Monday, August 27, 2007

Taking a Fall....




Last weekend I endured one of the most exhilarating, intense experiences I have ever had! But I am so happy I did it! As part of Ian's birthday gift, we went White Water Rafting and Bungee Jumping on an Adventure Korea trip! Adventure Korea is an organization that runs trip all over Seoul and various places in Korea.This is the second trip that we have went with this tour group, the first trip being Mud Festival. So, we left from a subway station about an hour from ours at around 8:30 am. We drove about 2 hours to reach our first destination, where the White Water Rafting place was. It is incredible to escape the business and stuffiness of Seoul sometimes. The area we went to was in the middle of nowhere, but filled with blue skies and amazing rocks and mountains. White water rafting was pretty fun, but not nearly as dangerous as I had imagined! It was just amazing paddling in the water, looking around us at the rock formations and greenery.

After rafting we had a lunch of predominately Kimchi (obviously) and chicken. We then jumped on the buses again and headed to the bungee jumping destination. With Ian and I on our trip was Beth from the Gireum branch of our Hagwon, Erin and Justin who are Ian's friends from Orillia along with some friends from their school, and Jeremy and Jennifer from our school. Out of all those people, Ian and I were the only ones who bungee jumped! We felt bad that they just suntanned and watched everyone else, but at the same time, Ian and I were extremely focused on jumping off the 53 meter high bridge!

I jumped before Ian. Actually, I correct myself: I made the guy PUSH me! I was harnessed around my waist, and Ian was harnessed around his feet. I had a minor panic attack right as my toes reached the edge. I said t them "Just give me a second--- don't push me yet, until I say!" I am getting tingles in my feet just writing about it! Once I fell the initial time (it is so hard to breathe, you pretty much just have to hold your breath), and bounced back up, I started laughing loudly and hysterically- it was a lot of fun! Falling the initial time was just a blur of the green scenery- it looked like a painting that had gotten wet, but after that I was a bit more relaxed! I am so happy I did it, but now that I did it once, I don't think I will ever have a desire to do it again! Ian feels the same too, and since he went with the bungee cord attached to his feet, when he was finished bouncing he just kept spinning- he said that was the worst part for him! I think the worst part for me was not being able to breathe when I flew down!


The bus ride back was SOOOO long, but all in all it was a great trip and an amazing time! I am pretty proud of myself (and Ian is proud of himself too!) for having the bravery to do something I was so scared of. I don't think I will ever be as scared on a roller coaster again!

To check out our pictures, go to the following link: http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106526&l=4bd07&id=187905622
To checkout the Adevnture Korea website to see what knd of tours are offered to us, go to: www.adventurekorea.com

Friday, August 17, 2007

A Day in the Life... (So cliche!)

The summer has been flying by, the humidity is almost to the point of unbearable at times and the students in our classrooms need some serious discipline. I was thinking today of how Ian and I try to update you all with the exciting moments of our lives here in Korea, but it is rare we really let you in on what it feels like to be here on a day-to-day basis.

Today, I woke up bright and early and Ian had to as well. After running some errands, I came home and took a nap while Ian had already taken off, headed to one of Plus Academy's other branches in Chang Dong to teach the last of his summer intensives. Like we have explained before, we come to school at 2:30. Today, Ian and I met at school and then went to the bank to transfer money to Vietnam Airlines for our upcoming vacation. The bank machines are very high tech and most of them have the English option, which is great.

On the way back to school, I stopped in to one of our new favourite local spots, Issac's. They make a mean ham and cheese toasted sandwich for only a little over a dollar. The best part of the Issac's experience for me, though, is the cute husband and wife who own the place. Everything from buttering the grill to packing up the sandwich is done oh-so-delicately and they are too sweet for words!

Back at school, right now it feels like we are all swamped with essay marking. I feel like every time I get through a stack, another one is waiting for me on my desk! I think one of the Korean teachers upstairs was feeling our pain today though, because when I came in to work today, a little can of orange juice was next to my stack of essays. What a cute gesture!

