School Field Trip

Today I went along on a school field trip. This was not the first time I've been on a day trip with my school - there's been about 3 this year. This one was probably to celebrate completing the school inspection yesterday, which has had teachers scrambling to get everything from paperwork to the physical appearance of the school in tip-top shape.
Today I went with the third-grade students and teachers to Geumjeong Mountain. I caught a ride with some other teachers up to a small village where we met up with the other teachers and students. From there it was about an hour's hike up to the North Gate of the fortress with was restored 20 or 30 years ago, along with a section of the original fortress wall.
The Gate:



After lunch we hiked back down again. I spent most of my time just hanging out and trying to take pictures of my students. This can be challenging because most students hate having their pictures taken. If they do tolerate a picture, they'll try to hide their faces. This doesn't apply to everyone, though - I have a few celebrities who will pose at a second's notice.







The 3rd grade teachers enjoying their lunch:



And yours truly:



Since we finished "work" early, I took advantage of the free time by visiting the post office to mail our Absentee Ballots!

Gwangalli Fireworks Festival!

Yesterday I went to Gwangalli Fireworks Festival!
It was amazing!

Unfortunately, Sarah had to stay home because she was sick...

The first fireworks show was back in 2005, when the APEC summit was held in Busan. To celebrate being chosen as the host city, Busan put on a huge fireworks show at Gwangalli beach. Gwangalli beach one of many beaches in Busan, unique because Gwangan bridge runs from left to right in front of it. Its very scenic at night time, because the bridge is always lit up nicely. Anyway, the fireworks were such a hit that the Mayor decided to make it an annual thing - this was the 4th one.

Our friends Eun-chan (the animation teacher at my school) and his girlfriend Ji-un invited us to go. They had been to the festival once before and told us that we would have to arrive very early because the beach becomes so crowded. How early? We got to the beach a little before 3 for the 8 o clock show! We found amusing ways to pass the time and in retrospect I wish I had taken photos every once in a while of the beach filling up with people - it would have made an interesting time-lapse. And fill up, it did - it was packed. The final estimate was 1.1 million people...

The show itself was worth the wait... over 40 minutes long and just awesome. Fireworks were launched from 3 barges and the bridge itself. There were big fireworks, small fireworks, high fireworks and low fireworks. There were tugboats with pyrotechnics and big remote-control airplanes with pyrotechnics. They had everything... and all set to music! I guess you just had to be there, but in case you weren't - here's some pictures:

The hazards of dating someone younger than you...

One day last week, after just locking up the English classroom following another riveting lunch-time discussion, I noticed two female students sulking down the hall way towards me. They greeted me much less enthusiastically than normal, so I tried to find out what the problem was:

-----
Me: You look sad

Student: Yes

Me: Why?

Student: oh... my boyfriend...break. (puts her hands together than pulls them quickly apart)

Me: Oh, I'm sorry. Was he from our school?

Student: Yes, he is grade 2 student (She is a 3rd grade student)
I'm 15, he is 14.

Me: Oh?

Student: Yes, (points to her face) face - handsome, but (points to her head)
brain - bad.

Me: Oh, I see...

-----

For my next lesson - perhaps a lecture on the importance of finding a boyfriend who is both handsome and has a "good brain"?

A busy week!

We just finished a very busy week, with no less than 4 festivals!

As Sarah mentioned in the last post, we went on a trip last Friday and Saturday - it was fun, but... we missed the start of the 13th annual Pusan International Film Festival!
Luckily this past week was also midterms at our middle schools. Mine were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Sarah's were Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. On exam days the students have 3 exams and then go home early at noon and the teachers call leave by 1 or 1:30. By getting out early we were able to buy tickets and beat the rush of people still at work. On Monday we saw The Good, The Bad, The Weird - a big-budget Korean movie that was non-stop action. As you may have guessed from its name its a Western-style movie that takes places in Manchuria in the 1930s. The action scenes were great and the chase scene towards the end was completely ridiculous and over the top - but awesome. On Tuesday I saw a Polish movie called "Scratch" (Rysa) which was definitely the kind of movie I would expect at a film festival. It was a kind of psychological thriller about an older married couple in present day Poland who lives become altered when the husband is accused of being a former agent of the previous communist regime. It left me wondering about several unanswered questions by the end - but that's part of what made it a good movie.

