February Vacation in Australia et la Nouvelle Caledonie!!!

Life's a beach!

I've been away from my blog for the past month enjoying the sun and sandy beaches of Australia and New Caledonia. I'm going to keep the typing to a minimum and post mostly pictures as they will be a better testimony to what I saw and experienced than what my words can probably describe.

In brief though, the trip was FANTASTIC! We started off with a week in Mt Martha outside of Melbourne (like Guelph to Toronto in size and distance) where and met up with Scott and Emma at the airport and stayed with Allyce, Alan, Riley and Carly. We spent the week at the beach and also popped into the city for some exploring. That week we experience one of the hottest days on record for the last 100 years -- about 42 degrees where we were and 46 in Melbourne!

Our second week we took off with Scott and Emma on a coastal drive from Melbourne to Sydney. Some of the major fires started breaking out that we and we had to dodge a few along the way, but weren't detoured too much. We stayed in Lakes Entrance, where we got out to Raymond's Island to see the koalas, Merimbula, Bateman's Bay, where we saw the kangaroos at Pebbly Beach, a night in Kiama with a trip to the Minnamura rainforest, spent Valentine's Day in Bondi beach and ended our week at the Rocks in Sydney .

Emma and Scott Flew back to Canada from Sydney and Milton and I got on a plane to New Caledonia where we spent 10 great days exploring the "Paris of the Pacific". We stayed in Noumea for the first 5 nights and then spent a weekend on Ile des Pins, and finished our stay at Anse Vata. We had great luck and only had one day spoiled by rain even though they are in rainy season this time of year.

We got back to Australia for 4 last days of vacation which we spent back in Mt Martha with the fam. We did a bit more exploring in the city and in Mornington and ended on a lovely last evening out at a really nice Indian restaurant taking advantage of the variety of foods that exist outside of Korea!

Now it's back to reality - official vacation is over and the new school year started today. It's not so rough though, I have no classes to teach this week until they work out a schedule for the school.

So enjoy the photo journal and feel free to leave comments (following the link just at the bottom of this posting).

The little beach sheds at Mt Martha

Melbourne skyline at dusk taken from Southbank outside of the Crown casino.

Family dinner on our last night all together in Mt Martha.

Dodging fires!

Sleeping koalas on Raymond's Island.

The blowing sand and Scott at Merimbula beach (bay side)

Kangas at Pebbly beach.

Hyam's Beach , a little hidden paradise-- whitest sand and bluest water!

Sista's and bro at the falls in the rainforest.

Bondi Beach a day after the two shark attacks!
Sydney

note: check back in a day or two for the New Caledonia pictures... I'm still in vacation mode and too lazy to upload anymore today ;)

I've been lazy with the blog, but not so lazy in my daily life!

It's been a while since I last posted anything on my blog - I've been too busy having fun and working a bit too.

January 5th I started back at school teaching what they call an English camp. Poor kids in Korea don't get any breaks! They are told that school is "camp" to trick them into going when really it's just like summer school. It was only a two and half week camp, and I only taught half days, but I am so happy that it is over! I had two 1 1/2 hr classes per day: the grade 4-6 class and the grade 1-3 class. Yep, they left mixed three grades for each class and gave me no direction as to what to do with them!

I figured things out for the grade 4-6 class that I saw first everyday as their English skills were a bit better than the younger kids and because there were fewer of them.


The headache came from the 24 kids in the grade 1-3 section. Not a single one of them knew more English than a few colours and letters of the alphabet, and 2 of the students had special needs. I was not impressed with my school for abandoning me with this! Who mixes this many kids of such different skill and learning levels together, and for an hour and a half period at a time?!?! crazy Koreans do, that's who! I did my best to keep them busy with games and songs that involved A LOT of activity, but there were always a handful of kids that ran around me in circles and the one boy who is somewhat autistic I think, who just kept repeating "Teacher, teacher! Airplane. Airplane. Merry Christmas" followed by some ranting in Korean, day after day!!!


There was one day that was almost a snow day and that gave me a bit of a break. I had only 5 students show up for the first class and the Koreans are so confused by the snow that one girl thought it was appropriate to bring her puppy to school. I didn't mind one bit as it was the cutest puppy ever and gave us all something to do instead of work!



On my way to school that morning I also got a second example of the snow use of a dustpan... not only does it work as a snow brush for cleaning cars, but as a shovel for clearing the storefront for customers.


Now camp is over and I am now on vacation for the next 40 days!!! I celebrated my first day of freedom by hiking up Ibamsan with Milton. We ran into our friends on the way to the mountain who were also headed for the climb and so we had a nice group hike. We got a nice view of both sides of the city from the top.

We could see our side of the city (Hadang) and our apartment, along with the dozens of other apt buildings there are.



And we could see Yudal mountain and shinae (the old part of the city) which are the other side of the city.



I also got a nice shot of the museum district which I quite like - I was at the ceramics museum last weekend painting a mug and a plate. Nice that they have all the museums grouped in one area so that visitors can do them all in just one day.



