Hot air balloons. Like 'em? Cuz I sure as heck do! It was an incredible weekend of long walks along the Gapcheon River, paragliding, movies & binging, mask making, and best of all: hot air balloons. This weekend was the 6th annual Daejeon International Balloon Fiesta. It was a 3 day event filled with paragliding and hot air balloon competitions, free balloon rides, night shows, and cotton candy. On a warm Saturday afternoon, Chantelle and I walked along the Gapcheon River towards the area of Expo Park, where the event was being held. We knew we were getting closer when we [View Full Entry]

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As a perfect follow up to my previous post about the autumn season: Today, there was a lovely performance held in the same park! Since I walked through it everyday on my way to work, in the past several days I had noticed the beginnings of people setting up some sort of stage in the middle of the park. To my delight, I realized that starting Wednesday October 21 there would be some kind of a performance for the next few days. As a result Ryan and I met up in my area of the city to partake in the audience [View Full Entry]

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This post is dedicated to my goo poh Alice Chen. I was walking through Jugangno shopping area Saturday night and what did I see? Rain's store: Six To Five! I was told he had a store in Seoul but I guess this one in Daejeon just opened! It consisted mostly of men's clothing. Suffice to say, it wasn't THAT fancy of a store (or even popular as it was quite empty)...but immediately reminded me of a goo poh and memories of searching for his concert dvds and listening to her gush about him and his hot body. This is for you [View Full Entry]

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Finally. On a particularly cool autumn Saturday with the occasional spattering of rain, Chantelle and I finally decided to conquer Zooland...our first original exploration destination. We caught the 315 from Timeworld which led us straight to O-land. O-Land is the cumulative name for the combination of Zooland and Flowerland. We started our adventure off with riding Daejeon's infamous african safari by piling into a yellow lion-shaped bus. Seated amongst a bunch of eager children between the ages of 4-6, I was surprised at how enthusiastic I began to feel as we crowded around the w [View Full Entry]

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It's officially fall!! As I was walking back to school this evening for my second wind of teaching, it dawned on me just what a perfect day of weather we were having today. I'm fortunate to have a section of my walk that is not filled with blaring horns and flashing neon signs. It is probably the most favourite part of my walk to and from school every single day. It is quite evident now that the leaves are changing colour...the weather is a brisk 8 degrees when I walk to school in the morning (~6am) and rises to a mild [View Full Entry]

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Mt.Gubong is one of the designated "8 Sights to See" in Daejeon. It is pretty much also one of the many many mountains you can hike just outside the city! What makes this mountain so special is that its highly recommended to hike during the autumn season as one can see the leaves change colour. My mate and I decided to hike this mountain last Saturday since the weather was starting to get colder: signs of autumn, right? We weren't disappointed as we did see evidence of leaves changing colour. The mountain is a smaller mountain compared to others in surrounding [View Full Entry]

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Busan. Beautiful beachy bustling-with-activity Busan. Or, as it has previously been called, Pusan. Our Chuseok Busan adventure began with an early 3.5hr Mugunghwa train ride. As we were chugging along towards the southeast coast of South Korea at 6:20am Friday morning, Chantelle and I were pretty much out of it. Since we both only got a couple hours of sleep the night before, we attempted to catch some shut-eye on the train despite the rising bright sun, stuffiness, and yes, a freakin lady standing RIGHT in front of us, creating an unsightly view of her derriere. Chantelle dared me to take [View Full Entry]

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Happy Chuseok everyone! Chuseok (Hangawi) is a major harvest festival and a 3-day holiday in Korea. It's celebrated around the time of the Autumn Equinox, making it a similar comparison to the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival that goes on during this time as well. Everyone goes back to their hometown to share a feast of Korean traditional food. For the past couple weeks, my students have been visiting the tombs of their ancestors to cut the grass, trim the plants, and clean the area around the tomb. In addition to offering food and drink to their ancestors, they also offer crops. Harvest [View Full Entry]

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Since it was forecasted to be a crappy day full of rain and gloom tomorrow, our usual trio decided to take advantage of today by exploring the Daejeon National Cemetery. After getting off at, yup you guessed it, the National Cemetery subway station, we got out at exit #3 and started walking due west towards the cemetery. We were unsure as to the length of walking required before we actually hit the cemetery but it turned out to be approximately 15-20mins. We noticed many flower stands on our way, with the occasional car stopping on the side of the road to [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend, Chantelle and I, along with our newfound exploring friend, Ryan (the dedicated McMaster graduate), decided to hike up Bomunsan, one of the designated Daejeon Eight Sights To See. We started off by meeting at Daejeon Station, then walking in the direction of the mountain. We went through about an hour of city walking before we officially saw the Welcome to Bomunsan sign. Being the hiking newb, I was starting to fatigue but was determined to trudge onwards. At the Bomunsan map, we pinpointed the main areas we were hoping to hit such as Ryan's two temples on top of [View Full Entry]

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