Back from summer vacation

Nothing too exciting going on in Korea.  Our first week back was nice and relaxing because we only had to teach 3 hour days instead of 7 hour days.  If only every week could be like that….

On Monday, Kyle found out that Kwon hired a new Korean teacher to work part time at his school.  Julie B (since there is already a Korean teacher named Julie at his school) apparently grew up and went to high school and college in Canada and the US.  However, she has barely spoken to Kyle other than answering direct questions.

Then on Wednesday, Kwon showed up at Kyle’s school and fired the Korean teacher Amy. (Koran teachers at Kyle’s school: Nadia, Minnie, Julie, Amy, and now Julie B).  Let me recap what happened at Kyle’s school right before summer vacation.  One of the Moms of one of the 2 year old students had gotten very annoyed with Kwon for being unorganized and randomly planning fieldtrips without giving any of the parents notice.  This mom is somewhat notorious for pulling her children out of schools, although I can’t blame her for getting upset about Kwon being super unorganized because she IS.  Well this Mom then convinced other moms at school to pull their children out and Kyle’s school lost 4 kids in one day.  This was a big deal because Kyle’s school is so small; they only have 27 kids!  Three of the kids were from the 2 year old class, which is the class Amy is in charge of.  Anyway, Kwon thought that since the 2 year old class now only has two students, she would just combine them with the 3 year old class and fire Amy.  She didn’t give Amy a month’s notice or her severance pay, which is illegal in Korea, but I doubt that Amy will turn Kwon into the labor board.  Which will just allow Kwon to continue getting away with whatever she wants to do.  201 days and we are free of her crazy corruption!!!!

On a happier note, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin are finally in Seoul!!!  We will get the chance to see them once their house is done.  Unfortunately the military hasn’t finished revamping their house yet, but hopefully it will be done by the end of August and we can go see them once they’re all moved in.

We also just started our online TESOL course, so that will be keeping us busy for the time being.  The material is very interesting and can help us improve our teaching skills, which pretty much equal make it up as you go along.  (Keep in mind we still have had no formal teacher training and were just tossed into a classroom the first day we got to Korea).  Now we can use everything we learn from our TESOL and apply it in our classes.  So we will be working on that for the next few months.

We went to Costco today, which is always an experience.  Going on the weekends is the worst time to go, but Kyle and I wanted to make tacos for dinner, and Costco is one of the best places to get ground beef here.  Anyway, Koreans seem to believe that going to Costco requires one's entire family and is always a zoo.  They bring their small children, who either take up 1 cart sleeping or run around the store getting lost.  Then the older children are running around the store taekwondoing invisible ninjas.  You have spouses walking next to carts instead of behind them and Grandma and Grandpa slowly following.  Kyle and I always try to know exactly what we need to buy before we enter or else one could spend hours in Costco.  We've stopped using a cart and now bring with us our recyclable bags because it makes it that much easier to walk around.  Kyle eyed some lox in the freezer section, but it was $30.  I guess he'll have to wait until we get home to have lox.  :(

Hope this finds you all well!  We miss you all!  Love, K & M

Summer vacation to Guam & Saipan

Our journey began at 5:30am on Saturday.  We got to the airport and headed for Nagoya, Japan where we would catch our connection to Guam later that night.  We left the airport once in Japan because we had a 10 hour layover.  We converted some money at the airport into yen, which was a huge mistake because we were completely ripped off thanks to the exchange rate.  We converted 200,000 won which only gave us about 11,000 yen.  We then went to buy train tickets so that we could get to the shrine, but a one-way pass cost us 740 yen, that’s practically an $8 one way trip!  We made an American friend in the train station who thought we looked lost and confused and she helped us find the right train to take since she has been living in Japan for 7 years.  We even got job offers to go work at the school she is planning on opening, but I don’t think we’ll be accepting that any time soon….  We got to Nagoya, found our way to the shrine, and we’re horribly disappointed.  It was a few buildings spread out that didn’t have any signs to tell us their importance, and you couldn’t go into any of them.  It was also hotter than hell, and I haven’t sweated that much since Calcutta, India.  We wandered around the whole shrine for an hour and then decided that we hadn’t eaten since 6:30am and it was time for lunch.
We walked around the entire area of Nagoya surrounding the shrine and train station looking for somewhere to eat.  You’d think that in Japan they would have sushi restaurants on every corner, but not the case in Nagoya.  We searched for 3 hours and could not find anything that was open, well except for 2 strip clubs.  How could nothing be open on a Saturday?!  Is Saturday the Sabbath for the Japanese?  I don’t know, but we were so hot and hungry from walking around that we ended up going back to the airport where we actually found a sushi restaurant.  Although our day was a complete bust, that sushi was the best sushi we had ever eaten.  The slices of fish were HUGE in comparison to what you get in Korea or at home.  We then rested in the cool, air conditioned airport, had a great wifi connection, and waited for 8:30pm to come when we would leave for Guam.  Needless to say we won’t be returning to Japan any time soon since it left such a bad impression on us and because it’s just too expensive to visit.

