Pictures of Wonju (Some stolen from Matt, his camera is better)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A roof top photo of Wonju at night.












This is Wonju at night from on top of one of the highrises. You can basically get onto the top of any building here. There are always great views up there.







A panoramic sunset photo from yesterday.


So, this is Galbi. You can eat it without the lettuce and rice too if you want, but I like it this way the best. You take a lettuce leaf, then put some rice on it, the lay down the BBQ-ed meat and put some of your choice of sauce (there are usually four to choose from) and then as many veggies as you would like. Fold it up and put the whole thing in your mouth. You have to put the whole thing in.




Our plate of raw meat. Mm... we eat so much chicken and pork here that it tastes so good to have some beef!















Here is Kyle at Galbi. Not sure what is going on with that woman in the background, but we didn't notice her till we got home. Sketch.














Here is Matt having his first official cook-it-yourself Korean Galbi.












Me doing the BBQ-ing of the meat for everyone. I love doing the cooking at Galbi.
















Eating Galbi at our favourite Galbi place in Dongatetchi. This was taken last night and is only picture number two of Kyle and I together in this whole trip, since I am usually the one behind the camera.

Today's Adventures

Right now I am sitting at Matt's place on his computer while he is up on the roof attempting to take some sunset pictures. We just cabbed here from my place and are trying to kill some time while waiting for Kyle to finish up work. He is done in 90 minutes or so from now and then we are headed out to take Matt to our favourite Galbi place. I will try and remember to take some pictures tonight. I know, I promised Galbi pictures a long time ago and never came through with it, but tonight I will try my hardest.

The three of us, Kyle, myself and Matt, went for coffee this morning at Holly's Coffee and ate some good sandwiches they sell there. Kyle ordered an Espresso shot by accident and then followed it with a grande white mocha, so needless to say only about 45 minutes later he had the caffeine shakes. Then Matt and I went down to Hi-Mart (the cheap place to buy electronics) and Kyle went to work. It started to pour when Matt and I walked down there and everyone was staring at the two foreigners who were not using umbrellas. I am pretty sure Koreans must melt when they are in the rain or the direct sunlight. They hide under umbrellas at all times :) The power went out on us briefly today during the storm, I think we might be getting some of the remnants of the hurricane that hit Taiwan the other day. There was loud thunder, but no lightening in our area of the city. By the time Matt and I were drenched and made it back to the apartment to change and to meet Kyle for a waffle, the rain stopped. So we changed into dry clothes and took our raincoats with us.

We then went to The Bean Club and had some kiwi juice (which is real juice here, it is basically just pureed kiwis in a class, probably takes 5-6 of them to fill the glass they gave each us) and a couple of waffles. I love the waffles at the Bean Club. So, I should run, since Matt is now back. He did some crazy monkey moves on the roof to get the pictures and is now covered in some funky grey goop. He did get some photos though. I will share them with you when I steal them from him. I will try and post again later tonight or even tomorrow.

Oh yeah, Kyle and I got some extra money from Tax Canada because they didn't give us all of our tax return by accident. So, with the extra money, since we have over $850 from them, we are going to see about buying a video camera. A hard drive storage video camera. We have seen a nice JVC one in HJi-Mart for $690, but we are going to check out prices from home online and compare and try and check out some prices at Techno-Mart in Seoul on the long weekend coming up in two weeks.

Bye for now!! Look!! Three updates in one day.

This is a video of my 2-A Class last week....

Pictures, but no update!!

Kyle reading at the Bean Club, he didn't know I was taking the picture, but I really like it.














This is a night picture from the roof of my building. My camera does not have a quick lens and it's hard to hold my hand super still so the night picture is a little blurry. The flash ruins it, so no flash allowed.











Look!! A UBC campus in Wonju, South Korea! It really is. It says it's a "Specialty Suzuki Violin College"











These are my double yoke eggs. I was not aware that the package of eggs I bought was all double yokes or even how the people who put the eggs together know that they are double yokes. Oh well. They taste good at least and that is all that matters.