On Wednesday, we both got out of school early and went with two teachers from Sarah's school to the Jinju Lantern Festival, which is held for a week every October. Jinju is a small city about 2 hours west of Busan. In 1592 during the Japanese invasion of Korea, General Kim Si-min and the garrison of Jinju fortress were attacked by a large group of soldiers. The siege lasted several days and at night Kim Si-min sent burning rafts down the river as a signal to other Korean soldiers and civilians that the fortress had not fallen. This is why the festival today is celebrated by putting decorative lanterns afloat in the river.
We arrived around 4 o clock and had plenty of time to check out the fortress and learn first hand how it was defended:





We then enjoyed a dinner of "Jinju bibimbap", which is pretty much the same as regular bibimbap, except with strips of raw beef instead of egg! We then got to wander alongside the river and check out all the cool lanterns. The lanterns come in all different shapes and sizes, along both sides of the river, floating in the river itself:






Just today, we stopped by two more festivals, here in Busan. The first was the "Global Gathering" which was more or less just Busan residents from different countries offering traditional food and information about their respective homes. We sampled several culinary delights from Russia, Poland, Nepal, Mongolia, Turkey the Philippines and Peru.... mmmmm. In addition to making us miss non-Korean food more than ever, it also got us excited about traveling again - we can't wait until this March!
Our last stop for the Day was the Jagalchi festival. Held at Jagalchi Market - which is always fun to visit - the festival consisted primarily of a lot of people eating fish while listening to other festival-goers sing karaoke (presumably all fish or sea related tunes - but I can't confirm that). There was also a giant tub where some lucky people from the audience tried to catch fish for the amusement of others and a free meal:



In addition to these various festivals and whatnot, our cats have been keeping us busy as always. Aona was spayed on Monday and had to spent the night at the vet. After a checkup on Thursday revealed that she had been picking at her stitches, we had to subject her to the supreme humiliation of wearing a cone on her head:



And our little kitten is demanding as always. and of course still cute...



And I almost forgot! The Jinju bibimbap wasn't the only raw meat I had this week. To celebrate the end of exams our department went to a raw fish restaurant. This was my third time eating raw fish and I have to say, it grows on me a little each time. I also had the chance to try raw octopus tentacles (which looks something like this) You might think that its not very appetizing, but when it was placed in front of me I immediately snatched a piece of the plate and shoved it in my mouth. Maybe something about seeing your food squirming around activates some primal predator-instinct? It tasted just as raw and salty as the rest of the sea-life on the table so I had some more. not bad....

Making our way into Autumn...

So I finally decided to take over from Warren and make a little update of my own. He gave a really nice description of our big Japan trip which basically marked our 6 month halfway point. Since then our lives have been much improved.
June and July were pretty rough-We were both feeling frustrations with our schools, swing dancing was more stressful than fun, the kittens had becomes a major time consuming chore, and the weather was dismally hot. To sum it up, Korea was not making us happy and we were both very homesick.
But by the end of August things started looking up. It was really hard to say goodbye to our 5 kittens, but we were proud knowing we saved them and they now have good homes. It was also sooooo much easier in terms of housework. We pretty much quit swing- a necessary but sad decision, as it means an end to our Friday night outings with Koreans. But we were just not enjoying the dancing for various reasons. Maybe we will go back to it, but for right now we are not. our obnoxious worthless private tutoring phone calls ended, thank God, so that is a relief. And not any less important, the weather became tolerable again. One life lesson for me-don't live in a city in the summer, especially in a hot place like Busan. Actually maybe my life lesson is don't live in a city, period.
Anyway, September has been pretty relaxing and fun. Warren wrote about his visit to a tiny ex pat flying club that first weekend. Since I was not interested, and something I have been obsessed with lately is stray animals in Korea (I spend a lot of time on Animal Rescue Korea's website) I went to a dog shelter instead. So we took a high speed train to Daejeon and went our separate ways.
I spent the day with a group of about 5 other really nice foreigners. We took a taxi out into the middle of nowhere-just a bunch of agricultural fields. A long driveway took us to a tiny house and a greenhouse-full of barking dogs. One Korean woman was living in this space, taking care of about 60 dogs-most of them small dogs, but there was about 12 big Jindos-a Korean breed which looks similar to a husky. The place was pretty shabby, but it worked as a place for the dogs to live. In fact, this woman used to have about 150 dogs in this area-but since she was told that she needed to move off the land, some very devoted foreigners have worked very hard to get the word out and get some dogs adopted. So the dogs that are left are kind of the bottom of the barrel. Most of them had some behavioral issues-they were very afraid of us. So we spent most of the time trying to walk them or just spending time showing them some love. It was heartbreaking in a way, but I got a lot of joy and satisfaction spending time with animals and wandering the countryside. I just wish the place was a little closer, so I could go more regularly. Although many of the dogs seemed hopeless, I met some little gems among them, and I wished with all my heart I could find them a new home. Unfortunately we couldn't possibly handle another animal, especially now.