Milton and I also did a hike last week on one of my afternoons off. This mountain doesn't seem to be labelled on our map, maybe because it is in the newest part of the city called Namak. It was a snowy day which provided some nice scenery of snow covered bamboo.






I could even see my school way off in the distance - It's the one with the white roof out in the middle of nowhere.





It was a bit snowy at the top!

When the sun finally came out for a few minutes, we stopped for a little picnic to refuel for the descent. And just so you can all see, I DO eat some Korean food! - after picking out the surimi or other traces of seafood of course ;) This is Milton's new favourite snack kimbap - rice and veggies rolled in seaweed.

Apart from camp and our hikes, I've been busy dumpster diving, as we call it. There really are no dumpsters involved, but people in Korea don't like having old or used stuff so they put it in designated spots by the apt building or just anywhere in the street really, and it's free for the taking. I found a nice cosy chair for the living room last week, and this week I found a bike!

We will be taking it easy for the rest of the week - getting lots of reading done and catching up on sleep. The lunar new year is this weekend with the arrival of the new moon and we've got plans to celebrate Saturday and Sunday night and maybe stay up for the sunrise on Monday morning.

Next week we are headed to one of the nearby islands to visit some friends - Milton is pretty excited for this as there was talk of us being lent a scooter for the time we are there! And then we are off to Seoul at the end of the month to catch our plane to Australia and then to New Caledonia. We can't wait! and we will be sure to post pictures of the nice sunny beaches to make you all jealous ;)

Christmas in Korea

Christmas in Korea was like no other Christmas I've ever had before!

The excitement and gift opening started on the morning of the 24th just after I finished writing my last blog entry. Emma called through on Skype because mom was over at her place, and knowing that it was the day before Christmas already in Korea, they wanted Milton and I to open our gifts. Milton wasn't awake yet, so in true Christmas morning fashion, I woke him up so we could open presents!!! The photos aren't great - we were too busy taking inventory of our loot to take pictures - but the living room floor was covered in surprises sent from home. You can hardly see our tree because it's lost in all the goodies!


We also managed to get in what we could for a Christmas morning family photo complete with bed head, glasses and mismatched pajamas. Elissa is missing, but Scott, Emma, mom and one of the cats are there and you can even see Milton in the small web cam box in the bottom left corner.

(By the way Em and Liss - those are my 25$ glasses I was telling you about - you'll have to send your prescriptions so I can get you some too - steal of a deal compared to Canada and the guy makes them while you wait!)

After Christmas-eve morning at our place, Milton and I headed to Gwangyang to spend Christmas even and Christmas day with some friends. We spent Christmas eve in a noraebang - how Korean of us! What better way is there to spend the evening than singing and dancing in your own private karaoke room with flashing lights and tambourines when you can't be with family???

Christmas day was as normal as we could make it - we opened gifts and ate and ate and ate all day while we watched Home Alone 3 and played games. Milton and I had lugged our oven on the bus with us and everyone contributed to our fantastic Christmas dinner. Milton and I made tourtiere and caesar salad, there was duck and smoked turkey, home-made Ukrainian perogies, and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. Milton was also happy to find Bailey's Irish cream for his Xmas morning coffee.

Everyone did their best to fill in for families with the traditional Xmas stocking stuffers and gifts. Milton is really happy with this year's toothbrush that has a suction cup bottom!


Our favourite gift was the matching underwear we received. The big trend in Korea is to match your partner and everywhere you go you see this. Either matching underwear, matching Mickey mouse sweatshirts, matching polo sweaters --- no joke, couples call each other and plan their outfits before dates because they ALWAYS match!


I don't think I've ever laughed so much at Christmas! Kerry and his friend Kendall who was visiting, are two retired Yuk Yuk's comedians and they had us laughing the whole time which was a good distraction from thinking about how much we all missed being with our families. I don't have a single photo of Kendall where he isn't pretending to be asleep - here he is "asleep" while opening Christmas gifts.
Kerry was happy with the Korean sticker we gave him - he put it on his guitar.

And Jen and Ed look cozy and cute under the Xmas blanket we gave them.

Milton and I returned to Mokpo on boxing day and have been taking it easy ever since. We are enjoying our time off and we decided we'd have a quiet new years eve tomorrow after all the Christmas excitement.

Hope you all had a great Christmas day too and that you have a fantastic time ringing in the new year tomorrow night!

The Holiday Season

Well it's early morning Christmas eve -day and I guess I'm practicing for Christmas Day - because I'm up at 7am and it's my first day of vacation! Christmas isn't a very big deal in Korea despite the significant christian population. I've heard very few stores playing Christmas music, there were no flyers with Christmas specials, and no Christmas lights up anywhere. And with no snow in Korea it hardly felt like Christmas was on it's way :(

We did make a great effort though not to let the season pass us by unnoticed! Milton and I had a Sunday afternoon Christmas open house early in December. We served vin chaud and everyone brought their favourite Xmas baked goods for a baking exchange.

