Next stop, North Korea!

This weekend, we decided to go to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea.
Our tour took us to a tunnel that was discovered in 1978, that the North Koreans tried to dig between their capital city, and Seoul. Another part of the tour took us to an observation area where you can see across the demilitarized zone into North Korea. Unfortunately, it was pretty hazy on Sunday so we couldn't see a whole lot. Finally, we went to a railway station that was renovated in 2007 and was supposed to connect North and South Korea by rail so that South Korea can ship goods by rail to other countries like China. It is pretty much abandoned now, but its main claim to fame is that it's the only station in the world that shows the next stop 'Pyongyang,' which is in NK.

We definitely maximized our weekend... and it will pretty much be our last one in Korea, since we fly out early next Sunday.

Now we are wrapping up camp. All the kids are writing final tests today and tomorrow. I have also discovered that they love Tom and Jerry cartoons! I am cracking up because they are from the '50s and I have heard them say 'Zoot Suit' and 'Gee whiz' so far!

Gyeongbok Palace

For our day off, we went to Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul... it was SO hot... so we didn't enjoy it as much as we could have... we were mostly trying to avoid the blinding sun! It was pretty cool, though, we could see traditional houses and buildings. We also went to an exhibit about one of Korea's famous Kings and military heroes. They had lots of cool interactive exhibits, and we got to write our name in Korean.

Then we went to a shopping area and wandered around a bit before coming home.  We are making the most of our 1 day off a week by seeing lots of cool stuff!

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2nd Week at Camp!

Things at camp are still good -- the time goes by quickly. 

We took Kim Young Dal out for dinner last night to a really delicious barbeque restaurant. It's quite handy, too, because he can order for us in Korean!! In class today, we are making a special dessert with our classes -- called Patbingsu.  It is kind of like ice cream... shaved ice with toppings: red bean paste, chocolate syrup, sticky rice cake and fruit cocktail... We'll see how that goes... the kids are excited about it!

We have continued to sing very contemporary songs... the ABBA hits have come out... and next week I have two days of the Carpenters, back to back!! "Top of the World" and "Yesterday Once More"... although thankfully no Willie Nelson (or Beethoven's Attic...)

We work today (Friday) and tomorrow, and then have Sunday off again... Kim Young Dal suggested that we go to a palace in Seoul, so we will probably do that. After tomorrow, we will be half way through the camp! We are starting to get excited about Tokyo!

My students are doing self portraits at the moment so I have a few minutes to update the old blog!  Hope you all enjoy your long weekend... while I only have one day off.... :)

Baegundae Summit

As planned, we went 'hiking' with Mr. Kim on Sunday... 850ft+ and 6.5km later... We made it up to the Baegundae Peak and back! Some of the climb involved stairs or stones in the shape of stairs, but towards the end, we were propelling ourselves up a sheet of granite to reach the top! 

The mountain was just outside of Seoul, so we had to take a 2hr ride on the metro from Suwon to even get there... And then the actual climb. Making small talk (with limited English-Korean communication skills) Mr. Kim busted out a gold pin he got for climbing Mt. Everest... 4 years ago... When he was 67 ! Apparently he has climbed mountains all over the world. Luckily, we are 45 years younger than him so we were able to somewhat keep up! The views were really cool from the top. We could see the whole city of Seoul and many other smaller mountain peaks.

When we got home we were all exhausted so we made some dinner and went for a little nap... Mine ended up being a full nights sleep as I didn't wake up until it was time for work on Monday! Kate received the picture above from Mr. Kim, who is apparently something of a photo editor... As you can see he has pasted his face on the Korean flag! Ha ha

This week, school is going well so far. I sang a Backstreet Boys with my kids yesterday & Surfin USA today.  It's hard to watch the Olympics here because I can't get anything besides Korean programming, and not only do I not know what they are saying, but they are also showing sports I know nothing about... Archery, Handball, Judo, Fencing, Badminton... The only familiar sport they play sometimes is swimming.

Other than that, everything is good. We are having a lot of fun!

Hwaseong Fortress

We have been at camp for 3 days now... It is going much better for me, personally, because I went from having the youngest class of 30 kids in Taiwan to the oldest class of 11 kids in Korea! What a difference! All of the class sizes here are so small... It's a treat! As usual, this camp has its own quirks... We have 'circle time' every day where we sing popular music with our kids.. The first day was 'Take me home Country Road' by John Denver. Yesterday it was 'Life is a bowl of cherries' from the current musical, Fosse. There actually are some real songs mixed in there, like Justin Bieber... But watching my kids croon to John Denver was worth every penny! We haven't been doing as much exploring since camp started, but yesterday we went to one of the markets and walked around and then walked back along te fortress wall, which was lit up at night. 3 more days of work this week, then we have the day off on Sunday. We are supposed to meet our friend Mr. Kim for a mountain hike! I will definitely keep you posted on how that goes. One of Linda's students recommended that we bring frozen water bottles!

