, it was to set counts and there were girls in miniskirts and crop tops leading it on stage
- there were people whose job was to mist passersby with sanitizing spray ... need to be careful of H1N1!
- the first aid team were all on rollerblades .. and some were looking not too steady on their feet
- a lot of runners were wearing jeans

We found a grassy area to stretch, and relaxed until race time. When we noticed the crowd moving out we headed for the starting line with George, our trusty photographer in tow. After lining up and posing for pictures we were approached by a man.
"Um, are you 5km?"
"No, 10km"
"Oh no, this is the half marathon course. You need to go that way"

Panic immediately set in ... we had less then 10 minutes and we lined up at the wrong line with no real idea of where to go. We had to push through the entire field of half marathon runners, run over their start line and a few hundred metres down their course ... mildly embarrassing. Volunteers continued to point us in the right direction, and after a minute or 2 we saw a huge group of runners lined up. Unfortunately it was the 5km start line. There was no way to go around so we had to push through thousands of people to find our start line. Luckily I have learned how to say "Excuse me" in Korean, so after a few hundred "실래합니다's" we managed to pass the 5km start line. Finally ... the 10km participants were in sight! It was at this point that the race started. We were trapped behind thousands of people, so even though we tried to work our way to the front we were unable to cross the line for 7 minutes. I mean, at least we found it!

The race itself was a lot of fun. Running on the bridge was amazing, such great views! The incline was barely noticeable, which was a relief. We made sure to pose for the photographer that was perched on top of the bridge ... can't wait to see those shots. It sure is tiring to run while holding the double peace sign or the heart-above-the-head pose. I expected the crowds to thin out as the race progressed, but that never happened. I feel like I spent the entire time dodging through the huge amounts of people.

Some interesting things that I saw along the route:
- hoards of people stopping in the middle of the bridge for photo shoots
- runners in jeans
- people lining up along the side of the course so that the first aid rollerbladers could douse their legs down with numbing spray
- volunteers whose sole job was to hold open garbage bags at the water stations ... and everyone used them ... well, everyone except us ... I just threw my cups in the general direction. There were barely any cups on the ground - bizarre!
- free post-race acupuncture
- Kyungsung university football players doing the race in full uniform, including helmets

Overall it was a fun event. My time was 53:57 ... which considering the circumstances I'm happy about. I plan on doing another race in November and improving that time!

Thanks to George and Cliff ... our cheering section and photographers :)

After a lunch at Quiznos (a turkey sub was the closest I got to Thanksgiving dinner this year), George and I spent the afternoon on the beach, staying until the sun went down. A perfect end to the day!

Happy Thanksgiving Canada! Wish I was home for some turkey.

Holiday, Celebrate

2009-10-11T20:07:00.005-04:00

Chuseok weekend was a great break from work and responsibility!

On Friday George and I took a scooter ride to Igidae Park (이기대 공원) which is on the far side of the Gwangalli beach. There is a boardwalk/trail that runs along the coastline and provides some spectacular views. The road that winds through the park reaches some pretty high elevations, so the view from some of the upper lookout points is amazing. One of my new favourite places in Busan!

Our friends Wade, Baerg and Ric came down from Seoul again on Saturday morning. We were lucky enough to have beach days on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I wish I could say that we took in some cultural sights, or did anything other then relax on the beach and party ... but I can't.

Overall a great long weekend.

It's a beautiful day not a cloud in sight, so I guess I'm doin' alright.

2009-09-30T22:10:00.003-04:00

So, things turned out well, I have a 4 day weekend for Chuseok!! Very excited for the time off of work.
So many of my students are sick and I feel like the 4 days away from them with help me to get back to 100% health again. I've been suck around 70% for the last week and it's very frustrating!

Our friends Wade and Baerg are coming down from Seoul, which should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping the weather holds out and we can get in one last beach day (surfing included).

I find myself wondering where the nice weather went, and then I realized that it is October! The temperature here is between about 18 and 24 degrees everyday, so still quite warm. However, we've been used to much warmer, so in comparison it does feel cold. I've actually worn some of my light hoodies in the evenings lately!

I'm still in shock that 6 months have passed since we left home. Where did the time go?
Here is my 6 month wrap up:

Things that I am missing the most:
* friends, family, dexie
* fast food: arby's, wendy's, subway, pizza villa in bridgenorth...
* my mom's and george's mom's cooking
* good gyms ... oh Peterborough YMCA, how I miss you!
* the ease of daily life ... ordering food, dealing with sales clerks, any daily activities ... just so much easier at home!

Things that are great here:
* OoMi! I never realized how much having a pet would brighten my day every single day
* friends I've made in Korea
* the weather
* how easy my job is!
* cute Korean kids

Current sources of frustration:
* being stared at non-stop. Yesterday, George said that he now knew why celebrities got so upset with the constant attention and scrutiny ... so true!
* how hard it is to learn Korean. The more I learn the more I realize how difficult it is and how far away I am from being able to have a decent conversation.
* sick people coughing without covering their mouths, coughing in my face, almost spitting on me in the street ... overall, just really disgusting!
* a sudden allergic reaction I've developed to mosquito bites. They swell up to huge red welts, and stay that way for days.

Plans/goals for the next 6 months:
* get out of Busan and see more of Korea/ Southeast Asia
* continue to learn Korean with the help of my language exchange partners
* stay positive and live everyday to the fullest :)
* apply to school for next September ... scary !

And that is all for today.
When I get home I'll try to post some videos of the Brown Eyed Girls performance and of Oo Mi's latest antics on youtube.
Happy 추석 Everyone!

Long time gone

2009-09-27T22:08:00.006-04:00

Things are going well in Busan, lot's to catch up on!

The Brown Eyed Girls performance at Club Elune was interesting ... it was cool to see some Korean celebrities up close, but their performance wasn't exactly spectacular!
My friend Laura and I managed to get to the front of the crowd and had front row views of the concert. I'll post video soon!

George and I also did a photoshoot with our friend Cliff. He's planning on getting into wedding/engagement photography when he gets home, and needs to build his portfolio. We spent a Sunday afternoon around Haeundae, posing for romantic, engagement type pictures. (No, we're not actually engaged) Kind of embarrassing, but we're in Korea ... there were so many people with big cameras doing their own photoshoots with friends, so we didn't stand out too badly. The pictures are gorgeous, and we had a lot of fun shooting with Cliff ... I'll post a link to his website as soon as it's finished.

Last week I was one of many people who came down with a cold. I was sick for most of the week, and even had to take a sick day on Tuesday. My school insisted that I go to the doctors, where I was given a prescription and sent home. I'm not sure if it was on the doctors oders, or thazt my school was just afriad that I have swine, but they let me have Wedesday off to rest. NICE-UH!
It was the first time I've been really sick in Korea, and I was nervous about taking a sick day because teachers here just don't. Ever. Luckily noone seemed to mind too much, and when I returned on Thursday, 2 teachers brought me fruit plates to help "improve helth". So sweet o them. The fact that people dont feel that they can take sick days kind of concerns me ... with the whole swine flu situation, Korea, with it's communal eating and frowned upon sick days will be in serious trouble if the disease really breaks out.

Below are pictures of my first prescription in Korea and one of my adorable students. If you're going to wear a mask, might as well look cute doing it!

So my 10km race training took a serious blow last week while I was sick. I wasn't able to train for almost a full week because I was so exhausted and congested. Luckily I was feeling up to our weekly Friday evening long run this past weekend. Laura, Erin and I did 9.5km, and had lots to talk about so it flew by! I have no worries about the distance, but I need to make some serious increases in speed. Just under 2 weeks until race day ... wish me luck!

Last week also marked our 6 month mark in Korea ... it's hard to believe it's been so long already. I'm excited that I'll get to see everyone at home in 6 months, but I'll also be sad to leave Korea. We've met some really great people and have a pretty easy and fun life here!

George and I decided not to continue on with our Korean classes. We hadn't spent enough time practicing, were feeling overwhelmed by grammar, and weren't actually using any of what we learned ... not to mention that it was getting expensive! I've found a few language exchange partners to practice with, we'll see how that goes.

Oo Mi is adorable as always. So glad that we have a cat in Korea :) Here she is enjoying a plastic bag.

This coming weekend is Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. I still am not sure which days I actually have off of school, but a lot of my friends seem to have Friday and Monday off. My fingers are crossed that I'll also have a 4 day weekend.

That's all for today ... xoxox.

Abracadabra

2009-09-17T22:47:00.005-04:00

It's been a while since my last post ... again!

Things have been busy ... now that I'm teaching all 22 of my classes alone ( as opposed to 10 last semester) I have so much prep to do at school. Things have been especially busy this week since I had open class today.
All of the EPIK teachers are required to do a demonstration class, and today was my lucky day. 3 people from the office of education as well as my principal, vice principal and a few of my coworkers came to watch. Luckily with the swine flu scare going on here none of the other EPIK teachers were able to come - what a relief! Things went well. I don't think I'll be winning any awards, ut my principal was happy, so really all is good.

My 10km training has been going well. I'm only 2 weeks in but I've managed to get intervals/hills, a tempo run, a long run, and a normal run in each week. Tonight is 8.5km ... the longest run I'll have done since before leaving for Korea - I've really let myself go!
After the run tonight I'm going to my first K-Pop concert and I am beyond excited. Brown Eyed Girls, who sing the hit song Abracadabra, are coming to a club in Haeundae. For anyone who doesn't know, K-pop is Korean pop music. It's cheesy, campy, ridiculous, has a few English words thrown into the chorus ... and is completely amazing. I don't know what my running playlist consisted of before I found k-pop. Seriously.
I'll be sure to post about the concert sometime soon.

And for those of you who don't know any k-pop, here are a few of my favourites!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR0R_4cFxEc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6nLg1WSgmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAxMO1KD0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Hihsm405E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA7fdSkp8ds

Let's go surfin' now, Everybody's learning how

2009-09-06T21:15:00.009-04:00

This past weekend there was supposed to be a surf competition in Haeundae. Unfortunately there were no waves to be seen. The international surfing rules require a certain wave height and since nothing was topping about 1 foot, the competition was cancelled. The organizers ran a whole bunch of games and board paddling contests to keep the hundreds of foreigners who showed up entertained. It turned out to be a great beach weekend, and since "Korean beach season" is now over, the millions of umbrellas, chairs and people are gone. I like the beach so much better now!

Haeundae surfing competition

There were even paparazzi!!

George and I managed to do a bit of surfing at Haeundae on Sunday. The waves were tiny, but it was still a lot of fun. I managed to get up every time that I tried ... can't wait for some typhoon waves to roll in so I can have more of a challenge.

The waves picked up in the early evening, and

everyone jumped at the chance to do some surfing!

We also went to Seomyeon underground shopping on Friday night, it was amazing. We'd gone looking for it before, but had ended up in the bad wing that had all kinds of belly dancing and promo girl outfits, not what I was looking for! This time we wandered around some more and found the good shopping area - I'll definitely be returning next pay cheque.

In Korea there is no summer running season. The rainy season, and I guess perhaps the humidity prevents it. However, there is a big race coming up in October. Since I know about it so far ahead of time I will hopefully be able to get registered! I've emailed the organizers and am waiting for a response. The course takes the runners over the Gwangan bridge and back, which sounds awesome. Since my vacation time slacking has kept me from running much lately I think I'm going to do the 10km instead of half marathon. I'm hugely competitive, and don't think I can improve my time from my last half with only a month to train and the winds/height challenges of running across the Gwangan bridge and back. I'll be mad at myself if I don't improve my time, so doing my first 10km race ever will be a better idea. I'll train for a half later, when I have the time to do it properly and blow my old time away! Let's hope I can actually get registered for this race, I really want to do it.

Pictures of a previous race. Might have to

re-evaluate my goals ... it looks packed on that bridge!

The bridge!

**UPDATE: The registration deadline is the 13th, so it looks like I'm going to be doing my first race in Korea in October ... NICE-UH!

So long sweet summer ...

2009-09-02T21:54:00.006-04:00

I'm back at school finally. I returned yesterday after 3 weeks of English camp at another school, 2 weeks vacation and 2 days of extended quarantine. Let's just say that my first full working day in over 6 weeks was not so easy ... I was in bed by 9pm last night! It was so great to see all of my students again .. I missed them over summer vacation.

I'm sure by next week I'll be back into the routine and it won't be so bad.

So, a follow-up post on Thailand. I've told you what we did, now here is what I thought of everything!

Things I loved about Thailand:
- the weather ... it was hot hot hot!
- the food ... every meal we had was spectacular. I'm missing it so much.
- the water ... so blue and so warm
- the scenery ... Phuket and Koh Phi Phi were gorgeous
- the fact that I didn't get stared at everywhere I went (which is the case in Korea)
- once again being in a culture where there were many different lifestyles and true individuals ... I loved it!
- Ladyboys - so funny
- the shopping ... so many good deals (if you bargained hard)
- there were great drugstores ... I've missed going into Shoppers Drugmart at home and emerging an hour later with $100 of hair and makeup products! Boots Drugstore in Thailand is awesome

Things I didn't love:
- the fact that it was so touristy - everyone was selling something, you had to really argue over prices or you'd get ripped off, even little kids were out selling stuff late at night. I didn't like the feeling that I was being hustled all the time, but I understand that tourism is THE major source of income for many Thai's, so I can accept it!
- the heat ... anytime we stepped outside I was drenched in sweat ... fine when we were by the beach, but was definitely something that was hard to get used to

So in general, I fell in love with Thailand. I would love to teach there in the future. Being back in Korea has been hard, and I seem to be seeing many of the flaws after being away. I need to switch back to positive mode, and instead of being frustrated by things, try to find the humour in them. This strategy served me well for the first 5 months here and I have to get back to it for the next 7!