This is our spider friend. I don't like it, but Kyle and Matt are fascinated by it. Matt and I researched it to make sure that it was not poisonous. It is called a Golden Banana Spider. They say that it's bite hurts like a bee sting and then blisters, but usually takes care of itself in 24 hours. It is from the same family as the Black Widow, but not as deadly! Unless you are allergic of course. She allows many males to share her web till she decides who to mate with, so it is not uncommon to see many of these (like 7-8) living together in one web. So strange. I hate spiders. Frankly, this picture and thinking about it give me the heebie-jeebies. Next photo... she is also neon green in colour.



Remember when Kyle smashed his finger in the front door? Well, this is what it looks like now. About two months later maybe. He is starting to grow a new fingernail underneath his old one and the old one is chipping away with all the dried blood. Sorry for those of you who are squeamish!





This is the new Kia concept car. It looks pretty sweet in person. I just wish the lighting in the airport was better so that my cheap little camera would take better photos.





This is the back of the new Kia concept car. Sorry for all the bad pictures, the lighting was awful for my poor little camera.











This is a sweet computer phone that they have the airport instead of just normal payphones. You get a keyboard and everything!













This gate board only shows the international flights coming in for gates D, E, F and not the other gates. There are so many international flights coming in all the time that this board updates with new flights every few minutes. At this point, Matt's flight is the second from the top on the right hand side.


This is Matt with his first steps outside the secure area at Incheon into Korea. He looks quite happy at this point, but a mere two hours later he was extremely dopey. He also had some disgusting drink he decided to be adventurous and try, but he quickly regretted that. It smelled like burnt deep-fryer oil. Gross. Both Kyle and I refused to try it. Sorry the picture is so grainy, but it was also really dark and so I had to lighten it. Best I could do at the time being interrupted by pushy airport people.

Listening to QX 104.1 in Korea

Monday, July 28, 2008

I am sitting at the computer right now listening to my favourite radio station, QX 104.1 Country from Winnipeg, waiting for Matt to get here. He just got here! Literally, as soon as I wrote that there was a knock on the door.

So, on Sunday we went into Incheon to go and get Matthew. It was a long trip into the airport, but when we got on the bus we met a fellow Canadian. He is from Winnipeg, so we felt a connection right there seeing as we went to school in the general vicinity of Winnipeg. We told him which school we went to and he was in shock. We were confused until he said, "I went to St. Boniface and we hate you Provies from sports!" We laughed. It was really funny. The world felt even smaller when he told me where his girlfriend is from, she is from Langenburg (for those who don't know, that is about 20-30 minutes from my parents in Esterhazy, SK) and when he called her to let her know, I spoke with her and she is friends with some of the same people as me and we are going to hang out sometime soon. Who knows, we might even know each other from home. Very small world. And then, he told us he was headed back home to Canada to go visit people and to go to a wedding in NFLD. I laughed again, he was weirded out, but I told him my family is from NFLD and are there right now, so it really felt like a small world and we chatted with him most of the way in. We are going to get together (both couples) when he gets back from Canada in a month.

We finally got Matt when his plane landed and we were all smiles when he walked out of the security doors towards us. It is sooooo unbelievably good to see a familiar face and even more so that it is one of our closest friend's face. It is so good to have him here. He was taken back by the humidity when we walked out of the airport and he bought some weird "green tea" drink, or so he thought, and it smelled like burnt deep fryer grease. Ew. He wanted us to try it, but we have learned if things in Korea smell funky, don't try it, the smell is not deceiving, it will taste bad as well. I was shocked that he forced himself to drink it. We caught the 5:10pm bus back into Wonju and then went to Matt's place to drop off his luggage and he came back here for the first night.

