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!