Blogs from Gyeonggi English Village, Paju Camp, Paju, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, Asia

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It's Friday night, and it's time to party... to send off a friend who is departing during our 2-week hiatus in Vietnam. Devin, (our neighbor) has finally decided to return to the US to obtain his masters degree. So, we decided to have a dinner and Norebong (karokee) session, to send him off on his merry way. On this particular Friday, the marketing team, scheduled a film crew to work on the grounds. In 12-months of being at EV, film crews literally work here almost once a week starting in April. And I'd say from April to December, 15 of those crews have obtained permits to work until 11pm. But since no one from the marketing team is ever here past 6pm, the film crews just stick around until they are finished. Sometimes this is 1am, ... read more
Studio lights
Unbelievable
Top of main street


Being stranded in rural South Korea is nearly impossible with the massive network of public transportation possibilities. The Koreans understand not all people need or want an automobile because of this they have built a three-tiered bus system working eighteen hours per day. This three-tiered system uses express buses driving directly to and from major city cores to the countryside, standard buses picking up a few extra stops and going long distances. Plus the local buses running haplessly through the entire countryside but cutting short the major city centers. A bonus is using the T-money card, which works with all forms of public transportation, simplifying what you need to get on and off. One of the biggest advantages of this system is every bus route is color coded for even the most ignorant of bus riders ... read more
900 Bus
Express Bus # 200
English Village Tour Bus


It's simple... We live in SK, and we have been able to find somethings in various markets around Seoul like the "Foreign Foods Market" where they sell your average North American products at three times the price! Then there are the few shops around various shopping areas who also bring in a few "foreign products" and then try to make a killing on the pricing because there are slim to none and people will do anything for those niblets from their home country! Simply put... If you send us something from the country you are in; Chocolates, Gum, Toothpaste, or anything you can think of that someone might miss when they are traveling around You send us something, anything, to us in South Korea and we will return the favor! And I can tell you this... ... read more
the two of us
Shauna


Chopping down the Christmas tree in the woods, decorating it by the fire, eating popcorn and laughing were all parts of those years gone by. Many years went by where I stayed away from anything surrounding Christmas. Friends invited me over, girlfriends, acquaintances from work but I would always decline. Then something happened; I got married. Since our marriage we have been attending the Jackson Family Christmas and slowly I have learned to enjoy myself through the singing of Christmas carols to the eating of treats and goodies all day indoors. We've even managed from time to time to decorate the house with lights, build a snow man and make snow angels, too! Then we were off to South Korea and the only holiday Shauna, dislikes missing is Christmas. I figured we'd have no problems getting ... read more
Oh! Cherry Ripes!
Look At This!
Skeleton Bear


It's a mystery around here why we get all this wonderful fog... but these are images I captured on a Tuesday night before our Photography Club. About a month after our arrival several teachers approached us about putting together workshops on teaching, teachers around campus how to take better photographs. Once the teachers learned about our extensive visual arts backgrounds in commercial photography, drawing, fine art, illustration, and photojournalism they asked us to put on photography workshops. In October, I decided it was time to offer up to the teachers these Photography Workshops so that by the end of the winter they would have the knowledge about their cameras and be ready to start taking better images because they would learn more about themselves as photographers, what they enjoyed taking images of; architecture, landscapes, people, what ... read more
Night Fog 2
Night Fog 3
Night Fog 4


Fifteen minutes before heading out to a "men only" social gathering, I decided to check on my schedule for the upcoming week to be certain if I needed to reread through any powerpoints of classes I had not taught in a while. As I read through the schedule, an email from Kerry arrived stating she had a few books and dvd's she would like to donate to the "teacher's library" and that I could drop by anytime after 7:00pm. Since her apartment was in the Fiji building and I was on my way to the Earth building in fifteen minutes, I decided to drop on by to pick up the books and dvd's from here instead of putting it off until another evening. Stepping outside the apartment I immediately noticed a few small white flakes drop ... read more
Snow 2
Snow 3
Snow 4


For the past three years we have lived In Alberta where seasonal changes have distinct patterns because summer turns into winter at an unprecedented rate but when winter begins to melt transforming into spring we all know summer is always just a blink of the eye away! Unsure of the seasonal changes in the Paju area, we were skeptical of the weather but looking forward to the months ahead. Autumn, in Paju didn't start to take shape until mid-way through October. Then about two weeks later on a Thursday morning, we awoke to the bitter cold in our bedroom. Since our arrival in July we had grown accustomed to the sun peaking over the hill in front of our windows splashing through into our living space with its glorious sun rays. However this morning there was ... read more
Top of Main Street
Eatery
Little Theater


Justin... Just to state who "Justin" is, is just not stating enough! However, since we don't have the time to write everything about "Justin" I'll just be brief about who he is and why he came to visit us during our 2nd week in Paju City... Justin met Shauna while studying in Brisbane, Australia during their Master's Degree Program at the Queensland College of Art. Eventually, I bumped into Justin several times while using the "Master's Degree Computer Lab" even though I wasn't in the program but at the time he didn't know this. After some time, Shauna introduced Justin and myself to each other... From this point on Justin enjoyed talking to Shauna but wasn't fond of me (the feeling was semi-mutual). At some point in our distraught adventures in Brisbane, we all became ... read more


Week # 2 August 9th to 13th I decided this week, I would try to do as little yelling as possible at the students here during the classes that I was teaching or co-teaching. I can say my success rate was about 75%. Not bad for the second week of teaching. This week, I taught kinds from Teun Teun Elementary school, Bucheon Bumyung High School, Baekyung Middle School and Kobe Japanese Elementary students. Of the four groups, I interfaced (taught) with the Baekyung Middle School students the most with nine classes of sixteen total. The Japanese kids, I saw in four classes, High School students twice and Teun Teun students once. During the week, you become friends or more likely mentors or "favorite" teacher to some of the kids. These are the kids who understand what ... read more
Post card #1
Post card #2
Post card #3


During our first couple of days on campus we were told by Dominique about a sponsored trip to Boesong Tea Plantation and if we were interested in going we needed to speak to Rick. We spoke to Rick the very next day when we went to get our medical exams done about the Tea Plantation Trip for teachers who were interested? "How did you two find out about it?" Rick inquired "Earlier while we were walking around the campus with Dominique, she was explaining to us some of the benefits we get as teachers, like this Tea Plantation trip," Shauna kindly replied. I sat there as quiet as possible since I didn't want to destroy this opportunity, if there was one? Rick, looked at Shauna then looked at me, then back to Shauna stating he couldn't ... read more
Yongsan Station
Burger n Shake
Japanese Izikaya




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