About 3 weeks ago, during the major Korean holiday Chuseok, which is essentially the same as our Thanksgiving, we found ourselves with two new additions to the family. One of my students had discovered an abandoned week old kitten, and after a few days of caring for it, incorrectly, her mother told her she needed to get rid of it. So she went to her resident cat lady-me. What could I do???? Next thing I knew I had a cardboard box with a shrieking orange baby cat inside. I went to the vet and she/he was looked over and fed with a tiny baby bottle. And then I bought my own formula and was on my way. So for a week, every four hours I bottle-fed my little charge.
But Warren and I had coincidentally decided around the same time we were going to bite the bullet and rescue another little orange destitute living around the dumpster in front of our apartment. This little guy was about 5-6 weeks old, and had been abandoned by his mom a little too early. After an embarrassing morning chasing him in front of the locals, we finally caught the guy, suffering only a few painful scratches, and carried our prisoner in a sack back upstairs. We let out the small wild thing on our balcony and with much spitting and hissing he retreated behind our washing machine and refused to come out. The next 24 hours we questioned our decision to bring a feral animal into our home. But we watched him through the glass-he scarfed his food and snuggled up in his cardboard box home and just looked so weary and worn out, we knew we did the right thing. And very soon, with a little Warren charm, he started coming around to us. Warren gave him some pets and at first he stiffened and then suddenly he was in our laps, and purring. He was all skin and bones, and he had diarrhea, so we nursed him back to health for a week and brought him to our vet, who sees us constantly now, and got his ear mites and parasites taken care of. When he was finally healthy we let him into our apartment. And it was amazing to see him become a lovely little house cat. He was very well behaved, always using the litter box and never yowling for attention. His play could be a little rough-the poor boy had no siblings to wrestle, but he made up for it by snuggling often. Just an awesome little cat. We named him Raptor. And a week or so later, we got him adopted! I took some really nice pictures and put up a heart-wrenching story and I had to turn people down! Everyone wanted him. So he went to a really nice couple living in Busan, and Warren and I were so proud of him and ourselves!


On the other hand, our adult cat, Aona, has been in heat, or something. She is a complete wreck, yowling all night long. She stopped using her litter box, and she is just making life hard in general.

And our little wee one, after a few weeks of pretty good eating, peeing, pooping and sleeping, started to get diarrhea a few days ago. He (its been confirmed we have another boy, so the name is shortened from Autumn Rose to just Autumn) spent a few nights at the vet while we went on a little field trip, and the vet couldn't explain it. So he just gets treated with medicine and hopefully it will go away, but its not a guarantee he's going to make it. In all other ways he is thriving though, especially playing, so I am pretty hopeful.