Hangin' With Mr. Kim

We had a date yesterday with our 71 year old friend, Kim Young Dal. He is the one who took us on a little walking tour a few days ago. We planned to meet up Subday so he could show us the rest of the fortress. We figured that it would take maybe an hour... As it turned out, it took THREE hours and a lot of it was steep inclines! Luckily, I had worn sensible running shoes, while the other girls toughed it out in sandals! It was a really interesting walk though... We saw all the old ramparts and smoke signal stations as explained to us in broken English with vigorous hand movements and sound effects. We also looked like incredible slugs next to Mr. Kim... We were huffing and puffing and insisted on stopping at the visitor centre for water and ice cream! Apparently next Sunday he wants to take us hiking to a mountain, so stay tuned!! Today is our first day of camp. Classes don't start until 9:30 so that seems pretty luxurious compared to our 8:00am start time in Taiwan. I have the oldest/most advanced kids this time and we are running two camps at the same time: Monday/Wednesday/Friday will be one group of kids and Tues/Thurs/Sat, a second group... We will be teaching mostly the same thing to both groups, so we should find every other day easy.

Seoul

We decided to take the bus into Seoul to do some shopping and see the city before camp starts. It turned out to be very easy! We can take a bus right from our doorstep to one of the central Seoul subway stops for $2 and it takes about 40 minutes! One of the other teachers at our camp gave us some advice on where to go so we hit up some of the good shopping districts. I didn't go too crazy but I found some good deals -- they were doing end of season clearance the same as at home. We also did Kate's favorite thing in the world, Sticker Photo (as you can see from the picture above). It's basically a photo booth but you can choose different props to wear, like hats and sunglasses and choose different backgrounds to go behind you. Then once the pictures have been taken, you can add words or little digital stickers to make them look better. As you can see, they always turn out looking ridiculous! Then the girls gave me a choice between going to a Cat Cafe, where there are real cats, or the Hello Kitty Cafe. I'm sure most of you can predict that I chose Hello Kitty. It was very silly. Everything was link and sparkly and they had Hello Kitty cartoons playing on a tv. After that, we decided to head back.. But it was like 7pm which is apparently the height of rush hour. There were huge lines for the different buses, and of course, ours turned out to be the one that was snaking around the block! It actually moved pretty fast and was efficient because I'm sure the majority of people do that every day. After getting back to Suwon, we decided to go to the entertainment district for some dinner and drinks. Just as we were finishing up, two non-Korean lads approached us and asked if they could join us. As it turns out, they were members of the Hamburg Football Team and were playing in the Peace Cup here in Suwon. My personal tutoring sessions on European soccer with Connor & Kavan didn't help me out any... I don't think we covered German teams and players! Haha

Suwon

Back in Suwon, we decided to familiarize ourselves with our neighborhood before our orientation at 2pm. There is a World Cup Stadium very close to our place so we were standing outside of it reading a map when a friendly old man asked us (in very broken English) if we needed help. We told him we were going to try to find the entrance to the Hwaseong Fortress (suwon is known for it -- UNESCO World Heritage Site) so in typical Old Suwon Man fashion, he didn't just direct us, but showed us the way there while trying to communicate with us in English and teaching us Korean words along the way! He even guided us through part of the fortress! Two of the TAs stopped by our Guest House to escort us to the university for the orientation. The school is very close to our house, but at the top of a GIANT hill that doesn't seem to be serviced by public transit. The camp seems very organized so far and I have the oldest/best speakers this time so ccrossing my fingers for no little monsters!

Busan

When we arrived in Korea, we had 3 days off before our orientation for the new camp. We stayed one night in Suwon City (where the camp is) before we were allowed to check into our permanent residence. Our digs are very simple. I kind of feel like we're camping.. My room has a shower but no toilet & we share a kitchen as well. My room is about the size of a jail cell, but it's not bad.. Kate and Linda's rooms are right next door and we have spent a lot of time doing things so we're not here that much. We took a 5 hour long bus to Busan (one side of the country to the other) and stayed at a hotel that cost $79 total for 2 nights! So split 3 ways it was cheap and it actually turned out to be pretty nice (nicer than our real place!) it was a stone's throw from the main train station so it was very convenient. The first day we wandered a bit before taking a Hop on Hop off bus around the coastal area. We got off at their popular beach, but it was later in the afternoon and the whole day was a bit overcast. We were quickly accosted by someone who worked at a Guiness pop up shop who gave us coupons for a free beer! Then we just sat on the beach for a bit befor making our way home. The next day, we went to a famous park that has a coastal walk. It was really nice. Reminded us of Stanley Park, but much more hilly and not quite as pretty! After that, we headed back to Suwon to get ready for our orientation!

