Blogs from Gimcheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea, Asia

Birthday Day!! Yaay!! Happy birthday me! The day started off well and ended up being one of the most fantastic days ever! Darrell brought me coffee in bed and sang Happy Birthday.... (as crazy as it sounds, it's actually OK to sleep with your door unlocked in Korea!) and the day was off to a great start. My first class was a T-shirt making class and about 5 min before the beginning of the class D came charging in with the biggest bunch of balloons I have ever seen and informed me that where ever I went, the balloons were to follow* later in the day it was decided that the balloons were not enough and a party hat, bow tie and "It's my birthday, please sign my balloons" sign should also be adorned. Amongst ... read more

We woke up this morning in the compact little back packers tucked away in the back alleys of Korea's largest city. The free breakfast was surprisingly good, toast with cheese and ham. A fantastic break from the stretch of local food we've been subjecting our bodies to for the last few days. Kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage) with every meal makes for nice warm sleep at night, but sometimes you need a break! The idea for the day was to go to Bukhamsan national park just north of Seoul to hike 3 of the peaks and get a view from above. But as our luck would have it, we woke up to a steady drizzle that looked like it was here to stay. One of the benefits of being new to a place is that there's ... read more

Cathy discovered her favourite food tonight. As part of an initiative to get us teachers more in touch with the local culture, a group of us piled into taxis this evening and went to a shabu-shabu restaurant down the road. This is a really fun evening out. The tables are very low and you sit on flat pillows on the gound. In the centre of the table is a dip which holds a iron pot over a gas cooker. Inside the pot is a spicy vegetable stew. Each person at the table is given a plate which has about a dozen pieces of very thinly cut raw beef. The whole thing then works a bit like a fondue. You use your chopsticks to dip the meat into the rapidly boiling stew. Within a few seconds the ... read more

...ooh, i discovered the best recipe for bad breath! we went out to dinner in one of the neighbouring (only an hour in the bus!) towns and had a kind of sit around the table and braai your own food meal (Galbi) which was pretty kiff -more about it in the blog from the 14th. FYI: Braai-ing a combination of garlic (and no, not the wussie diluted powder stuff us westeners use... i mean whole cloves!) kimchee and pork with a wasabi cabbage soup you can dunk the meat in is NOT good for morning breath! It wasn't so bad last night... BUT THIS MORNING! After all the fumes have been marinading in ones mouth for a few hours over night... baah i stinky!! i could taste the garlik and kimchee and wasabi and just about ... read more

We arrived at the airport at a frosty 3:45am! After negotiating customs etc we were out of the airport at 4:45. Our taxi driver greeted us with his "Darrell and Cathy" card and escorted us to his van. Someone in my family has just mentioned that it was a bit chilly last Saturday... well, you should know what chilly is! The minute we stepped onto Incheon soil outside the airport we were greeted by my (Cath) first -2degree C wind. Ahhh crazy cold!!! Although "Ahhh crazy cold!!!" were my first thoughts Darrell seemed to be flooded with his really great memories of his stay in America which kept him bubbling for ages :) The driver seemed to be in high spirits considering he'd probably been up since about 3 to fetch two westeners whose language we ... read more