This will be a short entry, it's more about the pictures than anything. This was a great weekend. Let me start by saying there is a serious cold front right now so the HIGH all weekend was about 36 degrees F. AAAAH! Anyhow, I had a rather uneventful week, nothing good or bad. I’m having a blast teaching my kids “Jingle bell rock” for the Christmas show. The accompanying dance is adorable and the kids are really enjoying themselves which makes me happy. What have I been up to? Well last Sunday I went to trivia with some friends. It was [View Full Entry]

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I have been seriously yearning for taking pictures of Fall scenery. Sure, CA has some signs of Autumn, but with all the trees here, I really feel like it’s Fall. One of my goals for this weekend was to go out and explore and take in the sights and smells of the season. So, Alison and I decided to go to Seolleung tombs, which are only about 30min away from home. As soon as we step inside, 2 Korean women offer us tours, along with 2 other foreigners. We gladly accept and join the group. The site is comprised of 2 [View Full Entry]

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I should have posted this entry as soon as I got back from Busan so I wouldn't forget the details but as we all know I'm a bit of a procrastinator. This will again be a 2 part blog, this one about Busan, the next about Seolleung tombs. Stay tuned… So for Halloween weekend Alison, Jen, Margaret and I decided to go to Busan. There were a few reasons for this: first, we wanted to escape the scuzziness of Seoul on Halloween, and second, the countdown to full-blown Korean winter has begun so we wanted to enjoy the nice weather while [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday I went to Seoul Grand Park Zoo. Let me start by saying this was one of the best zoos I’ve ever been to for several reasons. First of all the landscape is amazing: beautiful Fall colored trees, mountainous backdrop, grass, benches and other beautiful things. Second of all, the animals all looked well taken care of and happy. When I went to zoos back in the states there were many times that I thought to myself “That animal does not have enough space in there.” Here, all the animals were housed properly in a place that was similar to [View Full Entry]

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This would have been a ridiculously long update, instead I am cutting it into 2 updates: the first on Chuseok, Itaewon, the Soccer game and Hongdae, and the second on The zoo and the DMZ. Last weekend was Chuseok, which is probably the biggest holiday in Korea. We got last Friday off, which was quite nice. On Thursday, all of the kids in my school wore their humbocks (not sure of the spelling) which are traditional Korean clothing. The kids all looked adorable. We then played traditional games outside, and then I was off for my 3 day weekend. On Friday [View Full Entry]

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Yes, it has been a while. In my defense I haven’t really done anything blog-worthy in the past few weeks. Last weekend my co-teacher took us foreign teachers to Insadong, which is a “traditional” area of Seoul. It was nice but extremely crowded. Cars are not allowed to drive in the touristy area on weekends which made it a bit better. It is basically an area filled with shops and street vendors selling “traditional” things to tourists. I had been toying with the idea of trying silkworm larvae (a street snack sold in Korea) so my co-teacher bought a cup of [View Full Entry]

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Today was quite an adventure. We were getting ready to go to Seoul Grand Park, which is about 80 minutes away by subway. Well… I decided to be smart. Looking at the subway map I noticed that we would have had to take the Bundang line all the way to the end, only to hop on the green line to the light blue line. But, the map shows the blue line right next to the Bundang line so I suggested that we take a taxi from our stop to Oido station, which appeared to be right next to the Bundang line. [View Full Entry]

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I keep forgetting to tack this bit of information onto other blogs so I guess I will make it a blog of its own. There are so many types of shoes in Korea. Seriously...here it goes: 1. outdoor shoes: any shoes you wear in the streets 2. indoor shoes: if you like, you can be barefoot inside the home, if not, you can get indoor slippers. 3. in the classroom shoes: you can't wear your indoor shoes into the classroom if you walk in the hallways with them. these can also be slippers. 4. bathroom shoes: these are jelly-like slippers to [View Full Entry]

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It has been a while... Reading other people's travel blogs has made me realize 3 things: 1. There are soooo many places I want to visit 2. I need a better camera (I cant invest a ton of money but please make suggestions, I would like to upgrade from my little tourist-type camera to something a little more professional) 3. I want to learn more about photography I have been teaching for just over a week now. It is taking a while to get the kids under control. I have 22 students in my class (5,6,7 years old, Korean age). I [View Full Entry]

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I've done a lot since I last posted. I may have mentioned before, but I am basically on my own now until the other foreign teachers arrive, and I haven't started teaching yet, so I have had a lot of free time. One of the things I've started doing is intensely learning Korean. I'm working on learning the alphabet and have started reading a bit. Koreans recommend learning to read before anything else. So many Korean words are just English words with Korean inflections. Coffee is kuh-pee, ice cream is iceh-cream-ah, and the list goes on. Plus, once I learn how [View Full Entry]

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