Our field trip was a two day trip we took with about 30 other English teachers from Busan. It was pretty bizarre, and I was somewhat disappointed. We went to a strange place that even now is difficult to explain-something between a science facility, New Age retreat, health and fitness club, Korean Nationalism center and religious cult for followers of something called "Dahn Hak". Read about the founder and his vision here. I cant explain it much more than that. We spent the day listening to people describe "Brain respiration" and we used a computer that showed us our Auras, and we went to a big celebration for the Korean holiday-foundation day. The people of this group believed that the legend of foundation day-a bearded god falls out of the sky, offers humanity to a bear and a tiger if they live in a cave and eat garlic for 100 days, the tiger fails and the bear succeeds, the bear is turned into a beautiful woman who weds the bearded god and thats the start of the Korean race - is completely true. The group even successfully lobbied the Korean governemnt to have this story changed from "myth" to "fact" in history textbooks. We then spent a couple hours doing martial arts that focused on our inner energy, and then we made lanterns and floated them into the sky. The last part was pretty fun...
The next day was only slightly better. We went to the place I really wanted to go to, Gyeongu, which is supposed to be the best preserved historical place in Korea. But because it was a holiday weekend every place was beyond packed, and we even missed some of the sights because we had so many deadlines to meet. We saw some cool things but overall it was a bust-most of our time we were on a bus, so we are resolved to do it again on our own soon.
Next week is midterms, so its looking to be yet another easy week for us at our jobs. So far second semester has been a breeze. There are no more days off through October and November, so reality is going to set in soon for us I think.
sadly I have been sick for a week and a half-I had a cold and fever last weekend and have spent the past several days dealing with a leftover chronic dry cough. So I'm not sleeping very well and probably annoying everyone around me. But luckily Warren is a deep sleeper, and he has been good to me in my whiny state.
The leaves are just starting to change colors, so we are super excited about getting out and seeing the fall foliage. Our plans for our big spring trip are underway, and we are throwing around ideas everyday about what to do when we are finished with Asia. Or goals include but are not limited to: spending a lot of time with family and friends, living somewhere with a lot of access to nature/probably not a city, Exploring our interests further-Warren wants to fly again, and I want to work with kids and teaching possibilities, as well as look into grad school. More traveling ideas exist, but we are not sure when and how we want to do that. Let us know if you have any awesome ideas.
We love and miss everyone and we hope you are enjoying the harvest season. Eat lots of delicious pies and jump in some leaves and admire some pumpkins for us!

General Aviation... in Korea?

This past weekend Sarah I left Busan for a bit of adventure and excitement.

We woke up early on Saturday and took the 8 AM KTX to Daejeon (the city where the EPIK orientation was) where we went our separate ways. I went to a small ultralight club located near a smaller town outside of Daejeon while Sarah met up with some other expats and volunteered at the Daejeon Dog Shelter.
After our respective escapades we met back at the train station and caught another train to Daegu where we met up with Ian and Keith, two friends who went to HWS with us. Our visit in Daegu included an authentic Russian dinner at a family-owned restaurant, live jazz music and gigantic American-style breakfast with ingredients purchased at the Daegu Costco. It was a great weekend.

Since coming to Korea I've been hoping to find out more about the general aviation scene here. At first, I only came across a website for a US military flying club near Seoul and a couple websites with some basic info about paragliding and hang gliding. A few months back I happened upon the website for Expat Flyers, a flying club located outside of Daejeon. I got in touch with the manager/founder of the club and decided to make a visit - the first Saturday of every month they have an open-house type event.

After Sarah met up with the other foreigners who would be going to the dog shelter, I got on a bus that took a little over an hour to reach Depyong-Ri, a little town outside of Daejeon. The club manager, Matthew had told me to give him a call when I arrived in Depyong-Ri, but he didn't answer his phone. I soon realized why when I saw his aircraft flying close by. At this point I was accosted by a group of middle school students asking where I was going. I tried to tell them about the airfield, but they had no idea what I was talking about. Determined to help, they called one of their teachers who spoke English, but she also knew nothing about a small aircraft club. The Taxi driver was equally clueless but luckily at this point I got through to Matthew, who explained to the driver. After a 10 minute ride along one-way dirt roads through farmer's fields we arrived at the airport. It wasn't very big, and fairly well hidden.



There were 3 small hangars, a tool shed, a clubhouse and an outhouse. There were about 5 aircraft visible, but I was told that there is a total of about 10 or so on the airfield. There were about 10 people at the airport, including Matthew and his two students. I hung around the airport for several hours and got to know Matthew, his students and some of the other pilots there. I also talked to the owner of the Korean ultralight club, Mr. Lee, who is a retired Korean air force pilot.

The expat fliers club was just started this year and is tied in with the Korean ultralight club. Mr. Lee spoke some English and was able to answer some of my questions about flying in Korea. He worked as a flight instructor in California and then flew in the Korean Air force. He started the ultralight club in the mid-90s. He said that there are about 30 ultralight clubs in South Korea. When I asked about interest in General Aviation in Korea, he said that many people are scared of and superstitious about flying, and that many people just don't know about it. I thought of the middle school students and taxi driver in Depyong that were unaware of the airport even with its close proximity and clearly visible aircraft flying around.

