Celeb for a weekend

This weekend was quite a fun one! Milton and I had volunteered to participate in a weekend of cultural exchange with Korean Middle school students from around the province but were told little about it and we didn't imagine we would have as much fun as we did! The camp takes place over three days at this nice little retreat/educational facility in the mountains in Damyang (near Gwangju). This year was the 5th annual Seong-Am International Cultural Awareness Youth Camp to be exact and it is hosted by the International Youth Education Foundation which is a division of UNESCO. The Jeollanamdo office of education is an official sponsor and this is how we found out about the camp and were invited to participate.

It was an early start for Milton and I that morning. We were up at 5am and on the bus to Gwangju by 6:30, at the meeting spot at the National Museum in Gwangju just after 8am, where we were supposed to meet about 25 other volunteers and get on buses at 8:45. It turned out that we actually had to wait until 10am to leave the museum parking lot because the students were at the camp ahead of us and had something planned for our arrival that they scheduled for 10am. It was a bit of a long wait, but well worth it...

When we arrived at the camp all the students were gathered outside holding signs with our names to welcome us. I was the first one off the bus and first to walk through the screaming crowd of kids like i was some sort of famous celebrity. It was the most amazing welcome i have ever received!

Once we got inside we were directed to our seats in the auditorium for the official opening ceremony of the camp. We were each called up on stage one by one and greeted by our 3 students who would be our "buddies" for the weekend. They gave us our name tags and put them around our necks as if the were Olympic medals while all the other kids in the crowd cheered for us. I had two girls and one boy in my group, but you wont see any pictures of the boy because he was super shy and pretty much hid from us all weekend.

Be sure to get a good look at the poster they made me. I love the united Canadian-Korean flag!

The feeling of being famous didn't stop at our arrival. I have never received so much attention from people in my life! The entire weekend kids were asking if I wold pose for photos, they all wanted to touch my hair, the girls told be i looked like Barbie, and the boys all shouted "actress" and "movie star" whenever they saw me. My favourite story is that when two students from another group found out that I lived in Mokpo where they live, they screamed and jumped up and down and gave each other double high fives! It was a major ego boosting weekend but that's not the only reason it was so much fun...

The group of teachers was mostly made up of people from Canada and the USA, but a group of foreign university students were also participating in the weekend, and were from Nepal, China, Gabon, and Tanzania. Friday afternoon we all divided into teams to cook and share some food from our native countries. This was a really fun afternoon and such a good meal afterward! Our team made donuts using a traditional Christmas recipe from Quebec. Everyone loved our contribution and the kids loved getting their hands all mucky making them! We also ate some super spicy chicken dishes, tacos, french toast, different rice dishes, and lots other yummy non-Korean food for a change!

After dinner we were treated to a spectacular show! There was a clarinet concert, followed by ballet and modern dance, and then an unbelievable taekwondo performance. The kids doing taekwondo were the most impressive with the long routines they had to learn, the muscle control they demonstrated through the moves, and the height they got for the kicks!

At the end they even did a skipping routine where they had 3 jump ropes going at once, one inside the other!

As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, after the show, they took us all to an observatory that was located at the base of the mountain. We all got to look into the telescope at a star but it was less impressive than it sounds... it looked the same as a star seen with the naked eye, just a small bright dot surrounded by dark sky. It was still cool to see the observatory and how everything worked.



Saturday we started the day with a hike up the mountain. It was a fairly easy hike compared to what Milton and I have hiked here so far. We took this big group shot at the top. It was about a two hour hike and it gave us a good chance to talk and get to know our students better. My students were super shy and it was tough to get them to talk, but lots of other students were around and more eager to talk to me since i was "Barbie".



Saturday afternoon we made Mosaics representing our cultures. They all turned out really nice. we made them out of paper, but we were told that they would serve as the models for the real glass mosaics they would have made to be put on permanent display at the camp.