We didn’t get into Guam until 1:15am.  As I mentioned in the last post, one of my Dad’s coworkers, Mary, is from Guam.  Mary still has family that lives in Guam, so she put me in contact with her sister, Antoinette.  She had volunteered Antoinette to come pick us up at the airport Sunday night, but we decided that since we arrived at such an ungodly hour, we were not going to call Antoinette to come get us.  We even booked a hotel within a mile from the airport so that we would have a cheap taxi ride.  HA!  Our 1 mile taxi cost us $17!!!  The shortest, most expensive cab ride of my life!  We can get a cab into Seoul (which is a good 25 minutes away) for that price.  We got to the hotel, checked in and asked about shuttles to the beach.  We were told that there are shuttles to the beach, but that they cost $10 roundtrip and that we might have to wait 20-30 minutes for one.  We thought that didn’t sound too bad since apparently a 3-mile taxi would probably cost us about $50.  When we woke up the next morning we called to the front desk and they said it was about an hour wait until the next shuttle.  Not exactly a 20-30 minutes, but we weren’t going to pay for a taxi so we waited.  We went to Ypao beach, spent the day soaking up the sun, snorkeling, and relaxing.  At 5:30pm, we went to call for the shuttle.  We found 2 pay phones on the beach, but of course they didn’t work so we had to walk all the way to the Hilton.  Called from there and were told that the shuttle would come to pick us up at 6:30pm.  We sat in the parking lot waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  Kyle had read that Guam has a pretty big meth problem so we were starting to wonder about the group of locals who were sitting near us smoking something out of a pipe.  It eventually started to get dark, and people were now arriving at the beach, but just sitting in their cars.  One guy sat in his car watching us for 30 minutes and then drove by us and asked us if we needed a ride, we kindly declined his offer.  Then all of the streetlights in the parking lot went out and we decided that we should move to the main road.  It was now 8pm.  We went into a bakery that was on the corner and asked to use their phone.  We called the hotel again and complained about having been forgotten and abandoned for 2 hours and told them that they needed to send someone down to pick us up now.  I was able to pick up some wifi as we continued waiting and had received a message from Danny saying, “Hey girl, what’s up?  We need to talk.”  I didn’t think too much of it and thought I’d contact him when we had more reliable internet.  The hotel was very apologetic about forgetting us and we were able to get a free ride to the airport out of it, but we found out that the women who booked our shuttle earlier never wrote down that they had taken us to the beach so they had no record of us.  Ugh.

The next day we left Guam for Saipan and ended up in Saipan at 11am.  (It’s only about a 30 minute flight).  Since had not had internet while in Guam, no one was sure exactly where we were.  As soon as we got to the hotel we found some wifi and Kyle checked his e-mail.  He had a message from his mom, Beth, that said, “Monica really needs to get in touch with Danny.”  Now I start to panic, because if Danny has asked Beth to reach us it’s a little more important than “Hey girl, we need to talk.”  I then checked my e-mail and find out that my grandfather had a heart attack while my family was visiting.  Fortunately our hotel was right on the beach, so Kyle went down to the beach while I talked to my family.  After I had gotten the latest update, I joined Kyle at the beach and we snorkeled to try and take my mind off things.  That night we went in search of dinner, but Saipan and Guam don’t really seem to believe in sidewalks.  Nobody walks anywhere, so we walked a few miles looking for food, but there were no restaurants, except a few Korean and Japanese places, but we refused to eat Korean while on vacation.  We walked by a place whose name sounded familiar because we’d seen it on a brochure for things to do in Saipan.  We went in, made friends with the owner, Aui, and arranged to go to Mañagaha Island the next day.  (We’d read about Mañagaha Island and apparently it is the #1 place to go in Saipan).  Aui even gave us a lift back to the hotel that night.

On Tuesday, I woke up checked my e-mail and had a message from my Mom saying that my grandfather had passed away peacefully in his sleep.  While I was very upset about this, I couldn’t help but think his choice of timing to go was about as good as any.  I had just skyped with him less than a week before, he had just spent the past 2 weeks with 2 of his grandsons, and he’d gotten the chance to see 2/3 of his daughters.  Feeling sad, but relieved that I had had the chance to speak with him a week before he passed away.  Rest in peace Grandpa.  We love you and miss you and hope that you find a great fishing spot with Uncle David up in heaven.


  We then left for Mañagaha Island. 

