Well camp is over, it was only two weeks but I'm glad it's done. By the start of this week everyone had lost interest in school. Don't blame them, even though we weren't doing work, who really wants to be in class during their vacation? Made a couple mini-films and watched some movies, so it was alright. Three more weeks of camp coming up in February, not entirely sure why, but I plan on doing a sports camp, different game everyday. Maybe a little dodgeball, soccer and football for these restless teenage boys.
Finally got in some much needed snowboarding this season and I was just blown away. At first Graham, Lauren and myself got to Muju Resort (which is about 2.5 hours north in another province) and it was just like Blue. We may as well have been in Canada. Even the runs were similar, so while that was good, there was nothing spectacular about it, but it was snowboarding so I took it. The hills were loaded with beginners so it was like dodging bullets. Made a little game of it by counting how many near misses I could have by the end of the run. Everytime I lost count. Then we jumped over to another lift, line was ridiculous. Waited an hour to get on the lift. That took us halfway up, then we jumped onto a second lift that took us to the top. And oh mah gah, the view was unbelievable. While the bottom half of the mountain looked like Blue, this half was so different. All you could see over the treeline were rolling mountains for miles and miles and a little lagoon style lake. Unreal. And once you get off the lift, bam, temple. Of course. So we stayed on this top half of the mountain where there were no lines and the runs were ace. It was all double blacks, but I surprised myself. At Blue I stayed away from the double blacks and hated going down them, but here I was just ripping through the runs. I think I pushed myself a little harder than I would have back home and it definitely paid off. Eight hours of double blacks made for a brilliant day on the slopes. Now making it back down to the bottom, that was a trek. The run was over 6km and while the first half was brilliant, the second half was riddled with beginners. There was no avoiding them, you had at least five people turning into you the entire time. Took me longer to get through about a km of this than it did the previous 5 or 6 km. Still, epic day on the slopes.
Then it was time to finalllyyy explore Mokpo. It's a city on the West Coast of my province and it has a massive foreigner population. Graham lives in Mokpo so he grabbed the rental car from there, so after we returned it, good old fashioned Korean bbq, can't get enough. Mokpo's nice, didn't see too much, but from what I did see it's a pretty decent little city. But anything with more than two major streets is nice after being inn Gurye for a while. Will definitely be returning to Mokpo to see some other sights, and hopefully head off to Jeju Island once the warm weather kicks in.
Then back to Gurye to start and finish the week. While the camp may not have been as big a success as I'd hoped (I don't think many camps are a complete success) it was a solid week. I was able to talk to other teachers more than I would have during the regular school year. We started collectively going out for lunches and even made lunch at the school a few days. I brought in some Mac 'n Cheese to let them taste. Cheddar and White Cheddar, naturally the white cheddar won. They seemed blown away that we ate this stuff on it's own. The only remark "This could use some kimchi". Everything can apparently use kimchi: ice cream, fried rice, cheese. You name it the Koreans have thrown kimchi in it. I like the stuff, and am eating more of it now,but honestly, if the apocalypse were to come I bet they would pull out kimchi as their final meal. but solid week and it flew by faster than I was expecting.
Well, that's it until I get back, jump on a flight down south for a couple weeks, be back in February, hopefully with a solid tan and some wicked pics. Hope everyone is doing well!
2012년 1월 20일 금요일
2012년 1월 10일 화요일
Tuesday Night Filler
Well a boring Tuesday night, got sick of watching movies so I'll throw in this quick entry. First week of vacation has come and gone, reading and exploring the town were on the docket, saved some money and laid low. Probably best for my body and my wallet. So in the end I think it was a good thing. Also the first weekend I've spent in Gurye since being here. The last time was my very first weekend, and doubt I'll be doing that for a long while now.
Back to class yesterday, felt like I had been away for a month, not 10 days. But only 3 hours of "teaching" and with film camp, super easy. Everything is pretty fluid and there is no solid lesson so everything is done on the fly. Surprise surprise romance films were not high up on their list, so yesterday was a bit hit or miss, but luckily they brought in Mr. Bean, so that's an easy reliance. Surprising though is that they all fell for horror today, barely made 2.5 hours yesterday with comedy, romance and mr. bean, but maxed out today with only doing horror. They loved Insidious and Friday the 13th which surprised me. Plus now they seem a little more pumped to come up with their own movie.