A lot of my frustration has come from recent problems George has had getting a rabies vaccine. He was bit by a monkey in Thailand, and was able to receive his first 2 (of 5) rabies vaccines while there. Since we were unsure of the health of the monkey it was just a precaution. However rabies is a very serious disease, and if contracted by a human has a 95% mortality rate. When the time came to get George's 3rd rabies shot we went to three different hospitals in Busan and were informed at each one that they didn't have any rabies vaccine. One of the things I was warned about at the travel clinic in Canada before I left was rabies, and it seems bizarre to me that the vaccine would not be available here when there are so many random street dogs roaming around. By the time we were at the 3rd hospital we were both frustrated, and asked the doctor on call to find a hospital that did have it. He broke the news that there were actually no hospitals in Busan that had the vaccine, and told us we'd have to order it through an internal medicine doctor. This was on a Saturday and we wouldn't be able to see an internal medicine doctor until Monday. Since the vaccines are supposed to be administered on a strict schedule we were both worried and quite angry. On Monday George was told he wouldn't be able to order it, which was not the answer he was looking for. Finally on Tuesday his co-teacher found him a doctor that wrote him a prescription for the vaccine, but informed him that it could not be shipped, he'd have to go pick it up in Seoul. The company would not ship it because if it is not kept at certain cold temperatures it loses it's effectiveness. So Tuesday night we frantically searched the city for a cooler bag (not available), and George finally got on the KTX with a Jumbo Thermos, hoping it would allow him to get the vaccine back to Busan. Luckily everything worked out, and he was provided with a big styrafoam cooler by the doctors in Seoul. He got it back to his doctor in Busan who gave him the 3rd shot yesterday, and will give him the remaining 2 shots as well. The whole ordeal was completely frustrating, especially when all we heard before coming was that Korea has a great health care system.
I guess the animals here don't have rabies?!

In more exciting news, I've been surfing twice since returning from vacation and I think we're going again tonight! Definitely something I'm really excited about. There's also a surfing competition in Haeundae this weekend which we'll be going to watch.
Who knows, if George and I get in some good practice tonight we may even enter the beginners division ... mostly for the free t-shirt and free drinks at some local bars on Saturday night ;)

Sun tanned toes ticklin the sand, cold drink chilling in my right hand ...

2009-09-01T21:12:00.004-04:00

So ... Thailand. What an incredible vacation!

I'll give you a basic rundown of what we did...

George and I left Busan on Saturday afternoon and flew into Seoul. After a few hours in Seoul we flew to Bangkok and had a 7 hour layover which was terrible. We arrived in Phuket (pronounced Poo-ket) on Sunday morning and by the time we had found our hotel it was around lunchtime. Getting to Phuket was a long process (almost 24hours from apartment-hotel), one which would have been so much easier if we'd booked our tickets sooner, and had been able to take the Pusan-Bangkok flight. Oh well, next time!

The only planning we did before leaving for Thailand was to book a hotel (Kata Poolside) for our first 2 nights in Kata Beach. Since it was off-season we were able to get a great hotel with a pool, huge room and balcony at an amazing price - about $65 total for 2 nights. We spent our first day enjoying the delicious room service food, soaking up some sun on the beach and enjoying the warm ocean water. We also were able to see a gorgeous sunset ... something I've missed so much while being in Busan. The sun disappears behind the mountains in Busan, which is pretty, but just doesn't compare to sunsets over water.

Day 2 was spent on a Sea Canoe Excursion, booked through our hotel, but available at any of the tour booths in the area. We left early in the morning and spent the day on a boat, seeing James Bond Island, Hong Island, Bat Caves, a Mangrove Forest and all kinds of gorgeous scenery. There was a buffet lunch on board, and snacks of fresh fruit throughout the day. The guides were friendly and we had an incredible time canoeing, swimming and exploring. I'd definitely recommend this trip to anyone visiting Phuket!

We decided to move to Karon beach for our third day. It was a short Tuk-tuk ride from Kata, and is a bigger and more touristy area. George spent the day surfing while I split my time between boogie boarding, reading and tanning. A rain shower interrupted our day around 5pm so we decided to walk to a market about 10 minutes from the beach. The temperature was so high that the rain was quite pleasant, so we spent a few hours shopping. We also had some delicious banana pancakes and Thai street food (delicious and dirt-cheap) for dinner. We weren't overly thrilled with our hotel so we decided to book a trip to Koh Phi Phi (Phi Phi Islands, pronounced Pee Pee) for the next day. This was a part of the trip that we were really excited for. Gorgeous scenery, blue-blue-blue water, the beach where the movie "The Beach" was filmed ... and it didn't disappoint!

We had more rain on the ferry ride to Phi Phi, which made for a pretty miserable journey since the majority of the seating was outdoors. Miraculously the sun emerged just as we arrived and checked into our guesthouse. We ran to check out the beach then went in search of some lunch. While eating we ran into one of George's friends from Brampton who is also a teacher in Korea. We spent the day with him and a friend, enjoying the beach on Phi Phi. That evening we decided to go out. After a Western style buffet dinner and a walk all around the island to check out what was going on, we grabbed some buckets (literally just bucket filled with alcohol) and went to the beach. There were multiple fire shows going on and we spent a few hours watching one. The boys even participated when the pulled out a giant flaming skipping rope. The talent was incredible and the show was completely mesmerizing. The four of us sat for hours, barely talking, but thoroughly enjoying ourselves. As our buckets were dwindling we decided to check out a bar that featured Thai fighting. They also allowed drunk foreigners to jump in the ring. So stupid, but very entertaining.

The next morning we booked an excursion to all of the sights around Koh Phi Phi. Then, our brains still muddled by alcohol we walked towards the beach, and decided to stop for a picture with the cute little monkey that was tied up at a resort. George went first ... and long story short he got bit. I guess that's what happens when you support the exploitation of animals?
Anyways, the monkey also stole his shirt, and it took 1 policeman (who also suffered a scratch), and 2 resort employees to get his shirt back. We then set of to the nearest pharmacy to get directions to the hospital. The first thing we saw when we walked in was the sign "Doctor visit 500 baht. Rabies vaccine 1300 baht." I had the feeling that this little terror had bit many many people! After a wound cleaning and the first of 5 vaccines we left the hospital and spent a few hours walking around and swimming before our excursion started.

We boarded the boat in the early afternoon. Our first stop? Monkey beach. A wonderful place for someone who has just suffered from a monkey bite to visit. After everyone was safely back on the boat our guide said, "Oh wow, that's the first day ever that one of our passengers hasn't been bitten!". Hmm, and why didn't he warn us BEFORE going to the beach?
Stop 2 was some snorkeling. Unfortunately the day had started to turn overcast so we weren't completely happen with our photos, but it was still alot of fun.
We then went by Viking Cave on our way to Maya Bay. This is the place where scenes from "The Beach" were filmed. The boat stopped on the far side of the island, a few hundred metres out from shore and the guide told us, "Ok, please swim to the beach. It is about three minutes. Bring your shoes so we can walk through the forest to the other side of the island". Umm ... what!? I didn't mind the swim, but it was approaching sunset and I wasn't thrilled about prancing around soaking wet in a bikini. It turned out to be worth it ... Maya Bay was gorgeous, we got some great photos, some some neat sights, I pretended I was Leo and ran in video-game mode through the forest .... overall a lot of fun.

The cruise wrapped up with a buffet dinner and views of the sunset and we returned back to shore. The sights themselves were great, but the company we went through was kind of terrible and unsafe. There was a choice to take a long tail boat, speed boat or a big boat with about 100 other people, and we chose the big one that actually had a bathroom ... but i think we would have had a better time on one of the others! I guess when you only pay about $20 you can't be too picky.

After our second night on Phi Phi we decided to head back to Phuket for our last 2 nights in Thailand. Since we had enjoyed Kata Beach so much we decided to return. We spent 2 days on the beach, learning how to surf, swimming and just enjoying life.

On our last day we had to go to Patong so that George could get his 2nd rabies shot. Unfortunately it rained all day, and surfing was waaay more expensive the in Kata or Karon, so our last day was kind of a bust. We did get to eat Subway for lunch which was great, and George had a Thai massage while I got a manicure, so it was not all bad.

Leaving Thailand was so hard. I can't say that I'm happy to be back in Korea ... I guess it's just the post-vacation blues...

I'll post more on Thailand and our return to Korea later!

I had the time of my life!

2009-08-25T02:28:00.001-04:00

Quick update:
We made it home from Thailand safely, and Oo Mi survived her week as a bar cat!

We had an incredible time ... more to come later :)

Meow Meow Meow Meow

2009-08-15T01:50:00.003-04:00

So we are officially en-route toThailand (we've made it as far as the departures lounge of the Gimhae airport in Busan). I thought I'd use the time to update my blog with some very exciting news.
We have adopted a kitten. Last Sunday George texted me a picture of a cat and her kitten. They lived behind Blowfish bar in Songjeong. The owners of the mother cat were looking for a home for the kitten and George volunteered, surprising me with the news on the morning we were to bring her home.
She moved in on Sunday, terrible timing since we were only a week away from vacation, but they wanted her to be taken in at that time so there wasn't much choice. So we brough the kitten home, assuming that it was a boy, as we had been told. Approximately 2 seconds into a Skype call to my dad, we were informed that calico cats are all female ... so it turns out that we brought home a little girl!
We used our cell phone dictionaries to come up with a Korean name, and settled on 우 미 (Oo Mi), which was supposed to mean "grace and elegance". We figure she'll either undergo a huge change and grow into the name, or it will be funny because it's ironic. After speaking to some Korean friends were were told it means something a little different ... I think "bitchy or stuck-up", and has a bit of a negative connotation. Oh well, we like it!
One of the owners of Blowfish has 2 kittens of her own who live at the bar, and agreed to take Oo Mi while we are on vacation, which is a total lifesaver! We dropped her off this morning, and I hope she takes well to her time as a bar cat!
I think our flight is boarding soon, so I have to go, updates from Thailand soon!!!

It's a smile, it's a kiss, It's a sip of wine, it's summertime!

2009-08-07T03:36:00.003-04:00

Long time no blog.
Sorry for anyone who is trying to follow this thing!

I kind of forgot I had a blog for a while there. Weird...

It's summer camp time so my schedule has been drastically changed. I'm working at a camp at a university in Bansong, which is just outside of Busan. I teach either 1 or 2 80 minute classes each morning, so with the commute I'm still home by 1:30 each day ... amazing!
How has this been affecting my blogging? Well, I do my best work (meaning: I have a lot of free time) from my office at school. I do not have a computer or an office at camp so I have been spending alot less time online. The shortened work hours are great ... it feels like I'm already on vacation because I'm only working half days.

Not much is new here. The rain has been much less frequent the last few weeks - I think we've had more sunny days than rainy ones. George is officially on vacation, his camp ended today. I have one more week of camp and then my 2 week vacation starts.

We just recieved confirmation today - WE'RE GOING TO THAILAND NEXT SATURDAY!!!!!!
We had originally planned on going to the Philippines and Hong Kong, but left things to the last minute and weren't able to get flights on the days we wanted. Our travel agent recommended Thailand and we decided to go for it. Although we've been planning on travelling through Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia when our contract is finished, we decided that we'd do the southern beaches this time, and do northern Thailand next spring!

We're flying into Phuket and plan on splitting our time between Karon (on Phuket), Krabi and Koh Phi Phi (where The Beach was filmed!). We're going from the 15th-24th and I am sooooooo excited :)

Goodbye to you

2009-07-20T19:55:00.006-04:00

My mom and Pam have returned to Canada :(

While I'm sad that they are gone I am so happy that they were able to come to Korea. We had a great week and it was really neat to be able to give them a taste of what my life is like here.

On Saturday we got an early start on our adventures. After meeting at Haeundae subway station we travelled almost an hour to the Jalgachi fish market. After exploring the market we walked to the nearby Busan tower to check out the amazing views of the port and the surrounding city. Our next stop was Nampodong market where my mom and Pam were able to buy some souvenir t-shirts and even ajumma visors!

On returning to Haeundae the weather was still decent, so we packed up and went to Songjeong beach for the afternoon. What an experience! My friend Meg met us there and we were a little overwhelmed by the response we got from other beach-goers. A few different people approached us and asked to have their pictures taken with us. A lady asked Meg to brush sand off of her babies hands (when she could have easily done so herself). The 2 Korean girls sitting next to us were hilarious. They came over for multiple photo shoots and brought us gifts of dried squid and cans of Coke. Once the boys showed up they brought out the booze giving us a bottle of soju and then continued to refill our cups with "So-Maek" a combination of soju and beer. Overall a very entertaining afternoon.

