This is a blog I should have written in January, but sometimes I’m slow, but here it is now… The Job Fair A little over a year ago, a co-teacher told me about job fairs for teaching in international schools. She asked me why was I wasting my time teaching in a school in Korea where you don’t even need a teaching certificate when I could be teaching in a professional environment working with international students in interesting places all over the world. She had a point. It took me a little while to figure it all out and by [View Full Entry]

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I got up at 5 AM on New Year’s Day to go on a tour to see the Great Wall of China. I can’t say that I jumped out of bed ready to go, but I was excited. I decided to take the tour because I had been having trouble getting moving in the morning and I was afraid that I would miss my opportunity to see the wall if I tried to get out there on my own steam. When I booked the tour the agent said with a concerned, pitying look in her eye that, because I wanted to [View Full Entry]

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I flew into Beijing because I didn’t want to spend 18 hours on the train. The 2-hour flight only cost about $75 and I got to see the Yellow River basin and landscape below me. I got settled into my hostel in the evening and went down to the hotel café. I was grumbling to the waitress about how the menu said they could make vegetarian food, but they wouldn’t make it. Another guest at the hostel overheard me and said that someone in her group was vegetarian and they were getting ready to go out to a veg restaurant. Everyone [View Full Entry]

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It’s pronounced “she an” with a lightly pronounced n, but don’t ask me where the accent or tone goes… Day one Anyway, Xi'an is wonderful. With a history that dates back 1000 years B.C., it looks just like what I always imagined China to look like. It is a walled city with pagoda-like roofs on larger buildings and smaller buildings have curved roofs. In Korea, the ornate colorful architecture and traditional style buildings are reserved for temples, palaces, and other special places, b [View Full Entry]

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I flew to Xi’an from Qingdao and arrived at my hotel in late evening. All the city lights were on and once we got into the city, I looked around in wonder at the sights of the buildings. What a wonderful looking place. I was so excited and I couldn’t wait to get started. I immediately booked a tour to see the Terracotta Warriors for the next day. I’ll tell more about Xi’an later, but this blog entry is mostly about the trip to see the main attraction of Xi’an. In 1974, a farmer figured out that [View Full Entry]

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It’s Christmas morning and I’m lounging in bed considering my day. I have Christmas shopping to do, a temple or other tourist sight to see, and travel arrangements to make. I’m thinking about these things, but I’m not moving much. My room is so cold, I don’t want to get out from under my blankets. Temperatures outside are below freezing and I can hear the wind blowing. I think the Chinese are used to having the room temperature much colder than I’d like it. I’ve discovered that if I use my computer in bed, the charger gets hot and keeps my [View Full Entry]

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...Slow Boat to China... When I was a child, I remember my sister and I decided to find out if we dug far enough whether we could get to China on the other side of the world. We gave up after digging a hole about a foot deep and decided China was too far away. Now I’m too far away to go home for Christmas and so I thought I’d give China another try. Being that I’m already in Korea, I decided that China was too close to fly. North Korea stands in the way of me going overland, so I [View Full Entry]

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Spring is generally my favorite season and it is in full force here in Seoul. We are finally coming out of the cold days of grey skies and uncomfortable wind. We haven't gotten to the rainy, sultry days of summer. The sun is shinning and last week the whole city was white with cherry blossoms. At times, it looked like it was snowing cherry blossom petals. Absolutely lovely! I took a hike in Suwon (a town just south of Seoul). There is an old fortress there built in the 1700’s that has a lovely walking course on the walls. There is [View Full Entry]

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I haven’t written a blog in a while, but I moved to Seoul a year ago in February and thought it might be time for an update. Life here has been good. For the most part my job is fairly low stress and the money is good. There is no way I could afford this lifestyle in a city this large in the U.S. and save more than half my paycheck like I am here. I’m not exactly living it large here, but I do get out from time to time. There are things to do and see and, for the [View Full Entry]

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Korea’s biggest holiday, Chusok, has just passed a few days ago. It’s like our American Thanksgiving in that it’s a harvest festival. Everyone takes three days and goes home to visit their family and remember the traditions of their culture. I think the similarity ends there. On Chusok, everyone goes to honor their ancestors, wears Hanbok (traditional clothes), eats traditional foods and plays traditional games. Employers give large gift sets of such things as bottles of liquor, packs of canned Spam (yes, Spam), or packs of seaweed for Sushi. My school gave gift packs [View Full Entry]

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