Once on the island we walked out to the main area where all of the Korean and Japanese tourists were.  There was about ½ a mile of sand from where the trees/shade were to where the ocean was, and there was not a single person sitting in the sand.  All of the Koreans and Japanese were clumped up in the shade.  Kyle and I, feeling like we were committing some taboo, put our stuff out in the sand and went snorkeling.  The area we were in was very crowded with Koreans and Japanese (aka the foreigners), and some snorkeling company gave them all fins for reasons known only to God.  They were killing the coral.  And I’m not exaggerating.  They were kicking the coral, walking on it, touching it, and destroying it.  They were so loud they scared away any fish one might actually see.  Kyle and I found this so disturbing that we relocated to a different area that was more rocky and free of destructive Asians.  (Yes, I have become quite racist since living in Korea, please bear with me).  Upon switching areas we were able to snorkel around antiaircraft guns, sunken Japanese docking boats, and other WWII wreckage.  It was pretty incredible.

Gun lying on the beach

We saw hundreds of fish and much to Kyle’s disappointment I saw a small reef shark and he didn’t.  We were also able to see coral that was bright and alive, polyps blooming like tiny, neon Christmas trees.

View of Saipan from Managaha Island

The next day we decided to rent a car, which Kyle bravely drove around the island.  (They drive on the same side of the road as US mainland does, so no worries there and there are only 3 main roads which also helps since we are both very directionally confused).  Anyway, we drove around the island and were able to see some amazing things we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Kyle’s grandfather was stationed in Saipan during or shortly after WWII and took some pictures that Kyle was interested in recreating.  We went to Lau Lau beach, which had an amazing coral reef, right off the beach, but would have probably made a better dive sight than snorkeling. 

Suicide Cliff

We went to Suicide Cliff, which has a very tragic tale.

Last Command Post

During WWII, the Japanese told the islanders, the Chomorros, that the US soldiers were going to come to the island and rape their women, torture them, and kill them.  Entire villages and families went up to the cliffs and jumped to their deaths.  Of course when the US soldiers arrived, they gave the Chomorros food and water.  Why there was a memorial to the Japanese under this cliff, Kyle and I will never understand.  We then went to the last command post, which had some long range artillery canons and a tank.  We also saw the Grotto, which is supposed to be one of the top dive sights in the world.

We had been told by the locals and online that you could only dive there if you were very experienced and if you had a guide because the current is so strong and it’s easy to get lost.  Maybe someday we’ll go back and dive in the Grotto.  I hear they have a resident shark that lives there and it’s supposed to be a good place to see sea turtles too.  We only walked around the water’s edge, but saw a Japanese group in the water that had a large number of small children with them.  Fortunately they were wearing life vests, but some of the Japanese in the water weren’t.  Kyle tried to see if I would change my mind and go snorkel there, but I said no and that I didn’t want to witness any Japanese children drowning when the current got strong and sucked them down into the cave.  [Kyle side note:  Thank you for being my conscience Monica.]  After this we went to Kalabera cave,  

you really needed to have your spelunking gear with you to see very much, but Kyle found a rock to crawl behind that had an area to explore around it.  From my spot on the opposite side of the rock I couldn’t see him, but I heard a big rockslide and nearly had a heart attack thinking he had plunged into the depths of the cave.  We then drove to Tank beach thinking that surely if it was called tank beach there would be a tank on the beach, but there was no tank and the local children laughed at us when we asked them where it was.  We then returned back to the hotel just in time to beat a huge storm that had been brewing for a while and we got ready to return back to Guam the next day, Thursday.

In Guam, Antoinette picked us up from the airport and greeted us with leis.  She asked us if we needed to go anywhere, if we needed anything, and we said we were good and be fine just going to the hotel and heading to the beach.  She dropped us off at the hotel and arranged to come pick us up that night to take us to dinner.  The water was so low when we got to the beach that we decided to just sit in the pool, which overlooked the ocean.  Later, Antoinette and her husband, Tom, took us to a very nice dinner at the Fiesta hotel.  We had a great time and Antoinette and Tom seemed to enjoy hearing all about Korea and the crazy Kwon.  When they dropped us off back at the hotel we made plans to drive around the island on Friday.

On Friday, Antoinette and Tom drove us all around the island.  Without them we would have never seen as much as we did.  We learned that people in Guam never drive around the island unless they have family or company in town. We started out at Guam's miniature version of the Statue of Liberty since Kyle told Tom and Antoinette that he had never been to the real one.  Then we got to see the Governor's Office, this picture is taken near it next to a latte stone, used as building supports by the ancient Chamorros.

Next, we went to a naval museum and got to see one of only two, 2-man submarines left in the world, the other one is in Hawaii.
Then we saw Asan beach, which was completely destroyed during WWII.  We went to a few scenic outlook points and saw Cocos Island and other parts of Guam from afar. We drove by the landing spot of Ferdinand Magellan.  We also got to see an old, Spanish fort.  A local man set up a place to sell coconuts and bananas right in front of it.  The coconut was delicious.  