After they took another flight, I accompanied Matthew and his students to lunch in town. I also asked Matthew about why there wasn't more interest or even awareness of general aviation, and why it was limited only to paragliding, hang-gliding and ultralights. He gave me several reasons why. He agreed that many people were scared of flying and also unaware of it. A big reason why it was so non-existent before the 1980s was the close proximity to North Korea. The two Koreas officially remain at war to this day and there have been numerous incidents since the Korean war ended. It easy to see why it would be difficult to get permission to fly in a country constantly on alert for an attack or espionage.
This changed in the 80s when some "upper-class", "rich" and otherwise "privileged" gentlemen decided that ultralights would be there new, exclusive hobby. Matthew explained that the creation of this new hobby was done very poorly. Apparently it was poorly regulated and managed, and there were many accidents. Even though it has endured as a sport to this day and improvements are being made, it still suffers from these problems, which has encouraged a public perception of aviation as being not only dangerous, but also exclusively available to the upper-crust.
Not a very optimistic tale, but when I asked Mr. Lee about the future of general aviation in Korea, he was hopeful that it would continue to grow and branch out in the future, although it would be a slow process.

After returning from lunch, the students took a few more flights while I snapped some pictures of the airport and talked to some of the other ultralight pilots who had showed up. It was nice just to hang out at an airport and talk to pilots again; it really made me miss flying.

Here are some more pictures from the airport:





Inside the clubhouse:


Matthew and a student, getting ready to go:


... and after landing:

Japan!

Here it is: the inside scoop on our riveting, edge-of-your-seat journey to Japan!
The students in our school have a 5 week summer vacation from July 19 until August 25. Its not really what American students would consider a "vacation" because a lot of them still go to private academy classes for 3 or 4 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week. We taught half-day "summer camp" classes from 9 until 12 for the first 2 weeks and last week of the summer break. The 2 weeks in the middle were for our vacation - so we decided to go to Japan.
We left on Friday, August 1st, after a brief and tearful goodbye to Archness - our favorite kitten who was being adopted while we were away. we took a taxi to the Busan Ferry Terminal. The PanStar Ferry takes about 18 hours to get to Osaka. Here is a picture of the route it takes:



The afternoon we left the weather was gorgeous so we relaxed on the deck for hours and soaked up the sun and cool sea breeze. The ferry stays pretty close to land for almost the entire trip and it makes for a scenic trip. In the morning we passed under the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge - the longest suspension bridge in the world - before arriving in Osaka a little after 10.



We made our way to the Osaka station and hopped on a train to Kyoto. The Kyoto Station is huge, and a lot of fun to explore. Its futuristic design contrasts greatly with the traditional style of architecture found all over Kyoto. Here is a picture:



That afternoon we checked into the Tani house where we would spend the next 4 nights. It was a neat little guest house that has been run by the same woman for 30 years or so. Tucked away on a quiet little street with a nice bamboo garden around it, it was the perfect place to come back to and relax after a day of exploring.
Our first evening in Kyoto, we just walked around the downtown area for a few hours and had some tasty Nepali food for dinner.

The next day was long, exhausting, and extremely gratifying. We woke up early and rented two bikes from the Tani house. Our first stop was Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). The name says it all. It was a pavilion. It was Golden. No false promises here. We went through the path twice, and tried to really soak in the beauty of it. It got really crowded with tourists, but nonetheless the place felt very peaceful and serene.



Our next destination for the day was Nijo castle and our bike ride there turned out to be a great activity in itself. The streets of Kyoto don't feel like you might expect a city of 1.5 million people to. Quiet and clean, its great just slowly pedal past all of the houses and little apartment buildings. Along the way we stopped at Kitano temple where they were drying plums:



The aroma was really amazing a we took a little break here for a few minutes.

Nijo Castle isn't one of those castles perched on a hill or towering over the landscape that has you impressed before you even get in. From the outside you are greeted only by and immense wall and moat - but as your work your way through the complex it really dawns on you how amazing it is. We were entertained by the "nightingale" floors that still server their purpose - producing squeaking sounds to warn of intruders.


After a quick lunch, we rode (and often walked) our bikes up the twisting alley of shops known as teapot alley that leads up to Kiyomizu-dera, a temple that offers you a really cool view of Kyoto.