I'll also be doing a "tutoring" session wiht one of the grade 3s, aka, we'll get lunch and just shoot the shit for a couple hours in the afternoon. Today was one of the quickest days I've had yet, and now that all the teachers are on vacay and I'll be one of the verryyyyy few in the school, everything is going to be way more lax so it should be good. Plus the tutoring session gives me a chance to help the one student with his English and he can help me with my Korean while we talk about culture, so it should be fun. Felt bad though, we were talking about schooling and was talking to him about how I felt with University and the possibilities that came out of it (esp. coming to Korea and travelling), basically he came down to the Korean way is going to University for a year, do military service, finish University then work your asses off until retirement and that's that, with no fun. And I can kind of see that, Koreans are always working with no break (the adults) and the students are constantly studying or going to classes. We get a legit vacation in the summer, but here there vacation is in the winter but they still have classes, and private classes, and study constantly. Crazy, but at least we can compare cultures now and go from there. Plus a mac n cheese lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks should make for an ace time before Cambodia! Can't wait to lie on the beaches and feel the warmth again. I can get through Winters in Canada, but I've had about enough of this winter here.
Hope everyone's doing well back home and 2012 is getting off to a killer start so far!
Back to class yesterday, felt like I had been away for a month, not 10 days. But only 3 hours of "teaching" and with film camp, super easy. Everything is pretty fluid and there is no solid lesson so everything is done on the fly. Surprise surprise romance films were not high up on their list, so yesterday was a bit hit or miss, but luckily they brought in Mr. Bean, so that's an easy reliance. Surprising though is that they all fell for horror today, barely made 2.5 hours yesterday with comedy, romance and mr. bean, but maxed out today with only doing horror. They loved Insidious and Friday the 13th which surprised me. Plus now they seem a little more pumped to come up with their own movie.
I'll also be doing a "tutoring" session wiht one of the grade 3s, aka, we'll get lunch and just shoot the shit for a couple hours in the afternoon. Today was one of the quickest days I've had yet, and now that all the teachers are on vacay and I'll be one of the verryyyyy few in the school, everything is going to be way more lax so it should be good. Plus the tutoring session gives me a chance to help the one student with his English and he can help me with my Korean while we talk about culture, so it should be fun. Felt bad though, we were talking about schooling and was talking to him about how I felt with University and the possibilities that came out of it (esp. coming to Korea and travelling), basically he came down to the Korean way is going to University for a year, do military service, finish University then work your asses off until retirement and that's that, with no fun. And I can kind of see that, Koreans are always working with no break (the adults) and the students are constantly studying or going to classes. We get a legit vacation in the summer, but here there vacation is in the winter but they still have classes, and private classes, and study constantly. Crazy, but at least we can compare cultures now and go from there. Plus a mac n cheese lunch sometime in the next couple of weeks should make for an ace time before Cambodia! Can't wait to lie on the beaches and feel the warmth again. I can get through Winters in Canada, but I've had about enough of this winter here.
Hope everyone's doing well back home and 2012 is getting off to a killer start so far!
2012년 1월 1일 일요일
Vacation continues but the agenda is empty. Thinking of spending this week actually relaxing and exploring this area of Korea. Every weekend it's been something else that I haven't actually spent much legit time in this town. Weather's been mint so a hike up into the Sea of Clouds see what that's all about. Be mighty cold, but it would be totally worth it. Plus, gives a chance to actually save some money. Things have been getting a bit more pricey than I'd expect, apparently live an expensive lifestyle over here.
Battled through my cold last week and managed to slightly squeeze by it (another reason for the relaxing this week) but I did manage to get my first haircut. Kind of a big deal. First, this was the first time I've EVER paid to get my haircut. Considering my cheap ways, that's a big thing. Second, I had to push my way through the language barrier to avoid getting a typical Korean haircut, looks good on them but if I repped that? Nah, wouldn't be having it. So this was a big thing and glad to have the experience, plus had to look good for round 2 in Seoul! New Years 2012 in Times Square Seoul! Had to bring in the new year proper, plus needed to go big in Korea, how could you not? Minor setback when I got to the bus terminal only to find out all the buses were either filled or cancelled going into Seoul so had to trek to the nearest city to hop on an express. Think I'm starting to get the whole transportation thing here. For some reason I find it a lot simpler to use here than using the buses in Canada. But off to Seoul! Met up with Ellen in the Express Terminal and we got lost on the way to the hostel, some nice hospitality from a group of Korean guys though, walked us to the hostel--well they thought it was the hostel. They led us back to where we started. Nice of them, but we were no where close. Luckily the pair we were sharing the hostel with saw us and hailed us down and managed to find our way. Chill first night went later than anticipated but it was great to be back in the city for a visit.