Saturday night was the big party night. The volunteers from each country were asked to put together a little something and put on a show for the kids. The Canadians played the spoons and sang "the good old hockey game" and the national anthem. There was a dance contest and karaoke afterwards and a big bonfire that was a bit more discomforting than it was warm:


Closing ceremonies were held Sunday morning and we were given time to take a few last photos with our students before lunch.
After lunch we were back on the buses to head the the bamboo museum and then home. the museum was a bit dull, but it was neat to see how much Koran's can do with bamboo - furniture, pipes, huts, baskets, boxes, wine, and more!



Overall it was a fabulous weekend and we can't believe that we were actually given a monetary "gift" for participating. We were happy to volunteer and had a great time hanging out with the other foreigners and with the students that we felt a bit guilty being paid for having so much fun!
We were happy to get home Sunday evening for a nice quiet night after all the excitement and to catch up on rest after all the activity.

Jinju Lantern Festival

How we spent our Thanksgiving weekend...

I found online that there was a big lantern festival going on in Jinju. We had stayed home last weekend, so we figured we deserved a treat this weekend and went to check it out. We hopped on a train Saturday morning and arrived in Jinju early afternoon. It wasn’t hard to find our way to the site as there was huge balloons flying in the sky anchored at the banks of the river where the festival was happening. We quickly found a hotel - a Love Motel, which is exactly what it sounds like! The rooms are often rented out to lovers who are hiding their affairs or young people who need to escape the watchful eyes of their parents. Travellers know though that these are also cheap, clean places to stay since they pretty much consist of no more than a bathroom and a bed. We checked in and dropped our bags and headed out to join the festivities.

The festival is held to commemorate the 70 000 fallen soldiers in a battle with Japan in the 1500’s. Our first few views of the festival were from the palace that sits up on a hill overlooking the river where all the action was. When I say lantern festival, you are probably picturing small paper lanterns lit with candles that light up the night. They did have these, but they also had a most impressive display of colourful floating lanterns. There was also a wall and tunnel of smaller hanging lanterns that we knew would be even more impressive at night. There were small paddle boats that you could rent to get closer to the lanterns and small boat cruises too, but Milton and I stayed onshore and kept busy with other activities.

Our first bit of fun was had as we dressed up in old traditional Korean costumes. Since we paid as a couple, we were given the couple costume…King and Queen! Milton got dressed first and I thought maybe they had our costumes mixed up because they started dressing him all in pink! Pink pants and a pink shirt, but it was no mistake. The boots were hilarious and so was the head gear. Milton had his turn to laugh too when he saw the hair they had me put on that weighed about 10 pounds. Not sure black hair really suits me ;)

There was a huge market that was said to be a “Korean products market”, which pretty mush meant tons of dried fish and other food vendors, and a few stands selling knock-off sportswear. We didn’t buy anything.

We stepped away from the action for a while to have dinner while we waited for it to get dark and for the fireworks to start. We ate a restaurant that said “country kitchen” on the sign, but that played nice jazz music and served Italian food. An interesting combo, but the food was good.
We quickly headed back to the hotel to get sweaters and then to the bridge over the river where we thought would be the best view of the fireworks. The fireworks were good – I always love fireworks, but I’ve been spoiled by seeing several of the firework competitions held in Montreal every summer and so this display was nothing to brag about. I think we missed the best part from where we were too, because we were on the bridge and couldn’t see at one point when they set off a bunch that were attached to the bottom of the bridge and created like a waterfall of white lights falling into the river (we could only see the reflection).

After the fireworks, we went back down to the tunnel of lanterns to see it all lit up, and also to see the lanterns that were made during the day as one of the festival activities. We also got to “make our own floating lantern” (it was made already but we attached pieces of paper on which we wrote our wishes) and then we sent it down the river.

This was the highlight of the night for us because there were two guys filming us as we wrote our wishes and then found us when we set our lantern afloat and asked if they could interview us. We of course were quick to agree thinking this was our big chance to make it big in Korea (yeah right!) and we did short interviews to speak of our impressions of the festival and they told us it would be on cable. We have no idea what channel or when but we are still saying we are stars! I also felt famous for a moment after that when some man begged me to pose in a photo with his three kids – for some people it is just so rare to see a white person, especially a blond. So see, I told you I am famous – there will be photos of me framed and hanging on the walls in houses all over Korea!

