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!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Frolicking in the green tea fields
This weekend was yet another festival in Korea - the Green Tea Festival in Boseong. Milton and I have been meaning to go to the tea fields for a long time but were waiting for the new spring leaves when the fields are at their greenest. Well, the fields were green alright! It's actually strange that they are called fields and tea trees because they are actually small shrubs or hedges that line the mountain sides, and aren't flat fields at all, but more like tea slopes.
It was an hour an half bus trip to Boseong which are the most famous tea fields in Korea. These fields are often the setting for many Korean TV shows, commercials, and photo ads. We managed to get there before the crowds and got some great shots without too many people getting in the way.
We didn't stay long at the festival - there was traditional music and dancing, a harvest prayer ceremony, traditional tea ceremonies and lots more - because we have been to so many festivals this spring they all start to look the same, and we just weren't too interested. The highlight for us was just taking in the scenery of the green tea slopes.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Jindo Sea Parting Festival
This weekend was yet another grand adventure in Korea!
We rented a van with 2 other couples and made our way to the sea for the "Moses Miracle" or "Jindo Sea Parting" festival on Saturday. Many stories and legends surround this festival and natural phenomena, but the most widely told, and the one that I cut and pasted from the festival homepage, is this : "According to the legend, an old lady, who was left alone after all the Jindo villagers took shelter in Modo when dangerous tigers showed up in Jindo, eagerly prayed to the Sea God hoping to meet her family again, and the Sea God listened to her prayer and parted the sea, granting her wish. " -- Like all things English in Korea, it is of course well translated into perfect English! ;)
Basically, twice a year when the tide is at it's lowest, a sand bar appears allowing for people to cross from one island to the other.
So the 6 of us (Andy & Jane, Dean & Chelsea, Milton and I) decided it was worth the drive and that we'd fight the crowds we heard attend the festival to see this "miracle" ourselves -- and we weren't disappointed!
The festival started with some traditional Korean drumming and singing, and of course Milton couldn't keep himself from joining in on the dancing!
Apparently, to the Koreans, it's still a mystery how this "road" appears - it isn't at all explained by gravity and the rise and fall of tides!
In true Korean style, the festival grounds were decorated with thousands of colourful lanterns.
There were several monuments of the dangerous tigers that caused the people of Jindo to flee, and the woman who was left behind and who prayed to be reunited with her family.
As soon as we saw the first glimpses of the road appearing, we geared up in our sophisticated, high-tech equipment and got ready to join the crowds.
Some people we not quite as well equipped as we were!
And they're off! The road appears for only about an hour, so people started moving quickly to try to get to the other island and back before the road disappeared again for 6 months.
Many of the Koreans weren't there to experience the miracle, but to take advantage of the natural resources for dinner: seaweed and clams.
As always, some didn't work as hard as others...
And for the Canadians, it was no work, and all play!!! :)
Some made it all the way across to the other island, but at about halfway, we decided we had seen enough and that it was time for a beer!
Not only did we get to experience this great part of nature, but we were also celebrities for the day. Several foreigners made it on TV,
and the 6 of us made it into an advert for this pink Jindo whiskey! We all stopped for samples and were just talking about how terrible the alcohol was when we were approached by the reps and asked to pose for photos in matching t-shirts! Apparently we will be in the newspaper and as gifts they gave us all a t-shirt and a bottle of the horrible alcohol for us to enjoy!
Just another fantastic weekend in Korea!
... Except of course for the little detail I didn't mention which is that I lost my voice Friday night and couldn't do more than whisper all weekend! It was super tough given all the fun and excitement going on! I still don't have it back and it's now late Sunday night, so at least it means a long weekend for me - there's no way I can teach 6 classes Monday :)
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Food, more food, and miscommunication!
I guess it must be some part of the curriculum or something, but EVERY school in Korea has gone on a school picnic in the last few weeks. Really, it's more of a field trip with a picnic at lunch, but every school calls it a picnic.
Our school "picnic" was to the Dinosaur museum in Haenam, about an hour away from Mokpo. I was busy doing work for a 3 hour workshop I had to give Monday, so I had to tell my school I couldn't go on the trip. Things have really turned around at my school in the last 3 weeks though, and the Principal offered to drive me to the picnic with him a few hours after all the buses left, which gave me time to get work done, but allowed me to join in for some of the fun.
The Dinosaur museum wasn't as impressive as I hoped it would be, so I don't actually have any pictures from that part of the day! After lunch, the Principal took me back to school and offered to let my new co-teacher come back too since he was bored.
The really story for the blog is what came at 5pm, when the kids all went home and the teachers "celebrated a successful trip" by having beer, soju and snacks in the staffroom. We've told stories and shown pictures of the live baby octopus eating, but this time I caught it on tape!
The video quality isn't great, but it's the best i could do on the small digital camera.
First you'll see our school administrator (in the blue jacket). His demonstration of how to eat live octopus isn't great, but I just want to point him out because he will be the main character in another story I have to tell!
