Surprise Mail ...

Dear Aunt Jean,

This is a special post just for you since you are our #1 blog reader.

We received a very nice surprise in the mail this evening. It seems to have taken it's time getting here - almost two months from the date it was post marked! But like you said in your card, the Christmas cake tastes better with age! I let Milton open it since he receives less mail than I do and boy did he go at that tape with lots of eagerness and anticipation! He tore right through all the wrapping and served himself a large slice of cake and then a second slice before I had even finished reading the card! No time for photos or anything which would have enhanced this blog entry ;)

He doesn't want to share with the Koreans - he doesn't think they will appreciate it enough. We will however have some of our friends visiting this weekend and I'm sure they will enjoy the Canadian treat with us. Thanks for thinking of us and for going to the trouble of sending it all the way to Korea. We hope you had a great Christmas and new year!

We celebrated Christmas again this year with our close friends here in Korea. As always when we get together, it was non stop laughs which help us forget how much we miss our families.

We played lots of silly games, like this one in which you must pick up the box with your teeth and not let your hands touch the ground. A real test of flexibility as the box gets smaller and smaller each round!

Me and two others were the winners - once the box was gone, we had to pick up an m&m from the floor - who knew I had such amazing hidden talents?! ; )

New Year's eve was celebrated among friends as well. We had a theme party at our apartment - beauty and the geek - can you guess who went as what?!

We even got some Korean friends to come out, which is extremely difficult to do when they know there will be only foreigners present. This is a teacher from Milton's school Song Ne and his wife, who have become very good friends of ours. They were quite in awe at what goes on at a foreigner's party - all the mingling, and people helping themselves/serving themselves while the hosts do the same. In Korea, there is one boss or head drinker who dictates what and when people eat and drink. Korean celebrations all take place seated around a table whereas at our party (like all western parties!) most people stood in the kitchen and moved from one conversation to another. It was really neat to share our party with them.

The holidays are over and we are now both teaching camps at school for the month of January - camp is the Korean word for summer school, but we are working away on our vacation plans for February - a trip to Laos and Thailand, can't wait!!! Hope you are all surviving the cold, snowy Canadian winter. You aren't alone --we've had more snow in Korea than I thought possible and it's still coming down!

October School Picnic

Thursday was our fall school picnic day. Our school went to Kangjin - about an hour away from Mokpo. The region is known for two reasons: it produces some of the finest pottery in Korea, and it was home to a very important philosopher.

There isn't much to write about. It was a gorgeous fall day and it was fun to be out of school, but I'm not super interested in celadon and not many of the posters at the philosopher's museum where bilingual so I'm not really sure why he was so famous. He did build some sort of pulley system that helped build a bridge/tower in Suwon.

I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few to show you what my day was like:

I hung out with the kindergartens for the morning and we made some mosaics out of some broken pieces of the famous green pottery in the traditional shape known from this region.

The kinder kids are so cute!

The famous pottery:

I had the great fortune of coincidentally running into the students from one of my online classes. Their school left the island for the day to do the same picnic as us. I recognized them first, surprisingly since I was the one that stood out the most among all the people at the museum! They walked right by me while others shouted and pointed at me, and I chased after them to introduce myself. This was very cool because the students live way out in rural areas, mostly on islands in the most southern part of Korea. The only interaction they have ever had with a foreigner is via Internet and I only get to see them online too so it was pretty special to run into them and be able to talk face to face instead of on the computer screen.

After the ceramics museum we did a little hiking at the former residence of the philosopher (I don't even know his name) and his little mountain was quite a nice place to do lots of reading, studying and thinking.

Getting some fresh mountain spring water after the hike up.

So although the venue wasn't super exciting it was a great day and an nice escape from the classroom :)

I'm a bad blogger ...

Months have gone by and I have not been back to update my blog ... I'm a bad blogger. Shame on me! But I've been too busy enjoying myself to spend that much time updating and adding photos. I've made a resolution to try to be back at least every other week so we'll see how that goes.

There was no entry for August because Milton and I were away the entire month. We spent a week in Seoul exploring the big city before heading to Europe for three weeks. Milton did a much better job than I did of getting back into blogging and posted pictures from our trip. I wont spend an hour retelling my version of the story, but it was an amazing trip full of great sights, amazing food, and good friends. It was enough to convince us that we MUST live in Europe at some point, but we'll make it back to Canada for a bit before that happens!