For dinner we went to d'Maris seafood buffet, which is right down the street from me. My mom's name is Maris, so I knew the second I saw the restaurant when we arrived in Busan that I'd have to take her there for dinner when she visited. We had a great meal, but all that eating was tiring and we had an early night.

On Sunday we were lucky enough to have another day without rain. Although the skies seemed somewhat overcast we decided to set up camp on Haeundae beach and get some reading done. My mom, Pam and I were on the beach from about 10:30-5:30, with on a short Fuzzy Navel lunch break. Needless to say that after weeks of rain that much sun exposure left me quite burnt! The waves on Sunday were massive (which is rare at Haeundae beach) and we spent a lot of time in the freezing cold water enjoying them. I was in the icy cold ocean 3 times, ranging in length from 10-30 minutes, which I still cant believe ... that water is so cold, but I was having too much fun to notice! After lunch we rented 2 tubes and used those to ride massive waves into the shore. I think it was the most fun I've ever had on the beach! I'm hoping to see waves like that again soon. We had a nice dinner of Korean BBQ on Sunday night with some friends who had come down from Seoul.

Yesterday morning my mom and Pam left Busan for their long trip home. I am SO lucky that they were able to visit, and I'm going to miss them!

Take me out to the ball game, Take me out to the crowd

2009-07-16T21:23:00.007-04:00

We took my mom and Pam to a Lotte Giants game on Wednesday evening.

It was a great game, lots of excitement, and even a (rare) win for the Giants. The most excitement came with a rain delay. Umbrellas went up, ponchos were sold, and the die-hard (and/or intoxicated) fans settled in to wait it out. I think the rain delay was more fun than the game! The only disappointment was that because everyone was under umbrellas or wearing ponchos they didn't hand out the orange bags. So my mom and Pam didn't get to experience that, but with the weather we've been having they were lucky to even get to see a game!

We hung out on Gwangalli beach last night and wandered down the beach to look at the carnival and nearby fish farm. The after effects of the 260mm+ of rain we got yesterday morning were apparent. Streets were still quite dirty from all the running water and large sections of the beach were washed out.

The weather has been awful all week, but we've managed to squeeze lots of fun activities into the short periods of time that it is not raining. I'm having a great time and wish that my mom and Pam were staying longer then 10 days!!!

Oh happy day!

2009-07-14T21:03:00.005-04:00

My Mom and Pam arrived in Korea on Saturday night and I couldn't be happier! George and I wore some sweet couples shirts to pick them up from the airport.

It still seems so surreal that they are actually in Busan.

The weather has been terrible. It's easily the worst we've had all summer, but at least it's hot, which apparently is a wonderful change after the cold summer they've been having in Canada. So far they've been to Haedongyoungoonsa (temple by the sea), Jangansa (a mountain temple near my school), the Busan museum, Haeundae beach, Busan Aquarium, Gwangalli beach and bridge and APEC house. They also got to spend a few hours at my school yesterday, sitting in on the kindergarten and grade 1 classes, and getting to experience the caferteria food at lunch.

We've take them to a few of our favourite restaurants so far including Korean bbq, kimbap and shabu shabu.

I'm hoping that the rain will miraculously clear tonight or tomorrow so that we can go to a Lotte Giants game.

Either way, I am SO happy to have visitors!!

:) :) :)

Rain rain go away

2009-07-07T03:08:00.003-04:00

So, it's rainy season here in Korea ... and today was terrible!
I set out to walk to my bus stop this morning, and after about 2 minutes I was soaked to the knee. My tiny umbrella was no match for the torrential downpour and soon i was completely drenched. Somehow even my hair was wet before I was 5 minutes from home.
Just before my bus stop I have to cross a road and walk up a hill. This road at the bottom of the hill was completely washed out. There is no other way around and I was already miserable, so I proceeded to wade through water that was well above my ankles - I probably now have some kind of gross Korean foot fungus!
The bus ride to school was almost double the normal time, as the area around Songjeong beach was completely flooded. Water was up over the sidewalks and about midway up the tires of cars, and that was at 7:30am. The rain hasn't let up all day, so the ride home should be interesting.

In happier news, George bought a scooter on Saturday. He's been talking about getting one since before we'd even arrived in Korea, and is so happy to own his first vehicle! I've got to admit, it's alot of fun and waaaay more convenient.

Only 4 sleeps til my mom and Pam arrive ... hopefully it's done raining by then!

Oh Canada ...

2009-07-03T00:00:00.006-04:00

Last weekend George and I set out to find one of the sites listed in our Lonely Planet Korea guide book: Seokbulsa (석 불 사 ), which is an out of the way temple with some incredible stone carvings.

We took the subway to Oncheonjang and from there took a taxi to Geumgang Park. Instead of walking up the mountain we decided to take the cable car, which provided us with some incredible views of Busan - I highly recommend it!

Once at the top we decided to make our way to the south gate, where Lonely Planet's directions started. We were almost there, and looking lost when an older Korean man stopped and ask "Can I give you my hand?" ... hmmm, I think he was asking if we needed a hand! When we told him our destination he told us to follow him and he'd lead us there. We really lucked out ... I don't know if we would have found the temple otherwise.

It was a nice half hour hike to get to a road leading to the temple, from there it was another 10 -15 minutes straight uphill. I'd recommend taking a taxi, because you can drive almost all the way up to the temple, and it saves the confusion of finding the temple with somewhat unclear directions.

We spent about half an hour taking pictures of the temple and marvelling over the huge stone Buddha's carved into the rock. It was one of my favourite sights in Busan so far and I'm anxious to go back again.

A big thanks to Mr. Lee, Korean hiking enthusiast and our wonderful guide for the day. It was really neat to have a running commentary about the temple, the places we hiked, and the views of the city. I learned a lot more than I would have if we'd been alone, and that really added to my appreciation of what we were seeing. He even gave George his number and asked us to call him if we ever wanted to go on a guided hike again!

This week I had another open class, this one with my Korean co-teacher. I think it went pretty well. Definitely good practice for the fall when our open class will be judged by someone from the board of education.

Canada Day in Korea was pretty low-key. We went to a nearby bar that was holding a Canada Day party and had a few Canadian Club and diet cokes. Since it was a work night we didn't get to crazy, but it was nice to see so many Canadians out, enthusiastically celebrating the holiday.

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine

2009-06-26T00:10:00.009-04:00

It's been exactly 3 months that I've been in Korea ... the time seems to have flown by, but at the same time it feels like I've been here forever ... hard to explain!

I feel like some kind of reflection is necessary - I'm 1/4 of the way done my year in Korea.

I'm loving being here, and although I had some homesickness a few weeks ago, I've bounced back am ready to have 9 more amazing months here.

What do I miss most about home?
- friends & family
- dexter!!
- driving
- open space, lack of crowds, being able to walk down my road and not see a single person
- summer sunsets on Chemong Lake, boat rides, skiing etc
- cheese curds, pizza villa, Wendy's spicy chicken combo, limes, the chocolate chip banana bread at Starbucks

What do I love about Korea?
- the wonderful people I've met here
- living near the beach, morning runs on the beach, tanning etc
- George and I finally live in the same city again!
- my apartment ... it's amazing
- Korean food (minus school lunches), lime draft, aloe water
- Korean babies
- experiencing a completely foreign culture
- the convenience of city living
- the adorable kids that I teach
- all of the funny things I see on a daily basis
- cheap makeup
- being able to see mountains from anywhere in Busan

Some highlights?
- visits to the orphanage
- seaside temple
- hiking
- taking Korean lessons twice a week
- Spaland, jimjilbangs
- staying out all night
- eating live octopus

It's been quite an adventure so far and I look forward to exploring Busan and the rest of Korea in the coming months.

I still don't like Kimchi.

Welcome to my life

2009-06-24T20:12:00.005-04:00

I had a demonstration class on Monday. It was not one of the Busan Board of Education open classes that all teachers are forced to endure (that's next week), but instead was organized by my school so that parents could observe a class. Luckily it was planned on the one day of the week that I teach with Jeremy, the other Canadian teacher at my school. We did some planning last week but decided not to get too worked up over it. I think the most stressful part for me was deciding what to wear. Have to impress those impossibly stylish Koreans!
About 10 mothers showed up for the class of 13 Grade 1's ... enough to ensure that the students (who are usually adorable, but wild) behaved like perfect little angels for the entire 40 minutes. I just tried to smile as much as possible, and I think it worked. Things went really well and my principal, who doesn't speak English even approached me afterwards and managed to say "You did GREAT job". What a relief!

Yesterday I was informed that the Grade 2 classroom was not available for the class I was supposed to be teaching in 5 minutes time. Our English office does not have nearly enough space for a whole class so it was decided that I'd teach outside, on the picnic tables near the animal cages. Can you tell already that it was a recipe for disaster?
The grade 2's already seem to find my class hilarious. Not sure if it's my broken Korean or terrible charades skills (there's no Korean co-teacher so I have to improvise a lot), but they seem to think I'm there for 40 minutes of comedic relief every Wednesday.
So, the outdoors class ... ughhhhh. It's hard enough to control this class inside, but the distractions of the great outdoors were just too much. They ignored my animal flashcards and insisted on pointing out the animals in the cage behind them, which they found to be hilarious. An ajumma from the village wandered up and sat 2 tables away watching me attempt to teach, and laughing at the goofy kids, further encouraging their bad behaviour. Then, each time I'd wrestled back their attention from the bunnies or the chicks and opened my mouth to speak, the rooster (yes, we have a rooster), would start to crow. This in turn prompted hysterical laughter from the kids and the ajumma. This happened about 5 times ... and was so frustrating. I can see the comedy in it now, but yesterday, outside in 27 degree heat, with a rowdy bunch of kids, and someones grandma watching and probably judging my every move - not so funny!!

We were in another area of town last night and found the following coffee shop - nice-uh!

I was supposed to be teaching right now, but I went upstairs to find an empty classroom and still have no idea where anyone is. Oh well, more time to blog. This is life in Korea.

Sunday morning rain is falling

2009-06-21T19:53:00.010-04:00

I found a triathlon club ... I think.

I was swimming at the Grand Hotel on Friday and I guy hopped into my lane wearing an ironman bathing cap, so I pointed to the cap and gave him a thumbs up. Luckily he spoke a bit of English and proceeded to invite me to do an ironman distance triathlon with him and his club - in 2 weeks hahahahaha. That's clearly not happening, but it was a nice offer ;)

I continued on with my workout and as I finished my last length I sat up to about 15 Koreans standing around in their lanes looking at me. It was awkward enough that I tacked an extra 100m onto my cooldown! As I was getting out of the pool my ironman friend called me over and started explaining their groups training schedule to me. He also offered to loan me a bike, and once again asked if I wanted to do an ironman triathlon in 2 weeks. I really am sill not sure what the actual training schedule is, or if I'm being asked to join the group or not, but they swim daily, so I'm going to go back and try to get some more info this week.

I've finally gotten back into the groove with working out. Last week I ran 3 times, swam once and made it to the gym twice. The week before I ran 5 mornings. I think I am finally on "Korea time"!

Running in Korea is wildly entertaining. It doesn't quite beat running with 3 goofy labs in Selwyn, but it comes close in the comedy department. Each morning I can be guaranteed to see at least one of the following (usually more): little dogs wearing costumes, jewellery or dyed in pastel colours; people doing weird interpretive dance at the end of the water; people just leaving the bar and doing all kinds of crazy things; elderly Koreans doing the national stretch (it contains alot of hip rolling!); and lots of other random sights. For example, last week I saw the entire bar staff of a popular place in Haeundae on the beach at 6:30am, in staff uniform, practicing bar tending tricks!

This weekend George and I decided that we weren't going to drink or go to the bars because we wanted to actually do things, and not waste our days being hungover. What a good call - we had an amazing weekend!

On Saturday I went to the gym beside my building and then decided to treat myself and ordered McDonalds delivery for breakfast for the first time. I managed t get to the post office and send some packages and letters home. We then went to a temple by the sea, visited the orphanage, walked through a botanical garden and spent 2 hours at a coffee shop overlooking the beach, studying Korean!

On Sunday we had another gym date then went to Shinsaegae department store. We had an awesome meal in the food court, then checked out the attached skating rink and browsed through some stores. Back in Jangsan we tried to go to the movies, but although movies like Terminator, Star Trek and Wolverine come out in Korea on the same dates as back home we couldn't find The Hangover anywhere. Very disappointing!

Rainy season is apparently here ... we had a downpour for the majority of yesterday, some rain on Saturday night/Sunday morning but sunshine today. The nice weather is supposed to last until the weekend, then the rain will carry through into next week. The humidity is crazy - my hair has some curls for the first time ever! Other then that rainy season is not so fun. I need to invest in a pair of rain boots.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

And it burns, burns, burns, The ring of fire, The ring of fire.

2009-06-15T21:17:00.003-04:00

Last week I experienced a fire drill at my school.

