63 Building and ICE BAR!!!!

Hello allllll! I am getting better at this, its only been a few weeks since I have written! To tell you the truth much of the last month has been spent working. We had intensives during the month of August. So, during their one month break many of the kids came in for EXTRA English classess. I tried my best to make them as interesting as I could. In my opinion these hard little workers could us a month of playing outside in the sun, video games and doing whatever else their little heart desires.

Once that craziness was over we started our THIRD term. It's amazing how the time flies. The benefits of rounding the halfway point are that we are reteaching some of the same classes we taught the first term we were here, so that means less out of class work and I have an idea of what I am doing in class each day. Also, with the coming of a new term three of the good friends I have made in Korea will be leaving in 13 weeks. So, we are planning all sorts of chaos. It looks like a weekend stay at a Buddhist temple, a trip to Tokyo and a TON of shopping is in our future.

A few weekends ago I went to the 63 building in Seoul. I honestly thought it was going to be more interesting, but it was another high rise view of Seoul with a Hello Kitty museum at the top, are you really surprised?!? I took some pictures and saw the sights, there was an elevator tour but it was a recording in like 4 languages so it wasn't too in depth and I don' think there were any bad elevator jokes like the ones they use at the Space Needle.....


The 63 Building


HELLO KITTY


My new favorite place in the world, the baggie drink place!

Also, this past weekend was Lauren's birthday! To celebrate we headed to an Ice Bar in Seoul. It was a crazy sub-zero freezer where everything was ice including the cups your drinks came in. While they gave us parkas, booties and gloves we didn't dress smartly for the event and were practically ice cubes ourselves after an hour or so, but it was an experience. I am super intrigued to find out more information about the ice hotels in the nordic countries, it may have to be a mandatory stop on my travels someday!

Stay tuned for more pictures and details about the templestay and Tokyo. I bought a new digital camera and a camera that is just a film camera, but it takes pictures with a rounded lens, so the photos come out all distorted and look like a fish's view. I am super stoked because there are all sorts of things that you can do with film cameras that would take forever for me to figure out on photoshop like double exposures, etc, however the drawback of the camera is that you have to use an entire roll of film before you can see what you've done. Ah, how spoiled we have gotten by the digital age! But I am thinking since it is a new toy it shouldn't be more than a week before I get those developed.....so stay tuned!

Forever and a Year.....

So, wow, long time no posting......I was talking to another fellow teacher today about how we both set up blogs to tell of our adventures and have seem to have neglected to update them. He made a good point. While we have more opportunities to have crazy adventures a majority of our time is spent living life. So, if we were to update this a lot it would be filled with truly memorable experiences such as.....made a sandwich today and then watched Lost online. Tomorrow more of the same......So it may be to your benefit that I don't document my every day here.

I am coming up to the half way mark of my 1 year contract. At this point I am considering staying a wee bit longer, about six months to quantify it. I want to pay off some bills and save for a great adventure......Trying my hardest to do a proper gap year, or by my calculations.....a gap six months. So far the idea is three months in SE Asia and three months in Europe. We shall see as a lot remains in the air. Right now I am fighting a currency battle on many fronts that aim is to shrink my income out of Korealand, the economy in general and the fact that I would live out of a backpack for six months by myself in unknown lands. A lot to plan and consider before all is said and done.

Summer weather here is amazing.....not! Unfortunately Seoul is crazy polluted. That leaves the musky, hot, humid days packed with even more uncomfortableness. I actually had a kid answer a test question by explaining that he would want to visit New Zealand mostly because he could breathe easier, because there is no pollution, this was a kid in grade 4. They are well aware of the air pollution and yet there are more cars here than in any city I have ever seen! As we get further into August we see more of typhoon season. So, FLASH FLOODING happens quite often. I am looking forward to Fall!

If you get out of the city the summer is quite enjoyable. In July I went about three hours South, I think, to a beach for a mud festival. It was two days of being covered in mud, swimming in the ocean and laying of the beach. I came back a crazy shade of red and was made fun of by my students for many, many days. Koreans dislike tanning and carry umbrellas to shade themselves from the rays whenever possible, so the sight of me was quite the story!

Other than that I am work, work, working.....I work for the hagwon of no vacations. At first I was upset, now I embrace it. I am just planning for one massive vacation instead of a few days here and a few days there. Right now we are teaching intensive classes so I am teaching 39 hours a week and some of those are 12 hour days at school. Things will go back to normal in a week or so as we start a new term and I officially climb over the six month hump. They say that between three and six months is the hardest period of your contract. It is when the newness wears off and you can't see an end in sight. I can attest to that and look forward to the downswing, even though I am planning on staying a spell afterward......Here are a few adventures and pictures from the last few months.


Beginning of the second term brought two new teachers to my school. Nate was pretty enthusiastic and wanted to get out and see Incheon his first weekend. We took him to a local foreigner bar and made him some new friends. I think he is going to like Korea just fine.

Daejeon was a quick weekend trip for the Korean Family and I. We bused up north to visit some friends of Jamie, Lindsay and Matts from their training group. They showed us a good time and even tricked us into climbing a mountain. Yeah sure, 15 minutes to go. Uh-huh. Not falling for that one again!


Group lineup at the bottom of the mountain.


All smiles now, but two seconds later I fell on my ass. It was not graceful and super embarrassing. I am sure it will be a story told for years, if the next few days was any barometer.


All right boys. I concede the top was worth it and I can say I have done it. A picture with those that made it to the top.


Koreans are a fickle bunch. Some want to feed you, others want you to never eat again because you are a fat foreigner. Seems as though you can never win. I was reprimanded by our server for not assembling my bipimbap correctly. So, this is my all finished face, and surely not my I dumped all of mine into matt's bowl face. Bless boys with bottomless stomachs. Also, at this meal we were gifted a bottle of Korean rice wine. A welcome present any other day, but we rounded up enough brave souls to down this drink as to not offend our new Korean bff.


The wine


MudFest. In July


Not sure where any of the muddy pictures are at the moment.

Muiido. A weekend outing to a small island off the coast of Incheon was the destination of July. We "camped" korean style in these little huts by the beach. We had a grand family time drinking korean beer on the beach, dining beach side and of course racing quads!


Upon my arrival I found Jamie, Nate and Lauren dining on this awesome looking dinner. Starving as I was I didn't dive in. I don't like to eat things with fins still attached.


Nate's infamous tadpole impression. Still don't see it.


We came by ferry. Someone else brought their hovercraft.


Korean beach camping.


End of a great weekend. Ready to go home.


Then the monsoon came. Unhappy faces all around.