Our return to school wasn't bad. It was nice to sort of know what's going on and what's expected of us on a daily basis ... as much as we can know that is, with all the craziness that goes on here! We got in several trips to the beach in September too, as the nice summer weather was just beginning! (rainy season had ended and the unbearable humidity had ended by the beginning of Sept.)

Milton and I both took on some extra work this semester too - we are both teaching online English classes 4 days a week. It's demanding a bit more patience that I had expected. Things went pretty well last semester with just the 2 days of online teaching per week, but with 4 classes, the cancelled classes and rescheduling conflicts and the general craziness has doubled (logically)!

The big news for me in September was that I made the final payment on my student loans and I am now OSAP debt free!!! I rewarded myself with a new hobby and a new guitar! I can't do much with it yet, but I'm working on it :)

Other than that, we've just been enjoying the beautiful fall weather on weekends, sitting outside at cafes reading books and writing letters. We're working on a little trip to Seoul for next weekend to get a tour of the DMZ. I will definitely have more to write about after that and hopefully a few pictures to post too.

Hope everyone is well back home and that everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Milton and I had a stuffed, roasted chicken with some Swiss Chalet dipping sauce (sent from Canada!) and thought of all you!

I promise that there will be more posts coming soon!...

Boryeong Mud Festival

What can I say about the Boreyong Mud festival??? ... We went to a city about 2 hours north of Mokpo and when we got there we played in the mud!


I don't have much time to write so I'm cheating and here is what the net says about the festival:
The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual festival which takes place during the summer in Boryeong, South Korea. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2006, the festival attracted 1.5 million visitors to Boryeong. The mud is dug up near Boryeong, trucked to the Daecheon beach area, and dumped at a 'Mud Experience Land'.The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics.


The town fathers and mothers discovered that the mud is more lucrative as a tourist attraction than using the muddy fields for agriculture.



Here are the photos:

Clean, and in our matching outfits.

Still clean...About to take a filthy plunge...

MUDDY!!! :)

Nice shorts Mr Clean!

After 2 days of fun in the mud (and the rain of course because it is still rainy season!) we have soft, healthy skin!

We are now off to teach a 5 day overnight camp in Geoksong ... more adventures to come!

ODDS and ENDS...

I've been neglecting my blog for a little while now and have a few odds and ends of things that I wanted to add to it, so on this last day of school while I sit alone in my classroom with no lesson planning or teaching to do, I thought I'd get to work on the blog!

Odds and ends from school:

My school was selected to be a study school for incorporating English speaking into the everyday lives of the kids. What this translated to was that the students had a list of sentences that they worked with every two weeks that had to be memorized and then presented in a dialog or in memorized speech form. I had to give an oral mark to each student every two weeks based on these sentences. I was really not involved in this project at all, which is a shame because I think I could have helped out in a few areas. For starters, in the beginning, no one ever asked me to proof read the sentences that the kids had to memorize. Many of them we grammatically incorrect or didn't make sense in the context in which they were being used. Towards the end of this semester my co-teacher caught on to this and had me proof read. I would have been happy to help come up with some of the topics and sentences though too if they would have let me be involved. I also would have been happy to help come up with the testing and marking methods as these made no sense at all and essentially marks were pre-determined for each students before they even spoke. I've learned though that I just have to shut up and go with the flow because in Korea they really aren't interested in "teaching" or "learning", they only want to memorize, pass the test, and never speak English again.

I did however get a kick out of this weeks sentences, and my co-teacher's sense of humour!

I do like lots of Korean foods, but I am constantly made fun of and of course open criticized because I pack my own lunch everyday rather than eat the cafeteria meal which consists of white rice and fish soup everyday!

These next two examples as to why my school should have me proof-read, are from the beginning of the semester when I had co-teacher Kim #2. He is the one who quit after 3 weeks because he had "hypochondria and melancholy" -- LOL!!!

This here is the "bellutin" board in my class where I hang student's work.

I also get lots of natural light in my classroom if I open the "blinder".

Odds and ends weekends:

Before rainy season started, we had a few great weekends at the beach with Jane and Andy out on Docho Island. The island isn't far from Mokpo, an hour on the fast ship, and two hours on the slow, car ferry. Milton and I usually opt for the slow ferry because it is a third of the price and the ride is much smoother ---no motion sickness for me even when I don't take gravol which is a huge accomplishment!