We had been informed that it was happening so I was not surprised when a fire truck pulled up and a campfire was lit in the middle of the dirt playing field in front of the school. OK, maybe I was a little surprised at the actual fire ... we tend to just pretend in Canada, not light actual fires!

The bells went off and the kids ran out of their classrooms in orderly lines, all bent over almost 90 degrees, with cloths covering their noses and mouths. It was a contrast to the fire drills that I remember when we walked slowly out of the building, laughing and joking, knowing that it was just a drill.

Once everyone was outside and lined up, the designated first aid teachers brought out a student on a stretcher and she was forced to lay on it for the remainder of the drill.

The fire fighters then unhooked the hose from the firetruck and proceeded to blast the tiny campfire and to put on a little show with the water. Once that was finished they re-lit the fire using a can of gas and let a grade 6 students demonstrate how to use a fire extinguisher.

I'm pretty sure I was open-mouthed in shock for the duration of the drill because the grade 1 and 2 teachers got a good laugh every time they looked my way.

Only in Korea!

This weekend I was able to visit the orphanage for the second time. The kids were playing outside because the weather was beautiful, and it was a nice change to see them so happy and preoccupied. I don't think they even noticed we were there!

I also managed to spend a few hours on the beach on both Saturday and Sunday and think that my tan is coming along quite nicely. Haeundae is starting to get a lot busier so we checked out Songjeong on Saturday which was a nice change.

George and I are starting to plan our summer vacation trip. There are just so many destinations in Southeast Asia that I'm anxious to visit. It's going to be hard to narrow it down! We're both off for the last 2 weeks of August and are excited to take a break from Busan and see some more of the world.

Some homesickness set in last week, definitely the worst since I've been here. It seems I've come to the end of the "honeymoon phase" of culture shock. The rainy and dull weather, having been sick on Monday, a less then stellar week of teaching and finally settling in to a less exciting routine here combined to make me feel pretty down. I realized just how far away from home I am, and how much of my contract is left and it scared me. Luckily I have some great friends here to cheer me up, and George of course always does a great job at making me smile, and am feeling SO much better this week. I think I need to shake things up and visit some more of the sights that made my first month here so exciting. George and I are thinking of taking a day trip somewhere this weekend, destination to be determined!

In some very exciting news - my mom and Pam are going to be here in under a month!! I am so excited to see them and to show them my new home :) :) :)

Missing everyone at home,
xoxoxo

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

2009-06-08T20:25:00.003-04:00

This weekend I visited a Korean orphanage with Laura and Caitlin.

It's something we'd been talking about doing for weeks, and we finally managed to find an orphanage in Busan that would allow us to visit. The kids ranged in age from babies to 7 year olds. We spent the entire hour and a half of our visit with one group of kids, who muct have been about 2 or 3. They were absolutely adorable! And really just wanted to be hugged.
We gave about a million piggyback rides, which were a huge hit, and just sat and played with the kids for the rest of the time. I wish a few more people had been able to come with us, because between the 3 of us we just didn't have enough hands to be hugging or picking up enough kids at a time. They were just so happy to see us, and excited to get some attention, it was really touching. It was hard to leave after such a short visit, but it was lunch time so we were given the boot. We're hoping to go back on a weekly basis, and with more people next time.
For anyone is Busan who is looking to go, let me know and I'll get you the details!

The North Korean situation remains unchanged here, people are still largely unconcerned. Here's an interesting documentary if you have an hour or so to spare:

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3

Under the boardwalk, Down by the sea, Yeahhhh!

2009-06-01T21:07:00.007-04:00

What else is new in Korea-land??

North Korea is in the news worldwide, making threats, causing my poor mom to worry about me ... what jerks!

Very fitting sand sculpture at the Haeundae Sand Festival

The general consensus of the Koreans that I've asked is that yes, North Korea is scary, but they make these kinds of threats very often, and we should go about our lives and try not to worry too much. For now I'm keeping up with the news and have registered with the Canadian embassy in Korea and will heed any warning that they issue.

That being said, I hope this conflict can be resolved quickly, I am loving my experience here and don't want to be forced to leave prematurely. There is still so much of Korea left to see!

In other news, I bought a pretty new camera and can finally stop stealing George's. I'm sure he's almost as excited as I am. Not to mention that I'll be able to post more, and better quality pictures on here!

I had another good weekend, a trip to Nampo-dong for some shopping on Friday, followed by In-n-out style burgers in Mipo.

On Saturday I spent some time at the beach, checking out the Sand Festival, and discovering a new restaurant with an amazing fruit platter - very exciting stuff! We had another successful girl's night, starting things off by having some soju and diet coke outside my neighbourhood convenience store. This is perfectly acceptable here - yo're given paper cups when you buy alcohol, and there are chairs and tables set up outside most convenience stores. It almost makes up for not having a balcony on our apartment!

Sunday was PERFECT weather for the beach. I spent hours lounging in the sun and even swam a few times.

Korean class is still going well, although the amount of material we've covered is completely overwhelming!

Teaching is also still great. I love my school, the students and the workload (which is very light)!

I've been informed that during the summer break I'll be working 3 weeks at a camp held by a local university which will be a nice change of pace. Although schools have a 6 week summer vacation here most kids still attend these summer camps to further their learning. Our contract stipulates that we only have 10 vacation days (and that includes weekends, so really only a week), but as of right now my coteacher thinks I'll have 2 weeks off after I've worked 3 weeks of camp - sweeeet! Now I just need to plan where I'm going to travel during this time off!

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

2009-05-28T22:43:00.007-04:00

So, the Sanghado Island trip ... what a weekend!

The entire group!

George and I found out about a tour group called Lovable Busan through my friend Juliet and signed up for a trip - a weekend of water sporting activities on Sanghado Island.

We woke up bright and early to be at the meeting place (almost an hour away) by 6:30am. From there we boarded a bus, stopping only at a rest stop and a grocery store (booze and snack run). We arrived at the Goseong Dinosaur Musuem shortly after 10am and spent 2 hours in the museum and hiking the trails on the grounds. My first shock of the trip came when, after arriving at the museum, our guide said, "Ok, we're here. Please leave your things on the bus. Just bring your camera and your beer".

From the museum in was only minutes to the ferry that would take us to the island. The ride was beautiful, but uneventful. Another memorable moment occurred shortly after arriving. We were supposed to be taking a bus to the opposite side of the island to the village where we were staying. Unfortunately our guide had to deliver the following bad news, "The bus driver is drunk", (insert miming of sleeping), "We must wait 30 minutes". We were all a little confused ... 30 minutes until he was safe to drive, or 30 minutes until alternate transportation arrived? Hmmmm....

Luckily alternate transportation was the answer. The girls were transported on a boat, while the guys got to ride in the back of an old truck. Our destination was a tiny village which has a dive/water sport shop, 1 restaurant, a tiny convenience store and a school. We stayed in a Min Bak ( 민 박 ), which is basically an open room where you sleep Korean style on the floor. Blankets and pillows were provided and there was an attached bathroom, but it was not the most comfortable of accommodations.

Our sweet ride!

Activities for the weekend included a rafting trip in the ocean (paddling a dingy about 500m in unimpressive waves), swimming at a pebble beach, drinking around the campfire with the scuba shop staff and an incredibly difficult hike.

Rafting excursion

The facebook invite promised water sports such as scuba diving, snorkeling, water skiing and banana boating, but none of those materialized, I think because everyone drank too much and the dive shop didn't want to risk it. Whatever the reason, I was very disappointed, I was really looking forward to skiing!

Here are some pictures from our hike - it was WIIIIIIILD!

Can't wait for our next trip with Lovable Busan!!!

Look out helter skelter helter skelter

2009-05-25T21:07:00.002-04:00

Cases of Swine Flu have started to show up in Korea, the most publicized ones being among a group of foreign teachers who attended an orientation together after arriving in Korea last week. You can check out their situation here:

http://underquarantine.tumblr.com/page/1

My co teacher informed me this morning that as a foreigner I will most likely be tested. The Busan Office of Education apparently feels the need to test all of the foreign teachers working in the area. Even though we've been here over 2 months, have shown no signs of illness, and have not been in contact with any of the infected teachers.... hmmm, doesn't seem quite right does it? Upon doing some informal research on foreigner message boards it appears as though the only confirmed cases in Korea include 3 Koreans, 1 Vietnamese and 1 Foreign teacher.
I will keep you updated on the situation as it develops!

This weekend George and I went on a trip with a our group called Lovable Busan. It's run by an awesome Korean guy, Charles, with the purpose of showing foreigners places in Korea that are a little off the beaten path, but incredible to visit.

Our trip included a trip to a dinosaur museum and an overnight stay on an island off the coast. We had an incredible time, but I'll have to save that for another blog entry ... I have some major prep to do before afternoon classes today!

Alouette, gentille Alouette

2009-05-22T02:52:00.006-04:00

No, this post has nothing to do with plucking birds! The title lyric? I'll get to it.

George and I had 2 Korean classes this week at Haeundae beach. On Mondays there are 4 of us, but Wednesdays are a private lesson. I may be totally overwhelmed by the amount we covered, but I think I am going to be able to make basic conversation within a month. We have learned 20 basic verbs in the present tense and are able to change the endings to ask a question. We've also learned who, what, why, where, when, how, always, never, sometimes, often, usually, and rarely. With these and the verbs we can ask and answer basic questions. "When do you go to the beach?", "What do you drink?", "Who do you meet". Pretty impressive stuff!

Today one of my students didn't have his notebook, so I said "oh, 없 어 요 ?", which basically means, "oh, you don't have it/ it is not here" and all the kids around him oooh'd and aww'd. I also found that today I could pick out more words as my Korean co teacher was speaking o the students. I'm still a long way off, but its encouraging to be able to understand even a little of what is said. It's also really nice to use my brain again ... I feel like the hours spent speaking the most basic of English to elementary school kids is turning my brain to mush.

So why the French title? I've found that whenever I'm wracking my brain for a Korean word the first thing that pops to mind is the French equivalent of that word. Weird, right? I've haven't studied French since grade 10, and thought it was all forgotten, so where is this coming from!? Since I've been studying Korean so much this week I've also been reviewing French, and "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi" (the only other French lyric I know) just didn't seem appropriate, hence the Alouette lyric as my blog title. Consider yourself informed.

Last night George and I decided to spend some time at the beach since the waves were significantly bigger then usual because of a storm that had passed though. After a relaxing coffee we decided to take a few pictures. Jumping pictures. It turned into a 45 minute marathon photoshoot. I'm sore today from the jumping ... and cartwheels. The 50 or so Koreans hanging out on the beach probably thought we were crazy. Oh well, it was a great workout and so much fun!

I also summoned the nerve to approach the large group of people I see doing open-water swims on any morning that I run along the beach. I figured I'd finally found a triathlon group, but apparently they just like open water swimming, or that's what I gathered from the conversation with a man who only knew a few word in English, but was great at interpreting my charades. They swim from Haeundae beach every morning of the week at 6am, using flippers and snorkels. I'm not sure if I'll be joining them. I need to get in better shape before I attempt my first ever open water swim. In an ocean. More than a km out from shore. In an ocean. For some undetermined distance. In an ocean with seaweed. And sharks.. And crazy marine life that I see in tanks everywhere I walk in this city. Hmmm... doesn't sound like I'm quite ready for it yet!

Plans for this weekend: travelling to an island a few hours away for water sports, hiking and a dinosaur expo! I can't wait :)

Girl, you look like a movie star

2009-05-17T23:54:00.010-04:00

In my last post I mentioned that a news network had visited my school because it won a "beautiful school" contest - check out the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcy5e7irHlc

My weekend turned into yet another Korean party weekend - we sure did a lot more sightseeing when we didn't have any friends here!

On Friday George and I went out for dinner with friends at a burger place on Gwangalli beach. Finding a good burger here is quite the challenge, so I really enjoy Breeze Burns. The burgers are comparable to those at home, and you can't beat the view of Gwangalli bridge at night. It's all lit up and is absolutely gorgeous. After dinner we had a few drinks at Thursday Party and then continued drinking on the beach for a few hours. The carnival in the area was closed, so we bought fireworks from the ajumma who walks the beach at night for that purpose. Fireworks and drinking, sounds very intelligent, right? Don't worry, they're little hand-held ones ... and everyone is doing it hahaha.

Saturday was a rainy day ... perfect for sleeping in. Around 7pm I headed to Erin's for girl's night - what a blast! We all brought bottles of wine and snacks and spent hours eating, drinking and gossiping. Around 2 we made the trek to McDonalds, and then instead of going home decided to go to Noraebang until 5am. You'll remember that my last Noraebang experience was hell for me. I really can't sing, and was forced to perform solo, infront of coworkers and strangers - awful! Saturday night was not like that. The majority of it was spent singing girly songs, with all 6 of us dancing around at the front ... that's my kind of Noraebang! I am shocked to admit it, but I had a lot of fun.

Yesterday was another lazy day, but I decided to try something new, and went to my local Jimjilbang 찜 질 방 (Korean bath house)!!! It was quite the experience. I've been told by so many people how great it is, that its something you must try while in Korea, that its relaxing and fun - I just didn't believe them! I mean, how can being naked around a bunch of size 0 Korean ladies be fun??