We had lunch at Jeff’s Pirate Cove, which was delicious.  We had some local food and Greek food.  Yumm.  Then we went to Talofofo Falls.  Tom and Antoinette said that it had been about 20 years since the last time they had been to the falls.  They were telling us how their daughter overheard them talking about going to the falls and she got upset because they had never taken her, but they were taking complete strangers.  There were a ton of wild pigs in the parking lot, and quite a few little piglets.  We got to ride a gondola to get to the falls.  We had been planning on swimming in the falls, but the water was kind of grimy, and the pamphlet we got said no swimming.  Tom asked a man that worked there about the no swimming, and he said that they really didn’t care, it was more for liability issues and that if we swam they wouldn’t stop us.  We decided to walk over the slippery and slimy, moss covered rocks and go sit behind the waterfall.  After that, Tom and Antoinette drove us back to our hotel and we showered and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.  We were pretty exhausted after seeing everything.

On Saturday, Antoinette and Tom picked us up and took us to Cocos Island, which is right off the coast of Guam.  The island was way less crowded then Mañagaha Island had been, and even though we didn’t find any old WWII wreckage, we saw huge purple starfish, cute little clown fish, an eel, and several other tropical fish.  We stayed on the island for 4 hours and then drove back to Ypao beach, where Antoinette dropped us off so that we could snorkel some more.  We snorkeled right in front of the Hilton, less than 100 feet from where we had snorkeled on the first day.  We saw 2 lion fish hiding under a rock, they won for best fish seen during the whole trip, lots of other fish that followed us around, and clown fish that had a lot of fun trying to touch us, but then we would move and startle them and they would rush back to the security of their sea anemone.  It became a hilarious little game.  Then Antoinette picked us up from the beach, waited for us to shower and get ready, and took us to the mall so that we could watch Inception.  (If you haven’t seen it, go!  It was amazing; I was on the edge of my chair the entire movie).  Then Antoinette and Tom came to pick us up from the movies and we had to say our goodbyes when they dropped us off.  They were the sweetest people ever and made our trip that much better.  Antoinette even gave us some chocolate covered macadamia nuts…Mmmm…some Chamorro cookies (chocolate chips and macadamia nut cookies)…Mmmmm, and some hand sanitizer, which is super expensive in Korea.  Tom and Antoinette were so wonderful!!!  Thank you both for everything!  We had so much fun! 

The only picture I have of our wonderful hosts

We were so sad to leave Sunday morning at 5am and return to the super hot and humid Korea, but we enjoyed our vacation and it has given us the energy and mental refueling we needed to make it the next 144 days until winter vacation!  Thank goodness we only have to teach 3 hours a day this week instead of a full day.

Hope this finds you all well.  We miss you and love you all.  Love, K & M

Field trips

Not too much to report on our end.

Kwon has moved me to Kyle's school 2 days a week, which really means that I work 2 hours at my school and then the rest of the day at his school, or my favorite variation: 2 hrs at Kyle's school, 2 hours at my school, and back to Kyle's school for 2 hours.  She is nuts.

We had a few field trips within the past few weeks.  Kyle got to go potato picking with his classes.  He then made delicious mashed potatoes from said potatoes.  "Nothing like eating potatoes that were picked with the sweat and toil of child labor."  Kyle also got to go to a traffic museum where students learned how to look before crossing the street.  In the parking lot of the museum, Kyle's school's bus driver tried to run over numerous small children.  He found it ironic since the parking lot of a safety museum should be a safe place for small children.  We then both got to go to a "swimming camp."  It was this big area that had different activities involving water set up for kids to play in.  Examples: a water gun area, a sprinkler area, little boats, a big swimming pool, etc.  We got to take the kids into the big swimming pool, but the student/teacher ratio was WAY out of proportion.  Although the swimming pool only came up to our knees, I was convinced someone was going to drown or that we were going to lose someone since they all look alike in their matching swim caps.  I called it, "the place where small Korean children go to die."  Other than that we had a lot of fun splashing small children and dunking them in water.  Here are some great pics from the day:

Kyle's students

We had Tim's birthday party and going away party back to back weekends.  On Thursday, Tim left us and returned to the great land of Canada.  We have a feeling he might be back if he can't find anything to do in Canada so we'll see.

We went to Itaewon last Sunday.  It's where one of the military bases is located.  We had ever seen so many foreigners in Korea until we walked around there.  We didn't end up going to Taco Bell because the line was around the block, but we ate at a little Mexican dive place across the street where we had scrumptious burritos.  There are very few mexican restaurants here, someone could open an authentic mexican food restaurant and make bank on foreigners.  Only problem, you have to move to Korea.  As our day turned to night, we started to encounter some werewolves and vampires roaming around.  We had been warned about such sightings.

I went with Hannah and got a pedicure the other day.  While they didn't give me the good 'ole foot scrub that I love back home, I did get my toes painted for only $8.  Not too bad.

