New School Year

So this past Wednesday was a regular Wednesday. We taught the same classes we do every day, although many of us played games or colored with their children. This was because Thursday was a new school year. One day, the kids are on one schedule, and the very next day, they have a totally new schedule. New classrooms, new classmates, new teachers, new books (although our school is very disorganized and didn't actually order the books to be in for the beginning of the semester..they, of course won't be here for another week or two).

We didn't receive our schedules until after school on Wednesday, giving us no time to prepare for our new classes on Thursday. It didn't help that they don't have books for any classes either, so we are again playing games, getting to know kids and their English level, and coming up with busy work until their books do come in.

The two teachers that left a few weeks after we arrived are coming back this week. The school loves them, as they should (they are excellent teachers), and they packed their schedules with hours. Everyone else had their schedules butchered with no chance of getting overtime. Wednesday night, I was upset. Maybe that's an understatement. I was looking at flights home, cursing our school, and thinking of any way we could get out of this place and leave them hanging. After talking with Jared, I decided to go to school on Thursday and give them a chance. When I arrived, I saw they had changed the schedule again and taken more classes away from me. Again, I got upset. They have only given us positive feedback (while others have received much negative feedback), but didn't reward us in any way. I thought (and still think) it was rude!


I was embarassed and took their scheduling way to personal. But by Thursday night, I realized it wasn't meant to be personal. They did mean to load up the new teachers with hours because they are amazing, but besides that, they just didn't think. Like I said, they are completely unorganized and don't worry much about the foreign teachers. So we finished out the week, working very few hours. It seems okay now, though, because any hours less than 30 a week, we get the base pay. You only get overtime if you work more than 30 a week. Now I have a huge gap in the middle of the day where I can work out, which is kind of nice...so I'm done complaining.

Jared and I have signed up to take an online TEFL/TESL course, which we started a week ago. It consists of 20 units with a worksheet to fill out at the end of each unit (to organize thoughts/notes), then a 6 hour test at the end. I just finished unit 2 and it is hard! I didn't realized I knew so little about the English language..like 'gerunds.' I know I learned about them before, but it seemed like a new concept to me this time.

Hmmm...what else? We are still going hiking most weekends. It is a 3 day weekend now, so that's nice. Today is Korean Independence from Japan day. We are going to dinner with a coworker and his girlfriend tonight.

Jared's back has been hurting recently (he thinks related to a ski accident 20 years ago). Yesterday, our Korean friend took us to a back specialist that practices Korean tradition medicine. He got acupuncture in his back, and today got acupuncture in his back, hands, feet, and stomach..and they burned these incense on the needles which created a relaxing smell, as well as heated the needles. It looked painful to me, but Jared says it helps. He is supposed to go everyday for the next week.

After coming so close to giving up and coming home, I again realize how much I miss everyone. I had to pull myself away from the thought of leaving, because I became so excited to come home...but things are okay. It will work out. We will finish the year here, and will have fun doing it. :)

Random

We have been hiking every Sunday now for the past four weeks. We have been going with our Korean friend and her kids, and are so happy we have finally found some trails and mountains to explore. This past weekend, we went to Gyeongju, a city we had visited before to go to temples. This time, we hiked up above a temple and visited the Seokguram, one of the most special hand-made Buddahs, high on a mountain. It was very nice. We had a great lunch, then headed back down.

On our way home, we stopped at this cool rock beach. There were a ton of people flying kites and hanging out. We got coffee, hunted for special rocks, and hung out for awhile. I will try to include some pictures of this beautiful beach.

A couple weeks ago, we were hiking up Munsu Mountain, the tallest in our area, and were almost to the top when we saw a kitten. It looked to be around 3 months old, so not tiny, but small. It was just sitting on the side of the trail. We sat there watching it, but it didn't move. A minute or so later, a man walked up past the kitten, called for it, then then kitten followed him. We were above them, so we could watch them for quite a long time. The kitten followed this man, just like a dog would. It was the first hiking cat I've ever seen...it put some thoughts into my mind about future hiking cats that I will have. :)

An interesting thing we found out about Korea is that if you have a smaller car (and most do) that runs under 1000cc, you become part of a 1000cc club. The government gives you many benefits, including about 30 cents off each liter of gas. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

Anyway, this is all pretty random. We still have 2 weeks until the new school year starts, which is something to look forward to. New hours, new classes, shake things up a bit.

We hope to be getting the Nintendo Wii soon. I would like it for Wii Fit, but also for the classic Super Nintendo games...

We miss you all!

Yay Hiking!

Hello..greetings from Korea! Since the last blog and going to Taiwan, we are definitely back in the swing of things at school. We are also now on our 3rd or 4th round of sicknesses. I had it last week and Jared has it this week. Hopefully this is it for being sick and our immune system keeps away everything else for the whole year.

School is okay.

Two weekends ago, our Korean friend took up hiking up the tallest mountain around here, called Munsu Mountain. It took us about 3.5 hours to get up (we did have a 9 and 11 year old with us), and it was beautiful from the top. We could see the ocean and the whole city very clearly. It was a nice, sunny day, although a bit cold when we stopped for breaks. On our way down, we took a shorter route and stopped at a mountain Buddist temple. We spent some time exploring, then headed all the way down for some delicious BBQ and Baskin Robbins!