I have 6 classes in a row Mondays and Fridays and they start at 3:40. I have my young, cute kids first called "B2's". They are really sweet and quiet, and I am slowly working them in. My goal is to try to make them laugh each class by doing a dumb dance to a song on the tape, by making silly face or doing crazy voices. It is starting to work! It is just hard because they don't know much English at all!

My other classes that I have today are usually good, but today they were all so hyper! I gave them candy as a special treat today if they did their homework, but I must admit, I usually run a 'tight ship' so to speak. I am not going to have the little Korean children walk all over me! But I do try to do fun activities and creative projects with the classes I see often. Right now I am doing a "Pen Pals" project with about 4 of my classes. They all wrote letters to my Stepbrothers YMCA camp in Florida! They are eagerly awaiting a response! Last semester, I had some classes make a newspaper, write stories, and some of my classes did show and tell too.

Right now, it is 9:07 p.m. and Ian went to the basement of our building to get some Kinder Surprises. There are hidden treasures on every floor of this building including Chinese Acupuncture clinics, music, English and science academies, pharmacies, skin care clinics, gelato and sandwich places, restaurants, lounges and much more! Sometimes we order food from the basement up to us at work and the older Korean women bring it up with big trays and/or plastic bowls on their head. We are used to it now, but when we first got here, it was so surreal to see!

Anyway, tomorrow we are going white water rafting and bungee jumping with Erin, Justin, Jeremy, Jen, Beth and some friends from Erin and Justin's school down in Suwon. That was one of Ian's Birthday presents, and hopefully the weather cooperates because we were supposed to go last week, but they postponed it due to lightening warnings! I am sure you will hear from us on the blog with the events that take place tomorrow and we will obviously load pictures as well. We have to get up bright and early tomorrow, so we will be takin' 'er easy today, probably get a pizza after work and watch a movie.

Hope all is well with you, whether you are at home or traveling. We really do miss all of you lots and I hope I gave you some insight to a typical day here in Nowon-gu, Seoul, So-Ko. Caio for now!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Pictures!!!

Hey Guys....
Sorry, we have been slacking with the pictures and the blogging! There has been so much going on lately! This past weekend, a bunch of us went to the "Sub Zero Ice Bar" which was really cool! (No pun indended!) The pictures are on facebook, so if you have facebook, you can check them out on there!

The pictures can also be viewed at the following links:

Sub Zero: http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2103081&l=aba3c&id=187905622

We have sooo many pictures from Jeju Island! They can be found at the following links:

First Day of the Jeju trip:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102322&l=1bc08&id=187905622

First Night and the Botanical Gardens:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102353&l=a0c3e&id=187905622

Botanical Gardens, Lava Tubes and Caves, and the Beach!:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102579&l=5c340&id=187905622

Next Day and some Noreabanging!:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102580&l=9b553&id=187905622

Last Full Beach Day:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102581&l=5a588&id=187905622

Save the most X-Rated for last! We couldn't leave the island without checking out the Sex and Health Museum!!:
http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2103036&l=d8be7&id=187905622

Cheers! :)



Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Jeju-do:"The Korean Hawaii"

Last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent in the warm waves and the humid air of Jeju Island in South Korea. The trip was planned because we were surprised with Korean summer student vacation which meant 2 extra vacation days for us. We were told that 4 days is the perfect amount of time to see Jeju-do ("Do", pronounced doe, is Korean for Island.) Leah, Andy, Ian and packed our bags and were anxiously awaiting this trip for several weeks. Joining the four of us were Mark and Jessica, newcomers to Korea. They were previously referred to as Leah's cousin Jessica and her boyfriend Mark.

