Ok so I finally set up a youtube account and uploaded my videos, so now I'll post them so you can all enjoy.



This is a video of my performing in my team's drama my very first week of teaching. One of the girls got in a fight the class before and was crying and wouldn't go on stage, so I grabbed a script and filled in. The kids almost died laughing, not to mention the teachers.



Here is a video of we the teachers in a noraebang one night. For the sake of privacy, I will not tell you who is singing. But this is just an example of how awesomes things can get in a tiny room with a mic and four tv's and many beers.



Here is my sweet bunny Heathcliff. This video was taken the day I brought him home. Sadly, he only lived about 5 days after that. I'm so glad I have this video to remember him by!



This is at Wonchon Amusement park, a run down ghost town of rides and restaraunts. Shaun and I went on this ride. It spins around and bounces and they guy running the ride was very enthralled with us. Kept talking to us and asking questions and we got bounced a lot more than the Koreans who were on it with us. At one point he told me I was sexy. We're pretty sure he was making fun of us in Korean too, once he was sure we couldn't understand.



Here are the Korean fellows we made friends with that Friday night. We were all showing off our mapagi dancing skills in the bar. (If you don't know mapagi, and I don't know why you would, be patient. That's the topic of another blog altogether...)



And finally, the Korean children singing. This is a music festival of some sort that I came across while walking around the city one Saturday afternoon. I have no idea what they're singing, but you have to admit it's pretty cute.

That should bring us up to speed as far as the videos go. I also know how to post mulitple pictures now! Things are getting more and more exciting!

Oh, and I am now a brunette. Dying your hair in Korea is very many adventure.

Another weekend of fun.

Another weekend has passed with more adventures to report.

Friday we went out to the pub of course. Not much else to do on a Friday night. But we stopped for galbi (Korean Barbeque) first, and all had the linings of our stomachs eaten away by the spicyness of it, but couldn't stop eating because it was so fantastic. Nothing like beer to cure an ulcer!

It was a pretty typical night, finishing in a karaoke room but this time complete with dance routines and rapping. We are reaching a new low. (or high, we can't be sure.)

After the karaoke we were standing around on the street trying to decide what to do next as the night was still very young, when Shaun discovered that there were dozens of stalls on the sidewalk that were selling steamed mussels. So naturally, being the seafood lovers that we are, we sat down and had a bowl. And let me tell you, it was the most amazing food experience of my life. I have never tasted anything so delicious as those mussels. They were so fresh and tender, two things one normally wouldn't have the chance to say about mussels. And the night was so beautiful, the company amazing. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect moment. It was one of those times when you seriously wouldn't change a minute detail. A moment of perfect supreme happiness.

Saturday we climbed a mountain here in Suwon. We're such fools sometimes. We call pictures a nice leisurly hike through the forest. Forgeting that we were climbing A MOUNTAIN. None of brought enough water and I was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Not the best attire for hiking. And it was such a humid and hot day, we were all dripping with sweat within minutes. And, true to form, we couldn't just have an uneventful moutain climg. We had to have some misadventure along the way.

We planned out route and set out around 3 oclock. (Give us a break , we didn't go to bed until like 4 the night before.) Shaun had to be home at 6 to head to Seoul, and we figured three hours was a good time. So, after consulting our map, we planned a route that we thought would take around that time. I think that the times posted on the map are meant for seasoned climbers, though, cuz it sure took us a heck of a lot longer than that. And then when we finally got to the path that we had planned to take OFF the mountain, it was closed for some reason. (There was some speculation about land mines, but I think that was just an association someone had with the barbed wire strewn across the path.) So we had to keep going up. And up. And up. I have no idea how high that mountain is, but it felt like climbing Everest. (Which I now have no ideas of ever being able to accomplish. We prairie girls weren't meant for hills.)