He slept here, we fed him breakfast and I brought him to work with me yesterday so he could meet the staff and students and observe me teaching for the day to make his first day less nerve-wracking. He keeps waking up at 5am which sounds very familiar because we did the same when we first got here. He is all settled into his apartment now, so he should start to feel a little more at home now. Yesterday teaching went well. It was a long day since I am doing intensives right now. I worked from 1-8:30pm. The first full work day I have done in 3 months. It felt so strange. I have no idea how I am going to handle it when we get back home. I guess we will have to wait and see how it goes!!

I know there is more I have to say right now (like Happy birthday Dad!! I have a video made for you I just need to post it), but I am going to go since Matt seems to be falling asleep in our livingroom. I will make sure to talk about homesickness and frustrations and our upcoming weekend when I write again. Probably later today. I am on vacation now, so I have all the time in the world to write. I will try and take some more pictures too to post. Some of Matt too!!

Miss you all so much.

Just a note...

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Quick Update... monsoon season is here. It has been like torrential downpour all morning and all last night. It's nice though, it keeps it really cool in our apartment. We are going to pick up Matt on Sunday. We are very excited about the quick trip into Seoul and getting him. Next weekend, we are meeting up with some fellow "Prov"ies and heading to Costco to get some North American groceries and eat some hot dogs.

My co-worker is finished working tomorrow. Then he is heading back to the US and then off for a two week all-inclusive vacay in Mexico. Jealous.

It's our 1-year anniversary coming up soon, August19. We probably won't be able to do really anything since it is in the middle of monsoon season and it would be awful outside. I think we are just spending it inside with each other and a bottle of champagne and maybe cake or banana splits. Yum. We will try and do something special when we get back to Canada. It's just hard here to plan anything when we are paying off our loans and have no extra money to do really anything else. We miss you all very much.

Bowling and Shabu Shabu

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Here is something you "might" want to try if you come and visit us in Korea, or ever find yourself out this way... deep fried.... moth larvae. Eww... yeah. They were being served right along rice cakes, corn dogs (which don't taste good here at all) and some more dried seafood delicacies. Mmmm... my favouite :( Gross.







Typical street vendor here in Wonju. I have no idea how they can stand back there with all the heat coming off of the food and the extreme heat and humidity of just being in Korea. It's unknown to me. I have not bought anything from here as of yet though....







I am sure that some of you have heard me complain before about the treatment of dogs here. It is sickening. This is what you usually see with big dogs. Just left alone in wire cages in the heat and the sun for days and days. There is one on roof of the building next to us that never gets let out of its cage and the owner goes up like once a week to clean out the pan of excrement from the dog. It breaks my heart. Small dogs gets treated like royalty, but big dogs are trained to be extremely aggressive and then place in this small cages alone without any affection from their owners. They just watch people walk by all day and it breaks my heart. No one seems to notice them except the foreigners.






We had a good weekend though. On Friday night we went to Trivia Night at Beer Plus, a western style pub just around the corner from our house (that only serves really weak Korean beer). It is an event held once a month by the foreign teachers at one of the middle schools. Kyle and I were a team and we placed third. There was a category on Pirates that was ridiculously hard and only people who are striving to be pirates or are the biggest nerds ever, would know the answers to the questions. They were like "When is National Talk Like a Pirate Day?" and "What is this pirate's real name?" and weird stuff like that. We did really well on the Olympics category, decent on the movies category (although some of their information was very wrong) and we aced the current events category. It was a lot of fun and this is the second time that we have gone. The first time we were late and missed a whole category and finished first overall. We had some nachos at the bar and they tasted sooo good that I will be going back there and ordering them again. They only cost 6000 won ($6) for a full plate for two people.

We met some new people that night too. Another young newlywed couple. They got married in January of this year and they are from Australia. We also met another couple from New Zealand (the wife is Korean though). Kyle and I and the other young newlyweds are on the same page when it comes to being here and how involved we really want to get, so it was nice to find people who had some things in common with us and we could actually talk to really easily. Their names are Heath and Amy. Yeah, we went bowling with them the next day and they were going to try and cheer for the two Amy's by using last initials, but that didn't work either since we have the same last 3 initials.... McK. hahahaha. It was funny when we figured that out. So, the girls (4 of us) were bowling together and the guys (4 of them) were bowling together. It was all young married couples and it was a lot of fun. I didn't do so well though... but at least I didn't get last. It was really good to get out of the house with some new people.