Summer vacation starts tonight!!!  We are so excited.  We have a 12hr layover in Nagoya, Japan and are going to leave the airport and explore the area.  There's a big Japanese castle and a shrine that is supposed to be one of the 3 most sacred places in all of Japan.  We plan on grabbing some real sushi for lunch and then heading back to the airport where we will then fly to Guam.  We will then go from Guam to Saipan and then back to Guam.  As of right now, the game plan is to just relax, lie on a beach, work on our non-existent tans, snorkel, and be free of Korea, Kwon, and small obnoxious children for 9 days.  One of the ladies who works in Dad's office is from Guam and still has family there so we are looking forward to getting a tour of the island by a local.

That's all for now.  Expect an exciting and detailed report once we get back.  Hope all is well with you.  Miss you!  Love, K & M

Difficult Decision, Muuido, & Ho Bar

Sorry it's been awhile since we've last posted.  For the past month Kyle and I had been debating switching to another school.  This involved a ridiculous process of us needing to leave the country so that we could cancel our current visa and get a new visa attached to a different school.  There were a lot of uncertainties that went along with this, such as possibly having to work on a tourists visa (which we did not want to have to do because if we were caught it could result in getting a hefty fine, jail time, and deportation).  While being able to say that we've done time in a Korean jail would make a very unique story for us, with the worrying of parents we decided it wasn't an adventure we really wanted to have, and even though I welcomed the idea of being deported, we found out that they don't pay for our flight home.  After much thought and consideration, we have (unfortunately) decided to remain at the schools we're at.  The risk of ending up with another director that could be just as bad as the one we have now was too high (as my Dad put it, "Better the devil you know"), and having to stay until August of next year instead of March was too long.  Kyle really loves his school and he's actually at a very good school, it's mostly me who is unhappy, but I'm trying to make the most of it.  (Think of all the patience I'll have when I get home).  While Korea is an exciting place, it has it's pros and cons like everywhere else.  Somedays the cons are much higher than the pros and I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to going home.  (257 days).  I have a countdown if that helps explain how I feel about Korea.  It's cool being able to say that we lived here for a year, but it is VERY different than home.  Society just doesn't function the same way as what we're used to and this can cause a lot of unnecessary frustration. 


However, we are making the best of everything, and even though it's 257 days until we move back to the "real" world we are going to make sure that we leave no areas of Korea undiscovered.  Our goal is to plan fun things to do every weekend, which will not only keep me from losing my mind but give us something to blog about since we've been lacking in that department recently.  We did go to an island yesterday, Muuido Island.

It did not live up to Western expectations of what an island should be though.  We were planning on just enjoying the sun and the sand and listening to the ocean.  We arrived at the island in flip-flops, unprepared for the amount of walking we would be doing for the day.  After hiking over rocks for an hour to find the "good beach" the tide had gone out and left nearly a mile of muddy sand to cross just to get near the water.  Most of the island's beaches were also not made up of sand, which is usually the substance I expect to find on a beach.  Instead it was mostly oyster shell covered beaches, which didn't sound/feel to comfortable to lay on.  We were also hungry and the only places to eat were traditional Korean seafood, which I'm still not ready for.  I love fish, but in Korea, they serve you the fish with all of the bones in it and the head still attached.  I think I can wait 9 months to eat fish again.  After telling my students today that we went to Muuido they told me that, "Koreans don't like that island.  Not a good island Teacher Monica.  Go to Jeju."


On a happier note we have booked our summer vacation, which is the end of July!  Hooray!  We are off to Guam and Saipan for a week.  We also have a 9 hour layover in Nagoya, Japan, so we will be leaving the airport to do a whirlwind tour of the area.  We're very excited.  Definitely something wonderful to look forward to.  We'll be able to relax on the beach, maybe tan...maybe...probably not, go snorkeling (I even brought my snorkel gear with me, everything but the fins)!, and "boonie stomping" ("The 'boonies' are large areas of undeveloped jungle and secret beaches that cover a large part of the island.  'Boonie stomping' is hiking through these natural wonders").  We can't wait.  


It was Ivan's birthday a few weeks ago, and we went on a Ho Bar (bar chain) pub crawl.  Apparently you can get custom made shirts here for pretty cheap, and unlike at home, you don't have to order 50+ of them for them to be inexpensive.  We were originally going to do this and have t-shirts made for the event.  Somehow it feel through, but yours truly was able to use her stenciling skills and save the day.  With the help of a little spray paint, we had t-shirts to go in 20 minutes.    

That's pretty much it.  Our school has some workshop event this weekend that we have to attend.  Of course Kyle's school told him a month ago when it was originally planned, and my school decided to tell me today.  :[  Kyle also has to prepare something to do at this event; as expected no one at my school could tell me if I needed to prepare anything or not.  And we wonder why I'm frustrated?  I wonder if all Koreans are as unorganized and the ones I work with/for....  We went out to dinner with the teacher's from Kyle's school the other night.  Tim quit last week so they wanted his version of the story since our director has been telling everyone he was fired.  We have heard that Taco Bell has opened in Seoul.  My goal for this weekend is to find it.  Needless to say there is a major lack of Mexican food in my diet these days.  How I miss my SW roots!  What I would do for some of my mother's tacos.  Mmmmmm....  I would make them myself, but meat is so expensive here.  :(  So to Taco Bell we will journey.  Hopefully they haven't Korean-ified it too much.