One last stop before we headed back to the hotel, Milton's favourite part of the night... the Princess Hotel cafe. Alright, i had to twist his arm a little bit, but he was a good sport and let me go into this cafe that any girl would love! The best part of it was that if you order a drink you get waffles and ice cream included in the "service". Korean are always giving away free food as part of what they call service, but this was a bit more generous than anything we've ever been given so far (usually its a free drink refill or maybe side dishes). So we paid $8 for my cappuccino and Milt's ice cream parfait, and the waitress brought us this plate of waffles and ice cream for free!

Sunday morning we had breakfast sandwiches at Dunkin’ Donuts (yum! A small taste of home) and then headed back to the grounds of the palace that we hadn’t had a chance to explore on Saturday. I was pretty impressed by how beautiful the grounds were but I think Milton was getting a bit bored. While I was trying to capture some of the beauty on camera this is what he was doing…

…trying to ruin my shots! He says that he felt inspired by the setting and that he was trying to imagine how it would have been to fight the invasion of the Japanese and that this was how he would fight them! We had a really good laugh and then got on our way.

Back home late Sunday afternoon and off to do groceries so we could make a thanksgiving dinner. It was a bit smaller than the meals we missed with our families and a bit quieter too, but it’s the best we could do. A whole roast chicken was stuffed as the substitute for turkey, and I made the Swiss Chalet sauce I’d been saving since we got here, so the meal was pretty darn good! We have no pumpkin pie, but pain perdu dans du crème a sucre is just as good, if not better!

It was a fabulous weekend and we are hoping that all of you are having a great thanksgiving weekend back home too!

Exciting weekend ahead...

Check back at the end of the weekend for some great photos. Milton and I are heading to the Jinju Lantern Festival.

Here's the blurb I got about it from Wikipedia: "There are cultural events held in Jinju every year. Among these are the Jinju Namgang Lantern Festival which is held in October for approximately ten days. This nationally designated cultural tourism festival, found only in Jinju, features a spectacle of lanterns floating on the Nam River to commemorate the patriotic spirit of the 70,000 militia corps and government troops who died for their country defending Jinju from the Japanese forces during the Imjin War (1592-1598)."

The photos on the net look amazing! There are MILLIONS of paper lanterns everywhere - hanging and floating down the river. There is a big fireworks display on Saturday night, we can make our own lanterns, make a wish while we light the candle, and send them floating down the river. We also plan to dress up in traditional Korean clothing. So we may be missing Thanksgiving weekend, but I think this event should distract us from feeling too homesick! Check back soon...

Side note: You may be wondering how I have time at 10:20 am on a Friday morning to be updating my post while I am at school and should be teaching. This is a good question! I too, am trying to figure out why I am not teaching. My lessons are all planned and I was ready and waiting in my classroom for the grade 6 class from next door to come see me, and instead, they just kept walking right past my door and went outside (along with my co-teacher who is responsible for telling me about schedule changes etc). This is not the first time this has happened. Usually when they all go outside like that they are having an assembly that lasts about 15 minutes. Well, today I watched them out there for 15 minutes while they did various warm up type activities. I thought, this is strange. Then I saw a few of the boys carrying over some measuring tapes, mats and other track and field type equipment. The three classes that are out there had spread out about the schoolyard and the their teachers were standing nearby with clipboards. I guess its track and field day and, of course, no one thought to tell me! Just another typical day in the life of the forgotten English teacher!

My co-teacher even came in to see me 10 minutes for class started to have me translate something for her and saw me preparing for her class but didn't say a word. Milton and I have decided that they love doing this to us on purpose - so annoying!!! (but really, I'm super happy to have the morning off! )

Foundation Day Holiday Weekend

It is yet again a long-weekend in South Korea – Foundation day, which I’ve been told is celebrated by raising the Korean flag all over town. My students didn’t seem too excited about the holiday and none of the staff at school was doing anything special either. Most of the other foreigners were taking advantage of the three day weekend to travel. Most of them headed to Seoul and some to Busan for one last beach weekend. Milton and I decided that a weekend at home would do us some good and so we stayed local.