This is our boat:
The other reason we like the slow ship is because you can sit outside for the ride. The fast boat is kind of like a greyhound bus on water --- the seats are comfy but there is no fresh air and its really stuffy!

A quiet day at the beach! Andy made this nice parasol out of a broken umbrella and a bamboo stick. The pagodas on the beach are really nice, but you have to lay on the sand at the beach - that's what it's there for!

There were NO Koreans on the beach at this time. There are unwritten official rules of beach and sun exposure in Korea. Beach time does not start until school is out and rainy season is over. And ends once school starts again. This gives Koreans a one month window to enjoy the beautiful beaches! We were there in May and June which means we are "crazy waygooks"!

Updates from the Tampole apartment:

We had some plumbing done about two months ago. We had no hot water in the bathroom and it took three visits from plumbers and engineers (?!) to fix the problem. This is what the repair looks like:

This was a normal looking shower/bathtub before the repair, but we are now left with the pipes coming into the tub instead of behind it and holes where the faucets used to be. If you think this is bad though, you should see whats on the other side of that wall! The pipes were put in and left totally exposed in a side wall of our spare room/study. There are also exposed pipes on the balcony but at least they are tightly tucked up against the wall and are much less noticeable. We do have hot water now and amazing pressure! :)

And finally, it was a sad, sad day at the Tampole apartment a few weeks ago. Milton had to say goodbye to one of his most cherished possessions...

Dear Santa, a.k.a Mom, please send Milton a new dish mop for Christmas. :)

Rainy Season in Korea

Rainy season is upon us here in the ROK. WE have not seen the sun for more than about an hour in almost 2 weeks now. I've had to give up riding my bike to school as I cannot ride and hold my umbrella at the same time. I've been walking and taking cabs when the rain is more like a monsoon! I've learned that cab drivers will stop for foreigners only when the weather is nice. They like to make us suffer when we will get wet. I usually end up walking half way on the worst of days before a taxi will finally stop for me. Of course on these days, they like to add to my frustration by insisting that my Korean speaking skills have somehow reverted to non-comprehensible! Funny, I've never had a hard time before getting a cab driver to understand two words: Imeong Hakyo, the name of the village Imseong, and Hakyo means school. I've learned in the last two weeks its not even worth trying to add "elementary" to hakyo because that's just too hard for them to understand even though we are the ONLY school out here!!!

I decided to bring the camera to school with me yesterday to document the incredible amount of rain that falls in one night. There is only one road leading to and from my school and last week it was flooded, which was pretty surprising to me since the roads are raised at least a meter above the rice fields around it, and there are ditches at least a meter deep on either side of the road. After 5 minutes of repeatedly trying to direct the cab driver yesterday, he stopped on the road leading to me school, about 300 meters short of where i needed to be dropped off. There were cars lined up on the street but i couldn't see why. When I saw people getting out and taking their shoes off to start walking I realised that the road was flooded again. I begged the cab driver to keep driving as I was not about to walk through the filthy water in an area where I had seen a HUGE green snake last week (we're talking at least a meter and a half long and at least 2 inches in diameter! -yikes!). So the cab drove on and got me to my school which was just on the other side of the flooding. Here are the pictures I managed to take, along with some pictures I took this morning as the flooding has subsided.

This picture is a bit deceiving... the water isn't actually up to the windows of the cab but that is a field along side the road that is just completely flooded from the early morning rain.

The fence in the background is the entrance to my school. You can faintly see the principal and vice-principal, who were standing at the entrance to make sure all the kids got through the water safely to school.

Above: Here are some of the walkers and my cab going back into town.

Below: The same road today -- no rain last night!

This here that looks like a lake is normally rice fields. The red in the background is the post office that i usually go to to send pen pal letters home to Em. Normally, there is a sidewalk/path that runs along the telephone poles - you can see the end of the path that yesterday led right into the lake!

Below is a picture of the same field, taken today. There is still a lot of water in the fields but you can now see the tips of the rice plants.

This is the ditch along the side of the road beside my school. The perspective isn't great, but the ditch is still half full of water. The ditch is at least a meter deep and the rice fields are on a raised beds - like steps all the way up to the mountain.

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!