Last few weeks in Korea: July 17th-29th, 2013

It's hard to believe we have 32 days left til we are Canada bound, and ten of these days will be spent in Vietnam meaning we have only 22 days remaining in Korea! I have mixed feelings about August 30th, 2013. I am definitely excited to be heading home, to see family and friends, and to eat Western food. At the same time, I know it's going to be really hard to part with Korea, and all our friends we have made here. This has a been such an amazing year, it is sad to see it come to an end.

While I still get lost on occasion, I haven't felt like a tourist in several months. Having my parents and friends visit confirmed this and showed me how settled I am in my life in Korea. September 2013 will bring lots of changes for us, but I am looking forward to what comes next.

As for updates from us, we have been busy soaking up the last few weeks in Korea. I am happy to announce, I think (fingers crossed) that the monsoon season is finally coming to an end. I saw blue skies a few times this past week and it has put me in a great mood. It surprised both Ian and I how much the constant downpour of rain affected our mood. We missed the sun so much! The weather did behave itself two weekends ago when we went on a trip to Boryeong for the annual Mud Festival. Boryeong is on the west coast, about 2 hours south of Incheon. We took a bus on Saturday morning, and spent the day in the mud. We painted ourselves with mud, and there were several activities. It was a lot of fun, but the area with all the activities was very small. Unfortunately, when Ian was in a wrestling pool of mud he fell back out of the arena, and slammed his back on the ledge of a trash can. We took a break after this, for him to rest and ice his back. After resting the past week, he is basically completely healed now. After this incident, we all went swimming in the ocean to wash off the mud. Jumping in the waves was my favourite part. That night, we got dinner with friends and ate it by the beach. We watched the sun set and then got drinks and chilled at a convenience store patio (surprisingly a very popular activity in Korea). Overall, it was a fun experience, and I wish I had pictures to document it. I didn't bring my camera in the mud because I knew it would get ruined.

This past weekend, we had dinner with Ian's co teacher Wonsoon and his girlfriend, Inhee on Friday. We went for a traditional sit on the floor Korean meal, I had yet to try - hoe, sliced raw fish. It reminded me of Japanese sashimi. It was a great night chatting with them. We went out for drinks with them after as well.

On Saturday, Ian and I went shopping in Seoul to get some souvenirs. It is crazy how fast August 30th approaching! That night, we went out with friends starting in Hongdae and eventually making our way over to Sinchon, a neighbouring area. It was another fantastic night out in Seoul.

As for our work lives, we are now on summer break, but this doesn't mean it's our vacation quite yet. It is hard to explain how busy students are here. Just like in the winter, we are now leading English Camps at our schools. On their vacation, students still come to school to study English, something which Ian simply refers to as "glorified babysitting." He had his camp last week and chose to lead a Music English Camp, where students learnt about different music genres and their history, they made bands, played vocab games, and sang karaoke on the last day. Ian let them choose a song for him to sing for them - they chose "I'm yours" by Jason Mraz which he said went over well. Students love listening to music, but I find they mainly listen to kpop, so this was a chance for them to be exposed to different music. In the afternoons, Ian has to call his students and have a five minute conversation. This week, he is also leading a high school camp. Although, I am leading three camps over ten days, I think Ian is a lot busier at work.

I am just finishing off two camps (grade 3/4 high and low level). We have had a cooking, superhero, travel, and movie day. It was been fun getting to know my students better in a small group setting. On Wednesday, my grade 5/6 holiday themed camp starts.

That's about it from us! Here are a few pictures. Hope everyone is having great Mondays :)

This is our first glimpse at blue skies since the rainy season started a few weeks ago. It was very exciting.

This is a picture taken while walking around Seoul one weekend.

I forgot to add this picture last post. This is Ian playing with a cat at the cat cafe in Bupyeong (yes, many of the cats wear ridiculous outfits)

Sunset post mud at the Boryeong Mud Festival. 

Isabelle, Emily and I wearing the "scaries". Emily has had these "scary" looking sunglasses for a long time, and when she travels she takes a picture with them on. After 11 months of traveling Korea together,  Isabelle and I have a pair of our own now!

Here is a picture of the three of us with our "scaries".

Adam, Isabelle, Ian, Nadia, Ryan, and Emily getting drinks at a GS25 convenience store patio. It was one of our items on our Korean bucket list. 

Great fireworks to end the night at Boryeong.

Ian and I out to dinner with Wonsoon and his girlfriend, In hee. 

This is the second dish that had an assortment of raw sliced fish.

Saturday night out in Seoul with Isabelle and Emily.

Summer English Camp! Here are 2 grade profiles from girls in grade 3.

Cooking day with my grade 3s. We made sandwiches.