Friday we went for a walk to the waterfront to see what the action was down there. There were lots of people out and there seemed to be some sort of fishing derby going on. We hiked up this tiny mountain, more of a rocky hill, to sit in the sun and read for a bit. We came across a group of hikers who insisted we join them for a bit of a picnic. We find Koreans to be most generous on holidays. They shared what they were eating and drinking. We were happy to have taught the grade 5 lesson “Do you want some more” in which the food examples included a few Korean dishes. Milton and I learned what Songpyon is – a traditional Korean rice dish always served at thanksgiving. Songpyeon isn’t grains of rice, it’s hard to describe, but it’s like rice pasta that is stuffed with more rice. Picture big perogies – a sticky, thick rice pasta-ish outside with grainy, dry stuffing inside. The outside can be white, green, or pink --- I don’t know what makes it a different colour because they all taste the same! So they handed us this food, and we said: “oh songpyon, kamsa hamnida.” (Songpyon, Thank you) They cheered and cheered because we knew what it was and how to say it in Korean! They were also quite drunk, which is pretty much a normal state of being for Koreans. Then they gave us some of what they were drinking which was some kind of super strong fruity wine…we think! They headed of on their way to continue the hike and if none of them fell off the side of the mountain it’s a miracle!

I know what you are thinking Mom and Dad. I can hear you from here…Don’t take food from strangers! But they pretty much force it on you and as disgusting as the food may be, you have to at least pretend to enjoy it and take a few bites. I only had a bite and a sip to please them and as soon as they were out of site I threw it away.

Saturday was our beach day. Milton and I set off to find Jindo beach which is on an island about an hour from Mokpo. We took the bus and it wasn’t the best ride for me. Taking the bus in Korea is never a smooth ride. With 70% of the country being mountains, the roads wind all over the place: up, down, around and through tunnels. Mom, Em and Liss, if you want to add Gravol my Christmas package it would be much appreciated ;) When we got to Jindo we discovered we had to take another bus from the centre of the island where the bus terminal is, out the beach. I had barely recovered from the first bus ride and now had to get on another! It was about a 30 min bus ride from there and the second but ride was pretty cool actually because it was through smaller country roads and we could see people harvesting rice. The bus swerved from one side of the road to the other trying to avoid the blankets of rice that were in the sun drying. We managed to get a few shots from the bus.

Finding our stop was difficult because we had no idea where we were going. What we had seen on the internet and on the map of Jindo was a large beach and we figured we know it when we saw it. No such luck! And when the bus had done the entire route and was about to start on the return route the driver signalled us to get off. With our handy little phrase book we managed to communicate that we were looking for the beach. The people on the bus heading back into town laughed at us crazy waegooks (foreigners) because it is way too late in the year to be heading to the beach in their minds. Meanwhile it’s still sunny and 25 degrees so we laughed back at them! The bus driver took us to where we needed to get off and Milton and I headed to the beach. We were the only ones on the beach of course, but this made the day at the beach that much nicer! When we got back into Mokpo Saturday night, we ended our day with a traditional Korean BBQ dinner of pork ribs. There is a nice restaurant right beside our apartment and for $7 you get a plate of pork that you grill in front of you and unlimited refills on the side dishes of veggies, and Korean pancakes and in true Korean style you sit on the floor and eat with chopsticks. I wanted to take pictures but when I suggested it Milton didn’t feel like it, and when I suggested it again he didn’t want to because the meat was gone and he didn’t think you’d be able to get a good idea of what the whole meal looked like. So blame it on Milton…no photos. I’m sure there will be plenty of photo opportunities like that again since that is the only type of restaurant there is in Korea!

Now it’s Sunday and we are enjoying our last day of the weekend exactly how we wanted: quiet and lazy. I’m writing my blog, and Milton is listening to the Montreal Canadian game on the internet and playing video games – he found a site where you can play old school Nintendo games online. It is a cloudy/rainy day out do we don’t feel guilty about staying in all day and we have plans to spend the afternoon cooking and trying new recipes. It’s so nice to have so much free time in Korea and so few responsibilities!

