Update...

Well it's been a while (once again) since I last updated my blog. I'm sure I have some photos I could post from the last few weeks but I thought it might be more important to just add our latest news...

We have decided to stay in Korea!!! We have signed a document stating our intent to renew our contracts and stay in Korea longer. It took us a long time to really fall in love with this place and realize just how good we have it here and we aren't ready to give it up yet! We know that our news will disappoint many people back in Canada, but we are really happy with our decision to stay.

We are currently working out the details of our summer vacation, and are very excited to be heading to Europe for Jean-Marc's wedding, and to get our fill of cheese and wine! Oh life is tough for us ;)

So that's that! and apart from that news we've been keeping busy and enjoying the beautiful Korean spring. We had our own little May 2-4 weekend out on Docho island with Jane and Andy, complete with tennis, beach time, a bonfire, and bbq. We've had several sunny afternoons on the roof top patio and Matt and Kara's apartment, we've been out walking lots and riding our bikes too. This weekend we biked to the harbour on the other side of the city (about a 40min bike ride) to see the action. They set up tables and chairs all along the waterfront esplanade and little trucks pull up and serve fresh raw fish and beer. We met up with some friends who brought pizza as an alternative to the fish, but the roadside beer service was kind of nice.

Milton and I have also both been busy at school helping our students prepare for the Mokpo Speaking Competition. Milton couldn't participate in the judging this time around because he was being filmed by the office of education while conducting a class with his co-teacher. I was quite involved in the competition again, helping out with the top secret topic selection and interview questions, and helping to organize the event to run as smoothly as possible. It turns out that both of Milton's students in the competition won top prizes -- both students will be going on the grand prize trip to New Zealand this summer. Milton's grade 6 student won first place for grade six and I'm not sure what the grade 5 student placed, but it was among top 10 for her to be going on the trip. My favourite quote of the day was the student who gave a personal introduction and said, "I like boys, but I'm not a pervert." I think she likely meant to just confess that she has crushes. The other funny interview was the boy who liked spiders and started stripping in the middle of the interview to show us the t-shirt under his school uniform that had tarantulas on it. It was a very entertaining day.

This week and weekend will be pretty quiet - no plans yet anyways, but we've booked off June 22nd to head to the beaches in Busan for a long weekend. Busan has the most famous beaches on mainland Korea. We're hoping to get some nice beach time in before they get crowded with the summer vacationers and before the rainy season starts. There is an amazing aquarium in Busan that I'm excited to see, and we've also heard there is great shopping and good food in Busan so we are really looking forward to it!