Taking the train to Chongqing was another long ride, so we opted for the hard sleeper. It was much more comfortable than the hard seat - I was actually able to sleep! We arrived at Chongqing around 9am. It was raining lightly. The station was chaotic getting out; luckily the tour group that we signed up with had someone meet us at the train station. We went back to the tour office, settled up the bill for the cruise, dropped off our bags and had 9 hours to kill in the city. We were both getting a little hungry, so we [View Full Entry]

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I'm currently in Xi'an. The ride from Beijing was a long and uncomfortable 14 hour ride in a hard seat. In China you can travel via soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, hard seat and finally standing. If you are going anywhere of considerable distance, definitely avoid the hard seat!! The ride was interesting though. We got to sit beside numerous Chinese people and experience the way that many Chinese people travel. We tried teaching them a card game, but they were either not interested or weren't able to catch on. I then asked them to show us how to play [View Full Entry]

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Well I've safely made it to Beijing, capital of the largest populated country in the world. Pretty much everywhere I've gone has been PACKED with people. Although, I guess it doesn't help that I've been travelling in major tourist areas. The Beijing airport was easy to navigate and find a taxi. We had gotten some help inside the terminal with writing down the address of our hostel. We then hopped into a cab, showed him the paper of where we wanted to go and we were on our way! It took us about an hour to get to our hostel. The [View Full Entry]

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This was my first time going to a soccer game, let alone an international match. I wasn't at all disappointed with what I saw. The Korean Red Devil's aren't the best soccer team out there, but they played hard and the fans cheered them on every minute of the game. For a 32nd row, $30 ticket I couldn't ask for much more. Prior to going into the stadium, the exit from the subway was just madness! Swarms of people just kept pouring out of the main doors. Once you were able to push your way closer to the stadium, many [View Full Entry]

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I was invited to a Korean wedding so I jumped at the offer because I have never really been to a wedding - Korean or North American. Although I have never been to a traditional wedding back home, I still believe that I know what it would be like. Needless to say, this Korean wedding was VERY different. The ceremony took place in a wedding hall, with about 150-200 guests. The actual ceremony was only about 20 minutes, because after the wedding I attended, their is a whole other group of people waiting for the next wedding. It was all [View Full Entry]

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There wasn't anything too special about Easter this year. We made Easter "baskets" (just a small paper cup with two holes in the top and a piece of colourful string attaching them - which only holds 1 egg!!) and then coloured eggs with the kids. Other than that it was just another Friday. My Easter dinner on the Sunday wasn't anything special either...I just bought a 5,000 Won ($5) pizza from a local establishment called Pizza School. It was just another day here in Korea... Here are some pictures of my new class - Class Rose. One boy (Tommy) was [View Full Entry]

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For those of you actually checking my site, it has been awhile since I last posted - my apologies. I’ve been pretty busy with school things. And I’ll admit, sitting down at my computer typing and uploading pictures isn’t the most invigorating thing I’d like to do on my time off. Oh well, I guess it has to be done sooner or later (in my case, always later!). Since I spent Christmas in Thailand I didn’t have the warmest feelings toward coming back to Korea. Thailand was nice and hot so I dreaded returning to the cold weather and work [View Full Entry]

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December 28, 2006 We left the southern island of Koh Samui and headed north to the big city of Bangkok. The flight was roughly 50 minutes; although it felt a lot shorter because as soon as the plane finished climbing, they served us a large lunch, we ate it, and then landed. Best flight ever! (Minus the fact that we were leaving behind the beach) The Bangkok International Airport is fairly new and pretty easy to navigate in. In order to get a cab from the airport everyone gets in a large line and waits to tell a person at a [View Full Entry]

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Christmas on Samui This past Christmas will definitely be one to remember. Although I wasn't back home for the holidays where it should have been snowing, I'm pretty sure Thailand was the next best thing! There's so much to tell that I don't know where to start... I'll try my best to describe everything in the order in which it occurred. Also, I apologize for incorrect grammar and what not…I have lots to write so I’m just going to write. December 23, 2006 In total there were 8 teachers from my school heading to Thailand (1 of which wasn't heading south [View Full Entry]

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Finally! After many painful hours of practicing our play for the Winter Drama Festival, class Pluto put on a great performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for their families. The play consisted of roughly 7 lines per child - memorized - and two Christmas songs with actions (Rudolph and Jingle Bell Rock). We would practice a minimum of 45 minutes since the beginning of December. There were many problems leading up to the actual presentation, but they managed to pull it off. The kids would memorize their lines, then over the weekends they would come back and either forget their lines [View Full Entry]

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