The past weekend, with Jared being sick, I went hiking again with Eunmi (Korean freind) and the kids. We took a shorter way up, and stopped at the temple for lunch. It was another clear, much warmer day, and we had a great trip.

We are still enjoying the food and the weather has turned warmer now. I think we are past the really cold stuff.

Hope everything at home is super!

New Years in Taiwan!

So, as I said, Jared and I woke up on the Saturday after Christmas and decided to buy tickets to Tawain. We bought them online, took to train to Seoul, and flew out the next morning. The flight was only a couple hours long, and we arrived in Taipei before noon. My childhood friend from my cottage in Canada, Chris, lives in Taipei, and gave us directions to meet him at a temple in the city. After meeting him and Breadon, another cottage friend who was vising Chris from India, we ate a quick lunch at a revolving plate sushi place, and went back to his apartment with beers in hand. Chris and Breadon are part of a hash running club and it was a running/bash day. Breadon left to run, while we drank in preparation for the evening's bash. Around 430p, and feeling pretty good, we left for the bash where we met about 40 mostly guys from around the world, ate some delicious food, and drank more beers. The bash was followed by more bash at a neighboring restaurant, where chants and songs were sung...some more crude than others.

After a fun night in Taipai, we took a train down the east coast and went to a town called Hualien. It was a bit rainy and we found a nice hotel, went to a small night market, and came back to the hotel early for bed. We woke up early the next morning and were happy to find it was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. We rented a scooter and took it up into the mountains along a beautiful gorge. We got out to walk around a few times and check out the huge marble walls. We ended up riding up the mountain for about three hours until it got really cold, had a cup of coffee at a little shop, then came back down. It was a great day, followed by another night of walking around the town.

The next morning, we took another train ride further down the coast to a hot springs resort village called Chippen (Nothing is ever spelled the same in Taiwan, as there isn't an official way to Romanize words, so this place was spelled about 5 different ways...a little confusing). We hiked in a really cool park , although it was cloudy and the lookout wasn't what it promised, then we went back to our hotel which had natural hot springs...and it was hot! We soaked for awhile, while talking to a couple Taiwanse people who invited us to eat dinner with them. They were a group of 6 Canon workers who brought a grill with them and were making a big soup out on the patio next to the springs. Two of them spoke pretty good English; the rest, just a little bit. We had a good meal with them, followed by 3 courses of fruit, and rice cakes. We were very full by the time the food stopped coming.

After our relaxing evening, we decided to go back to Taipei the next day, as it was New Years Eve and we wanted to see the fireworks at the 101 (the second tallest building in the world). We made about 30-40 calls to hotels around Taipai trying to find a room, and finally found one for $90US a night. We took the 4 hours bus ride back up the coast and arrived in Taipai at 7pm. We spent 2 hours walking around looking for our hotel. We ended up making fools out of ourselves by going in a Family Mart and asking them where our hotel was....they looked it up on a map, called people, looked on the computer (for quite a long time), then finally walked outside with us...yeah, it was right next door. It was a pretty nice hotel with a huge hot tub. We ended up getting food and hanging around the hotel until almost 11:30p, before catching a cab downtown. It was completely packed...like thousands and thousands of people. The fireworks were amazing, but only lasted a few minutes. We walked around a bit, checked out some stores, then walked back to our hotel. It was nice to wake up not hungover on New Years Day...like really nice.

The next day, we found a cheaper hotel, which ended up being the best one we stayed in the whole trip. It was huge, with an awesome view of the river, the city, and the 101. We met up with Chris again, got some drinks, then met up with the "bashers" again. The night was over way too quickly, and was filled with way too many drinks. Somehow I woke up the next morning at 8, when we had planned to set the alarm, but drunkenly forgot to. We spent the next 14 hungover hours traveling back to our apartment in South Korea....By the time we got home, we had slept off the hangovers and were wide awake to watch movies...luckily we came home on Saturday evening, and had Sunday to fully recover and get our minds back into school.

We have now been back at school for 4 days, and besides the administration being totally disorganized and telling us today about a presentation we need to do with the kids tomorrow (that neither the kids or us know), it has been much better. I started some new disciplinary tactics that seem to be working, and I have been maintaining a positive attitude at most times.

This is super long, and if you're still reading this, that's very cool. I'll update again soon. Hope everyone is doing well...we miss you all very much! The holidays were not the same without family, friends, and snow.

Christmas in Korea!

Sorry I haven't written for such a long time. It's been on my do-to list, but have been quite busy recently. After finishing portfolio's, we had four days of school left before a 10 day, much needed break. The night before the last day of school, all of us foreign teachers had to dress up as Santa Claus and deliver presents to all of the kindergartners in our school. We were divided up to go with a Korean teacher and they drove us around to houses/apartments, and we walked around in our Santa suits, consisting of red pants, red jacket, black belt, gloves, a hat, and an itchy big white beard. We did the "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas," gave them a present, then were off to the next house. It took over 3 hours, but it was pretty fun. Jared was voted the best Santa any of the Korean teachers have seen in the past 10 years of the school being open. He wore sunglasses and really got into it. Hopefully we can find pictures from somebody to post.