The second man you see in the video is my vice-principal. He was a good sport and tried to give the best demonstration he could on how to go about eating this dangerous snack. Enjoy!
Doesn't that look appetizing? Just stab, wrap, dip and chew, but watch out for squirming legs!
I of course skipped out on this part of the feast and stuck to oranges and melon slices :)
The second story for this week is a bit of a continuation of another story I told months ago from one of my first staff dinners. Last night I was invited to join the staff for Chinese food, as we were being treated by the parent's association to celebrate the new head parent --if that makes any sense! I haven't been to any of the staff events this semester as I was always finding out about them 5 minutes before they took place and usually when I had something else planned for the evening. This week, they gave me more than 24 hours notice and since it was Chinese food and not raw fish, I thought I should go.
Well the school administrator, along with some of the other teachers, likes to drink in excess at these events. He is the one that during another dinner told me I was beautiful and then started making gestures around the chest area. I thought he was making comments about my bust, but apparently he was trying to say that I'm beautiful on the outside, but he is beautiful on the inside and inner beauty is more important. Well, I now I'm sure he was talking about my chest --we had a second miscommunication last night!
After a few shots of soju he found his way to my table and got right into the conversation with me. I don't think he knows a single English word other than beautiful because that's all I heard (he should maybe think about attending the mandatory English classes I give to the teachers each week!). In attempt to communicate better he likes to gesture a lot. I understood the part that he thinks I'm beautiful, and then I had some help from other staff members who translated that he was impressed that I workout at a gym (he likely heard it from other Korean's that work out at our gym -- us foreigners are easy to spot and are often the subject of gossip!) Everyone was surprised to learn I do weights at the gym -Korean women can't lift their own handbags! and the weight room is apparently the last place in Korea you will ever find a Korean woman (except when they go in there for cake and coffee and gossip and hula hoops!). Our communication went like this: I understood the hands by the face and "beautiful", the bicep squeeze and "beautiful", but when he started gesturing in the shape of an hourglass and then sticking his butt out and making an X with his arms, I started to get confused and a bit offended. The women didn't want to translate anymore so I could tell it wasn't good. I of course was a bit shocked that we went from "you're beautiful" to "you have a fat derriere", but they are brutally honest in Korea and don't show much tact. I kept asking "chogum - no?" (small, No = not small, and then no and making an X with my arms -- this is the best I can do in Korean!) So I told the other women it was okay, I understood that he meant I had a big butt. I was really embarrassed and then finally I think one of them felt badly for me because she spoke up and said it was the opposite. She translated for me that "he likes your bum line". Things were a bit awkward for a few minutes, to say the least, and I'm guessing along with skipping English class he also skipped the sexual harassment seminar that every school does at the beginning of the semester.
As if that wasn't enough of a situation, the dining room suddenly turned into a noraebong (karaoke room) and what I thought would change the atmosphere a bit, actually made it worse (but mostly for the Korean women in the room -- I was laughing hysterically!). The TV gets turned on and a song code is punched in and one of the parents was up for a song. The foreigners are always laughing about the karaoke background scenes that play while the words are up on screen. You don't get music videos to the songs, just scenery usually. We've seen forest scenes, skiing scenes, beaches, temples, all things that have nothing to do with the song, but that provide something pretty to look at while people sing. To everyone's absolute shock, the pictures that came up this time were of three blonde, naked females soaping each other up and scrubbing in the shower!!! Korean women aren't supposed to see stuff like that and the females on staff are pretty young and all unmarried so they were just mortified. They immediately turned away and went bright red. The pervert administrator got as close to the TV as he could to get a good look, and everyone else was either laughing uncomfortably or hysterically like myself because it was just so unbelievable! My new co teacher kept apologizing for how uncomfortable the night must have been for me but I just laughed and asked him if he knew what a blog was. I told him this would make a good story to tell people back home!
Ohhh, Korea! Always eating, always full of surprises, and always something to laugh about here!
Our school "picnic" was to the Dinosaur museum in Haenam, about an hour away from Mokpo. I was busy doing work for a 3 hour workshop I had to give Monday, so I had to tell my school I couldn't go on the trip. Things have really turned around at my school in the last 3 weeks though, and the Principal offered to drive me to the picnic with him a few hours after all the buses left, which gave me time to get work done, but allowed me to join in for some of the fun.
The Dinosaur museum wasn't as impressive as I hoped it would be, so I don't actually have any pictures from that part of the day! After lunch, the Principal took me back to school and offered to let my new co-teacher come back too since he was bored.
The really story for the blog is what came at 5pm, when the kids all went home and the teachers "celebrated a successful trip" by having beer, soju and snacks in the staffroom. We've told stories and shown pictures of the live baby octopus eating, but this time I caught it on tape!
The video quality isn't great, but it's the best i could do on the small digital camera.
First you'll see our school administrator (in the blue jacket). His demonstration of how to eat live octopus isn't great, but I just want to point him out because he will be the main character in another story I have to tell!