Well, I actually enjoyed myself. I was really nervous, because as I checked in at the counter the Korean ladies working started gigging uncontrollably at me. I hoped that wasn't how everyone would react. I was given 2 little towels (hand towel size) and a locker key. You then strip down and carry your towels into the main spa area. They weren't big enough to cover ANYTHING so I didn't bother trying. It was definitely awkward at first, but everyone ignored me and I felt comfortable enough to enjoy myself. There were 3 different cold pool, 3 hot tubs, saunas and steam room, and I basically spent an hour rotating between them. There are also massages and body scrubs available from a Korean lady in her bra and underwear, but I wasn't up for that on my first visit. I could have spent longer but it was late and I was tired. I think that this week George and I will check out the spa at Shinsegae, the largest mall in Korea, with the largest spa in Asia (I think?). It's supposed to be incredible, and I think now that I've experienced a smaller neighbourhood jimjilbang I'm ready for the big leagues!

Aside from that, not much is new here. My charades skills are improving by the day since I rely on them for most of my communications with kids at school, Korean teachers, shopkeepers, waitresses etc.

My chopstick skills have also improved drastically. I think that this is due to the fact that there are onions in EVERYTHING and I am still not enough of a "grown up" to eat onions - I really hate them. I have to pick tiny pieces of onion out of the majority of the dishes I eat.

Tonight George and I went to Korean class in Haeundae beach. Finally! I'm frustrated by not being able to communicate with people here and I think these classes will help me to improve quickly. Tonight we learned who, what, why, where, when and how as well as the verbs to go, to buy and to meet. By combining these we are able to ask some basic questions and respond. We also covered how to ask how someone is feeling, and how to answer that we're good, okay, not well or tired. I am excited to try out some of these new phrases tomorrow at school :)

Hallelujah Hallelujah

2009-05-13T01:46:00.003-04:00

Last night George and I made the trek to Seomyeong, and area of Busan that apparently has a bookstore with a great selection of English books.
We weren't disappointed!

I was so spoiled at home ... able to read a few new books a week, and had a steady steam from the library and Pam. I haven't been able to do much reading in Korea so far and it's been killing me! I brought 4 books with me but they are all long finished, so this bookstore was soooo exciting.

Seomyeon is about a 25 minute subway ride away, and the bookstore was literally steps from one of the exits and clearly marked. The selection of English books was great considering we are in a foreign country, and I managed to cut my selections down to 4, but I'm sure I'll be back soon enough.
I'm happy to have reading material again, especially since I am on the bus for half an hour each morning and night and can only play so many games of sudoku on my cell phone!

Today my school played host to a national news network. Apparently our school was chosen most beautiful in Busan. They seem to spend a lot of money of plants and flowers, which have taken over the entrance ways, hallways and every spare corner, so I'm sure this honour was well deserved. The took a quick video of my afternoon English class, as well as a few other classes that were going on at that time - I'm a celebrity!

I also made headlines last week - in my school's newsletter. The picture of my staff room birthday party made the newsletter, a picture in which I was forced to wear a birthday hat- super attractive! I'm not sure what it said. Again, I need to learn some Korean.

Teaching is going well, I now teach on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons without a co-teacher. For the older students I actually prefer it, but grade 1 can be a little difficult! Their vocabulary doesn't extend much past numbers, letters and very basic words. I often ask, "How are you" and get answers ranging from, "My name is...", to "It is rainy today". Luckily they understand the commands "Be quiet" and "Sit down".
My co teacher brought name tags to class this week and I think I know most of the names of the Grade 1, 3, 5 and 6 students. I'm getting there!

I did some nice intervals on the beach with Erin on Tuesday morning and plan on doing a longer run tomorrow morning and a swim on Friday before work. Add that to the 100000's of stairs I climb daily and I'm staying pretty active!

The stairs here really are wild. To get in or out of any subway station there are at least 4 flights of stairs. And if you have to transfer between lines there are even more ... so a minimum of 16 flights per subway expedition! We usually take the subway about 5 days a week. And I figure that at school I go up and down the 2 flights about 10 times a day between trips to and from classes and the water cooler. My calves are getting huge!

Tonight the teachers from my school are going out for dinner, and if i have time afterwards (and am not dragged to noraebang) I might check out a Korean language class in Haeundae.

Thanks for reading! :)

I like the sound of the ocean crashing, Waves making their way to the beach

2009-05-10T09:54:00.005-04:00

Remember those big plans of mine for the weekend?
They didn't happen.

Instead I spent my time alternating between beach bum and geek. Overall a great weekend!

George and I decided to check out a Korean movie theatre on Friday night and see Star Trek. The Korean theatre experience was pretty similar to the movies back home. The most exciting difference is that you choose your exact seat in the theatre when you buy your tickets, but this was totally unnecessary since there were less then 10 other people in the theatre! The big Hollywood blockbusters are shown in English with Korean subtitles, so understanding was not an issue. There were your regular movie theatre snacks ... popcorn, nachos etc, but also some dried squid, and $2 beer for sale at the concession stand. The movie itself was great, I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. Maybe because my favourite tv bad guy Sylar (aka Zachary Quinto) was Spock?

Saturday I woke up to perfect beach conditions so decided that a beach day was in order. I was also anxious to test out my new bikinis. When I'd had all the sun I could handle I walked the short distance to the Grand Hotel for another swim. Again, only did about 1.5km, but I'm blaming the sun exposure!

Instead of the wild partying of last weekend we decided to have a low-key Saturday night and bought a puzzle from E-Mart ... so nerdy. I don't think I've ever done a full 1000 piece puzzle before, should be interesting to see if we ever get it finished, or if it remains on our coffee table forever.

My race on Sunday didn't happen, after all the confusion I didn't get registered before the deadline - boooo. Need to find another race and get signed up immediately. The one I tried t sign up for in June has been cancelled due to lack of participation so I'll keep looking.

Erin and I went for a run on Sunday morning anyways, then hit the beach again. When it's sunny and 22 what else is there to do?! My 2nd beach day was followed by yet another trip to the movies. This time to see Wolverine ... mainly because the love of my life, Taylor Kitsch is in it. Overall, kind of a lame movie, but I love TK!

And that my friends was my weekend.

Plans for this week include a trip to the English bookstore in Busan, teachers volleyball followed by staff dinner, and possibly checking out a Korean language class.

Where my party, pa-party, party, pa-party people at?

2009-05-07T23:47:00.006-04:00

How does so much time pass between blog entries?

Sorry to anyone who is actually trying to follow this thing - I had a busy week!

There were major 2 holidays in Korea this past week - Buddha's birthday on May 2nd and Children's Day on May 5th. It was also my school's birthday on the 4th so I was lucky enough to have a 4 day weekend.

George's friend Quan was visiting from Seoul so we took him out to Haeundae beach on Saturday. It wasn't exactly sunbathing weather but we had a nice walk, and checked out APEC house on Dongbaek Island.

I had a joint birthday party with my friend Erin on Saturday night which was alot of fun ... maybe even too much fun? Sunday was spent in bed, watching season 1 of Friday Night Lights - best show EVER. My only time leaving the apartment was at 6pm to get more aloe water and bi bim bap takeout from downstairs.

Monday involved some sunbathing during the day, and Monday night involved some serious drinking. We decided to really embrace the Korean bar experience and stay out until 5am when the subway re-opens and it's starting to get light - again, why am I so stupid? I'm still exhausted. The fact that the bars here serve you a steady stream of free snacks as part of the Korean service gift phenomena is great - I love the popcorn and salty spaghetti-like sticks at Thursday party! Anyways, I can now say I've stayed up all night in Korea, congratulations to me.

This is going to be a one-time thing, we have barely gone out since we've arrived, choosing instead to hike, explore and avoid nasty hangovers. I blame Quan's influence.

Tuesday was perfect beach weather - hot and sunny, and we managed to get to Haeundae around noon, even though we'd been out until 6:30 am the night before (a Mcdonald's stop was necessary on the way home). I got a lot of sun and even swam in the ocean for the first time since being here. It was freezing, but after an hour of toasting in the sun, necessary. I must say, my tan is the best it's ever been in early May!

In other news I haven't managed to do too much running ... a 6.5 on friday, 5ish on Monday and 9 on Thursday morning. The long weekend, and subsequent exhastion has made it difficult! I have however singed up with a brand new foreigners running club in Busan, I'll keep you posted on how that goes, we're supposed to be meeting this weekend.

Also on the schedule, a 10km race Sunday morning (maybe). Some confusion over the all- Korean website and registration ... I'm currently not registered (whoops!). Hoping to get some help with that tonight.

Planning on a quiet weekend, probably hitting up the movies tonight to see Wolverine (and more importantly, my favourite, Taylor Kitsch). George has found a baseball team and is going to a practice tomorrow. I'll probably head to the beach (weather permitting) or a public bath house, aka Korean Spa - nudity galore .... hmmmmm.... People I've met say it's an incredible experience once you get over being embarassed, but I have been putting it off.

Check back Monday to see if I ran the race or braved the bath house!!!

Miss you all at home xoxoxox.

Young hearts, run free

2009-04-30T22:04:00.003-04:00

Last weekend during a night of drinking, long after what would be considered "last call" back home I agreed to do a 10km race on May 10 ... almost exactly 2 weeks from the time I agreed - maybe not the smartest idea?

This week I managed to run 8km on Tuesday and 6.5 km this morning. George came along for the 8km run, and we managed to run up every hill in Haeundae ... it was tough! I forgot to wear a watch but I don't think our pace was anything impressive.
This morning I didn't have company, but I managed to maintain a 5:30 min/km pace for my 6.5km run, and it felt good. Nice and relaxed, not too hard ... I'm on the right track.

I've never raced 10km before so I'm just hoping to do it in under an hour. I don't want to make any specific goals until I see how this next (and last) week of training goes, and until I see what kind of crowds are out on the course. For all I know it could be a family walk/run, so I may be trapped behind thousands of people walking with children and strollers, not exactly ideal conditions for making a great time!

In other news, I had a great birthday yesterday. My morning started with a Skype call home, and I got to watch my family eat a birthday cake with my name on it! At school I received little gifts from a bunch of students, had a surprise cake in the teachers room, and was treated to 2 renditions of Happy Birthday. George got my some wonderful presents (including goldfish crackers - my faves, and another pair of sweet sneakers), and took me out for dinner at TGI Fridays on the beach. Overall a wonderful day, even if Koreans insist on calling it my 25th birthday ... I'll stick with my Canadian age, THANK YOU!

Across the universe

2009-04-30T04:11:00.004-04:00

Last Wednesday I got to experience teacher's volleyball for the first time. My school doesn't take it as seriously as some, so it had been cancelled each week since I'd arrived. We left school early, I was pulled out of my last class 10 minutes in, leaving my Korean co teacher to finish out the day. I felt bad about it ("See ya kids, I'm off to play volleyball because it's more important?"), but it was my vice principal's decision, so I thought it was best not to argue! We drove to another school and proceeded to dominate on the court - beating the other team in all 3 games. The level was SO varied. Some of the teachers play in leagues in their spare time, while others have no volleyball skills at all, so it makes for an interesting game. I was stuck in the back row for the first game, and even though it was a 4 man back row (8 on the court total) I was somehow responsible for basically the entire back court. So I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of almost every spike or overhand serve the other team sent our way. The bruises all up and down my forearms have just faded! After winning the first game I was moved to the front row and managed to pull off a few decent spikes, and really changed things up by adding in a tip at one point - I got "oooh"'s and "aahhhhs" - from both teams.

On Saturday George and I ventured to Nampo-dong market with our friend Erin. It's a huge network of streets and alleyways filled with vendors selling a wide range of merchandise. Since Erin and I were only there to find cheap imitation purses I can't really tell you what kinds of things were for sale, but I know there was a lot! I had my first experience with bartering for a better price - and was successful both times. My Korean vocabulary has expanded to include "how much does it cost" and "expensive", both of which are necessary to bargain with vendors.

Yesterday I had to leave school at 1:30pm ( a full 3+ hours early) to go to the bank. I ended up being home by 3:30, which was a 2 hours ahead of schedule. After an apartment cleaning frenzy I decided to make the trip to the Grand hotel in Haeundae to check out their 50 m pool. It's been a full month since my last swim, and almost a year since I last swam long course, so it was tough, but I just went slow and focused on form. The pool itself was old, but the view was AMAZING! It's on the 6th floor of a hotel that's right on the beach, so that alone made me want to go back. I did 1500 m .... decent, but nowhere near what I was doing at home before I left, I need to swim more often!

Gimme one reason to stay here

2009-04-27T02:46:00.007-04:00

Remember that Facebook note that was going around like crazy a little while ago - 25 things about me?

Well, here are 25 things about life in Korea (this may be a long one!):

1. The driving here is WILD. Roads are too narrow, parking spots seem big enough for only smart cars, and traffic signs appear to be considered suggestions, not the law. Many people treat red lights as 4 way stops, pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way and riding in vehicles can be terrifying. That being said, Koreans are spectacular driers for being able to navigate these conditions. To make matters worse - I've yet to see a kid in a car seat here. They're usually sitting on parents laps or hanging out the windows in the back seat - scary.