I won't go on forever about the trip, because once I post the pictures you will see that they are pretty much self explanatory. We arrived at the Jeju airport and picked up our 12-seater Budget rental van! During our drive to our hotel, we were continuously greeted by signs reading: "Jeju: We Love Having You Here!" Needless to say, it made us feel oh-so welcome! Our hotel, which is known as a "pension" was above a Korean restaurant, right by one of the many beaches along the coast. It had a great "light show" at night consisting of lit-up sharks, fish and other sea creatures glowing on rocks. It made for a interesting backdrop!

The beaches, waterfalls, mountains, caves, lava tubes and botanical gardens were just as we imagined. Exploring the island could take forever but we did manage to squeeze in what we felt were the biggest and best attractions. (Thank goodness for the Budget Van!) Our neighborhood was very quiet and we were left to making our own fun during the evenings. This fun was -you guessed it- heading to the local bars and noreabanging of coarse! (Noreabangs are singing rooms for those of you who haven't been keeping up with the Korean terms we have been teaching you!)

We rarely ate, but when we did, it was delicious. During our days at the beach we surrounded ourselves with -I hate to say it- Pringles, beer and ham sandwiches. Our evenings were a bit trickier since each night we decided on staying at the beach until dusk, running home to the hotel to shower, thus resulting in a late feast each night. We were surprised at how early places closed! We found some yummy restaurants and the last night we went to a great Mexican resturant and got the works- enchiladas, fajitas, nachos, and more. I recommend "El Paso" to anyone heading to the 'Korean Hawaii' in the near future. (That makes none of you? Okay, that's what I figured. You are missing out!)

The scenery, the company and the weather was all amazing, leaving nothing to be desired. t was an incredible trip. We ended it off with a bang by heading to the "Sex and Health Museum" on our way to the airport. This is not only extremely strange for Korea to have (sex is rarely spoken about here) but even if I saw this place in North America I would d a quadruple-take! There were massive statues of female and male anatomy (use your imagination) and manneqins in compromising positions. I guess you will just have to check out the pictures to see what I mean!

On that note... until next time!

Monday, August 6, 2007

Life in Korea

I was reading The Korea Herald - one of Korea's 2 daily English newspaper - when I came across an interesting statistic that gives some perspective on life over here. A summary:

Foreigners who live in South Korea account for 1.5% of the country's population of 49 million. There were around 720,000 foreigners in South Korea as of May, up 35% from last year. About 36% of the foreigners are laborers, 12.2% are from international marriages, and the children of those marriages count for 6%.

Korea is one of the most homogeneous countries around (rivalled only by North Korea perhaps) and must be the most homogeneous 1st world country (it has the 11th biggest economy in the world). It is shocking that a country this well off would attract so few foreigners. I have a few reasons why I think this might be the case:

- Koreans are a loyal, nationalistic people. They have put up with a lot of crap over the years, largely from the Chinese and Japanese, that they now seem a little bit distrusting and overly unified as a people. They enjoy white people because they like Western pop culture and the English language, but foreigners from any other area seem relegated to 2nd class. They aren't afraid to tell you what they feel either, whether it is your breath smelling or your face being dark (our Indian friend Tina was often called 'darky' in class at our school). Toss in the historical punishment from their Asian neighbours, and the people have a bit of a chip on their shoulder and are riding sky high right now. They only seem to want English-speaking Caucasians immigrating.

- They have come from economic instability to near-powerhouse in such a short time that educated, English, Caucasians are not yet aware of the power of Korean enterprise. When you consider that worldwide brands like Hyundai, LG, Samsung, and Kia are Korean, as well as national powers Doosan, Lotte, and SK, there is a lot of wealth to be shared. However, a lot of people view Korea as a 2nd world country at best with no knowledge of the culture, so it does not seem an ideal place for setting up shop. The fact that the number of foreigners is growing so rapidly suggests the word is getting out.

- I've heard it mentioned that Koreans as individuals are as nice as anyone you'll ever meet, but as a whole can seem rude, crass, unapologetic, and selfish. I have never found this, personally, but the perception might be enough to turn would-be immigrants off before they get to know the culture and people that make up the nation.

I thought I had more to say but I can't think of it right now. It's probably for the better.