Blogs from Incheon, South Korea, Asia - page 3

We seem to manage to hit the hot spots wherever we travel. Like the morning we cruised into Inchon, Korea. Dennis Rodman’s friend, Kim Jong Un, mentioned that he was going to attack South Korea and for good measure maybe the United States also. Our tour guide told us that we were very brave to be visiting at this time of heightened tensions between the two Koreas. It all seemed pretty calm to me as we went about our business of touring. There is a huge statue of General MacArthur towering over Inchon to commemorate his successful landing there during the Korean War. He probably wouldn’t mind another go at it. Korea calls its wind-chill factor the “feeling temperature.” Today it was feeling pretty cold at -4C but we trudged on and fortunately the predicted rain/sleet ... read more

We left from Suwon Station around 8 am, doing a couple of pick ups at different stops in Seoul, and another one in Incheon. The drive to the ferry wasn't too long, and we got there just after ten. We had just missed a ferry so had to wait twenty minutes for it to return. Whilst waiting there was a lot of war talk about North Korea, maybe the West Sea Islands weren't the best place for a day trip in the current climate. Also the islands are right next to Incheon airport, so we constantly heard planes taking off. The journey on the ferry was very quick. It only took about ten minutes. We arrived in Sin-do and split into two groups hikers and bikers. We set off on our hike, stopping at a massive ... read more

Ever since mid November it has been turning into winter. Freezing cold temperatures on the walk to school, IN school, and the walk home. For my birthday, Yumi got us 3 (herself, Whemi, and I) electric butt warmers for our seats which was a Godsend! They didn't turn the heat on in the offices for awhile and so I was basically just sitting there freezing at my desk hoping to get up and teach so I could maintain some body temperature. The worst are your toes since they are exposed to the cold with indoor shoes on. I've been wearing the same 2 pairs of wool socks to school everyday since my dress socks are too thin. Thankfully Mom is sending another pair of wool snowboard socks over for me to wear because one of my ... read more

So I've had a couple of deskwarming days and am able to finally catch up with my blogs! I've been thinking of different posts to write about things I experience in day to day life in Korea and this is one of them. Lunch time in a Korean school. The teachers have their separate cafteria behind the school that we eat at. It's pretty small since we only have about 40 teachers altogether and we have a cook who makes meals from scratch everyday. She is an excellent cook and all the meals so far have been delicious. We file in to the lunch room and grab our water cup which is about 6-8oz so it is puny and then grab a spoon, two chopsticks, and a metal tray. There are 3 staples in a Korean ... read more

So the first week of school I basically followed all the teachers around and shadowed their classrooms to see what it was like and got used to my little cubicle with the extrmeley slow computer. The next week I was to do a presentation about who I am, my family, and what I like to do in my spare time. So in between shadowing and making my powerpoint I mostly just sat around in which they call, 'deskwarming'. Nothing really exciting in the first week except a bunch of screaming kids running down the hall saying, "You're handosme!" which is flattering at first and then you realize a couple days later with ALL the kids saying it is that that is pretty much the only word they know. I started Taekwondo on Monday and Thursday nights ... read more