Tobogganing: January 5th, 2013

Happy 2013! We celebrated the new year by having a nice Italian spaghetti dinner with friends and then heading to Seoul. It was such a fun night partying with Koreans other foreigners in Hongdae, a fun area in Seoul we like to go out in. Since hostels increased the prices dramatically on new year's eve, we decided to stay out til 5:30 am, as this is the time that the subway starts running. It was a great night with good friends, but Ian and I decided staying up to take the early subway back to Incheon may be a thing we only do once. At least we had new year's day off of work so we could rest.

On Wednesday, Ian started his English camp. During the winter break, English teachers lead these English camps in the mornings. It is an opportunity for students to continue practicing their English in a more relaxed, less formal setting. Ian seems to be enjoying his camp, since it is a smaller group of students, he planned fun activities, and the students are part of the "high level group", meaning they are well behaved. My camp starts tomorrow, so the past week I was desk warming. This means I have to be at my desk even though there are no students at school.

On Saturday January 5th, a group of decided to go tobogganing! Korean tobogganing is more intense than tobogganing back home. Here, there is a designated course, where we had to pay to enter. It was quite chilly out, so we bundled up in many layers and I even brought out my ski gloves for this adventure. The place was located in Incheon Grand Park, which is two subway stops from Bupyeong (downtown Incheon), followed by a short bus ride and walk. I also really enjoyed walking through the snow covered park. On the tobogganing hill, the employees monitored as around 15 people raced down at the sound of the start whistle. Overall, it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Later on that evening, Ian and I went out to one of our favourite restaurants for some delicious Korean BBQ! Today it's Sunday and we are relaxing in a cozy cafe overlooking a busy intersection in Bupyeong. Tomorrow is Ukrainian Christmas, and traditionally you celebrate with a big meal on Christmas eve. We skyped my family as they were enjoying their perogies. I am sad to be missing the festivities back home, but Ian and I will try and recreate a Ukrainian Christmas dinner tonight - dumplings and perogies are similar right? Here are some pictures from the weekend :)

Ian bundled up and ready to go tobogganing.

Walking through Incheon Grand Central Park to the tobogganing hill.

Beautiful walk

Ready to go! (Emily, Ryan, Isabelle, Adam, Ian)

Ian on the hill.

Ian after he finished a run. Note the man to the left wearing the dog hat. This style is extremely popular among children and adults. 

The girls - Emily, me, Isabelle

Ian and I in the "Photo Zone"

One of our favourite meals - Korean BBQ!

Our dinner on Saturday after tobogganing.

We were offered forks but we said we would use the chopsticks. I think out waiter was very pleased, as he smiled and gave us the thumbs up when we declined the forks.

Korean BBQ dinner - thin slices of pork and onions on the grill, that you then wrap in lettuce, add garlic slices and various sauces. It is delicious! The meal starts off with a seaweed soup you can see on the left. We also ordered a kimchi, chicken, and vegetables spicy mix that you eat with rice. 

We are not sure why, but every time we go out for a Korean meal, our meal is served in an extremely banged up dish. Here is one example of a bowl that is very morphed.

Sunday afternoon at a cafe in Bupyeong.

At the cafe

End of semester: December 26-30, 2012

So the school year is coming to an end. My students had their last day this past Friday, and Ian's students are done on Monday. We have both been busy preparing for our English winter camps and Ian also has to organize phone conversations with his students during the break. Now that our camps are pretty much ready to go, we anticipate a lot of desk warming in the next few weeks. Desk warming simply means we are required to come to work and be at our desks even if students are on break and we don't  have camps. We will be "warming" our desks, it is just part of our contract... Teachers who have done this job in the past have recommended downloading a large supply of movies and shows, and to take this opportunity to skype with family and friends. So if you are reading this, maybe we can skype at a relatively decent time in the next few weeks? Let us know :)