The second man you see in the video is my vice-principal. He was a good sport and tried to give the best demonstration he could on how to go about eating this dangerous snack. Enjoy!
Doesn't that look appetizing? Just stab, wrap, dip and chew, but watch out for squirming legs!
I of course skipped out on this part of the feast and stuck to oranges and melon slices :)
The second story for this week is a bit of a continuation of another story I told months ago from one of my first staff dinners. Last night I was invited to join the staff for Chinese food, as we were being treated by the parent's association to celebrate the new head parent --if that makes any sense! I haven't been to any of the staff events this semester as I was always finding out about them 5 minutes before they took place and usually when I had something else planned for the evening. This week, they gave me more than 24 hours notice and since it was Chinese food and not raw fish, I thought I should go.
Well the school administrator, along with some of the other teachers, likes to drink in excess at these events. He is the one that during another dinner told me I was beautiful and then started making gestures around the chest area. I thought he was making comments about my bust, but apparently he was trying to say that I'm beautiful on the outside, but he is beautiful on the inside and inner beauty is more important. Well, I now I'm sure he was talking about my chest --we had a second miscommunication last night!
After a few shots of soju he found his way to my table and got right into the conversation with me. I don't think he knows a single English word other than beautiful because that's all I heard (he should maybe think about attending the mandatory English classes I give to the teachers each week!). In attempt to communicate better he likes to gesture a lot. I understood the part that he thinks I'm beautiful, and then I had some help from other staff members who translated that he was impressed that I workout at a gym (he likely heard it from other Korean's that work out at our gym -- us foreigners are easy to spot and are often the subject of gossip!) Everyone was surprised to learn I do weights at the gym -Korean women can't lift their own handbags! and the weight room is apparently the last place in Korea you will ever find a Korean woman (except when they go in there for cake and coffee and gossip and hula hoops!). Our communication went like this: I understood the hands by the face and "beautiful", the bicep squeeze and "beautiful", but when he started gesturing in the shape of an hourglass and then sticking his butt out and making an X with his arms, I started to get confused and a bit offended. The women didn't want to translate anymore so I could tell it wasn't good. I of course was a bit shocked that we went from "you're beautiful" to "you have a fat derriere", but they are brutally honest in Korea and don't show much tact. I kept asking "chogum - no?" (small, No = not small, and then no and making an X with my arms -- this is the best I can do in Korean!) So I told the other women it was okay, I understood that he meant I had a big butt. I was really embarrassed and then finally I think one of them felt badly for me because she spoke up and said it was the opposite. She translated for me that "he likes your bum line". Things were a bit awkward for a few minutes, to say the least, and I'm guessing along with skipping English class he also skipped the sexual harassment seminar that every school does at the beginning of the semester.
As if that wasn't enough of a situation, the dining room suddenly turned into a noraebong (karaoke room) and what I thought would change the atmosphere a bit, actually made it worse (but mostly for the Korean women in the room -- I was laughing hysterically!). The TV gets turned on and a song code is punched in and one of the parents was up for a song. The foreigners are always laughing about the karaoke background scenes that play while the words are up on screen. You don't get music videos to the songs, just scenery usually. We've seen forest scenes, skiing scenes, beaches, temples, all things that have nothing to do with the song, but that provide something pretty to look at while people sing. To everyone's absolute shock, the pictures that came up this time were of three blonde, naked females soaping each other up and scrubbing in the shower!!! Korean women aren't supposed to see stuff like that and the females on staff are pretty young and all unmarried so they were just mortified. They immediately turned away and went bright red. The pervert administrator got as close to the TV as he could to get a good look, and everyone else was either laughing uncomfortably or hysterically like myself because it was just so unbelievable! My new co teacher kept apologizing for how uncomfortable the night must have been for me but I just laughed and asked him if he knew what a blog was. I told him this would make a good story to tell people back home!
Ohhh, Korea! Always eating, always full of surprises, and always something to laugh about here!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Springtime in Korea = Cherry blossom festivals a plenty!
We had heard more than once that spring in Korea is the best time of year to be here. We've been pretty happy with fall and winter so far, but we aren't going to complain about spring either! Every weekend and in every town, there seems to be some sort of spring festival going on. Most of the festivals celebrate or recognize something greater, but all seem to attract visitors mostly for the blossoms.
This week Milton and I went to the "cherry blossom" festivals at the University of Mokpo in Muan, and at the Wang-In birthplace and historic grounds near Yeongam. We can't deny that it wasn't the Wang-In Cultural Festival that attracted us, but the renowned display of blossoms lining the road kilometer after kilometer leading into town and on the historic grounds themselves, and we were certainly not disappointed!
Above: The university's cherry blossom festival.
Cherry blossoms at the Wang-In culture festival, with Wolchusan mountain in background.
I spotted a 2 little frogs in the puddles - so cute! They were hardly bigger than the tip of Milty's index finger.
The tree lined streets leading in and out of Yeongam.Monday, April 6, 2009
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