After bowling, we were all a little famished, so we went for Shabu. It was frustrating because they were telling us that we couldn't share dishes together and so we ended up ordering more than we wanted to and they definitely lost customers. It was to the point of arguing the wait staff about what we want and we are the customers... so, we will not be going back to that Shabu place again. At least not nearly as often as we did before.

So, we had a really good day on Saturday. It was really nice for us to get out of the Princeton clic and go meet some new people from another school. We were supposed to go hiking, but it was pouring rain all day. We also did some grocery shopping in E-Mart in the morning before bowling and finally caved to our hamburger cravings and had some McDicks before we left. We spent the evening just watching movies, we watch a movie called Felon with Val Kilmer and we watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Today, was good as well. We just prepared for the week, looked at some stuff on the computer, ate spaghetti and now we are just laying around relaxing. It's nice and cool in our apartment (thanks to the aircon) and having our bed in the "livingroom" now has been helping us sleep a lot better. Things are going well, we really miss home still and we are still waiting on a care package from my parents that was sent almost 2 months ago and still is not here. I am starting to cave to the idea that it is lost in the mail and we will never get it. I was really looking forward to having Orange Pekoe Tetley Tea and Apple Cider and mircowave popcorn and homemade rhubarb jam and good peanut butter... and everything else that was in there. I also had one of my hoodies in there, so that may be lost now too. Sad times.

We have been invited out again next weekend with the same couple to go to a birthday party (saturday) and we are looking forward to it. We can see ourselves hanging out with them more often. Then, Sunday, we go get Matt at the airport. Speaking of which, I should email him about stuff he should pack... bye for now!!

Swimming?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Yesterday, it wasn't extremely hot out, but we decided to take advantage of the weekend and try to go swimming. We looked up a place on the Wonju English Teachers facebook group and then wrote it down to give to the cab driver. So, it was Kyle, myself, Terri, Arran and Zak. We went to Chilbong (seven peaks) and it wasn't quite as serene as the pictures made it out to be.

It was in a beautiful location though. Right beside the valley and fully of these gorgeous mountain peaks. There wasn't really anywhere to sit since it was fairly busy and we had to 1000 won ($1) to get int the swimming place. We didn't so much appreciate that after we took a $20 cab to get there. Oh well. It was definitely nice to be outside and out of the house for a bit and to explore something new. Zak (as you can see him in the picture) was so excited to be in "the pool" (as he called it) that he didn't care how cold he was, and that kid was shivering, he did not want to get out of the water.

He spent some time talking to the sand that his Arran was pulling out of the water for him, he also tried to eat it, but he was just having so much fun being there. It has been so hot here lately (constant 35 degrees and 90% humidity, even at midnight) that it was so good to be in some cool water. The Korean obviously shared this sentiment since it was so busy there!! We didn't stay very long. We also didn't realize that all the Korean go swimming fully clothed, in long t-shirts and shorts and shoes... weird. So, we all stayed in our clothes and waded through the water.

Kyle and I explored down a little bit from the main area and saw some people fishing. We didn't realize it at the time, but we walked right through their fishing area. I do not think they appreciated this so much. Oh well. We are foreigners, we don't know any better :) It was definitely beautiful as you can see from this picture. This just shows 3 of the seven peaks that surrounded the area.

