Katie McGee

katiekate

Katie McGee


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2015-2016 Travel Plan

Rough plan of where I plan to be over the next year



Asia » South Korea » Gwangju January 12th 2019

Hey everyone! l hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! As many of you probably know already, l was able to travel home for the holidays to visit the family. l have signed on to teach for another year here in Korea, and during the negotiation of my new contract, I was able to get a little over a week off to go home and visit my family for Christmas. Just for fun, I wanted to keep my visit a secret from Sarah, although at times it felt like she was basically the only person who didn't know I would be home for the week of Christmas. There were a few occasions when the secret was almost revealed. She kept asking when I would be home next, and finally I told her I would probably ... read more
Christmas at the McGee's
Ben and Jerry's with Lianne!
Before going out

Asia » Japan » Osaka » Osaka September 29th 2018

Hey everyone, Hope you’re all doing well! The beginning of this past week was Chuseok here in Korea, which is the Korean version of Thanksgiving, more or less. Last year for Chuseok (yup, I’ve been here for a year already-isn’t that wild??), I went to Busan to visit Julia, the first friend I made here in Korea. This year I took a trip to Osaka, Japan, where I met up with Sabrina, one of my friends from college. She is teaching English through JET, and was able to travel to Osaka and hang out with me for a couple of days! For those who aren’t super familiar with Japan, Osaka is the third largest city in Japan, and it is known for its food, boisterous people, and dialect, which is notoriously difficult to understand. The atmosphere ... read more
Osaka Castle, nighttime
Ferris wheel outside of the aquarium
Eagle Ray

Asia » South Korea » Gwangju August 4th 2018

Hey everyone, Wow I feel like I always say this, but it really has been a while. I’m not sure if I should blame it on not really doing anything or on doing too much. I suppose it’s been a bit of both. Life here has basically settled into a routine, between going to the gym, going to work, and eating food in the time between. In the last few months I’ve begun teaching reading classes to some of my students, so I am in charge of making worksheets to check my students’ vocabulary and reading comprehension. I’ve set my worksheets up such that one of the sections is intended to test my students’ ability to understand words in context (for example, the word “funny” doesn’t always indicate that someone is laughing, but can also mean ... read more
Gamcheon Culture Village
A bit sweaty and tired, but worth the views!
Gamcheon Culture Village from the opposite side

Asia » South Korea » Jeju May 15th 2018

Hey everyone, So Saturday, May 5th was Children’s Day here in Korea. As a result, the government decided to give us a national holiday on Monday, meaning we got a rare three-day weekend. Tanya and I decided to take advantage of the three-day weekend by joining a group of EPIK teachers (EPIK is the government-run English program here in Korea, so EPIK teachers work in the public schools, whereas Tanya and I work in a private, after-school academy) on a tour to Jeju Island, sometimes considered to be the “Hawaii of Korea.” For those of you unfamiliar with geography around Korea, Jeju Island is located in the Korean Strait, directly south of Gwangju, the city I’m in. Gwangju is in South Jolla province, the province that constitutes the Southwestern corner of South Korea. Because it’s an ... read more
Smile!
Seongsan Ilchulbong; "Sunrise Peak" crater
Jeju, as seen from the descent from Seongsan Ilculbong

Asia » South Korea » Gwangju May 10th 2018

Hey everyone, Seven months in Korea, and spring has finally arrived! You wouldn’t have been able to tell today, what with the sudden drop in temperatures, punctuated by snow flurries this morning, but it is gradually getting warmer here! Haha just kidding, it's now been nine months here, and spring is in full force. I can finally start wearing T-shirts comfortably, with only a light sweater needed in the evenings. Man, the weather changes quickly once it's committed to a season. Along with warmer weather comes beautiful flowers coming into bloom! And SUN! Yay! Last weekend month, after an eventful Saturday morning spent at the hospital getting Tanya’s cough checked out—and subsequently getting her situated into a weeklong hospital stay for pneumonia—I walked over to the nearby reservoir and park to enjoy the warm weather and ... read more
Crowds
Uncheon Reservoir blossoms
Pretty pink

Asia » Taiwan » Taipei February 24th 2018

Hey everyone, Happy belated Lunar New Year! While most people in the US forgets that it even exists half the time, the Lunar New Year is a pretty major holiday over here in East Asia. As a result, Tanya and I had a long weekend, which we used as an opportunity to jump over to Taiwan. Our planning process started a bit late; and our breaks at work during the end of January were spent frantically searching for flights and hostels in almost every country in East and Southeast Asia. Taiwan was definitely our first pick, as a way to celebrate Chinese New Year where it’s taken most seriously while not actually having to face the terror that is mainland China during the holiday. Seriously, if you’ve never seen the pictures before, take two seconds to ... read more
Flight time
Gondolas
貓空 gondolas

Asia » South Korea January 10th 2018

Hey everyone, Hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season! Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted, I suppose I should start with the weekend before Christmas (the 16th of December), when I woke up hellishly early to travel to Seoul for a CIEE holiday party, and to hang out with Julia (the friend who lives in Busan). The journey itself was pretty uneventful, although somehow Julia managed to get lost between the train station and the hotel where we were staying, so she ended up arriving two hours after we had originally planned to meet. We weren’t able to check in to the hotel immediately upon arrival, so we went out in search of lunch and stumbled upon a burrito place that was only a few blocks from our hotel. Although they were served ... read more
Fight!
I made a friend. He just chilled in my lap for the whole 10 mins
Never did I think I would find a raccoon cute but...

Asia » South Korea » Gwangju December 4th 2017

Hey everyone, Wow it’s been a while since I’ve posted, sorry about that. So much has happened since I last posted that I’m not even really sure where to start... I guess the most obvious place to start would be that my parents came all the way out to visit me… wow it’s already been four weeks. It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted. But yes, the parents came to visit me four weeks ago, since I will not be able to go home for Christmas this year. Their trip started out a bit rocky, first with their luggage getting stuck in Beijing due to a delayed flight and subsequent unexpectedly quick layover, and then with us missing the last bus from the airport to Gwangju, meaning we had to ride the subway ... read more
Strolling in the 5/18 park
Hotel room views
Seoul Tower at night

Asia » South Korea » Gwangju November 4th 2017

Hey everyone, Well, things have finally started to settle, and the routine of each week has begun to make the weeks fly by. Time during the week is split between work and home, and I go out for lunch once a week with Yongmu, one of my Korean coworkers. On the weekends, I go out one day with my South African coworker, and either meet with Christy, another of my Korean coworkers, or hang out at home. And even though I had my worries before coming here—I don't speak the language, I didn't know anyone, or hardly anything about the academy that I am working at ahead of time—I’m so glad that I pushed myself into doing this. On the other hand, over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed how bad I am about going out ... read more
Halloween

Asia » South Korea » Busan October 14th 2017

Hey everyone, Oops I definitely meant to write this last weekend. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun! I mentioned in my last post that this past week was Chuseok, Korea’s version of Thanksgiving. Because it is one of the major national holidays, we had the whole week off (to be fair, we only get Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off for our winter holidays… Not even a few days around the holidays, but only the days themselves). Having so much time off was wonderful, but I must admit the timing was a bit annoying for my coworker and myself, as we hadn’t yet been paid before the holiday. Actually, our payday fell within the holiday week, but since the banks were closed all week (and this Monday) due to the national holiday, ... read more
Skybridge
We found Haeundae Beach!
Bryan is terrible at photo-taking, so Julia was making fun of him




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