Blogs from Gangwon-do, South Korea, Asia - page 10

This week wasn't too eventful. I had a full week of teaching which seemed to drag on forever. I have more than 20 classes a week, so by the time Friday arrives I'm ready for a break. Teaching went well this week. Most of my students were willing to participate. Sometimes they can be very shy though and are afraid to speak up when they are singled out. My co-teacher and I try to pick on them just to get them comfortable with talking on their own. I had two open classes this week where parents were invited to watch the class. I only had a small part in each. Both went very well. I just followed a plan that the homeroom teacher made for me. Afterward, I was invited to go out to eat with ... read more

Last week was the Korean holiday of Chusok. It's roughly the same as Thanksgiving. Koreans take time to give thanks and honor their ancestors. It also ment that I had a short week this week. Monday I was off work and Tuesday and Wednesday there were no kids so I had time to get ahead in my lesson plans. Some of the classes spend four weeks on one topic, so coming up with new ideas for plans can be hard. I finally got moved into my apartment last week too! I moved right at the beginning of the holiday, so most of my furniture wasn't there until Tuesday. I'm so happy to be out of the hotel. I have a huge pile of laundry that I'm still working on getting cleaned. No one here has a ... read more

Chuseok being a South Korean version of Thanksgiving, or so I'm told. At any rate, the important thing is that the ESL teachers get Monday off, so even though we have to have make-up classes on Wednesday, we still got to enjoy a three day weekend. Bright and early on Saturday morning, I hopped on a bus - which turned into a series of buses - and went to visit Seoraksan National Park on the northeast coast. The Sea of Japan reminded me of Maui, but no pictures because I only saw it from the bus. Saturday night I did a temple stay in a place called Baekdamsa (or Baekdam Temple) at the park's less-crowded western entrance. I'm not sure I can put into words how incredible the whole experience was, but I'll give it a ... read more

During our adventure here in Korea, we took our family to Ocean World. It is part of the Famous Vilvaldi Park. Ocean World operates all year long because it has an indoor and out door facilities. The Outdoor facility opens during the early summer season and ends in autumn. However, the indoor facility is always open and it has an Egyptian Theme. You will find many hot spas with different temperatures and different minerals added to the hot tubs. Even during the middle of winter, they have the heated outdoor spas over looking beautiful scenic terrain. They have different temperature settings for the different pools and you can choose your comfortable temperature settings. Ocean World also caters to the children and offers several kiddy pools and wave pools. They have the famous Egyptian indoor play ground ... read more

Hey! well hope you all managed to get through the massive attack of the blogs! Hope everyones well? Decided i couldnt miss the opportunity of a few days off together after graduation week at school so went off to Gangwando, the northern most province before you hit north korea to do some hiking :) Headed to a few places, to the chiaksan park - afraid not many photos here, the snow storms were unbeliveable, and with no crampons my concentration was on not falling back down the mountain!! holding onto the ropes up the steps as hard as i could!! haha!! Then headed across to mureung valley to see the frozen waterfalls, and some amazing caves including Hwanseonggul. afraid the write ups short cos im really tired at the moment!! schools going well but super busy ... read more