We didn't stay longer than an hour or so and then went for a short walk. When we were walking on the road, Terri and I were talking and then Kyle says "Look out for the snake!". Terri and I jumped, but then after we freaked out Kyle said "oh yeah, it's dead!" Jerk! He thought it was funny and so did Arran. I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was, which was why I jumped, but I do prefer to see them behind glass until I know whether or not they are dangerous. We then caught a cab back home and Kyle and I rearranged our apartment. We moved our bedroom into our livingroom and our livingroom into our bedroom. Only because, this way we have the air conditioning above our bed/in the same room as where we sleep, compared to the power source for the air conditioner (which was in the bedroom before) that heats up the room like crazy if we have the air con on. So, this works better, plus now we have a nice little TV room. Although, it does make it hard to hear people at the door when the knock.

I will be starting my one adult class tomorrow. I think it will go okay. John said that it is actually a brother and a sister in the class, the girl being 20 years old and the guy being 26. They barely speak English, but at least I know they won't be running around the room screaming and mocking me. Who knows though!!! Also, we are starting summer intensives on the 24th of July. So, I will be working a couple extra classes in the morning as well. At first I was rather upset about this because they neglected to tell me about it till a student asked me about it 2 weeks after the letter was sent home. It also put me over 37 hours a week when I am only contracted to work 30. I would also be the only teacher in the school working from 1:00-8:30 everyday and everyone else wouldn't start till 3:30pm. I talked to them about the classes taking all my prep time from me (since they run right through our prep time) and that I would have to come in 45 minutes earlier to prep as well and it just wasn't fair. So, they understood and they also didn't want to pay me for 8 hours of overtime a week for one month, so they are making some other arrangements and letting me know this week sometime. Needless to say, I am happier now than I was on Thursday night! That of course, is the short version of events, but my fingers are tired and I do not want to write it all.

Off I go, we are having spaghetti tonight, Kyle's favourite, although it is too hot to cook, but he loves it! Only 13 days till we go get Matt at the airport!

A Couple New Pictures!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

So, Kyle and I have been telling you how hot and sticky it is in our apartment and just here in general. Well, here is proof. At 1:00am basically, Kyle and I were playing cards to pass the time before bed because it was still too hot to go to sleep and there was no English shows on TV and we realized... the cards stick to us. So, to take advantage of this situation completely... we stuck many cards to Kyle and took this picture. We put them on him while lying down and they didn't fall off in the process of standing up and walking around to get the camera. Too funny.



This is Kyle's new flash drive. You see the little thing in between the mouse and the 1GB jump drive. Well... that was just to compare size. Look at the size of the iPod shuffle next to it. Can you guess how much storage is on the little thing? 4GB! So tiny! Kyle's old flash drive had some problems since it is getting old, so new one it was.

Short update. Just some pictures. Hope you all are well. I think we are going swimming this weekend at the river, so we should have some updates then. Kyle and I are still dying of heat every night., but we realized if we stay up till 1:00-2:00am all the time and just sleep in, then we can at least fall asleep. It is usually still 30 degrees at midnight. No sign of rain from this monsoon season yet. Very strange. Some Koreans are saying this is the hottest summer they have seen. I would believe it.

Nothing major so far this week at work. My work has decided to add on an adult class, so now on Monday and Tuesday I work till 8:30pm instead of 7:10pm. Oh well, I am only frustrated because I heard about it a week and half ago from Kyle's director (who is not friends with my director), but my school only told John and I tonight, which is brutal because John loses his early day tomorrow and has to work late teaching a new class he never knew about. Just annoying because they said they didn't know till tonight, but I found out a week and a half ago. John was rather upset. I am okay with it though. I am nervous about it though, it is two men, 22 and 26 years old and just me. My experience with Korean men has been that they just stare at me and make sexual comments to each other. I hope that this is not like that. I had trouble teaching an Iranian during my practicum because I was a young, blonde female.... I am hoping my experience is proven incorrect. I will let you know next week on Monday night.

As for now, good night!!

Pictures and an Update

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Kyle looks very excited to be teaching English on Canada Day!! :)















These are our White Chocolate Mochas. I LOVE how much whipped cream they put on the coffees here. Sooooo good.