We want to wish Noni (Kyle's Grandmother) a Happy Belated 80th Birthday!!!  We wish we could have been there to celebrate it with you and be a part of the surprise, but we know you enjoyed getting to see Sarah & Justin.


We also want to wish our Dads a big Happy Father's Day!  Thank you for all of your love and support.  We miss you both and hope that you had a relaxing and wonderful day.  Even though we live half way around the world we always enjoy our video chats with you and I don't know what we would have done without all of your guidance when we were trying to make our decision about switching schools, even though you may have said some things we didn't particularly enjoy hearing.  :]  We love you and miss you both.


We hope all is well with you.  Many of you are on summer vacation now, so enjoy and be safe.  We miss you all.  Love from Korea,  K & M

Kyle's Birthday, Holidays, and Field Trips

Sorry we haven’t updated in awhile, life has been a little crazy and until this past week we really haven’t done anything too exciting.

2 weeks ago, I decided to explore Seoul’s Forever 21 and H&M.  Unfortunately their clothes here are not as great a buy as they are at home, which made me sad, but I have found super cheap shirts and skirts at other random stores, such as stores in the bigger subway stations.

Last week was Kyle’s birthday and we were fortunate enough to not have school the day after because of Children’s Day.  Yay!  We had a good time going out with Tim & Ivan and just stayed in our area for the night; lots of craziness ensued.

This Wednesday, Kyle’s and my school got to go on a field trip to Paju, where there is an English Village.  Paju is one of the closet cities to North Korea, we could actually see North Korea from the bus on the drive to the English Village.  < http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=paju+on+a+map+of+south+korea&ie=UTF8&hq=paju&hnear=South+Korea&ll=38.000491,126.639404&spn=2.151223,4.943848&z=8&iwloc=A >  North Korea was not only identifiable because of all of the barbed wire fences we drove by, and the military shacks stationed every mile or so, but the South Korean side was green and luscious, and North Korea looked brown, bare, and desolate.  We’ve heard that the English Village’s initial goal was to have English speaking foreigners move here and actually create a village.  It also has dormitories so that it could function as a type of summer camp for kids to learn English.  In reality, it’s a cheesy place to go where a 5x larger than life model of Stonehenge looms over the front entrance, which turns out to be airport security.

It was pretty dead when we went and nothing was open, but I imagine it’s supposed to be a lame educational park.  There was a large amphitheater area where both schools sat, and the kids got to run around for 3 hours.  Lunch was interesting since they hadn’t told us to bring anything to eat with us; the teachers pretty much mooched off of the kids’ lunches.  At first we felt bad, but then we saw that their lunches were huge, so we all shared.  Here are some great pictures from the field trip:

One of Kyle's students, Aiden, blowing a dandelion

Tim being chased by a band of students

One of Kyle's students, Kevin, playing in the fountain

One of my favorite students, Lucy

One of Kyle's students, Leo

The most adorable little boy in the world, Danny, from Kyle's school.  Can I keep him?

Our kids then had a puppet show on Thursday, apparently this month is the month of field trips. (Why waste all of your field trips in 1 month,?!  I don’t know because I would much rather have them spread out over the year, but wait…remember where we are….Korea.  Yeah.  Common sense doesn’t really exist here, especially when it comes to our director and knowing how to run a school).  Anyway, our director didn’t want to pay for us to go to the puppet show, so we got a 2.5 hour lunch which was pretty sweet.  No complaint on our end.

Today (Saturday) is Teacher’s Day, so some of the kids brought in gifts for the teachers on Friday.  I got some special Korean soap, 2 free movie passes, and some Dior face lotion.  Kyle got some body wash, sunscreen, flowers, and a starbucks gift card.  Tim and I picked up soju for all of the Korean teacher’s at our school.  They all laughed and thought it was pretty funny since soju as a gift for Koreans is apparently some sort of a joke.  Friday was a good day though.

This weekend is the Lotus and Lantern Festival in Seoul.  Should be exciting!   We get a 3 day weekend next week because Friday is Buddha’s birthday, so we are off to Busan.  More adventures to come!

Hope this finds you all well.  We miss you!  Love from Korea, M & K

Market, Mountain Hiking, Crazy Koreans, Monica and Kyles' bad karma

Sorry for the late post, it has been a busy two weeks and we find that our afternoons disappear and we don't know where they went.