Finally we found a path down and set off. And just then it started to rain. Not a nice drizzle either. Monsoon season in Korea rain. So we slip-slided down the mountain, soaked to the bone, and finally came out of the trees in a rural area populated with goats and tomatoes. Oh, and some people. We stumbled across an outdoor restaraunt under a tarp and bought ciders (aka 7-up) and the lady called us a taxi and gave us coffee. We must have looked pretty pathetic. But that lady was an angel from heaven, let me tell you. We couldn't have gone on in the rain any farther.

Anyway, after getting back to civilization we all got into dry clothes and then went to an all you can eat buffet. We sat there for two hours stuffing ourselves. I think we earned it though.

Sunday I went to the National Museum of Modern Art. It was really good, I really enjoyed it. There was one artist in particular whose name I can't recall right now that I really enjoyed. He was named artist of the year in Korea this year, so there was a big exibit of his work. Amazing stuff. I wanted to buy all of it.

And now it's back to work. Should be a good week, the kids seem nice so far. Although one of them kept calling me a monster this morning. Something to do with my shrek-like pigtails I think...

Just stuff

Well what can I tell you?

The monsoon season has started. When I woke up this morning the world was very wet, though I didn't need an umbrella on my walk to work, which makes me hopefull that it won't be all that bad. But if reports are correct, it will be another month or so before we get a day of sunshine. Which might be alright since there are a lot of museums I want to check out, and who could live with themselves if they spent a gorgeous sunny day inside a museum?

I finally tried out my new rollerblades. I'm sad to say they are unusable. The wheels are off-center on the foot...closer to the inside. Which makes it impossible to get your balance and therefore impossible to get up any speed. And it's really painful on the ankles. Very wierd. I'm going to try to return them. Hopefully they won't ask any questions and just give me my money back. But you can imagine my disappointment. And my humiliation having to walk home from the park in my sock feet because I simply could not make them work!!!!

The string of sad animal stories continues as well. My best bud Shaun has a parakeet at home that died this week, and yesterday on our walk to school we saw a days-old kitten abandoned on the street corner. He was so tiny and so young that his eyes weren't even open yet. I could feel my heart breaking as I had to walk away from him. Poor little guy. He wasn't there when we went home for lunch, so we're choosing to believe that his mom came and rescued him. Much better that than many of the other fates that could have befallen him.

This afternoon at school we get the afternoon off to go and watch a speech competition at City Hall. Some of the teachers here are judging it, so the rest of us and all the students are going to watch. I hope I don't fall asleep.

Weekend Adventures

Hello all!

So this weekend was a really good one. Went out Friday night with some of my fellow teachers and randomly met this nice Korean fellow who recognized my tattoo from the station. I guess he saw me there at some point and remembered me. I felt quite flattered. Anyway, we invited him and his friends to join us and we ended up partying with them until the wee hours of the morning. It was extremely fun. I felt like I had a little glimpse of real Korean culture, not just dancing on the outskirts. I'm hoping I will see them again soon, they were really nice and a lot of fun.

On Sunday we went to the beach. That was an adventure, as I'm quickly discovering most things are in Korea. Nothing is quite what you'd expect it to be. From chips to beaches.

The day began with a stop at the tourist information centre at the subway station in Suwon to ask for directions to the beach. They told us there is a beach, but you can't swim there because it's too muddy. We asked "Are there any other beaches where we can swim?" "No." So we got some half-assed directions and found the right bus and hopped on. The lady had told us this would be a direct bus to the beach. So we happily rode along the country rodes admiring the rice paddies and hills. And then all of a sudden the bus stops and everyone gets out. Apparently the last stop is not at the beach at all, but in the middle of the town... So we somehow made ourselves understood (I think it involved making a swimming motion with our arms. Very sophisticated) and got pointed to another bus. It was this tiny bus that looked like it would fall apart at any minute and the driver was like an aging hippy version of David Suzuki. Oh wait...David Suzuki is an aging hippy... Anyway, we finally got to the beach, or what we assumed was the beach. We saw sand. And people sitting on it. But not really any water. Just...mud. Miles of it, it seemed. The lady at tourist booth was right about that anyway.