It's been a good weekend so far, and it's not over yet..

We're having a great weekend this weekend and it's only Sunday morning and we have a few things left to look forward too.

we had a nice quiet Saturday morning catching up with Mom and Michele et Ross on the phone. after the phone calls Milton decided that he was brave enough and that it was time to experience his first Korean haircut. We had been warned about hair dressers in Korea: they are artists and they like to ''style" hair not just cut it. Milton went prepared with a photo of what he wanted - just a little trim. This is what he came home with:

He was happy that it only cost 8$ but he wasn't happy that it was shorter on one side and swept to the other like a small side mohawk. He's a bit nervous about going to school on Monday!

Yesterday afternoon we headed to Gwangju for a Baseball game with a bunch of other foreign teachers because we thought it would give us something "familiar" to do. It wasn't far from a north American baseball game, but the teams weren't very good. There was only a small crowd so we tried to get right into the middle of all the action and the noise. we bought noise makers and contributed the cheering. The game was 0-0 the whole way through, but in an extra inning the Tigers finally got a run and won the game.

The Kia Tigers played the LG Twins, but there were no Twins fans at this game - Go Tigers!!!

Tickets were only $6 and you could sit anywhere you wanted. We were pretty happy with the seats we chose.

They don't have large or talented cheerleading squads in Korea - just four girls with a few easy dance moves and some loud music - they don't even cheer!

Like I said, we were looking for a feeling of familiarity, or a more North American experience and we thought the baseball game would be the perfect solution. one thing we were really looking forward to was the beer and the food. Of course, we had no luck here. there were no corn dogs or pizza or anything at all really other than a little stand that sold chips and beer. Most Koreans brought their own food for the game - rice and kimbap (rice rolls like sushi but with no raw meat). there was a woman selling a few other snacks too, but Chris was the only one brave enough to eat them...

A few members of our crowd had some great luck: Hugo caught a ball and Milton somehow ended up with a baseball bat that he was so proud of he wouldn't let go of it for the rest of the night!

We ended the night of course with some singing and a few more beer!

Pretty exciting so far, and Milton and I still have a great Sunday ahead of us. We have a birthday badminton match with two other couples this afternoon, and this evening we have free tickets to a Korean musical. The office of education offered the tickets to all foreign teachers as they hope that this musical will help us understand a bit more about Korean culture. the price was right and it will give us something else to talk about on our blogs so we are looking forward to it! more to come soon....

maybe i'm not the one who is confused...

TGIT! and I'm sure I'll be even happier tomorrow when it's Friday, but for now I'm just happy that Friday is almost here. It's been another crazy week at school, which I think eventually I will have to start calling normal because they are all crazy!


This afternoon was supposed to be my first lesson at the Office of Education, I even saw the contract stating the dates that I am to teach there (I was pretty upset that my school just "signed me out" to do another job without even checking with me or having me see the contract, but apparently my Principal "owns" me and can send me to do my job at other places). So, I saw this contract that states all the dates that I am to teach at the office of ed. If you've been reading my blog, you'll remember that last week, after giving me only 15 minutes notice that I was to go teach there, the school board cancelled telling me they weren't prepared for me to come. This week, I figured that since it's in writing, and since they've had a whole other week to prepare, they should be ready for me, right? well that's a big fat negative! Once again, I'm prepared and they don't seem to be! I show up with my co-teacher with my lesson plan in hand and no one is able to direct us anywhere because no one but the head honcho who singed the paper knew that I was coming. After about 20 minutes Mr Kim (who was the man who picked me up at orientation and drove me to Mokpo when my school didn't show up) came to see me and explain that the employees have been really busy lately preparing for some inspection by a higher office, and no one got the word out. Anyway, I think I should stop feeling bad about being confused sometimes, because the people who live here and speak the language seem much worse off than me!


