Destination Unknown

Getting Muddy!

This past July the girls and I ventured out to Daecheon beach for the annual Boryeong Mud Festival.
The mud is dug up near the beach area and is rich in minerals. It is used to manufacture cosmetics as well.
At the festival there are mud slides, mud pools, mud wrestling pits and just general areas where you can paint the mud all over your body. The mud felt great and we spent the majority of the day covered in it.
Here are some pics of the weekend:

And finally the celebration at the end of the festival. The fireworks were done out on the water, so lots of people went out into the water to watch, we just stayed on the beach.

Korean Folk Village

This past weekend a bunch of my friends and I went to the korean Folk Village in Suwon. Here are some pics and some videos:

Sarah and I...

A man sweeping leaves into the fire.

this next video is the finale, notice the longer ribbon on his hat.....

Ullengdo/ Dokdo

For the Chusok holiday here in Korea, Lisa and I traveled to Ullengdo island and Dokdo island. It was quite a rocky trip on the ferry due to the storms in Japan, but it was worth it! We did lots of hiking around the island and around the crater of the extinct volcano the island is made of. We also rode in a cable car to the top of the island, took a bus tour, hiked to a waterfall, went bridge jumping and visited lots of the fish/squid markets. Ullengdo is known for its squid, the water around the island is abundant with squid!!!! So squid is seen everywhere from the streets to the front halls of homes drying on racks.

Here are some shots:

On the island on Dokdo, its an island that Japan and Korea are arguing over, hence we were only allowed to stay on it for 30mins max.....its really just a rock, there is nowhere to walk around, we could only dock and unload look and load back up.

The cable car to the top of the island!

A large penguin that shoots ice onto the fishing boats.

Elephant rock

Bridge jumping!! The bridge was about 15ft high! But it was so awesome!

Drying squid!

Lisa and I hiking around the island.

Squid, squid everywhere!!

The waterfall we hiked to, it was beautiful!

Chusok holiday

Thanks for all the encouraging comments from my last post. I'm really excited about this new job and I love the new schedule so I might be posting alot of pics of the little ones (they're my fav too Karly :)~

This past weekend was the Chusok holiday here in Korea, something similar to Thanksgiving in N.America. But here the traditional food they eat during Chusok is called Songpyeon, and most families get together to make it with the children on the holiday. It is a rice cake with different kinds of fillings inside (somewhat similar to the rice cakes I brought home from Japan on my visit to Cobourg for those of you that tried them) some are filled with jelly or a peanut butter. Also for this holiday the children wear traditional Korean hanboks, I'm not sure if the adults continue to wear them or not. So on the Friday before the long weekend the students all come to school in their own hanboks and take part in trational Korean activities and games. The teachers all had to wear hanboks as well. Here are some shots:

Esther, Julie, Jennifer and Benjamin

Here are Peter and William, best buds! William is going for the more serious look, lol.

Me in my hanbok for a day.

Here the kids are playing with a small toy they made, its a kind of hacky sack but they hold onto it while kicking it.

Stay tuned for some pics of my exciting trip to Ullengdo and Dokdo island during the holiday break!

Back in Korea!

Hello to all!
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, so here is a little update. I finished my contract in May and was visiting at home for about 3 months. While at home I visited a friend from college in San Fransisco, my boyfriend came to visit Canada for a week, and I also got to go and spend some time with my cousin in Ottawa. Then on Aug. 10th I made my way back to Korea to start another year. I am now living in Anyang, a city more southern than the last place I was staying (Ilsan). While Ilsan was a very busy city with lots to see and do, Anyang is just as busy, but much more green. I live at the bottom of a mountain, and when driving around the city you can see the city is surrounded by other mountains and large parks.

I am teaching at a well known Enlgish kindergarten called ECC. I start my day at 9:30am with a half an hour snack time with the students. After wards I have classes spread out through the day. I teach Language (Eng), art, music, storybook class, P.E., science, writing, speech and math. These are all spread out over the week, Language is the only lesson I teach every day. I also have them for lunch, 12:40-1:40. I serve them lunch in the classroom, which is usually a Korean lunch consisting of rice, soup, kimchi and a side dish, every now and then we have spaghetti. After serving lunch, and also the snack in the morning, the students must say, “Thank you Father, thank you Mother, thank you Teacher, may I eat?” Then after lunch they have the rest of the hour to play, this is the only time when they are allowed to speak Korean (Hangul). The kids are absolutely wonderful!!
I also teach some elementary classes in the afternoons.
Here are some shots at school and on a field trip to the library.

This is during snack time, they are eating grapes.

And lunch time!! Look at their little lunch trays.

This is outside the library on our field trip.

This upcoming weekend is the Korean holiday Chuseok, similar to our Thanksgiving. Lisa, a friend of mine, and I will be travelling to Ullengdo island in Korea for some snorkelling, volcano climbing, hiking, and general sight seeing. So there will more posts and pictures very soon!!!

The West Sea

On Friday after work, Alice, Deborah (my 2 other coworkers) and myself traveled to the West Sea. It was about a 2 hour drive by car, so we arrived pretty late at night. We went straight to a shellfish restaurant and ate all kinds of different, roasted shells. Not really my kind of food, but it was alright. Ater the dinner we lit sparklers on the beach and walked along the shore.