This was taken on Canada Day at the coffee shop. I don't know why the book looks so huge. But I am absolutely loving the Harry Potter books. I am reading this one before the movie comes out and I am having a hard time putting it down, but I need to read it slowly so that I still have stuff to read while I am here. I have the next one as well.











Kyle and I were lonely for home so we went to the most western coffee place we could find. They play English jazz music and serve all the same stuff as Starbucks.










This was taken on Canada Day. This is Kyle pointing out his Canada patch that we pinned to him for work.
















This is Kyle trying to find where the ants in our apartment were coming from. We found them, but not up on top of the cupboards. He just looked funny.










This is an updated picture of our living room. The bed in the middle is our guest bed for if we have visitors. It's a 1 1/2. The plant there is a plant we just bought today and I love the pots they put plants in here. If you look in the window there are a couple plants, one of them was a service item (something Store clerks give you here when you buy stuff at their store), it's rosemary and it smells so good. The lady at the plant store was really nice, but spoke no English... it took five minutes of me pretending to write on my hand for her to understand to write down the cost. Oh well. We still got our plant!!

So, what has gone on the past little while? Well, you wouldn't have had to wait so long for an update, but Kyle said he was going to do his first update, but didn't. I know he will read this, so I am making fun of him. ha ha ha ha.

Canada Day was difficult for us. We missed being home for the fireworks and for our tradition of rushing down to get a great spot downtown for the fireworks and then weaving our way back home through all the crowds of people. It was always so much fun. Instead, we were teaching all day and getting bitten by mosquitoes all night. It has been so humid and hot here lately. For example, today it was 31 degrees by 10:00am and now it is 39 degrees and 91% humidity. It is so ridiculous. Kyle and I were outside for about 45 minutes walking to my school and about 10 minutes buying a plant, but I have the biggest tan line on my back and a pretty good tan on my arms and face. Now we are sitting inside with the lights off and the fans on trying to cool down. We both took cold showers when we got in. Over the past week it has not been below 30 degrees and 90% humidity so we haven't used the gas at all to heat up our water, it is always hot and we have been taking lukewarm showers because otherwise we overheat.

My allergies have been acting up, but today they seem better. Kyle laughs at me a lot because it seems as though I am always sneezing. Teaching has been going really well, a few things here and there (like in my 1A class the two boys who like the same girl started to fight verbally when I told them to stop talking and then when I turned my back to get something off of my desk, one of them punched the other one square in the face.... they both started crying..... the who was punched because it hurt, and the one who did the punching because he was in trouble). Kyle's school is going well, there seems to be a lot of management stuff going on that is putting a lot stress on some of the teachers and making others feel awkward (Kyle is in the latter group). Another teacher left Kyle's hakwon as well. So, they are little under staffed. It should be okay though. I know Kyle is tired often from all the work he has to do.... plus he has been assigned supplementary work to make curriculum for the school. I think they are being worked way too hard. I will get Kyle to write about it sometime.

We found where our ants are coming from.... the corners of the crown molding on our ceiling. So, we filled the cracks with sticky tak and now the ants have disappeared. It's great. We find a couple here and there, but not many.

We paid off Kyle's National Student Loan 100% this month, so that helped us realize again why we are here and renewed our outlook. It helped us not be as homesick. We do miss everyone so much.

We watched Hancock the other day, it was pretty good. There is some guy singing in the shower in the building next to us... he is awful. And really really funny. It sounds like he is howling and he keeps spitting as well. Gross.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Oh yeah, we are trying to plan to go on a trip to Vietnam and to Russia... we hope it works out. There is a ferry that leaves just east of here and goes to Russia about 3 times a week and it is like $150 each. So, we will see what happens. Maybe sometime before we leave. Also, Matt has scheduled his flight out here, we are picking him up on Sunday the 27th at 15:50pm. I just hope that he can get his interview scheduled quickly once he gets his Visa number in about 10 days. He should.

Miss you all.