Monday and Wednesday were also long days this week. Monday I arrived at school as usual and prepared myself for the day. I was surprised when my first class showed up 20 minutes early. I taught it and figured I'd ask my co-teacher what was up at recess which should have been right after my first class. Well, no luck...the second class was at the door waiting before my first class was over. After the second class, I ran next door to ask Seul Ki what was up. I asked her, "schedule change?" and she said No. I said, "why classes early?" (Yes, I actually speak like that now, in very simple, short sentences since no one here understands me otherwise). She answered, "ah...time change". Alright, I thought that kind of fell under the category of schedule change but whatever. She said that "school, end early. go outside. play volleyball." So it wasn't perfectly clear who was going out or when, but I had a class waiting. I thought I understood that it was like a special phys. ed. day or something and the whole school was going outside to play volleyball for the afternoon. Before I knew it, literally 3 minutes later, she was at the door telling me "Ellen, come. lunch". Well it turned out that school was over for the day and that the teacher were heading to another school to play volleyball since we don't have a gym at my school. I had been told that we might play volleyball occasionally, and that we'd go to another school, but that it would be on Wednesdays when all the other schools in Korea play volleyball. So I tried to explain to Seul Ki that it was important that she let me know of any changes like that to the schedule (or time of classes, as she would understand it). I asked if the parents knew about the kids going home early and she said no, the parents don't care. Then when she was upset that I didn't have clothes and shoes for volleyball (I was wearing a skirt and heels) I insisted again that I can't be prepared when I don't know ahead of time about stuff like this. Trying to defend herself, she said that she had told me at the beginning of the year that we would sometimes play volleyball. I reminded her that "sometimes play" isn't notice and that she also told me it would be Wednesdays and this was Monday.

So off we go to some other school at 1:30 in the afternoon, and i of course have been scolded by the principal for not having gym clothes and so has Seul Ki for not warning me, to find that it is some major tournament and there were 7 schools there. EVERYONE was asking why I wasn't playing because they think that all Canadians and Americans are superstar volleyball players since we are tall.

Since this was such a big event, there was also food set up outside on tables and each team took turns, when they weren't playing, to go and eat. My principal signaled me to come over and stand at his table and he told me to eat. Well, for starters we had just finished lunch so I wasn't very hungry, but I don' t think I would have had much appetite for raw fish anyway! I had some grape juice and a little piece of songpyeon (rice cake) to please him.



I was also told while we were at volleyball that there was a staff dinner after the tournament. Again, thanks for the notice! But when i made up my little white lie to get out of it, i was informed that it had just been rescheduled to Wednesday - what is with the plans that only last 2 minutes?!!



So Wednesday was another interesting day. I went to school prepared for the staff dinner -- i brought a big lunch in case i couldn't eat what they were eating at dinner! Wednesday is also the day I teach the teachers at my school, so i prepared some rice krispy squares as a treat to try to make my class worth coming too (attendance is dwindling). Well I could only find coloured marshmallows in Korea so my squares turned out orange. Quick fix: I drizzled chocolate over them so that they were orange and brown - Halloween colours- which fit right in with my lesson on Holidays and celebrations! When we were walking out of the class at the end of the lesson, some of the teachers were grabbing seconds and thirds, and telling me that they were really delicious. One teacher said to me, "you husband... is... haf penus". I wasn't sure if she was asking me if he was a penis or if he had a penis, but it turns out she wanted to say that my husband must be happy because i am a good cook! She just took her time getting out the last part -lol!



After that we all got into cars and headed to the restaurant where we were to have our staff dinner. I asked Seul Ki in the car what we would be eating and at first I thought she said dog, but when i made dog sounds she said no, duck. G and K are interchangeable in Korean, same as R and L, so things can get pretty confusing. I'm just starting to get used to being called Erren.

so dinner was really similar to our first staff dinner but with a different meat: you sit on the floor, there is a grill in the middle of the table to cook the meat on, and you then wrap it in leaves of lettuce with onions, radish, and hot sauce, and stuff the whole thing into your mouth. My staff always has a good laugh at me because I'm still struggling to use chopsticks to do all this, and because they think I eat weird since i take small bites rather than stuffing the whole thing in all at once!