We also went to a "Christmas sweater" party at Dean and Chelsea's, where they served home-made eggnog and they managed to make a cheese ball with some special ingredients sent from Canada.

We didn't have Christmas sweaters and had to make our own. Milton put a red Christmas bulb on a white t-shirt and said it was Rudolf in a snowstorm. I was all the other reindeer. I had my students trace their hands for the antlers and make me some reindeer that I pinned to my sweater.

The next event was a UNESCO dinner in Gwangju. A free buffet dinner and entertainment from each of the countries that had representation. We chose to sign Christmas in Killarny and Rudolf the red nose reindeer - not necessarily Canadian songs but the Koreans all swayed in their chairs and looked pleased with our performance.

We had another Christmas party last weekend and a secret Santa gift exchange. Milton had asked Santa for an air soft gun so he could play with his friend Matt who also has one. All the kids in Korea play with these little guns that shoot plastic bbs and every time I walk to the door of our apartment I'm worried that I'll lose an eye. Now I have to worry in my own apartment while Milton is doing target practice sitting on the couch and shooting at a mug on the kitchen table!

OK, OK... I'll admit, it was kind of fun to hear the "ping" sound of the mug being hit when I had a go at it. And it was also fun when sometimes I'd miss and hit Milton, but that was totally accidental ;) So maybe it wasn't such a bad Xmas gift.

Milton and I also made great efforts to create the Christmas atmosphere in our apartment. We had set up a Christmas tree at the end of November and the only music we've listened to for the last month has been Christmas music. I even bought a new french Christmas cd online.

We received our two big Christmas care packages from my family early in December and have had fight off the temptation to open them for what seems like forever! But we were strong and have left them untouched under the tree and can't wait to open them!

Also in attempt to keep with our Christmas traditions as much as possible, this past weekend Milton and i spent the entire day Sunday making our tourtiere for Christmas dinner. We did our best with what we could find in Korea and they look like they should be pretty good. we even made a few extra for the freezer that we will enjoy later in the year!

And so Christmas eve-day is here and it is our first day of vacation. We will be heading to Gwangyang tonight to spend Christmas eve and day with two other couples we've become good friends with here in Korea. We will be having tourtiere and perogies and cinnamon buns for Christmas morning. I've even passed on the Walpole girls' tradition of the Xmas drink contest, where every couple must come up with a Christmas drink to serve to the others and we vote on the best one. we will be relaxing quite a bit after that and enjoying our vacation.

Milton is now off from now until march 3rd, and I'm off until January 5th when I'll have to go back to school and teach a winter camp --- like summer school in Canada. And then my big vacation will be from Jan 20-march 3. We've booked our trip to Australia For the month of February to visit Aunt Allyce and Uncle Allan, and to meet up with Scott and Emma. Milton and I will also be booking flights to New Caledonia to get to the "Paris of the Pacific" - we've already found a restaurant online that is a 20$ all you can eat baguette, cheese and wine buffet!!! we are seriously suffering in Korea with no cheese.

We've heard that in Canada there have been several snow storms ensuring that you all have a white Christmas. We are really missing home this holiday season. We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season! Love to you all, ellen xoxox

photo of Mokpo under snow a few weeks ago ----no white Christmas for us :(

Mokpo under snow

We were told that snow is somewhat rare in Mokpo - accumulation of snow anyways - and Mokpo saw it's first snow covering of the season this weekend. There were flurries all day Friday but only about 5 cm covered the ground when we woke up Saturday morning. Milton and I decided to go out and see how the city was handling the snow and what we saw was pretty amusing!

The Koreans were so distracted by the snow that they all seemed to walk right past the 10 000 won that was laying in the middle of a crosswalk. I had no trouble missing the bright green bill in the white snow! Lucky start to the day for me!

Koreans certainly are creative when it comes to cleaning off their cars:

I guess snow is so rare that snow brushes are hard to come by! The dustpan was our favourite, but we also saw brooms and rolled up newspapers being used.

How many Koreans does it take to shovel the entrance of a grocery store???

Answer: 12.

In Canada 5 cm of snow is only a dusting and most people don't even bother shovelling their driveways! If these guys had waited another half hour the sun would have melted the snow like it did on the street in front of them.

The kids really seemed to enjoy the snow. There are mountains in Mokpo but no hills for tobogganing so the kids settled for small concrete ramps that led to their apartment buildings. their sleds were quite cute too - they also had to be creative, and used whatever was on hand. Here the girls used cardboard boxes.

This kid was super lucky and seemed to have a small home-made wooden sleigh. He's so cool! ;)

I won't lie...

Milton and I had fun in the snow too! It's finally starting to look a bit like Christmas. The flowers that were still blooming last week were pretty, but they just didn't cut it for Christmas.

That's the last flower we'll see until spring I think. It's official - it's winter in Korea!