End of Taipei

I'm just at the Taipei airport now waiting for my flight to Korea. The airport has desktop computers, so I am taking advantage of being able to type with a keyboard!

The last few days have been really fun. My class were still little monsters by the end, but we had a lot of laughs.

We were able to see a lot of sights in Taiwan: Taipei, Taichung, Sun Moon Lake and a Dutch Fort, Temple and Tree house in Tainan.

We stayed in a hostel last night in Taipei which was really bizarre. Very clean and comfortable, but the room was located in a building that was primarily office spaces. One door would be someone's office and the next was our room! We are staying in another hostel tonight, then we can move into the apartment that is provided to us for the Korea camp. We don't actually start work until next Monday, so we will have almost a week to sightsee and relax. 

Hopefully I will have access to wifi in Korea to be able to continue updating. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer at home. I have heard that the weather is beautiful. Probably not quite as warm as the 34 degrees it has been here every day!! We are hoping for some cooler temperatures (at least at night) in Korea.

Airport Day!

My Class

Tainan!

Taipei

We had the day off today before we travel to Tainan, where the camp is so we did a day trip to Taipei. Saw some cool temples and markets and did a lot of walking. It was very hot out (like 34 degrees) so we made frequent shade/slushie breaks to try and stay cool. We were able to navigate public transit pretty easily and it helps that our hotel is a stone's throw from the train station in Taoyuan. We have met a few other teachers who are staying in the hotel, but none of them will be working at our camp. It seems like this company is pretty big or at least runs lots of camps on the island. I'm just off to meet Kate and Linda for dinner. Happy Early Canada Day!

Made it to Taiwan (my room!)

Tokyo!

Made it safely to Tokyo! (and I'm actually in Seoul as I write this) Our flight from Detroit was really good. All three of us slept well so we aren't TOO exhausted. We found an awesome outdoor observation area where you could see the runway and the city in the background. We had some birthday drinks and vending machine ice cream bars to celebrate Kate's birthday before catching some shut eye in the airport. The flight to Seoul was unremarkable, except that we got a full meal (beef entree) at 7:30am. Now it is 9:16 and we aren't too sure what our next meal should be! We are flying Korean Air again so we will probably get something else awesome! We are just resting and waiting for our final flight to TAIPEI!

On the road again!

In my last post, I left off in Seoul, South Korea. 5 months later, I'm headed back in that direction with my friends Kate and Linda. This time, I will be teaching in Tainan City, Taiwan for 2 weeks and Suwon City, South Korea for 1 month. I'm also sneaking in a 4 day jaunt to Tokyo before returning home in August! As usual, I will attempt to keep my blog updated as much as I can.

Itinerary:

June 27: Toronto - Detroit - Tokyo - Seoul - Taipei
June 29 - July 15: Tainan City, Taiwan
July 15 - August 18: Suwon City, South Korea
August 18-23: Tokyo, Japan
August 23: Tokyo - Detroit - Toronto

인천국제공항 방문 기념사진 도착

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On my way home, I had approximately 6 hours between arriving at Gimpo Airport and having to take a train to connect for my flight at Incheon International.  I briefly considered stashing my luggage and making a break for it to see a bit more of Seoul, but I figured I should be more practical and just kill time at the airport... as it turned out, Incheon is the best airport EVER! I didn't feel like I was killing time at all, I actually felt a bit rushed!  There was a designer shopping area, stage with live entertainment... and a cool photobooth thing where you could send an email picture of yourself (see the blog picture!) I also got some delicious sushi at the Asian restaurant, and saw a traditional Korean parade before I finally had to check in at my gate!

I also lucked out once I got on the plane because I didn't have a seat mate so I had both seats all to myself for 11 hours!!

인천국제공항 자기부상열차 홍보관을 방문하여 주셔서 감사드립니다.

Seoul!

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I had one day off in the two weeks I worked at camp, so I decided to make the most of it and fly to Seoul for the night/day.  Kate and Linda were finished their camp and staying with a friend that they had met at their camp, so I hopped a flight and met up with them for almost 24 hours.  We were able to make pretty good ground, hitting up a shopping/market area, as well as seeing City Hall, and a few other notable landmarks.  We also had some good food and drinks before I had to head back to Jeju!