Woke up for a Gyeongbok Palace visit. Beautiful place. Walk out of the subway station and you're face to face with the palace entrance. It was like walking into a fantasy. I'll upload my pics (really been meaning to) and you can see how surreal it is to have the city scape on one side, palace in the centre and mountainscape on the other side. Unbelievable. Followed up with a trip to the arts market, nice stuff, expensive, but nice and then we were off to Subway. Legit, sandwiches. Mind blown. Downside is that I'm pretty sure they use peanut oil or some kind of nut flour or something to make the bread (at leas the italian breads) so that sketched me out. So after a switch finally got to eat a wicked sandwich. And to top that made our way to Itaewon (I'm actually liking the subway system in Seoul, super convenient and so easy to use) to visit...(my heart raced when I saw this)...Rocky Mountain Tavern. A Canadian pub in Korea. With real Canadian ginger ale, think I went back home for a minute there. And to eat...poutine. Mind you it was actually one of the worst things I've eaten in a long time, but still we managed to grab a poutine! They use white gravy here and it basically turns to soup and there was no poutine taste, basically throw french fries in a garlic bread soup and you have a Korean poutine. Not pleasant. But the day was just getting started so back tot he hostel to get ready for New Years!
The basement of the hostel was a "dining room" so the 8 or 9 of us made it our room for the pre-NYE celebrations and within no time there were about 20 of us crammed in there. Ah it was nice. Then off to Times Square! After grabbing our tickets the event is already getting started and spread over 5 or 6 floors with something different going on on each floor. There were concerts straight from 7pm to 5am and managed to catch a few of them, and actually surprisingly really freaking good. They were all over the world but such good sets.I took a video of New Years Countdown and it was phenomenal. Fire show, concert sea of balloons and confetti, how can you go wrong? I'm not sure how many people were there, but likely a couple thousand so it was a pretty big thing.
But another year gone and I can't believe how fast 2011 went and how much things could change in such a short amount of time. This time last year Korea was barely an afterthought. Teaching overseas was always a maybe, but one year ago it was not a serious consideration. But now look at this, Korea baby! Pretty significant year to pass as well. Some things were lost or had to be given up to make way for the future, but there were also huge gains and accomplishments. After a prolonged study, finally finished undergrad. Met some incredibly people along the way, and even though I will only continue seeing about a handful of them when I come back to Canada it was well worth the journey and they've helped make me who I am. And then preparation for Korea, which is a huge step in my life. This is my first solo adventure overseas without having a familiar counterpart to balance out what I miss from back home. And not only that but this will be the first time that I've ever gone this long away from home. The comfort zone of the homsestead has been shattered so it's been a battle to actually make a life of my own without relying on so many familiar aspects of my life. Still some carryovers from 2012, there are still things I need to read that I wanted to read last year, I was hoping to have a stronger grasp on the Korean language, but so far I think I'm doing alright. I can understand and I've managed to have a couple broken conversations and I'm getting better at ordering things at restaurants and reading signs and posts so that I don't have to rely on my little translator anymore. So who knows, I am going to finish my Korean course this week hopefully and that should help me a bunch.
I've talked to a few of you already today and it was great to be able to hear your voices! It definitely made my day. So cheers to 2012 and starting things fresh and to new experiences, and 새해 복 많이 보내세요 to all of you! (pronounce "say hey bo ma knee bo nay say oh" I'm pretty sure I said this to every single person at the event, it actually started some pretty solid conversations with complete strangers, it was great, managed to meet people from all over the world).