Since Christmas, we have been taking it easy. This is what we have been up to in the past few days. On Wednesday afternoon, my principal organized a teacher's field trip. We went to the Animation Museum near my school and then out for dinner. The animation museum was interesting, unfortunately everything was in Korean with no English translations. I was able to pick up on all the art work of past presidents. I felt it was a major theme of this museum, and it was not always a positive representation. The dinner following the field trip was nice. Ian has staff dinners very often, but my school doesn't due to budgeting reasons. In fact, this was my first staff dinner. It was nice, the principal gave a huge speech in Korean and then at the end just turned to look at me and said "Merry Christmas". I thought it was so sweet. It was also great talking with other teachers at my school even if it is in broken English with a lot of gestures and guessing. I also ate some interesting food at this dinner. The dish is called shabishabi, and basically there is a large pot of broth that is brought to a boil. Then various vegetables, including different types of mushrooms, bok choy, and spinach are added. Lastly very thin slices of meat are added to the mixture. Sometimes seafood, such as mini octopus, squid, and shrimp are added (we didn't add the seafood that night). Overall, it was a nice night out with my colleagues.    

On Friday night, Ian and I went out for dinner and drinks with a few friends. There is one benefit to being 14 hours ahead of Toronto - we got to watch the world juniors hockey game live on Friday night! We had dinner at a western place and they paid to get the CTV channel. It was nice watching the game and catching up with friends. Go Canada Go!

Saturday morning, we headed into Seoul to Gangnam, an area I am sure most of you have heard of before (thanks Psy). There is one particular area within Gangnam that has a strip of ski/board stores my co-teacher recommended. After checking out a few stores we found a great little shop and both bought ski goggles! We got a great deal and now are one step closer to Japan! We are also one step closer to becoming a mouple, as we both got Dragon Rogue goggles (matching brand, but different style).

After our purchases, we met up with our friends Emily and Ryan. We then walked to the Seoul Museum of Art. Emily read that the Tim Burton exhibit is on display so we decided to check it out. It was crowded as the exhibit only recently came to Seoul, and I guess also because it was a Saturday afternoon in Seoul.... so everything is busy. We waited 20 minutes to get in, but it was definitely worth the wait! We saw his sketches, props from his movies, clips from movies, short films, and commercials. It was a lot of fun walking around. 

That night, the four of us went out for dinner to a delicious little pizza place in Itaewon. The place was soo small, seating only 5 tables in a tiny room on a side street, that was more like a side alley. We had heard of the place through trip adviser, as it was ranked the number one pizza restaurant in Seoul. Our pizzas were amazing, comparable to gourmet pizzas back home. It was definitely a nice treat and great way to end our day in Seoul.

The last little bit of news from Korea is actually very big for me. I finally got my first Korean haircut today, and Ian got his second! This has been something I have been dreading for many different reasons, but mostly because I was nervous about the language barrier and how I would be able to communicate the style of hair I wanted. I have angled, swept bangs and pretty much every Korean with bangs has the bangs that go straight across the forehead. I can probably talk about my fears of getting a Korean hair cut for a long time (and Ian knows this), but I will end this by saying I just went for it today and I am ok with what followed. Although my hairdresser spoke no English, through hand actions and lots of pointing we made it! 

Ian and I are currently sitting in a cafe in Bupyeong. He is working on his application for schools and we are about to head out to one of our favourite dinner spots - all you can eat sushi!

Happy early New Year everyone! 

Seoul Museum of Art

Tim Burton exhibit

Main entrance

Waiting area

Posters around the museum

Secret pictures of props

This is a collection of napkin doodles. Tim Burton is known for going to hotel bars, getting drinks, and then doodling characters. The Ritz Hotel in Paris is apparently where he gets his best ideas. This is just a sampling of a few napkins.

Emily, Batman and I

Numbers

Timeline of all of his work.

Entrance

By the time we left it was dark and snowy. Look at the third picture on this blog, this is the same shot, but at night it glowed. 