Two Saturdays ago we went to the Namdaemun Shijang, the oldest market in Seoul, which means "The Great South Gate Market" (thanks Frommer's), the motto of the market is "If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist." Our paychecks were burning holes in our pockets and Monica was eager to buy some fun fancy new clothes and I was hunting for my new camera. We hopped on the subway and navigated our way to the market with some ease, (we are getting better at finding our way around Seoul). The market was BUSTLING. People shouting to advertise their stores, narrow streets with no room to walk, thousands of knock-off brand items, and no rhyme or reason to any of it. Monica was interested in finding a nice purse and some clothes and I was just following until we found a camera shop. We went into a purse shop and Monica looked around while we were followed by a Korean gentleman who was waiting to rip us off any way he could. She didn't find anything so we left with some ideas. We did the same in the next store, and the next, then we found the underground market which was as big as the above ground market. Three hours later Monica and I were both empty handed and hungry. I think the market was just to overwhelming or what we were looking for didn't actually exist. We left Namdaemun to go to Dongdaemun Shijang "The Great East Gate Market." This market is primarily based on fashion and is larger than Namdaemun. Our first thought was to find food before we went shopping. So we wandered down every street we could find for an hour and didn't find any food. A mall then appeared out of nowhere and it thankfully had a food court. Monica looked around the mall, but it became clear that it catered to a higher class of Korean society than we could afford. So our second market adventure wasn't a great success but we are hopeful and we'll try again when it gets warmer. I ended up finding the camera I wanted at the electronics store around the corner from our apartment and instead of going for the brand new, high tech, only available in Korea model, I got a tried and true Canon Eos 450D (Rebel Xsi) DSLR. It takes great pictures and if you have been on my FACEBOOK PAGE you can see some pictures I took of my kids.

This weekend we went out Friday night. We went to a techno club and had a good time until I went to the bathroom and when I came back Monica was dancing with some random Korean guy. (M: We were at least 2 feet apart, so don't be getting any ideas now). I thought it was kind of funny so I sat back and laughed for a minute until I realized the rest of our group was gone. So I grabbed her away and we found our group who went to our regular bar upstairs. The Korean guy then followed us. We were friendly and I made sure to convey the fact that Monica was my girlfriend which he seemed to understand but he still followed. We went into the club and he wouldn't go away. I don't know what his deal was, but it got to the point where he was following us a bit too closely and we needed to shake him. We found our friends and they helped us out some how, but we both learned a valuable lesson, Monica is not allowed to dance with Koreans she doesn't know, and I am not allowed to let her do it. (M: Maybe Kyle shouldn't have to pee every 10 minutes).

On Sunday we decided to find our first temple. We got on the subway and about 4 stops from the mountain we heard a Korean man shouting furiously as he walked through our train car. He then stopped right next to us and threw a gnarly temper tantrum. He was throwing a stack of paper around, he kicked the train door, then he jumped and double kicked the door (which my coworker tells me is a tae kwon do move), then he fell to his knees, gathered his papers, cried a little until the doors opened and ran out screaming and yelling again. Koreans can be a bit scary sometimes, but from what we hear these are somewhat rare events.

We found the Umyeonsan Mt. which is located behind the Seoul Performing Arts Center and has a temple.

We found a trail head and decided to follow it assuming that the temple would be easy to find and a sign had seemed to suggest that we were going in the right direction, but signs don't mean much in Korea. We walked up, took some pictures of the first flowers that were beginning to bloom. The Koreans do a wonderful job of maintaining their trails and they installed exercise stops at random locations along the path all the way to the top, who needs a gym membership? As we walked we realized that we must have gone up the wrong trail and missed the temple because we didn't find it. We made it to the top of the mountain and rewarded ourselves with delicious frozen treats sold by a man who hiked up the mountain with a refrigerator on his back. Monica got a melon pop, I took the "red one" which ended up being a red bean pop. They love red bean, it actually tastes like bad chocolate.

We switched and Monica ended up liking the red bean so much that she kept it, I was so proud, she's getting more adventurous (live octopus here we come!!!).

We found our way down and toured the performing arts plaza for a while and we were treated with a beautiful musical fountain that danced to Bach, Chopin, Mozart etc. We then made our way home and fell asleep from exhaustion.

Monica and I have had some bad luck this week. My misfortune started on Sunday with some ear pain which ended up being an ear infection. I felt terrible on Monday and I thought I had the flu. We were given the location of a Dr. who seems to specialize in foreigners and he gave me an antibiotic prescription and a magical shot that made me feel better within 10 minutes, and an hour later I was running for the subway. I am feeling better now and my hearing is returning. Monica recieved some unfortunate news today. On tuesdays and thursdays she has a class with no curriculum so they watch Disney movies. Well, our director who has been the cause of most of our issues living here decided that Monica's time would be better spent as her private English tutor. I think this may work out to our benefit of being paid on time (M: I'm not so sure about this...), but I understand Monica's distress and we are going to be contacting the recruiter.

On the upside we just got our internet connection hooked up so we can skype whenever there's time.