2. Everyone is polite, even the construction workers! Each morning I walk by a huge construction site and have yet to be whistled at, hollered at, or felt uncomfortable at all. When I walk by each morning and night the guy at the gate bows and say hello, good-morning or good-evening- so nice! This morning he very apologetically told me I was beautiful and gave me a thumbs up and a smile.

3. My newest food obsessions are this incredible aloe water (basically just bottled water with aloe chunks floating in it) and these chocolate filled cereal snacks. Both available 24 hours a day at the convenience store in my building. And he also stocks diet coke, which I've had a hard time finding elsewhere ... sweeet!! My go-to post bar snack seems to be these "drumstick"-like ice cream cones ... I guess its better then poutine and deep fried pickles from city lights!

4. Koreans are obsessed with their cell phones. From grade 1's to elderly people you see Koreans talking, texting or playing games all the time. The phones here are also incredible. They have translators, subway maps, some even have free tv connection. That being said, its SO hard for foreigners to get phones which is frustrating. It's not like at home where you can go into a convenience store and buy a prepaid phone.

5. The public transportation here is great. The subway is minutes from our door, and takes us anywhere in the city. There are also buses that are very convenient. Another note on the subway - it's incredibly clean. The floor actually sparkles! A major contrast from public transportation in any city I've ever been to.

6. Korean women are all about the high heels, at work, out on the town, hiking, on the beach (seriously). When they're not wearing heels (rare), they have on sweet sneakers, preferably Converse. Since I don't do heels, I picked myself up a pair of sneakers after being here a week, but they don't look as adorable on my big feet! Why am I so anti-heel? First of all I'm already towering over alot of people, but most importantly the streets here are dangerous - uneven, broken sidewalks that I roll my ankle on when I'm in flats. I don't need the added risk of heels!

7. Corporal punishment is technically illegal here but it still goes on. I've seen my co-teachers smack a few kids. It's not so much to hurt them, but to get their attention and remind them who's boss, but it still really bugs me. The most common is a flick to the ear, but I have seen a few open handed slaps to the back of the head, although I've yet to see anyone cry, so it must not be that hard (I hope).

8. Eating out is cheap here. The most expensive dinner we've had is a grand total of $15 each, and that's piles of food, beer and unlimited sides. Most nights I'll pay around $5. So far it's been cheaper then cooking at home because Western style groceries are pricey. Also - you don't tip, it's amazing how much money is saved that way!

9. People don't have dryers here. You hang clothes to dry. I'm annoyed with this already, since most of my stuff needs a good shrinking after being worn. I've also had to actually iron - booo!

10. Shopping here is amazing, especially if you're a size 0-2. I've done alot of browsing, and have determined that they do have my size in Korea, it's just one of the biggest, and not as common in the cute little boutiques that surround my apartment. This is probably a positive thing for my savings! Did I mention that Koreans are super stylish? I constantly feel under dressed, but hope to build my wardrobe bit by bit.

11. Squat toilets are quite common here. At subways stations, rest stops, tourist attractions they are the most prevalent, but most of these places have at least 1 Western style toilet. Schools and restaurants have Western style toilets (from what I've seen so far!)

12. There are no smoking bylaws in Korea. This is definitely my biggest issue with life here! People smoke in restaurants, bars, public washrooms - and I hate smoke ... ewww!

13. Cabs are so cheap here. Again no tipping, and a 20 minute ride will cost about $8.

14. Koreans like to drink. A LOT. I constantly see Korean business men stumbling home drunk, carrying each other in the early hours of the morning. Bars are also open all night here - no 2am last call! For example, this morning at 7:40am on my way to the bus I saw 2 men carrying a third down the street after leaving the singing room across from my apartment.

15. There seems to be a serious shortage of garbage cans on the streets. You can go for kms and not see one. Maybe adding some more would cut down on littering? Just a thought.

16. There are water coolers everywhere. In every store, restaurant, school, and even on some buses. This is great since I replaced my diet coke obsession with a water obsession. My favourite is when instead of little paper cone shaped cups there are mini paper bags ... bags of water - genius!

17. Dogs in Korea are funny. Most are little purse sized dogs, I think I've only seen about 5 big dogs in the last month. They're usually tiny and dressed up in some ridiculous outfit consisting of coats, skirts, shoes, sweaters, ribbons, hair clips, or have been died blue or pink. Poor little things! They are also allowed to wander off-leash and hang out on the beach so I guess life is not all bad.

18. Every car I've been in (cabs included) has a sweet GPS. Waaay better then anything I've seen at home, and so much more widespread. Maybe because there are no street names, all directions are given based on landmarks. Street signs have recently gone up, but noone learns them or uses them

19. Korea has a great home delivery system. We've had furniture and plants delivered free of charge, but have yet to venture into the food delivery, mainly because we don't know enough Korean to order over the phone or make them understand where our apartment is. But once we get that under control I'm sure we'll take full advantage. McDonalds even has McDelivery scooters that operate 24hrs a day!

20. From what I've seen and heard, Korean are very image conscious. Everyone is super well-dressed, even the little kids. The is also not a lot of variations on the popular style, for example, the whole emo-teen look that is so huge at home seems to be non-existent here.

21. There are so many sweets here. On the main street near my house there are 3 bakeries within a block. The stuff is amazing in small doses, but when I get sugary toast or hot-dog buns it's a bit much!

22. It can be hard to get the point across to cab drivers here, especially when trying to get to the beach. If you say beach correctly they will not understand, but if you say beechIE, no problem! Same goes for shopping for Coach bags, they are coachIE.

23. How am I managing to fulfill my need to be insanely competitive without tri class or a gym membership? I like to run up all the stairs at the subway station, racing the 95% of passengers who chose to take the escalator (I always win). George and I also stay entertained by calling both elevators to our floor and racing downstairs - the epitome of maturity, I know!

24. Sunbathing is not done here. Everyone is all about the long sleeves and umbrellas on the beach- so very healthy. I prefer to bake in the sun ... which is why 40 year old Korean women have nicer skin then me!

25. To further build on the last point, workout and hiking gear is full coverage. Even in 25 degree weather everyone seems to be in long-sleeves, or even coats, while I'm sweating in a tank-top. I ran last week in my long bike shorts and got chirped by an old lady hahah.

26. I love Korean pop music, K-pop for a true fan like me! Get yourself over to youtube and check out "Gee" by Girls Generation (a 9 member girl group!), "Nobody", "So Hot" and "Irony" by the Wonder Girls and "One more time" by Jewelry ... so catchy! And since the chorusus are in English I can guarentee that if I say any of those words in class students will break out in song!

Alright, that's the end of this novel ... stay tuned for updates on teacher's volleyball, shopping at nampo-dong market and my 2nd giants game.

Up in the gym just workin on my fitness

2009-04-20T20:18:00.004-04:00

Good news: I've finally found the time and energy to start working out again!

The first few weeks here it was close to impossible with all the trips to various offices and stores to set up bank accounts, get medical checks, alien registration cards, and set up our lovely apartment. Even if I had the energy, I would have been hard pressed to find any time!

However, I've finally recovered from the jet-lag and am settling into a routine. I've also adjusted to the cuisine and am now consuming enough calories to actually sustain me in a workout!

Not that I've been inactive, I've climbed mountains, walked the coast, the beach, everywhere! I'd just let my triathlon training slide completely which is disappointing, but a change is underway.

Last Wednesday I ran with a new friend Erin, and on Friday I went with George. There are an extensive network of running paths around my apartment. The paths are tar and rubber, so nice and cushiony, and bordered by tress and flowers, so are visually pleasing. I plan on spending alot of time on them.

This morning I ran to the beach with Erin. We ran the length of the beach then back home, overall a nice 6.3 km jog with some breathtaking scenery. Going before work was a nice start to my day and I hope to do this a few times a week.

As we were heading out on our ferry tour on Saturday I saw a group of people heading into the oean for an open water swim ... I'm assuming some triathletes. I plan on staking out the beach next Saturday in hopes of seeing them again. I'm also going to ask my coteacher to help me contact the lists of triathlon clubs in Busan area since the websites are all in Korean.
I've also found 2 pools nearby and plan on swimming later this week. It will be the first time since leaving home so I'm sure I'll feel like I'm drowning ... great.
Wish me luck!

And if we're lost, then we are lost together

2009-04-20T02:52:00.009-04:00

Somehow it still hasn't sunk in that I spent all day Saturday lounging on the beach, on my way to a rockin' tan .... And it's April!!

April in Canada can mean snow storms and winter coats, and at best lots of rain, and I'm running around here in a bikini ... AWESOME!

George and I also took a ferry ride from Haeundae beach on Saturday after spending way too many hours in the sun. It took us along Haeundae and then Gwangali beach, past Leegidae and finally around Oryukodo before returning the same way. It was neat to see Busan from the water. I could really appreciate how gorgeous it is, with huge mountains framing the city. The hour-ish ride cost 15 000 won, and was definitely worth it.

On Sunday we decided to hike Jangsan, the mountain that's visable from our living room window. Some quick google searches described it as an easy mountain, with lots of flat pathways for those not looking for a huge workout.

At one of the many fitness parks on the way up the mountain

Ya, we clearly did not find those paths!!!!

We started out around 11:15am, and were immediately amazed by the sheer number of people, most of them decked out head to toe in fancy hiking gear, looking like a North Face ad. We began our climb following the crowd and motoring past as many slow-walking people as possible. And believe me, there are varying paces, especially since there are thousands of people climbing the mountain at any time. We'd pass big groups of laughing, talking people, and then be hesitant to stop for water or photo breaks because we didn't want those same people to pass us. Things might have gotten a little competitive, anyone surprised!? We arrived at a picnic location after about 35 or 40 minutes, sweating and out of breath, but excited to continue on to the peak. It was at this point that things went downhill.

There were 2 pathways leading from this point, but the hikers definitely thinned out. I think many chose to end their climb at the picnic area, and since there were all kinds of alcohol being sold there I certainly hope so! We took the path that appeared to be leading uphill, but soon found ourselves doing more descending then anything, and turned around. The other path led to a fork in the road. One direction read "peak", yet seemed to also go downhill, the other had land-mine warning signs but went straight uphill. I convinced George to take the first option. It was going well for about 5 minutes when we reached yet another branch, with 2 paths clearly heading down hill, and another that snaked towards the land-mine zone, but promised to take us to the peak. This was my first climbing experience but I really thought it would be easier to find the peak of a mountain! We chose to take it but after about 10 minutes found ourselves walking alongside barbed wire fence with land-mine warnings every 20 feet. There seemed to be hikers ahead of us so we continued, staying safely on the path. After another 5 minutes I was nearing a breakdown, not sure if I should walk back through land-mine territory or continue to the peak and find another way down. A kind old Korean man saw our distress and convinced us to follow him to safety. Apparently the warnings are there because on the other side of the fence is a military base that is still active today. Either way I was terrified, and angry that we had been stupid enough to wander into an area that could have land-mines. There are no pictures of this section because we were terrified. But before you freak out Mom, I spoke to my co-worker today, he said that's the path everyone takes, it's safe, no ones ever been blown up, the signs are remnants from the Korean war. Either way - scary stuff, I'm taking another route next time!

We made it to the top safe and sound, and WOW! What a view.

We could see for miles, and even picked our apartment out. We could walk around the peak and get multiple viewpoints, and really see alot of the city.

After about half an hour of amazed staring we decided to make our way back down, which was also an ordeal. Again, one would think that getting down a mountain would be straightforward, but apparently it isn't! We must have chose the expert path, because it was wild. I spent alot of time grasping onto tree trunks and ropes strung along the route, hoping I wouldn't wipe out. We walked through almost a kilometer of what must have been a very recent forest fire. Trees blackened, ash covering the ground, and the smell of charred wood. It was enough to make me nervous - again!

After almost an hour we reach a fitness park where 5 trails branched off, and I managed to find an English speaker to direct us to the right one, which happened to start with a 500m climb ... so we definitely would not have chosen it ourselves! Even along this path there were numerous branches and we spent most of the descent wondering if we were ever going to make it off the mountain!

Overall my first mountain climbing experience was interesting. It was an incredible workout, but I could have done without the stress of feeling lost and passing through the land-mine zone. Also, I've decided I like climbing, it was great fun, but the way down kind of sucked!

Will we climb another mountain anytime soon? Stay tuned to find out!

Lotte rae Kang Min Ho! Oh Oh Oh Ohhh, Oh Oh Oh OOHHH!

2009-04-17T08:44:00.007-04:00

Another great week in Busan. We've been in Korea for just over 3 weeks, weird, it seems like longer!

This week saw some firsts for me.