Superhero day: the students designed their own superhero  (although almost all the boys just drew Ironman).

After designing their own superheroes, they became superheroes! 

Travel Day: the students learnt about other cultures and made a travel book.

Their travel books.

A sample of their work.

Rain, rain, go away: July 1-16, 2013

Living in Korea at this time of year is definitely an experience. I say this because the rainy/monsoon season has arrived! It is currently raining as I am typing this entry, and it has been raining non-stop for the past two weeks which feels like forever! I have never seen so much rain in my life, it is hard to explain. I guess to start I should say it pours everyday and doesn't light up! To help picture this amount of rainfall, here are a few anecdotes. Two days ago, the rain and wind combo broke Ian's umbrella in half.  My friend Isabelle said the rain actually pierced her umbrella on Monday night. At my school, on a daily basis they line the entrance doors with bags of sand to prevent flooding. These are only a few stories, and we still have a few weeks left of rain! At least all my students have learnt a new phrase from me "it's humid." Oh well, not much we can do about the weather.

What my cellphone weather app always tells me...

If it is not rainy, this is what the sky looks like. I took this from our apartment window. 

 Besides the insane amount of rain falling from the sky, here are some other updates.

On July 1st, I visited Ian's school because I had the day off. It was cool to see his office and get a mini tour of the school. It is drastically different than my school, especially his office set up. I also met most of his co-teachers, who were all excited to chat with me. I only met a few of his students, and just kept thinking how old they all looked! 

Ian hard at work at his desk.

At our schools, things are wrapping up as students start their summer vacations next week. Ian and I have been busy planning English summer camps and final classes. Although my "after school free talking classes" involve more planning (I have no co-teacher and the level of English is low), I have started to really enjoy the three after school classes I have a week. I have really gotten to know these students which make for fun classes. On July 4th, I celebrated Independence Day with pinwheels my teta gave me for my students. They absolutely loved them and were running around the field with them after class.

My kiddos celebrating July 4th. They are holding up their pinwheels so that the fans spin them.

I want to add that I of course did celebrate Canada Day with my students. Here is a picture from my kindergarten class.

Happy Canada Day from my k class!

Our weekend life is winding down during the day. We have still been going out at night in Hongdae, an area in Seoul but during the day with the downpour of rain, it has been hard to motivate ourselves. The past two weekends we celebrated Isabelle's and Emma's birthdays, which were both so much fun! On Sunday we went to one of Ian's favourite places in Korea: a Cat Cafe! It was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon.

New cat cafe that opened up in Bupyeong.

As for upcoming trips, we have one more in Korea and a bigger one in Vietnam! We are going on our last weekend trip in Korea this weekend. It is the annual Boryeong Mud Festival, and although we don't really know what to expect, we are both pretty excited! After this weekend, it will be under three weeks til we are in Vietnam! I can't wait for this trip to get here! Last week, Emily, Isabelle and I went to do some trip planning and check out the Hello Kitty Cafe in Seoul after school. It was definitely a cute little cafe with Hello Kitties everywhere - one of those only-in-Korea moments.

So that's about it from us. We are enjoying our last few weeks in Korea and are looking forward to our Vietnam trip. It is crazy to think we will be in Canada in 45 days! 

The Korean "Hawaii": Jeju Island from June 28th-30th, 2013

To start I should say HAPPY CANADA DAY!! Although we both missed being in Canada and going to cottages this past weekend, we had a great time in Korea. We decided to go on a trip to the famous southern island called Jeju. Ever since I started researching and planing trips in Korea, Jeju-Do ('do' means island) has always made it in the top ten on every list. Koreans refer to this island as the "Hawaii of Korea" and as the top vacation spot. So after looking into it, we figured we had to go and see it for ourselves. We wanted to go on a long weekend, since you need to take a flight there, but we simply couldn't use our vacation days at this time so we just made it a jammed pack weekend. 

Friday June 28th, 2013

Friday night, we raced home and then headed to Gimpo airport with only a small backpack each. The flight is very short and we were at our hostel in Jeju city by 9:30pm. 

Ready to go!!

Flying to Jeju Island

Saturday June 29th, 2013

On Saturday, we woke up very early to take a bus to the entrance point for the Seongpanak trail up Mt. Halla. Hallasan is a volcano in the middle of Jeju island, and it is also Korea's tallest mountain. The trail up is 9.6km long and the park estimates it should take a person 4- 4.5 hours to hike up to the peak. I am proud to say it took Ian 3 hours and me 3 hours and 15 min (I was exhausted by the end). The trail started off easy and then quickly turned into a million stairs. Luckily, we had great weather which made for beautiful scenic views, that I especially enjoyed as I took breaks along the way. At the peak, we were on the edge of the crater of the volcano. It was cool looking down into the pond of water in the crater. It was also nice seeing all the hikers at the top stopping to take in the views and share snacks with each other. We joined in as well, sharing our trail mix and banana chips. After a much needed break, we took a different route down, a trail called Gwaneumsa which was thankfully only 8.7km. By the end of the hike down our legs felt like jelly - the hike really took it out of us! The hike was challenging but by far our favourite part of our trip.