Our new goggles :)

Animation Museum - those are cartoons of past presidents

Cartoon presidents

Clay presidents. These are the representations that are not very flattering. For instance, the last president is shovelling money....

This is a picture of my Kindergarten class during our New Year's Eve party. There were two grumpy children I am sure you will be able to spot. I know teachers aren't suppose to have favourites, but my kindergarten class may be my favourite class.

Korean Christmas

"Are you coming home for Christmas?"

This was the top question Ian and I were asked before starting this Korean adventure. The answer of course, as many of you know, was that no, sadly we are not able to make it home for Christmas. Today is boxing day and we both were back at work. This Christmas was our first Christmas away from home and it felt very different celebrating the holidays in Korea. The predominant religion in Korea is Christianity (~30%), meaning many Koreans celebrate Christmas, but it's just done differently. It seemed like a much more laid back, relaxed holiday. It is treated as a day to spend time with your boyfriend/girlfriend or friends. There is absolutely no emphasis on spending time with family. In fact, many of my students said they were planning on spending time at the pishibang - internet cafe. One of Ian's students even told him he would have a "solo Christmas" playing computer games.  We only had one day off for Christmas, and surprisingly, everything remained open on the day.

Ian and I were both missing home a lot during the last few days, but we knew coming into this that we simply had to accept that Christmas 2012 would be different. Here is how we celebrated.

The festivities started this past weekend when we went to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater Party." Two of our friends organized this event and it was awesome! There was a group of around 30 people (all English teachers) and we rented a cabin in the country. It was quite a trek to get there, over 2.5 hours! We had to subway across Seoul and then catch a bus to the remote cabin in the woods. It was a potluck feast, with tons of delicious food, including brie, chicken soup, pasta, veggies that we brought, mashed potatoes, and mince pies. We all sat at a long, traditional Korean table, meaning it's 1 foot off the floor and you need to sit on the floor. After the feast, we played yankee swap, which is a game where everyone brings a gift and we take turns choosing or stealing gifts. Ian ended up with a nice warm, knit scarf and fuzzy bumble bee socks, and I received these yummy caramel wafer treats from cosco. That night, there were awards given to the ugliest sweater, and lots of noribong. Noribong is the Korean word for karaoke. Karaoke is very popular in Korea, and I can see why! Singing at the Christmas party was actually a ton of fun!

On Christmas Eve, Ian and I treated ourselves to some Western food in Bupyeong (downtown Incheon). We wanted Italian food, and stumbled upon a great little restaurant called Buono Pasta. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but Koreans eat their meals very quickly. At lunch time, although I am always rushing, I am still usually the last to finish my plate. These fast meals turned out to be advantageous on Christmas Eve, as there was a line up of couples in front of us, possibly 4 or 5, and it only took 15 minutes to be seated in this tiny restaurant. Later that night, we skyped my parents and watched one of my favourite Christmas movies "Elf".

On Christmas morning we skyped Ian's family, made a big pot of coffee and opened gifts. It was harder buying gifts for each other in Korea, but I think we both did really well. It was actually more of a challenge wrapping the gifts since we live in such a small apartment. We had to take turns turning around and letting the other person wrap gifts behind.

In the afternoon, we walked around, got hot chocolate, read our kindles, and then headed to meet up with some friends for a Christmas dinner. Our friends, Emily and Ryan hosted a group of 8 of us. We each brought a dish and it was so nice spending time with what we call our Incheon family. I am so thankful to have met such a great group of friends in Korea!

In the end, it was a very merry Korean Christmas! We weren't able to make it home for the holidays and we definitely missed our friends and family, but we still made Christmas special in our own way.

Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy those boxing day sales!
Sending love from Korea :)

Our cabin in the middle of nowhere Korea.

Group shot - "do something Korean!"

Boys starting the festivities by playing some poker

Korean Christmas cake

Relaxing after the long journey there.

Playing yankee swap

Noribong / Karaoke

Group shot of the girls

Merry Christmas everyone!