Love M & K

Cherry blossom buds, new friends, eating bugs, karaoke, and drinking and driving

This weekend our recruiters planned a trip to Jinhae, which is on the southern tip of SK near Busan. The trip was centered around a cherry blossom festival in a town known for them. Monica and I turned down our invitations to the bars Friday night and opted for an early bed time in order to wake up at 4:30am to catch the first train to Seoul which was a 71 minute ride to get to our destination, the Seoul National University of Education, where the recruiter was picking us up. We got to the bus at the requested departure time and waited for the last stragglers to arrive. We met our recruiters who were very friendly, got in our seats, and promptly fell asleep. After our first rest stop, we played a game which had the same rules as speed dating only it was so we could meet the rest of the people on the bus. We were given kimbap, basically a Korean California roll, for breakfast. Koreans don't really understand breakfast food and they eat anything they want for any meal of the day. We then sat and road the bus for the next 3 hrs reading our American literature (The Great Gatsby for me and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest for Monica).

We arrived at a naval academy for our first stop. We took pictures on the water front, but if we turned our camera toward some of the large "battle ships" an officer would step in to the frame and tell us no. I guess they are paranoid that NK will find out. The best part about the academy was the turtle ship. The turtle ship wasn't built for long range combat it was built to ram into Japanese ships and crush them, sort of like the monster truck of the sea. The top of the ship is covered with spikes, should any Japanese men fall from above and land on top of the ship. Admiral Yi Sun-sin invented the ship, which helped Korea defeat the invading Japanese during the 15th century and he is one of the most honored men in Korea to this day. (They really don't like the Japanese). We took a tour of the boat and then saw a few long-range guns and monuments honoring the Korean navy. The most confusing thing at the academy was a small sailboat from LA. Apparently, a Korean student sailed from LA to Busan in the 90s and because he was the first one to make this kind of journey, they show off his boat, like the Amelia Earhart of SK.

We then left the academy to go to the festival. Unfortunately, it has been too cold in Korea and few trees have started blossoming, but the few that had were very pretty. The festival was really about the market though. Three streets were closed off and tented where every bauble and knickknack you could think of could be found. I was very happy to find a bright orange Yankees cap for $5. Since we haven't been paid yet we weren't really able to shop, but hopefully we will find other festivals to go on treasure hunts at. We found some traditional eastern medicine vendors who specialized in centipedes; alive, dead, in jars, and flasks. I wanted to buy one, but Monica reminded me I couldn't afford it... yet. The food at the market was, for lack of a better word, interesting. There were full pigs turning on spits, various sea creatures hanging from tents, various live sea creatures in tanks, unrecognizable jelly stuff that had no flavor, fried street vendor options that Monica refused to eat, and the Korean treat, boiled silkworm husks. A few of the other foreigners actually bought a dixie cup full of the bugs, but Monica and I didn't really feel like throwing up so we decided not to partake. Maybe after a few bottles of Soju... (Monica: NOTHING could make me want to eat them, especially since the smell alone makes you want to gag, whether the less actually eat a bug. Gross!)! We did however find some delicious snack that you are supposed to eat with tea. Through a very cool process of pulling honey and cornstarch until it becomes thinner than hair, filling it with peanuts and almonds, and Mmmm… is it scrumptious. We have a video of it being made, but the file is too big so we'll post it on youtube later.

The recruiter had planed for us to go

walk on a romantic street lined with

hundreds of cherry blossom trees. Since there weren't any cherry blossoms we went to the beach instead, or at least a place where there was water because I wouldn't really call it a beach. There were people digging for snails or some other shelled creature along the shore, though after seeing the tons of garbage and glass I don't think I'll be eating whatever they were digging up. The beach was really a little walkway to a large rock with a boardwalk around it. We explored the island and I risked a climb down to the water to get my

picture on a small rock surrounded by water. We walked on top of the island and got a good view, but I was eager to see what I could find on the beach. We noticed a family crouching around a rock and laughing at something so we went to check it out. There were small sea anemones clinging to a rock in shallow water. The funny thing about these creatures is that they would squirt a thin stream of water when they were poked. So of course Monica and I found something with which to poke them and made a video.

We then piled back on the bus for the 5hr drive home. We decided to divide and conquer to make more friends on the drive home, and I really didn't care to talk about where to buy the best shoes. I mentioned a while ago that Korea doesn't really have traffic laws. That holds true inside vehicles as well. Our recruiter brought a case full of small bottles of Soju, which were generously handed out for everyone to be merry while we were stuck on the bus. Once we had loosened up a bit the recruiter started noraebong, Korean karaoke. A few bottles of Soju later, Monica and I were rocking “Hey Jude,” which was the best duet of the night, I might add. 3.5hrs of noraebong later we arrived in Seoul, said our goodbyes, and took our 71 minute train ride back home.

Sunday we rested. Not much happened this week while teaching. The owner of our schools is showing her true colors and was a week late in paying the Korean teachers. Monica and I set up bank accounts this morning and we are awaiting our first payment, which will hopefully be today. I am very excited to get my new camera and cell phone and Monica has already planned a shopping weekend in Seoul’s market district. We’ll keep you updated on that!

Love, M & K