On Monday I had my first Noraebang (Korean karaoke) experience. A teacher from my school invited us out to dinner because her niece's Canadian husband needed someone to speak English to. Tired from the weekend, we were hoping to have dinner then get home early. That obviously didn't happen. We were dragged to do some noraebang. Here's how it works: You go with a group to people to one of the many karaoke rooms that are on each block, and get a private room for your group. There are 1000's of songs to pick from, lighting controls, mics and a disco ball. Everyone must sing. This goes on for hours. Now for those of you who have been subjected to the horror of my singing you're probably already cringing. To make matters worse I had an incredibly sore throat, further increasing my singing disability. And yes, it was that bad ... but surprisingly I actually had fun. I did 1 solo and 2 duets with George. This year is all about getting out of my comfort zone, and if I can get up and sing in front of my friends and coworkers then I can do anything! I'm just chalking it up as the most embarrassing situation I've ever encountered, laughing about it, and moving on.

Another first this week - a Lotte Giants baseball game. I don't even like baseball, but it was the most fun I've had in Korea so far. We went with a group of EPIK teachers and had an incredible time. I can't even describe what a great atmosphere it is ... everyone is SO excited to be in the crowd. There are songs for every player, all of the fans make newspaper pom poms and use them to chant throughout the game. Food and drinks at the stadium are cheap, but you're also allowed to bring in outside food or drink. Walking in, you have to go through a tunnel formed by vendors, all trying to get you to buy their spicy chicken, kimbap, beer or soju ... it's like a mob! The drunkenness inside the stadium is widespread. A friendly Korean man came over and did a number of soju shots with one of the guys in our group. When 4 of the girls went to the bathroom we got so many high-fives from teenage Korean boys. When a ball is hit into the crowd everyone immediately point to whoever caught it, and in Korean chants, "Give it to the baby". Without fail the ball is handed to a baby or toddler nearby. The lucky kid is then hoisted up by their parents and everyone cheers. In the eighth inning orange plastic bags are handed out to the crowd and everyone inflates the bags and puts them on their heads. We all went for the basic style but there were people who had fashioned them into devil horns or even giant bows. Once this happened we were on our feet for the rest of the game, singing along to all of the songs and having a great time. It was hilarious to see 1000's of people with plastics bags tied to their heads. Korea's wild! Then, when the game ends, the bags are taken off and used to clean up all the litter that's accumulated - genius idea! I'll definitely be going back to many games, probably as early as next week.

And the best part? My ticket, 3 beers, shared spicy chicken, caramel corn and hot dog: less then $20!! I love the Lotte Giants!

I would walk 500 miles

2009-04-11T05:44:00.008-04:00

I've had a great couple of days!

Yesterday the teachers from my school went on a field trip. With what is fast becoming typical miscommunication I thought we were spending 6+ hours looking at cherry blossoms. The day contained so much more then that, and was incredible. We travelled to Geongju, a city that was once the seat of the Silla dynasty. Because of that there are an incredible number of tourist sites within a small area, I was lucky enough to see a number of them. My Korean coteacher and the Grade 6 teacher decided to leave early in order to show me 2 extra sites, a temple and tombs. We spent about 2 hours walking around (not not mention up even more hills - my calves hurt!) before meeting up with the rest of the teachers.

We ended up at a lake surrounded by cherry blossoms that had swan topped paddel boats - of course, an amazing photo op. As we were preparing to boat we noticed thick smoke pouring from the mountain at the end of the lake - the 2nd forest fire I've seen this week. Why did noone warn me about this!? I could not help but laugh as 100's of people continued to enjoy the swan boats while water bombing helicopters flew over us to fill up at the other end of the lake, no more then a kilometer away. After boating we stopped to get a better view of the helicopters before heading to dinner.

After a tradition Korean style dinner (which I suprised everyone by enjoying) we set out for a night walk around an ancient king's gardens. The lighting was gorgeous, and I can't wait to see the pictures of one of the teachers who had his digital SLR mounted on a tripod. At about 10 different spots around the lake we stopped and he took individual shots of everyone in our group. Finally, someone who loves photoshoots as much as I do!

Today George and I decided to hit Haeundae beach for coffee and breakfast, and then set out walking around 11.

We walked to the far end (towards Gwangali) of the beach, and along a trail for a way, then turned around with hopes of hiking towards Seongjong, another beach that we hadn't yet seen. We left Haeundae around 1 and after hiking up and over a giagantic hill we found ourselves walking through a number of tiny fishing villages along the coast, all the way to Seongjong. There were incredible sights along the way, and we really felt like we had left the beaten trail. I cannot get over how beautiful Korea is, and today was one of the best days I've had here. With numerous stops for pictures we arrived at the beach ar0und 3:30 and had lunch at a kimbap restaurant before taking a $4 cab ride home.

With my walk Thursday, the field trip yesterday, and our 4 hours of beach walking and hiking today I've probably done at least 10 hours of walking (5 or more uphill!) since Thursday night. My legs hurt!

We arrived home and all I wanted was a nap, but of course, we're in Korea, expect the unexpected (oh wait, that's Big Brother...). The was a b-boy competition on the street outside of our apartment. The music just shut off now, at 7 pm. Needless to say, I'm a little tired, but it has been an incredible few days :)

And days go by, I can feel them flying, like a hand out the window in the wind

2009-04-09T20:26:00.006-04:00

Almost a week since my last post - where did the time go?
Once again we've been incredibly busy.

On Sunday we checked out another of Busan's famous beaches - Gwangali beach. The views were amazing. We got some great pictures of the bridge and the windsurfing lessons going on. Definitely something I want to try once the weather warms up. My brothers are avid windsurfers, and I've tried at home, but always just seem to get blown down the lake!

On Monday I started teaching. English class at my school is conducted in Korean for a large portion of the time. Every so often I'm required to read a sentence from the textbook for the students to repeat. After they marvel at my wonderful pronunciation, (and sometimes even clap) then repeat a few times and promptly switch back to Korean! Hopefully as my Korean co-teachers get used to working with me this will change. For now it's a nice way to ease into teaching, learn about the curriculum and gauge the student's English ability.
Also on Monday - a forest fire! There is a mountain within a kilometre of my school. The fire was on the far side of the mountain, so it seemed close enough that we should evacuate, especially since the school was filling with smoke and there were chunks of ash falling from the sky. However, I obviously know nothing about how schools in Korea are run. We closed the windows and continued our afternoon. At one point I looked out the window and saw the grade 1 girls prancing around the front yard of the school through the thick smoke in their belly dancing costumes - bizarre! Luckily the fire was brought under control and the school was fine, as were all of the houses of our students.
We also applied for our alien registration cards this week. We need this card to stay in Korea. Its our approved form of identification here, is needed to sign up for cell or internet service, and is required to return to Korea after travelling out of the country. Getting that done was a huge relief!
I have had some great dinners this week - Wood roasted chicken on Monday with George, Kimbap on Tuesday with the other foreign teacher from my school, Mexican food on Tuesday with a friend from orientation, and kimbap and soup again last night with a fellow Laurier alum. FYI: Kimbap is kind of Korea's version of sushi. It's the same format - rice rolled in seaweed, but instead of raw fish it is stuffed with a variety of veggies and/or cooked meats, cucumber and picked radish. It goes for approximately $2-3 for a 6-8 inch roll, and kimbap restaurants can be found on every block. I can see this becoming one of the staples of my diet!
I also got my first good bout of physical activity last night in the form of a 2+ hour walk/hike to Haeundae beach and along a mountainous lookout trail nearby. It felt good to get some physical activity in, even though the air quality leaves much to be desired. We haven't been able to see the beach from our apartment at all this week - which means SERIOUS smog - my poor lungs hurt! Below are photos from my walk on Thursday night.

Smoggy!

Haeundae beach and Gangali bridge at night
I think that's it for now - I hope to post again tomorrow. I'm going on a trip with the teachers from my school tonight to a town that is famed for it's cherry blossoms. I am excited, but also nervous about how I'm going to spend 6ish hours speaking to my co-workers! I've been spoiled so far, the other foreign teacher at my school can speak Korean so he does alot of translating for me. I really don't think anyone but my Korean co-teacher and one other teacher speak any English!
Wish me luck :)

Every day is a winding road

2009-04-04T22:03:00.002-04:00

We've been in Busan almost a week now and are both loving it so far. Jet lag has finally caught up to us - on friday night we were supposed to go for drinks with a group of people from our orientation, but a 6:30pm power nap turned into a full night sleep - sorry guys!
After a weekend of rest I'm feeling a bit more alive, and the incredible dark circles under my eyes require a bit less cover up. I think maybe I'm finally on Korea-time...?
The past week has been crazy - we've been busy setting up our apartment, bank accounts, getting medical checks and applying for Korean credit cards so that we can get cell phones sooner. Our free time has been limited so far, but I can't complain, our coteachers have been incredible! They've spent hours after school each day helping us with all of the things we need to do, and we really would not have managed without their help.
We got a real taste of just how spoiled we'd been when we went out for dinner alone last night. We were just hoping that the restaurant had pictures on the menu, or that a server had some english, or that we'd be able to translate a menu item using my Korean phrase book - we were wrong on all counts! It was the first time since we've been here that we'd been on our own for anything. We were taken care of by the orientation leaders and then our coteachers, and finally were in a situation where the language barrier was insurmountable. Somehow George got the point across to our server that we would like her recommendation, so she pointed to something and said beef, and we agreed. What followed was one of the better meals we've had so far. Some kind of soup with mushrooms and beef that you simmer on a burner at your table - delicious! We'll definitely be going back there.
An update on work - I haven't really started yet. I go to school each morning, and sit in my office, but my teaching duties won't begin until tomorrow morning. Also on the schedule for tomorrow, my official introduction to the students and staff. I'll be giving a powerpoint presentation to the entire school tomorrow morning to show them some pictures of who I am, where I come from, and what my interests are. There are only 59 students, and and no more than 15 staff members, but I'm still a little nervous. So far my only real contact with the students was on Wednesday when we went on a field trip to a nearby farm to pick Sok (wormwood) to make a special soup. Mostly the students just ran up to me, screamed hello, then ran away laughing hysterically, but I did manage a few conversations. At my school the students don't have English names, so learning the Korean names is definitely more challenging. I leaned 5 that day, and I think once I'm in the classrooms, seeing these kids a few times a week the names will come more quickly (I hope). It was a really nice morning, enjoying the sunshine out in the country, and I really enjoyed myself.
On Friday I was allowed to sit in on the classes of my afternoon coteacher, and chaos ensued! The kids refused to focus on the lesson with this stranger at the back of the room. Linda, my coteacher was very gracious about the interruption, and let the kids ask me questions, then incorporated me into the lessons, which thrilled the kids. I'm sure in a week the novelty will wear off, but for now, they're pretty excited. From what I understand, they've had 2 foreign teachers before, both male, so I think I may be the first female foreign teacher that many of them have dealt with. Also, these are rural kids, so in their small town they aren't exposed to foreigners like the kids in the cities are.
I think I'm really going to enjoy working at this school :)
After our accidental early bedtime on Friday we were both wide awake by 5am on Saturday and decided it was the perfect opportunity to walk to the beach to see the sunrise. About 15 minutes later we got our first view of the famous Haeundae beach - gorgeous, but I can't even imagine how millions of people can fit on it. The morning was completely overcast so we didn't see much of a sunrise, but being near the water was nice just the same. As we were leaving the beach I saw a woman down at the water running along the beach in a wetsuit and bathing cap, appearing to have just finished an ocean swim - I'm thinking a triathlete! She was headed in the opposite direction, and was too far away to catch up to, but it gives me hope that I'll find a club to train with here.

Just some other points of interest:

More examples of Korean kindness: we went to check out the gym next door, and were having troubles communicating with the receptionist, so a random guy came over and spent 5 minutes translating for us; last night we needed a break from Korean food and decided to hit up McDonalds (gross, I know). We asked a women on the street, and she let us follow her there, then gave us a coupon for a free big mac!; We were looking at plants and the storekeeper gave me a free small potted cactus because I admired it!
Korean food: so far, so good! I still don't think I've acquired the taste for kimchi, but since it's served at every meal I think I'll get there. Our school lunch are great - my favourites items this week: picked quail eggs and salty dried seaweed to wrap rice in.
Our apartment is almost fully furnished. We have a living room chair, tv stand, a sweet tv (just delivered 5 minutes ago) and are just waiting on our futon to be delivered tomorrow. Yesterday George's coteachers took us to an area with rows upon rows of plant shops (nurseries, greenhouses ... what's the correct term?), and we picked out a tree for the living room, and 3 smaller plants for the bedroom.

I think that's it for now, we're heading out to do some exploring .. if I can ever drag George away from our new tv!

Miss you all

xoxo

Feels like home to me

2009-04-02T10:25:00.002-04:00

Here it is, finally, a video of our apartment. We're still waiting on a futon to be delivered on Saturday, and there is a big pile of garbage because we aren't sure about the complicated waste disposal yet, so sorry!
I think you can still get an idea of how great our apartment is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znbj7XA9-5M&feature=channel_page

If that doesn't work search IMGP0611 on youtube (and let me know so I can fix it)!