But, not to be disheartened, we found some rocks close to the water to sit on for a few hours and took some pictures and just chatted. And then noticed that the tide was quickly coming in. And what had been miles of mud was kinda turning into a proper beach. So we got a swim in after all, though the water was very murky from the mud and very salty. Though that might just be the prairie girl in me talking, being used to swimming in lakes I'm sure all salt water would taste especially salty. It's been a long time since I swam in the sea.

After our swim we were laying on the beach for a while, and then decided to go for supper. We stopped at the bathrooms on our way and noticed that the road we had come over on (did I mention this beach was on an island?) was now under the water. The tide that had covered the mud has also covered the road. And we didn't know how long it would take to go back out, or if it would at all that day. So we resigned ourselves to our fate and thought it would be a good story to tell if we ended up having to sleep on the beach. And it might get us a day off work on Monday too! So we went for supper. Seafood of course. The usual grill in the middle of the table but this time they brought us a basket of assorted shells and some prawns. It was amazing! Cooking fresh seafood over an open fire. Oysters, mussles, scallops, snails. I've never had anything so delicious. I ate one of the oysters raw, and it was so amazing. Seafood fresh from the ocean really can't be beat.

After supper we decided to go see if the road had re-appeared yet, and luckily for us, it had. So we caught the same bus with David Suzuki as our driver and made our way home, tired and salty and happy. Though I was really looking forward to sleeping on the beach.

The picture is of the Korean friends we made on Friday. Adorable aren't they?

At last

Well hello everyone. I have finally taken the big step of creating a blog. Now comes the even bigger step of actually keeping it up to date...

I don't have much time to write right now, but I'll try to do a quick up-to-speeding.

Let's see....what's been happening. Where should I start?

School is going pretty well. I really like it here, the work is easy yet somewhat fulfilling. And I really do love kids, so it's nice to be around them all the time. Even if sometimes they are little shits. But it's nice, they treat you alsmot like a celebrity. Accosting you in the halls and giving you presents. And they are so cute, it's almost unbearable sometimes.

This past week was a little trying because the teams were particularly low (as in their English skills are very very weak) but it kept us on our toes for sure. My team were a bunch of sweethearts though, so that makes it easier considering I spend about 40% of my time with them.

Last weekend we went to a water park in Everland, which is a huge amusement park (I guess it's a blatant rip-off of Disney Land. Though I wouldn't know cuz I only went in the water park part of it) near Seoul. We had a blast. Though the rules were very odd. Everyone had to have a bathing cap on at all times and life jackets were manditory in the wave pool. Which might be understandble because I doubt that many Koreans can swim very well. But when they see you doing the breat stroke and then whistle at you to get out of the water...wouldn't it click that maybe you know what you're doing.... Anyway, it was midly annoying but didn't really put a damper on our fun. We all got sunburned and were exhausted by the end of the day. It was pretty sweet. And we got some cool bathing caps for a souvenir.

I finally bought some rollerblades a few days ago. Haven't been out on them yet because its been really hot, and well, I do have a social life sometimes. I'm afraid I'm only going to be able to use them in very specific places which kinda sucks. Not like at home where I just blade down the middle of the street and no one seems to care. Here I would die if I tried to do that. But I discovered a Youth Centre near school where they have a rink specifically for rollerblading. It's really small, but the area around it smooth too, and I've seen people skateboarding there so I'm thinking blading would be allowed. I can't wait to get on them this weekend. It will be very freeing.

And I'm officially obsessed with Home Plus. It's a department store that's less than a block from our apartment and I have been there every day this week. But they have everything a person could possibly need. That's actually where I got my ill-fated bunny that some of you may have been aquainted with. And my rollerblades. And my guitar. And pretty much everything I've bought since I got here.

And I thought I'd sign off with some wisdom from a t-shirt I saw and almost tried to buy off the woman's back. I probably would have if I thought she would understand me. It said:

Algebra is for lovers.

Think about it.