Dinner was okay but just when i thought it was done I was told we had to go to the Principal's house. It turned out we were actually out to celebrate his housewarming since he just bought a new apartment. My co-teacher had to run home in between venues so I ended up getting a ride with the Principal. this was most awkward! He only speaks single words of English, kind of like my Korean, and it was a pretty long car ride. It did allow for me to figure out why all Korean cars are equipped with a TV/GPS on the dash. The lights in Korea are super long. they only let one side of traffic go at a time. In a counter clockwise direction, the light turns green only for traffic at nine o'clock, then at six o'clock, 3 o'clock and finally at 12 o'clock. So no head on traffic is ever going through the light at the same time you are. Since the lights work this way you can be sitting for a long time -- we waited 7 minutes at one light! So the Principal turned on his little TV and watched some information TV program on the drying of chili peppers. If you get stuck at more than one light you can pretty much watch an entire 30 minute program., and so this is why they have TVs in cars!
The house-warming party at the Principal's house was pretty dull. The women went straight to the kitchen to start preparing food while the men all sat and watched the biggest television I have ever seen! It was one and a half times the size of the biggest flat screens I've seen in Canada so it must have been 75-80 inches! principals must make a fortune here b/c his place was pretty nice and had flat screen in every room, a built in oven and a dishwasher (major luxuries in Korea!) I didn't check but i bet he had a clothes dryer too! The party pretty much continued like it started: women serving men, men sitting around doing nothing, and by the end of it 14 of us women were standing near the door just waiting for the Principal's permission to leave!

Now the week is almost over and to celebrate my first paycheck (we only get paid once a month and they decided not to pay us in August, that they would add it to September's pay!) I am meeting a friend for dinner. We have not been to any of the restaurants in our neighbourhood and so it will be a great adventure to try to find a restaurant where we understand the menu and can eat the food. I've got my trusty Korean phrase book in hand, but I'm hoping for picture menus -wish me luck!

Chuseok vacation

Finally the weekend! Milton is away for he weekend in Suwon catching up with Adam who is here from Canada to visit his sister, and I am more than happy to have the apartment to myself and to finally catch up on a few things I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve spent about 4 ½ hours on the phone so far trying to get back in touch with people, and still have a few more calls to make today. I’m also finally finding the time to post a few things on my blog.

If you’ve been checking Milton’s blog, some of what I have to tell will be old news because he seems to have more time than me during the week while he is at school to update his blog and does it more often than I do.

Last weekend was the Korean Chuseok holiday, when Koreans return to their home towns to visit family and celebrate the harvest – like the Canadian thanksgiving I suppose. Korean women don’t like this holiday too much because tradition states that they must visit their mother-in-laws before visiting their own mothers, and because the women have to do all the cooking all weekend while the men drink and play games. Family gatherings are quite big and meals often have to feed 20 people or more, and they eat ALL weekend, it’s not just one meal.

The holiday gave Milton a 4 day weekend and me, a 5 day weekend, so we decided to get off the mainland for a few days and we headed to Jeju Island for a mini vacation. We ran into lots of other Canadians on the ferry ride over who had the same idea as us – take advantage of the long weekend and the nice weather we are having, and stay away from trains and buses since everyone in the country is travelling and the roads are completely gridlocked, bumper to bumper all weekend. It was a nice ferry ride over, but the ferry was not quite what I was expecting. When we picked up our tickets, Milton and realized hat we had the same seat number which we thought was a bit strange. Well, it turns out there are no seats – the number was room number to a room you share with about 20 other people and you all sit Korean style on the floor for the 4 ½ hour ride! Here is a picture of our room:

The people either ate and ate and ate the entire ride, or they slept (see the lady eating her cold cob of corn in the background - she ate about 6 cobs on top of all the cookies, popsicles, and hard-boiled eggs she had eaten earlier). Milton and I spent a lot of time out on the deck and then in the lounge area where there were actual tables and chairs.