Starting out on our hike at 8:45am.

I was very excited to see the peak at this point.

Ian patiently waiting and encouraging me - thanks Ian :) 

Final stretch to the top!  This is the view looking down.

Volcano crater

This is where we parked to have our snacks.

Ian is sitting on the tallest point in Korea!

YAY - We made it to the peak!! 

Everyone stopping to refuel on snacks. We saw a lot of Koreans brought up kimchi with them to the peak.

About to start our hike down Gwaneumsa Trail.

After the hike, we decided to go to a beach and relax. There are several famous beaches in Jeju making it hard to choose, but we decided on Hyeopjae Beach after talking with a few Jeju locals. When we got there, it felt so nice to just sit and have our feet in the sand or wade in the water. It was cool looking out on the bright blue water and the dark black volcanic rocks.

Our spot on the beach. We had a sunny day and then clouds came in just as we go to the beach.

Felt so nice dipping our feet in the water!

There were plenty of mouples (matching couples) on the beach. 

After resting for a bit we walked around to explore the beach area and found this mermaid. 

We loved being there! A sign on our way back to the hostel.

After our big hike and beach adventure we treated ourselves to some Indian food and to some beers on a patio. 

Sunday June 30th, 2013
On Sunday, we decided to check out the other side of the island. We checked out of the hostel and took a bus to Seowigpo, a city on the southern side. We then proceeded on our waterfall tour segment of our trip. Who knew there were so many beautiful waterfalls so close together. Here are the stops we made.

1. Our first stop was Jeongbang Waterfall, which is 23m tall and 10m wide. It was nice because it was on a cliff and flowed into the ocean.

For each waterfall, we had to pay an entrance fee (~2,000 Won). This is after we entered the park and were walking towards the falls. 

Jeju is semi-tropical and has cool flowers.

You can even buy coconuts to drink!

First view of the falls, as we were walking down the stairs.

Jeongbang Waterfalls

The coastline was beautiful with the cliffs and bright blue waters. 

 2. We then walked around 20 mins over to Cheonjiyeon Waterfall. After grabbing a quick lunch we entered this park and discovered that Jeju is now one of the 7 New Wonders of the World. We weren't quite sure what other places made it on this list, but it sounded impressive. This is where we saw the Jeju Man, as we called him. The Jeju Man is an iconic statue made of volcanic basalt rock. In Korean he is called Dolhareubang, which means Stone Grandfather. We saw these statues all over the island.

Walking over to the second falls, we saw interesting art along the coastline.

Harbour along the walk.

Korea's national flower - Rose of Sharon (a type of Hibiscus)

Nice walk along the water to the second falls.

This is the Stone Grandfather (Dolhareubang) seen all over the island.

Yoga in front of Cheonjiyeon Waterfalls.

Ian contemplating jumping in to escape the heat! It was so hot and humid.

Cheonjiyeon Waterfall is 22m high and 12m wide.

Walking around the park was lovely. It felt like we were in a rainforest.

Trail in the park leading to the falls.

 3. We then took a bus to the International Convention Center, and from there walked over to the Jusangjeolidae Cliffs. This was one of my favourite parts of the day. These cliffs are famous because they have polygonal columns that run along 2km of the shore. We learnt that the columns were formed as molten lava cooled and solidified around 14,000 to 25,000 years ago. We spent a lot of time walking around the park, looking at the cliffs, and lastly walking along the water.

Outside the International Convention Center.

I took this picture because I liked how pine and palm trees were growing beside each other. 

Ian yelling out to the sea!  

 4. The last stop of the day was Cheonjeyeon Falls, which consists of three waterfalls in a row. Over the flowing water, there was also a famous bridge called Seonim-gyo, which we had to cross to reach the waterfalls. The park was huge with a bunch of trails to walk and explore around.

View from the bridge.

Seonim-gyo Bridge

This is the second waterfall (of the three in the row).

This is the first of the three waterfalls at Cheonjeyeon. We sat on the rocks by here for a while because the colour of the water and the columns were so pretty. 

I bought Jeju oranges to have as a snack. They were delicious!

Walking to the third waterfall in this park, I loved seeing the line up of palms.

The third waterfall at Cheonjeyeon.

Waiting at the bus stop to head to the airport. Bye bye Jeju!