Gimme them bright lights, long nights

2009-03-31T09:48:00.009-04:00

It’s been a busy few days, sorry to go so long without an update!
Let’s start with Saturday. We had a busy day at orientation, with six lectures, each an hour long, on a variety of topics related to teaching in Korea. I was dreading it, thinking it would be a long and boring day, but the lecturers were suprisingly good. I learned some useful information about co-teaching, the curriculum, activity-based learning and classroom management. After hours upon hours of lectures we went out in Seoul and met up with a bunch of friends from Laurier at a foriegners bar called the Wolfhound. It was so strange to be surrounded by friends from WLU, and it was easy to forget that we were in the middle of Seoul!

Sunday was by far the best day I’ve had in Korea so far! The orientation leaders took us on a full day of tourist activities around Seoul. We started at the National Museum of Korea. I was exhausted from the previous day, all of the lecture time followed by drinking took it’s toll on me, so I didn’t enjoy the Museum as much as I should have. Maybe I’ll go back sometime soon.
The second stop of the day was at Gyeongbok Palace, built in 1935 as the main palace of the Joseon dynasty. It was a massive complex, with intricately carved wooden structures and bright colours, all framed by nearby hills and mountains. It was incredible, and the 2 hours we had there were not enough to explore the entire grounds. Looking back at my pictures now I cannot believe how incredible of a place it is. The fact that it exists in the middle of Seoul, a huge metropolis, is mind-blowing. A must-see site!
The third activity on our schedule was a NANTA performance. It’s hard to explain what it was, but I’ll try my best. First, think of Stomp, you know the group that makes music with garbage cans etc? NANTA is a similar concept, but the stage has been designed as a giant industrial kitchen, and the percussion is done with knives on cutting boards, with wooden spoons on pots and pans, and in a variety of other way, but all involving some kind of kitchen materials. There were 5 actors total, and their drumming ability was incredible. They had scenes where they actually prepared food, and the slicing of vegetables, the sounds of water being poured, and the sizzling of cooking oil were used to make music. This alone would have been amazing, but the show also included sections with singing, dancing, and juggling, AND the entire thing was a comedy. The actors were incredibly talented. I spent the entire show either laughing hysterically, or with my mouth wide open in shock at the seemingly impossible precision of drumming and tricks! I am not doing it justice, maybe trying googling NANTA and see if there are any videos! Another must-see.
Our day finished with a farewell dinner with our orientation group at a nearby seafood buffet .. mmmmmm. I’ve never seen so many types of sushi, there had to be at least 100 varieties, from tex -mex to dessert type ones, with sweet sauces on top. It was wild. Definitely the best meal I’d had in Korea up to that point. We stayed for a few hours, talking to some new friends we’d made – 2 of the orientation leaders who were especially nice.
Monday was the closing ceremonies of our orientation, there was a slideshows, a short lecture on travel opportunities within Korea and we recieved our certificates of completion. Then we said some quick good-byes and boarded the bus to Busan with 10 others from our group. The ride took just under 5 hours and we passed through some amazing countyside. A quick note on the buses here – they don’t have washrooms! However, they only have 3 seats in a row, instead of the 4 you’d expect on a greyhound, so they are alot more comfortable.
We arrived in Busan around 5:30 pm and 2 of George’s colleagues picked us up from the bus station and drove us to Haeundae to look at apartments. It was a great time to arrive, there was enough light to see the city, but it was dark enough that all of the bright lights were on. Wow, Busan is gorgeous! Ocean, mountains, and tons of neon, so pretty. We met one of my coteachers as well as the foreign teachers that are at both of our schools, and went out for a Korean style bbq dinner after seeing 2 apartments. Korean BBQ is delicious – there is a grill set into the middle of the table and you cook your own meat. There are a variety of side dishes served, and you place you cooked beef into a lettuce leaf, roll it up with sauces, side dishes, whatever you want really, then you chow down! It was the best meal of Korea so far.
Since there was not an apartment ready for us, we were put up in a hotel for the night. Both of our schools are in rural areas north of the Haeundae area of Busan. My school is called Jang-An Elementary and has a grand total of 59 students! George works less than 10 minutes away at Wollae Elementary, a school with 360 students. His school is involved in a program where they teach everything in English, so he has to teach 2 math classes! I’m lucky enough to be doing strictly English from kindergarten to grade 6. We are both lucky enough to have another English teacher at our schools. They came for dinner last night, and have been helping our coteachers look for apartments. I haven’t had any teaching yet today, so I’ve met staff members, sat in on 1 class, and spent alot of time online!
Top: My co-teacher Mr. Jeon and I on my first day. Bottom: My school!
It's official - we have an apartment! We just finished moving our stuff in, and have to buy some more major items tomorrow, including a bed and couch. Let me just say, I'm absolutely in love with our apartment. The building is only 3 years old so everything is nice and new and open. Our bedroom has floor to ceiling windows and an ocean view! Anyways, I have to be up early tomorrow for the bus ride to school. Should be an interesting sleep on the hardwood floor tonight - the traditional korean way! At least they're heated! Top: Right outside my front door, on the way to work (and Starbucks) in the morning. Bottom: My apartment building.
More pictures available on facebook, and an apartment video will be posted within 24 hours!

Now it's time to say good night, Good night, Sleep tight

2009-03-27T07:59:00.005-04:00

Just finished day 1 of orientation, and it was long!
Our wake-up call came at 7:30am and was music with bird calls played out of a speaker in our room - it took us awhile to figure out what was going on.
Breakfast was interesting. All of our meals are provided here, buffet style within our residence. Choices for breakfast included eggs, fruit salad, potato salad sandwiches and caesar salad. Needless to say I only ate eggs and fruit salad.
A 2 hour break followed breakfast and I spent some time online and then made a quick visit to the gym located on campus. It was tiny, but it felt good to run! I'm not confident enough to run outside in Seoul, for fear of getting lost. Once I get to Busan I'll make an effort to learn the city, and some more Korean so that I will feel better about venturing out.
Our opening ceremonies included many guest speakers and a performance by traditional Korean instruments which was really neat. This lasted until lunch where I experienced my first real Korean meal. Everything was good, just really spicy. The choices were rice, kimchi, a bunch of vegetables in sauce and a curry type dish.
The afternoon consisted of classes on co-teaching and classroom management, followed by another buffet style dinner. Around mid-afternoon exhaustion hit and it was hard to make it through the lectures without falling asleep even though the lecturers were all very entertaining.
We had a Korean class after dinner that didn't go so well. The levels of students in the class ranged from native Korean speakers and university students studying Korean to people like us who can sound out basic words but have no real working knowledge of the language. After about half an hour of sitting there feeling completely lost someone spoke up, revealed that the majority of the class was confused and the instructor graciously went back to the basics. It was a good learning experience though - I'm sure it mimics how my students will feel when I start teaching - having no clue what I'm saying!
Two volunteers from EPIK (the government agency who we work for) pulled George and I out of the class and asked us to make a decision about our living situation immediately. The head of our board of education will be apartment hunting for us this weekend and needed us to make a choice. They revealed that our schools will be on the outskirts of Busan in a very rural area where there isn't even a convenience store. Each school will only have about 50 students total, and the volunteers told us that this is a real bonus - we'll have small class sizes, and the school will have a real community feel. We were given the choice of living in this tiny town with no access to any stores, restaurants or attractions that Busan has to offer, OR living in Haeundae, a newer area of Busan and commuting 1/2 an hour to work everyday. It was a clear choice to pick the commute. Haeundae is said to be one of the best places to live in Busan. We'll be near the beach, and will have access to everything we need to be comfortable in Korea. The commute will be frustrating at time I'm sure, but it's worth it! Do a google image search and I'm sure you'll agree ;)
Tomorrow is packed with lectures - from breakfast until dinner, and then we're going out with a group of Laurier friends who are all teachers here.
Sunday we're doing the tourist thing - a Buddhist temple, a theatre performance, and Seoul national museum. That's followed by a farewell dinner at a seafood buffet.
Monday we are travelling to our teaching positions in Busan, hopefully by the high speed train which only takes 2.5 hours.
I'm not sure how much time I'll have for blogging for the next few days but I'll try my best.
That's all for today, Madzy passout needs some sleep!

I'm having trouble trying to sleep, I'm counting sheep but running out

2009-03-26T11:42:00.010-04:00

I'm here in Korea .... it's been the longest day of my life, but somehow I'm still awake so I thought I'd try to get in an update before I forget everything.
I've been awake for close to 36 hours now, so this will not be well written - bear with me!

We started out at the Toronto airport with some major luggage drama. George hadn't weighed either of his suitcase and they were both about 8 kgs over the limit, so we spent close to half an hour re-arranging stuff into my suitcases, carry on, and an additional bag he bought. Somehow it all worked out, not too sure how we pulled it off!
We flew to Vancouver and had a few hours to kill, so had a nice Canadian lunch of burgers and fries and just tried to relax before our Vancouver-Seoul flight. We also ran into our friend Wade's parents. He's teaching in Korea right now, and we knew his parents were leaving the same day as us, but had never met them and no idea what they looked like. We somehow managed to pick them out of the crowds on our flight - what a small world!
The 13 hour flight actaully wasn't that bad. I watched alot of movies: Body of Lies, Casablanca, An Officer and a Gentleman and Twilight, as well as read a great book (The Cellist of Sarejavo) and listened to the new Killers album. I tried to sleep throughout, but the noise coupled with my excitment about arriving in Korea made that virtually impossible - I think I had a few 20 minute shut-eyed periods, but nothing resembling real sleep! I think the fact that it was daylight for the entire 20 hours we were in transit also had something to do with it.
We arrived at the airport in Seoul around 5:30 pm and our recruiter Clara was there to pick us up. She was extremely nice, helping us to buy an international phone card to call home, and getting us on the bus to the orientation venue. The bus ride took about an hour and a half through the crazy Seoul traffic but we arrived in one piece.
As soon as arriving at the converted university campus thats used exclusively for international learning we got our room assignments, filled out paperwork to geta Korean bank account, and took a Korean proficiency test. The majority of people haven't learned anything, so George and I who can read the alphabet and sound out words were placed in the advanced section for tomorrow - ha ha ha!
I was so excited to shower and go to bed after over 24 hours awake, but that didn't happen. George's best friend Quan has been here since June or July and insisted on taking us out in Seoul for our first night. We set out from the orientation venue to meet him at a nearby subway station but ended up completely lost, so asked a Korean woman for help. She was so kind, and went in the oposite direction that she'd been heading in order to drop us off at the doors to the subway - so nice!
We went out with Quan and his Korean friend Aileen and had some delicious food - some kind of spicy shrimp with red and green peppers and the infamous soju - the Korean alcohol that I've heard horror stories about. I had a couple of shots, but was too tired to handle the taste - kind of like watered down vodka, but the cheapest stuff - eww! Aileen taught us about some of the drinking traditions in Korea. Age determines who pours the drinks as well as who starts and ends the drinking. She also showed us how to accept and pour alcohol properly. There is alot of custom and respect tied into drinking here and we have alot to learn! Seoul is crazy, so many people, such bright lights, food vendors everwhere, and so much public intoxication - I should have been more overwhelmed I think, but I was too exhausted.
We're up at 7:30 for breakfast then don't have anything until opening ceremonies at 11. I think Im going to try to head to the gym - I am so sore from the hours of sitting down today and really need to stretch my legs!
Goodnight :)

Leaving on a jet plane

2009-03-24T14:19:00.006-04:00

It's finally that time - we're going to Korea!

In a few hours I'm heading to Mississauga for the night then flying out at 9am tomorrow. We'll be arriving in Seoul at 5:30pm Korean time on Thusday (4:30am here).

Packing has been a nightmare - I think only about 1/3 of the stuff I had planned to take actually fit into my suitcases, but they are ready to go after hours of re-arranging. Let's hope Korea has my size of clothing and footwear. I need to re-stock!

Thanks to everyone at home for all of the well-wishes. I'll really miss of of you :)

What I'm looking forward to:

missing an entire Canadian winter
experiencing a new culture... food, language, customs, EVERYTHING
traveling around southeast Asia
working with kids again after long year away from coaching

What I'll miss the most:

my wonderful friends and family
Dexter, my puppy
living on the lake and all the fun that summer brings
slices from pizza villa
the amazing tri group at the Y
driving

My packed suitcases and one sad puppy

Well that's my last blog post from Canada ... I'll update from Korea (!!!!) as soon as I can. We're scheduled to attend an orientation in Seoul until the 30th, before moving into our apartment in Busan, so I'll let everyone know how things are going as soon as I have time and internet access.

Cheers!

Maddie

Celebrate good times, come on!

2009-03-03T19:12:00.005-05:00

Some great news on our journey, FINALLY!

We picked up our visas from the Korean consulate in Toronto today. This was the last document we needed to be allowed into Korea, and the process was long and stressful. Needless to say we were extremely excited!

That excitement carried us back to Peterborough and straight to the slot machines at Kawartha Downs, hoping to extend our luck. $20 each and 5 minutes later we admitted defeat and went home to book our flights.

Miraculously we decided to book tickets on a day when flights were significantly cheaper then any we'd seen. We were expecting to pay around $1000 each but managed to find flights for $716 which included ALL taxes. Thank you Air Canada!

So it's official:
WE'RE LEAVING ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25th @ 9am ... HURRAY!!!!

Feels so good to finally have a departure date!