For dinner we had a giant bowl of homemade pork ramen served in a quirky little ramen restaurant. mmm, Ramen. After that we biked back to our hostel along the river. It was nice and cool along the river, where the city has left large sections of park along both sides. By the time we got back, we were exhausted - but very satisfied with our full day.

On Monday, we went to Nara - home to the largest wooden building in the world and many, many deer. We spent most of our day just wandering around Nara-koen, the very large park in Nara where you can find the aforementioned deer and many cool temples and walking paths. The deer are very tame and have no problem letting you pet them:



the only problem is, when you buy food to feed, you'll be swarmed and if you're not careful, completely surrounded.


Its all over.

The deer have little patience and have no qualms about biting the hands that feed them to get attention. A lot of them also know how to bow, and will bow frantically at you in hopes of getting food. Its really funny.
Daibutsu (hall of the Buddha) is the largest wooden building (and in its current state, only 3/4 as bis as it used to be!) It is very impressive indeed. The Buddha inside may not be the biggest Buddha in the world - but he is the biggest Buddha inside of the biggest wooden building in the world... he's pretty big.



One of our other favorite things in Nara were the stone lanterns:



A good part of our next day was spent outside of Kyoto hiking between the two towns of Kurama and Kibune. You take a small train from Kyoto to the little town of Kurama. From there, you hike up and over a mountain with a temple at its top to the even smaller town of Kibune. The scenery was gorgeous and the path was not overflowing with tourists, so we had a really nice time.



Our last full day in Japan was full indeed. We were up early quickly on our way back to Kyoto station. From there it was an hour and a half train ride to Himeji where we visited a truly magnificent castle. It was a scorching hot day, but nonetheless we walked all through the castle and up to its very top. The view from the top is amazing, but more impressive is just to stand at the base of the castle and really appreciate its size.



From Himeji, we went to Osaka and straight to the Osaka Aquarium. Sarah and I are both suckers for aquariums, and I had actually heard about this one on the discovery channel, months before we had even made up our minds to go to Japan. It has the largest tank in the world, which is inhabited by 2 (TWO!!) whale sharks!! Spending a few hours gazing at aquatic animals was the perfect way to end our trip.





The very last exhibit in the aquarium was baby otters. Sarah died and went to aquatic animal heaven at this point.




The ferry ride home was a little bit boring, now that the novelty had worn off. Luckily we both had books to keep us occupied. I had picked up Sebastian Junger's best-seller "The Perfect Storm" at our hostel in Osaka. In hindsight, reading upon men being trapped in capsized fishing boats with ice-cold water rushing into their lungs might not have been the best thing to do on a ferry, but it did pass the time.

We arrived home the next day to our two remaining kittens, and quickly collapsed for some much needed rest.

A great trip!

MORE PHOTOS HERE
password: warren

Catching up...

I've finally stopped putting it off and decided to update the blog.
Its been over 2 months since we last updated the blog and we feel pretty guilty about it. We're now on our summer vacation so we have no excuse not to get it back up to speed.

The most recent news is that we just got back from an excellent trip to Japan!
But before we talk about our trip, I wanted to get the blog up to date with at least some of the things that have been going on in our lives these past couple months.

Sarah's title for the previous entry seems pretty foreboding in retrospect, but having six cats in our little apartment was not the only reason we didn't update the blog - the main reason for me was good old fashioned laziness. I think the Busan summer has contributed to aforementioned laziness as well. It has been quite hot and sticky here the last 2 months. What were we up to during those two months? Hopefully I can get the blog up to speed with our lives.

But... Before I can even get into that I have to mention our trip back in May. We had a 10 day vacation back in May from the 3rd to the 13th. For the first part of our trip we went up the east coast of Korea to Gangwon-do province. Gangwon-do covers a large area in north-eastern Korea (south) and is the most mountainous and least densely populated province. Unfortunately I caught a cold just 2 days before we left - this was a bit of a drag but we pressed on anyway, wanting to make good use of our vacation time. In Gangwon-do we stayed in jeongdongjin - a cool little touristy town with a beautiful beach. We followed this up with 2 days in Seorak-san national park. Hiking around the park for 2 days was exhausting - but very scenic and a nice escape from the bustle of Busan. After Seorak-san we stopped for one night and half of the following day in Chuncheon. We tried the city's famous Dak-galbi,(spicy chicken barbecue)- tasty.
The second half of our vacation was spent in Seoul, where we met up with our good friends Magdalena (Mags). It was good to see a familiar face and the three of us had a great time wandering around the streets of downtown Seoul and checking out the different sites. Interestingly enough we met up with 2 other HWS graduates who are also teaching English and a Korean girl who is still currently a William smith student. Seoul was a great time, and we hope to return sometime before we leave Korea to explore more of the huge city.
Within 2 days of returning from our exciting and exhausting trip we were bringing and pregnant cat up to our apartment, and well... see the previous entry for all the details on that.

