Blogs from South Korea, Asia - page 350

Was greeted at the airport by InDong, one of the people from AUS who are training here. I was promptly told that the south african, phillipines and thailand national teams are also training with the school (more fun for me). Lucky for me, i was also told that there is no training until tomorrow afternoon (2:30)...so I have time to sleep and adjust. The high school is approximately 1.5 hours from the airport, south east of Seoul central. What hits you initially about this place is it is similar to both Singapore and Hong Kong - tropical and hot, and just as busy as Hong Kong. Indong initally took me down the street to show me where to eat, buy drinks, etc. He also showed me where to have Dog if I wanted it. I then ... read more

New people are exciting. The past few weeks have been a blur. People moving in and out of chairs, of rooms, of apartments...of my life (and everyone elses I suppose). It is one of the little things that keeps you going around here, one of the things that is guarunteed to change. The dynamic of the office and of the compound gets thrown completely out of whack when a new bunch of people arrive, and for the transition period that exists between pre-arrival of the new teachers and post-departure of the 'old' life feels completely and utterly unstable. But underneath the surrealism of the experience lies the deep, aching reality that people I have developed serious emotions for are walking out of my life. And yes, I do know that we are all adults, and it ... read more

Ok, so it's been just over a week and i'm sufficiently recovered to start remembering and writing about our experience in Korea at Easy I English Camp. For those who didn't receive emails from me cursing and bemoaning the state of affairs at the camp i'll fill you in on what went on....Basically the camp was completely disorganized and was run so shambolically that we thought it was going to be shut down after the first week! Let's see, where to start the list of things that went wrong....um, how about not having textbooks til the 3rd day of classes and the ones we did receive were utter shite and completely inappropriate as they were to be used with students in the UK and the books were filled with loads of slang and references to ... read more

Ok..so Renee and I have been planning this trip for about two years now. A study abroad for the fall semester at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, South Korea. Our friend Soo Won took us to Koreatown in New York City one day and we fell in love with all things Korean right then and there. Anyway, after planning and setting everything up with a "love her to death, put in your pocket and keep her forever" Professor Yoo we were finally in the taxi on our way. Two hours later we arrived at JFK. Security was faster than we thought, so sitting at gate for at least 45 minutes allowed our minds to race in all directions. "We are finally at this point" "I'm not looking forward to this plane ride at all" "You know ... read more

Friday was our last full day in Seoul and we made the most of it, despite a late morning/early afternoon start due to our S.Korean night out the evening before. We started out our day at the Gyeongbokgung Palace near our hostel in Seoul. The palace was incredible with lots to see. There were guards at the entrance to the palace and we arrived just in time to watch a procession around the large entrance gate. Gyeongbokgung is the largest and the main palace from the Joseon dynasty built in 1394. The original buildings were destroyed under the Japanese occupation in 1592 and again in 1911. There is archaeological work going on to discover more of the original foundations and buildings. The National Folk Museum is also on the palace site where we spent some time ... read more