The weather wasn’t fabulous for the entire weekend but we did get in a few fun activities. The first night we met up with 9 other people we know who are teaching in Korea right now too. We went for a nice swim before sunset and the beach was amazing! The sand was white and the water was still fairly warm still and it was so clear! When I was swimming I could see everything in the water – fish swimming by and at one point I may have seen a sting ray, but it may also have been a volcanic rock that was perfectly shaped to look like a sting ray. Either way, me and the girl I was with screamed and swam away as fast as we could, and I didn’t let my feet touch the ground again!

Sunday, Milton and I made our way to Mt. Hallasan, the highest mountain in Korea. There are 4 paths you can take to climb the mountain, each one offering a different view, and also a different difficulty level. We wanted to do the longest, most scenic route that would have taken close to 8 hours. In order to do so, you have to be at the mountain to start by 10am – we were cutting it pretty close. We were on a bus on our way and we tried asking the bus driver if we could get a cab to the mountain instead since it would be faster, but he didn’t understand us. We were so surprised when he handed me his cell phone and had me talk to his daughter who spoke enlgish very well. She explained the situation to him and before we knew it, he was stopping the bus to get us a cab and telling the cab driver where to go and to get there fast! Koreans are so nice sometimes and really go out of their way to help us. So we hoped in the cab thinking we would get there on time, but it turned out that the cab driver was heading towards the start of a different path, a shorter one that doesn’t go all the way to the top, and since it was raining, we gave in realizing that the 5 hour climb would probably be more than enough time spent in the rain.

The only other problem we had was that we hadn’t eaten breakfast, since there was nothing at the hotel and because as soon as we stepped out the door of the hotel we were on the bus. We were really happy to find a little shack at the bottom of the path where there were toilets and a tiny store selling rain coats and noodles! So we had the breakfast of Korean champions – warm, spicy Mr. Noodles, put on our gear and headed for the hills.

This is what we looked like all dressed in our ridiculous rain gear with umbrellas, while the Koreans passed us on the trail decked out in $2000 worth of hiking gear.

I stopped at this nice little water spring for some mountain fresh H2O!

It was actually a much more difficult climb than we had imagined and we experienced a few different types of weather along the way, but we made it up in 2 hours and down in an hour and 20 minutes. I think we are done with climbing mountains for a while though now!

At his point we were above the clouds, but still had quite a ways to go!

Here we are at 1600m - which took almost 2 hours to get to, and we are still not quite at the end of our path.

The mountain is 2000m high, so it was pretty disappointing to get to the top of our path and to think that there were only about 3000m separating us from the highest peak. At the top of our climb was another little shack and some toilets. Milton has another bowl of noodles -that cost 1000 won more at the top than they did at the bottom, which I totally disagree with! they should be giving them to us cheaper for having made the huge climb! I skipped the lunch noodles since my stomach was still angry at me for the spicy breakfast!

After the climb, we made our way to the other side of the island to Seogwipo, the other major city on the island. It had been raining pretty much all day and was still raining, so we were really happy to get to our hotel to dry off and to have a place to rest after the trek! Beside our hotel was a sign saying that we were only 300m from one of the 3 great waterfalls on Jeju island, so that’s where we headed first thing Monday morning. It wasn’t quite Niagara falls, but it was impressive and beautiful none the less. Our photos are a bit blurry from that day because we hadn’t notice that some of the settings on the camera had been changed and not set back to where they should be. I think you can still see though how nice the park and the falls were.

The first waterfall we came across seemed a bit small compared to what we had read in the tourist information booklet.

Ok...that's more like what I was looking for! Like a scene out of a movie - gorgeous!!!

The ride home on the ferry was a bit more rough than it was on the way there because of the weather, but we were smart and as soon as we got on the boat we set ourselves up at a big table in the lounge where we stayed for the entire ride with the other 9 people that we had been with on the Saturday night. Everyone else played cards while I tried to convince myself that I wansn’t feeling seasick! I distracted myself by taking pictures of this guy who I think looks like a Korean Johnny Depp! Am I right??

It was a nice mini break, but we were happy to set our feet back down in Mokpo – I guess it really is starting to feel like home!