La nuit en rose... (my pink bday party)

I decided for my birthday that we should have a theme party, and what better theme for a girl than pink?! Milton was happy to go along with the plan and did most of the work to get our house "pinkified" for the event. Our friends we very enthusiastic about the theme and it turned out to be quite a night! Ah, la vie en rose!

Pink Ladies for the ladies in pink :)

The pink enthusiasts gather for a group shot.

Lots of pink gifts for the birthday girl :)

It came down to a close vote as to who had to wear the pink rubber gloves for the duration of the party. And the winner is...

Lucky Matthew!!! He looks so thrilled about his win!


The boys decided to play a drinking game.

their opponents (and the losers of the game):

A few accessories where sent from home - thanks Emma for making it really clear just how old I am this year!

What good party doesn't end with the arrival of the cops to tell you to shut up?! at least I think that's what they meant by "Bipa. Sleep. No."

It was a pinktastical birthday party! and the rest of the weekend wasn't so bad either. Milton took me for a bike ride Saturday and a surprise picnic. Sunday was a nice lazy day spent in the sun at a cafe terrace where we read some books, wrote some letters, and took in some of the fresh spring air! We didn't make it to the cherry blossom festival but that leaves us with something to do next weekend and something to write next week... so stay tuned!

New Caledonia Pictures

It took more than a little while ( a month to be exact) but here are the pictures from New Caledonia I promised. The beauty of the islands is indescribable, and the pictures barely do the islands justice, but they give you an idea of just how breathtaking New Caledonia is.

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 ;)