http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , South Korea , Jeollabuk do en-us Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:44:07 UTC Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:44:07 UTC Sorry to everybody that I havenrsquot been blogging recently. No excuses. Just havenrsquot been feeling the flow lately. I started to write this entry a couple of months ago. After copious pressure from my little sis I finally finished it. Irsquoll try to keep it more up to date but no promises. Here it is. Every once in a while when travelling I get hit with a feeling ldquowow ther http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/blog-349837.html Brog to come http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-335312.html Brog to come http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334663.html Brog to come http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334653.html Brog to come http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334599.html Brog to come http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334595.html Stay tuned fol the prog more Engrish b and p are the same. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Duckjin-dong/blog-334476.html Yeah so I'm really behind on my brogs. Engrish for blog since in Korean there is no difference between the r sound and the l sound. So I'm going to post pictures with captions and then add text later so at least you can see what I've been up to. Keep visiting back for the story of my life http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334473.html Today is Wednesday so that means Haba Orda or German game day for the Kinders. I havenrsquot a clue about how to play any of the games because theyrsquore all in German. I usually pick out tangramslike games and picturematchingtype games. Sometimes the kids are able to figure them out but other times well 90 percent of the time they only play with the pieces. They love to dump the g http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-334468.html So today we had our weekly trip to Gymshule. Before we left one of my students gave me a packet of something and I asked my coteachers what it was and InSuk said ldquoChocolate but not good.rdquo So she thinks itrsquos terrible so later I may have to try it. Irsquove only met one bar of chocolate that I didnrsquot like so as a chocolate connoisseur I must try it. On the way the http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-329950.html hellipWish it were Friday Nothing really eventful happened today. I was exhausted by the end of the day. I was kind of peeved too. In my afternoon classes kids arenrsquot doing their homework and there really is no punishment for them but when their parents ask me why they arenrsquot getting any better I guess Irsquoll have to tell them itrsquos the kidrsquos fault for not doing http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-328045.html I got up this morning around 9 orsquoclock and dillydallied around until about 10 orsquoclock when Dad called. Mom was still in Missouri on her rock trip and Dad had said that she was having a great time other than some minor setbacks like rain and a flattire by one vehicle in the group. Maximus P is doing well. Apparently he is getting fatter which is no surprise to me. Hersquos always http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-327679.html I woke up this morning and talked to Dad. Mom is apparently having a great time in Missouri and has already found some rocks although it rained on them. We talked for quite a while but I had to get ready to go because I wanted to head out to Gaeksa today. I got ready and walked to the main street to pick up a cab. I successfully asked for Gaeksa and the cab driver understood. Itrsquos a miracl http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Gaeksa/blog-327677.html Today was Friday so the Kinders were either going to have outside class or there was going to be a birthday party. Well today was the birthday party for the September birthdays. It was quite strange actually. We did our morning routine and then around 1040 we went up to the fifth floor where they pushed back the accordion wall to make one big room out of two smaller classrooms. I had my cooki http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-326968.html Annyeong This morning my Kinders did pretty well. They seem more tame than they did before Chusok. They like to scream when they count numbers or say the alphabet and itrsquos annoying but at least theyrsquore doing it. When I was helping a student I had another one come up at my side and grab my chest. I moved his hand away and told him ldquoNordquo but that just made it a game. Si http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-326186.html Like every day I had the Kinders this morning. They were pretty tame today. Maybe it was because we were missing two of the rambunctious ones. They wrote ldquoShoot a starrdquo twice and many of them had very good tracing. We still need to work on our fine motor skills and I guess gross motor skills as well because we trip over our own feet Itrsquos Thursday so it was board game day. O http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-324623.html I heard the stock market took a dive yesterday in the States and it was having a ripple effect around the world. Here in Korea we were having a holiday so the markets werenrsquot open. Wersquoll have to see how it affects us here. So far wersquore stable and actually the dollar has become stronger dropping the Won from 90 cents per dollar to 86 cents per dollar. Thatrsquos a pretty good http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-324299.html