Vacation - July 22

For Kerri's first full day in Korea, we took her to work for our last day before the holiday. Amazingly, she came with us for the whole 10-7:30 day. The kids were excited to have a girl with "beautiful, yellow hair" who gave out Canadian stickers in their class.
After work, we took Kerri down to La Festa, the bar-restaurant-shopping area in Ilsan, for Kalbi and soju. It was a coincidence that we ran into Blaine, Jamie, and two other friends after the meal. We joined them for drinks and much, MUCH later after a bunch of soju and beer, we decided to go to a Norae-bong (karaoke room). I had sworn them off after our first unfortunate night in Korea, introducing ourselves to Matt, the Korean teachers, and Mrs Jang with our horrible singing.
But, this time, we went to a "classy" one with windows over looking La Festa from 5 floors up. My singing hasn't improved since that first night in Korea, but I definitely felt more comfortable singing around people I knew. Soju also helped.

Kalbi, Korean karaoke and Hite were good introductions to Korea for Kerri - and it was just the beginning.....

Kinderland

The morning before Kerri arrived, we had Swaton's monthly kindergarten field trip to Kinderland. It's a huge floor filled with Jungle Gyms, video games, computer stations, movie rooms, and karaoke rooms. Our job was to gets the kids shoes off and let them run around. That gave the four of us time to roam around the place.
We saw Ellie (left) playing with these dance games. It's a video game where you have to dance the steps that match the screen in order to get to the next level.
And so that's what Craig, Brett, Laura and I did for the next 3 hours - play on the dance machines. They were quite addicting. And even with all our playing - we still couldn't make it past the second level.....
If you have a few minutes check out Craig and Brett dancing.

Spurs vs Boca

The Peace Cup (football/soccer) is going on in Korea this month and teams from all over the world are playing in Korea. Last Saturday, Brett ordered tickets for a Spurs (England) vs Boca (Argentina) game that was in Suwon. The four of us travelled down to Suwon, went to Happy Liquor Pia for a mini keg of beer (left) and lemon soju (right) and went to the game.
As the four of us sat watching the game, we had numerous Koreans (kids, teenagers..) come up to us, wanting their picture with us - like the kids who are walking behind Laura and I in the picture. Craig and I guessed that some of these kids had come from towns where there are no foreigners and wanted a picture (?) - and Brett thinks some of the older kids taking pictures were playing games ("who can get the most pictures of a foreigner").










It was a tied game in the end - and while Craig and I staggered home by bus and subway from Suwon that night, Brett and Laura stayed at a "love" motel (the cheaper motels in Korea). Craig still has to post his pictures online; in the meantime, you can check out Brett's photos.

Welcome Kerri!!

We have a week vacation from Swaton starting today. Craig's sister, Kerri, took a couple weeks off from her busy schedule and travelled 20 hours to visit us here in Ilsan. It's so great to see a familiar face and have her experience all the culture and weirdness that Korea has to offer.

There are quite a few postable things that have happened in the past couple weeks (Suwon soccer game, kindergarten field trip, etc) but due to some serious apartment cleaning for Kerri's arrival and for our departure in a month, we haven't had to chance to do any postings lately. Bare with me - I'll try and post pictures as soon as possible.

Everland

We woke up to a non-rainy day on Sunday, so Craig and I decided to go to Everland - Korea's largest amusement park. It was a 2 hour ride there, but it was worth the trip. The overcast kept most of the Koreans away; it was a perfect day to go. There were rides, gardens, shows, petting zoos, safari bus rides - enough excitement to keep us there after dark. Here are the pictures.

We enjoyed another Korean experience of losing our apartment key at the park. At 11pm we had to have a lock smith called to break into our apartment. It took longer than we thought, but 40 minutes, 30 000W, and 2 buckets of sweat later, we made it inside. I now know that a stick, a mirror, a roll of duct tape, and a lot of patience can help you break into any Hugok Maeul apartment.

Apt 408

A view from the teacher's room. Apt 408: our apartment.

Goodbye Mimi/Hello Grace

Mimi is almost 8 months pregnant now - I can't believe I've been here long enough to witness Mimi get married, then watch her go through 8 months of pregnancy. Mimi's last day was Friday - we had a goodbye dinner for her at a restaurant owned by one of the supply teacher's family. It was a great kalbi restaurant just on the outskirts of Seoul and had a nice log cabin setting (and see mom? chopsticks! left-handed!). Grace (in the blue shirt, above) is replacing Mimi. She lived in the U.S. from ages 4-14 so her English accent is almost perfect. She's not like most of the traditional Korean teachers here. She has her own apartment that she shares with 2 other girls (which is still rare here - most unmarried women live with their parents, even in their 30's). She's my co-teacher for more than half my classes - so far, she's been a great replacement.

More Ostrich Farm Photos

Here are my ostrich farm pics as Mary promised long ago =) ...still waiting for my computer...

Slideshow
OR
As a set

Ilsan Maps

We received a free map of Goyang city in the mail a week or so ago (It came with a phone book, but that's only useful for putting under tables and other wobbly objects; maybe Gabe could've used it for the kindy graduation photo).

Anyway, I've scanned the map and posted it on Flickr. Each picture has little notes that appear as boxes when you put your mouse over it and then put your mouse in the boxes to make the text appear. Click the "Zoom In" links in the description or notes to get a closer look. I also put up some satellite photos from Google maps http://maps.google.com.



P.S. I'm a geek.

The Rainy Season...

...is officially here. Bringing out umbrellas, forcing people to sprint to the nearest shelter, flooding streets (and rooftops - left), giving us wet shoes and pants for a good portion of the morning. It's really not the rain that bothers me.... it's the thunder and lightning that keeps me up til 1am and then proceeds to wake me up at 6am. And for those who know me well, you know that thunderstorms have never been my friend. The one good thing about the rainy season though is that you don't mind being inside teaching when it's a bad weather day. I hated going to work in May and June on those perfect sunny days that disappeared once you finished at 7:35pm.

On a side note, we are in the process of getting our Chinese, Mongolian, and Russian visas for our 3 month journey across those countries and Europe. We have booked our return tickets from Dublin to Toronto for Nov 26th. It's hard to imagine we'll be traveling longer than the amount of time we now have left in Korea (7 weeks - 7 weeks!!!). Craig has started a blog that will cover our journey home.