The cats were about 3 weeks old when Sarah made that entry, and the cats have changed a lot since then. They went from being little balls of cuteness squirming around in our suitcase to ravenous beasts. If you haven't seen the youtube video, check it out here. They are about six weeks old in the video. As they got older they just got more and more energetic. We (especially Sarah) became really attached to one of them in particular - Little Archness - and even though we were getting tired of the constant litter box cleanings and coming home to find some small part of our home destroyed, we were not looking forward to saying goodbye when adoption time came.
After posting information about the kittens on some websites, we were contacted by several people - mostly other English teachers in Korea - who wanted to adopt. We now have only 2 kittens left, and someone is coming this afternoon to visit them. Soon the cat saga will over and will be a little sad without them around but we'll just have to remind ourselves that we gave them to good homes - and also that we no longer have to clean up after them!

So what else have we been up to these past few months? hmmm...
Well, aside from cat-ranchers were are still indeed working as English teachers. Teaching has plenty of challenges that we've had to deal with, but I feel that Sarah and I have improved a good deal since we arrived in Korea six months ago having no idea how we were even going to walk into the classroom in a few short days. Lesson planning has gotten easier and we know have a much better idea of what to expect from our students - although that will always be difficult.
I distinctly remember several times in middle school when I was appalled by a teacher's apparent total failure to grasp something significant to their students. It might be their sense of humor, or ideas about what might motivate us to do well that seemed totally foreign. I would promise myself to not be like them when I was older. When I was older, I would remember what it was like to be 13 and have no trouble being a "cool" adult.
So much for that.
Even without the difficulties of a different language and culture, I am still shocked at how inaccurate my assessments of students can be. Its very difficult to know what bothers them, what makes them laugh, or what they look forward to.

I've gotten to know some of my coworkers and it has been a lot of fun to hang out with some of them outside of school. After returning from our vacation in May, I found out that a new English teacher would be start working at my middle school, having just finished her maternity leave. Mrs. Yu, who prefers to be called Joy, has been a great friend. She has a great sense of humor and its easy to spend time just joking and chatting with her between classes instead of doing work. A few weeks ago she invited Sarah and I over to her apartment where we met her husband and very, very cute little baby boy.
My closest friend at Jugam middle school is Eun-Chan, who is not only one of the few male teachers at my school but also the only teachers who is within 3 years of my age. Most teachers at my school are at least 30 because of the many years of school and tests that you have to go through to become a teacher. Eun-Chan is not actually a certified teacher, but works for an animation company and comes to school 2 days per week to teach animation classes to the 8th grade students. Although his English is a bit limited, we always managed to have entertaining conversations about music, movies, or animation and realized we had a lot in common. Most importantly he is a fellow cat lover in a country with a lot of cat haters. He and his girlfriend, Ji-eun, took us to Samgwangsa temple on Buddha's birthday (youtube video!) It was a lot of fun. Last month we had them over to visit the kittens and enjoy a delicious spaghetti dinner:



We took a swing class in June and have still been going to the swing practice sessions occasionally, but we've slacked off a lot. We've also met and hung out with some other English teachers more often than we had before.

We've had some rough spots, such as the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the school system. Seeing the problems that it makes for our co-workers and students has been frustrating and it personally affected us in several ways as well. We've learned how to deal with it and make the best of it, but its still a problem.
Summer has made us particularly homesick - the hot and humid city streets have made us nostalgic for cooler days in the finger lakes.

Hopefully in the future we'll get in the habit of updating this blog more often. In the next few days we'll put up of post about our trip to Japan - and after that we'll try to update it regularly.

Stay tuned!