That last night of school, we had a teachers Christmas party. The owners of our school took us to a Chinese restaurant, where we had tons of food, and wine and beer. After a great dinner, full of maybe more drinking games then actual eating, we went out with the Korean teachers to another Noribong, a private karaoke room. There we continued to drink beer, but also added int strawberry soju. It was a fun night, but the next day was rough. If anyone has seen me int he past after mixing alcohol...yeah, I still haven't learned.

We finished school on Thursday and had some take out pizza as our Christmas Eve dinner. We then decided to give each other our presents...partly because I was getting a little anxious. We woke up the next morning and did the traditional present opening with the rest of the gifts from our family.

Saturday morning we woke up and decided to go on a trip. I spent all morning on the computer and phone and booked us a trip to Taiwan leaving the next morning. We jumped on the bus to Seoul, spent way too much money on the train, dinner and hotel, and left for Taiwan in the morning. I will write another blog about that experience in itself because it's getting late and I need to get some sleep before school tomorrow. I have realized teaching is about a million times harder to do when I'm tired. I think Jared thinks I'm lame since I'm so time conscious at night, but for me, it's a necessity. Goodnight all!

work, work, work

Not much has happened in the past couple weeks. We have portfolios due this Friday. I think I wrote about it before, but we have to have 10 pieces of graded work per student, plus a comment page, and a cover page. I have 10 of my 11 classes finished, and Jared has 8 of his 10 classes finished...but it did take ALL weekend to get where we are. We literally were working on them all day Saturday and Sunday, while watching movies of course. We are such nerds!

We are still trying to figure out where to go for Christmas. We have put it off so long that everything is super expensive now. We want to go to Thailand or Bali, but it is almost $1000 for the flight right now. We are waiting til last minute deals come, and hopefully the prices will drop, but we will see. I have emailed an English speaking travel agent in Korea, so maybe she will get back to us with good news. I want to do something fun. I feel like we deserve it. We have done very little besides be sick, and prepare work since we've been here.

Jared's Mom and Dad sent us a little battery operated light-up Christmas tree with some gifts today. And my Mom sent some more gifts (and some delicious thin mints!), so we have set up the tree with the gifts and it gives our room a little holiday feel...it's nice.

I really don't have much else to say. Gotta get back to work on my last class, then I can relax for a few days.

A bit of travel

Two weekends ago, Jared and I traveled to the original capital city of Korea, Gyeongju. We visited a park that had about 15 temples with gold Buddhas inside and people praying. It was pretty interesting to see. We then spent a day walking around a park that held tombs of old kings or important people. They were big mounds that were scattered all over the city, but there was a high concentration in one park we walked through. We then checked out a few other touristy things, like the oldest remaining star observatory in Asia, as well as another temple. It was a good, but a very cold weekend. We took tons of pictures and I will try to post some.

Last weekend we were planning on going hiking with a Korean friend, but I got very sick and spent all weekend (literally) in bed. It was horrible...it started Friday at school and by Monday morning, I was feeling healthy enough to go back to school (thank goodness). :)

This weekend, on Friday we went to dinner with another couple and a Korean friend. We had the most delicious BBQ, some mec-ju (beer), and soju (cheap alcohol). We went out to play pool after dinner and ended up having a great night. The next morning, the two other girls and I (Hannah and Kasham) made plans to go to a spa. We met at 10:30 and spent a few hours frolicking in hot tubs with about 50 naked Korean women. It was, at the very least, very interesting. We then got a massage from older women who were just wearing bras and underwear. It ended up to be more of a painful experience than anything. They out on these exfoliating gloves and rub your whole body right until til point of drawing blood. It was gross to see how much skin they rubbed off. They also did a rough face massage and packed our faces with this cucumber gel stuff. After the painful exfoliation, we got short massages from these women standing and walking and putting their knees into our backs. At times it was uncomfortable to be naked among all these people, but it is very common and normal here in Korea. I doubt I will get another "massage" again here, but I do feel clean now, and the tubs were pretty amazing.

After the spa, we met the boys (Jared and Daniel, who we work with), got Chinese food, and came to our house to watch Twilight. Hannah hadn't seen it yet and we all wanted to remember it before seeing New Moon that night. We spent a couple hours shopping before getting dinner (cheesy chicken spicy rice), then went to see New Moon. We all pretty much loved it, although Jared and Daniel were not as enthusiastic as us girls....

Today was filled with school work. We have portfolios for each student due in 2 weeks. We have to have 10 pieces of graded work, as well at a comment page, and cover sheet for each student. We have 12 classes with up to 13 kids in each class. Basically it's going to be a ton of work for us. I worked on them all day and added to the one I have finished already, I have four classes completed. Jared is about halfway finished with his first class. I think it may be a stressful two weeks.

Hope everyone is doing well. The weather is cold here now...maybe in the 40s, but we are missing the snow. Hopefully everyone is making up for us not being able to ski.