Battled through my cold last week and managed to slightly squeeze by it (another reason for the relaxing this week) but I did manage to get my first haircut. Kind of a big deal. First, this was the first time I've EVER paid to get my haircut. Considering my cheap ways, that's a big thing. Second, I had to push my way through the language barrier to avoid getting a typical Korean haircut, looks good on them but if I repped that? Nah, wouldn't be having it. So this was a big thing and glad to have the experience, plus had to look good for round 2 in Seoul! New Years 2012 in Times Square Seoul! Had to bring in the new year proper, plus needed to go big in Korea, how could you not? Minor setback when I got to the bus terminal only to find out all the buses were either filled or cancelled going into Seoul so had to trek to the nearest city to hop on an express. Think I'm starting to get the whole transportation thing here. For some reason I find it a lot simpler to use here than using the buses in Canada. But off to Seoul! Met up with Ellen in the Express Terminal and we got lost on the way to the hostel, some nice hospitality from a group of Korean guys though, walked us to the hostel--well they thought it was the hostel. They led us back to where we started. Nice of them, but we were no where close. Luckily the pair we were sharing the hostel with saw us and hailed us down and managed to find our way. Chill first night went later than anticipated but it was great to be back in the city for a visit.
Woke up for a Gyeongbok Palace visit. Beautiful place. Walk out of the subway station and you're face to face with the palace entrance. It was like walking into a fantasy. I'll upload my pics (really been meaning to) and you can see how surreal it is to have the city scape on one side, palace in the centre and mountainscape on the other side. Unbelievable. Followed up with a trip to the arts market, nice stuff, expensive, but nice and then we were off to Subway. Legit, sandwiches. Mind blown. Downside is that I'm pretty sure they use peanut oil or some kind of nut flour or something to make the bread (at leas the italian breads) so that sketched me out. So after a switch finally got to eat a wicked sandwich. And to top that made our way to Itaewon (I'm actually liking the subway system in Seoul, super convenient and so easy to use) to visit...(my heart raced when I saw this)...Rocky Mountain Tavern. A Canadian pub in Korea. With real Canadian ginger ale, think I went back home for a minute there. And to eat...poutine. Mind you it was actually one of the worst things I've eaten in a long time, but still we managed to grab a poutine! They use white gravy here and it basically turns to soup and there was no poutine taste, basically throw french fries in a garlic bread soup and you have a Korean poutine. Not pleasant. But the day was just getting started so back tot he hostel to get ready for New Years!
The basement of the hostel was a "dining room" so the 8 or 9 of us made it our room for the pre-NYE celebrations and within no time there were about 20 of us crammed in there. Ah it was nice. Then off to Times Square! After grabbing our tickets the event is already getting started and spread over 5 or 6 floors with something different going on on each floor. There were concerts straight from 7pm to 5am and managed to catch a few of them, and actually surprisingly really freaking good. They were all over the world but such good sets.I took a video of New Years Countdown and it was phenomenal. Fire show, concert sea of balloons and confetti, how can you go wrong? I'm not sure how many people were there, but likely a couple thousand so it was a pretty big thing.
But another year gone and I can't believe how fast 2011 went and how much things could change in such a short amount of time. This time last year Korea was barely an afterthought. Teaching overseas was always a maybe, but one year ago it was not a serious consideration. But now look at this, Korea baby! Pretty significant year to pass as well. Some things were lost or had to be given up to make way for the future, but there were also huge gains and accomplishments. After a prolonged study, finally finished undergrad. Met some incredibly people along the way, and even though I will only continue seeing about a handful of them when I come back to Canada it was well worth the journey and they've helped make me who I am. And then preparation for Korea, which is a huge step in my life. This is my first solo adventure overseas without having a familiar counterpart to balance out what I miss from back home. And not only that but this will be the first time that I've ever gone this long away from home. The comfort zone of the homsestead has been shattered so it's been a battle to actually make a life of my own without relying on so many familiar aspects of my life. Still some carryovers from 2012, there are still things I need to read that I wanted to read last year, I was hoping to have a stronger grasp on the Korean language, but so far I think I'm doing alright. I can understand and I've managed to have a couple broken conversations and I'm getting better at ordering things at restaurants and reading signs and posts so that I don't have to rely on my little translator anymore. So who knows, I am going to finish my Korean course this week hopefully and that should help me a bunch.
I've talked to a few of you already today and it was great to be able to hear your voices! It definitely made my day. So cheers to 2012 and starting things fresh and to new experiences, and 새해 복 많이 보내세요 to all of you! (pronounce "say hey bo ma knee bo nay say oh" I'm pretty sure I said this to every single person at the event, it actually started some pretty solid conversations with complete strangers, it was great, managed to meet people from all over the world).
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