Today Monday I had the day off because of Chusok the Korean Thanksgiving. I got up around 9 o'clock to talk to Mom and Dad from about 915 to 945. They gave me updates on Hurricane Ike and whatrsquos going on in the States. Irsquove noticed that foreigners who have been here a long time didnrsquot hear of some events back home and when I mentioned them they didnrsquot know what I was http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-323866.html AnnyeongI was able to sleep in today. Mom and Dad decided to set up a T.V. at home by the web cam so I could watch Saturday Night Live with Michael Phelps. It was fun to get to see English T.V. for once. I have a T.V. here but I havenrsquot set it up since Tom says it really doesnrsquot work and itrsquos all in Korean anyway. I usually watch YouTube episodes of shows ScoobyDoo Flintst http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-323843.html Today I got up around 10am and talked to Mom and Dad back home. They said they were still getting rain from the hurricanes and more was to come. Luckily for me it hasnrsquot rained here yet. Irsquove had gorgeous days and today wasnrsquot going to be any different. At 1220 I met Pauline outside her apartment and we walked to one of the corner stores and picked up some juice for the party. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Unam-ni/blog-323773.html When I got to school I mentioned my flood to Mrs. Ahn and she said she would get a repair man right away. She made a couple of calls and said he would be there at 6pm and I would just give my key to her and she would run over with him. I said that would be fantastic and I really appreciated it. I then went upstairs and got ready for class.Today was singing day for all of the elementary classes. My http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-323452.html Today I went to school and had a pretty normal day there. Outside of school was a different story. The Kinders didnrsquot do anything special. They just did their seat work and practiced writing. I also noticed that the elevator numbers were 1 2 3 F 5 and I wondered about why they didnrsquot put 4 but instead put F. I found out that itrsquos like our number 13. The number 4 means death http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-323431.html Today was my second day of school. At least when I woke up I had a warm shower unlike yesterday. I got ready for school and was ready for a day of meeting new students. I arrived and went to my Cookie classroom where kids were already there playing. All of the really young classrooms K are named after Sesame Street characters Cookie and Oscar. The older classrooms 13 are named after Disne http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-323284.html Today was my first day of school at the Hogwan. A little bit of background on what exactly a Hogwan isA Hogwan is a private school that students attend to get taught extra subjects. These studentsrsquo parents pay big bucks for their children to attend these types of schools. My school Top Language School was established in 1973 and is the most prestigious in all of Jeonju. I work at the Seos http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-322338.html Today I had my first full day here in Korea. I was waking up every hour because I was scared I would sleep in and miss my lunch appointment with my schoolrsquos owner. So I finally got up at 8am which was still a full 8 hours of sleep. That wasnrsquot much considering I had slept very little in the last 24 hours. Well I got up and put all of my things in drawers and got my suit cases out of t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Gimje/Geumsan-sa/blog-321596.html AnnyeongOn Friday at 630 am I said goodbye to Mikey and my Aunt and Uncle and hit the road with Mom and Dad headed to OrsquoHare International Airport. We had a 4 hour car ride before arriving at Terminal 5. I checked in and found out that one of my bags was overweight so Mom and I shuffled stuff from one to the other and managed to get it underweight. That was pretty much the first and on http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/Seoshin-dong/blog-321073.html What the hell have I done I thought that as I sat in my room in the love motel rented by my new employer. I had arrived in Jeonju Korea at 10 PM after an extremely hectic couple of weeks. Most of you will know by now that I have been thinking about teaching in Korea for a few years now. When I applied to the teaching program at UBC this summer Korea became my fallback. The rejection letter http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jeonju/blog-314826.html October 26 27 2007 Jamie Kovarna Mck Balog Dennis Zabka and Matt Misner. Left Saturday morning with only a destination in mind. No hotel or food plans just a backpack and a point on a map we were trying to get to. So we caught the Songtan train to the Seoul Express bus terminal took a bus to Jeonju bus terminal then a smaller bus to Jinan where we caught a rickety bus we were the only http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/Jinan/Maisan-Provincial-Park/blog-233258.html In the morning we visited Mr. Kuk's Research Institute in Cheongeup which is in Jollabukdo and then went with Mrs Kuk to NaechangsanBaekyangsan which is on the border of Jollabuk and Jollanamdo north and south Jolla. We visited some Buddhist temples there. People were collecting a fruit from a local plant from the ground. They told Young Ok that it had medicinal properties so she tried eatin http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/South-Korea/Jeollabuk-do/blog-212478.html