9-15: With B's co-teacher Mrs. Bahn and husband at the Buckwheat Festival in Bongpyeong.


Gukje Apt. Our place is in the bottom right-hand corner (1st floor).


The living room of our apartment.




H's co-teacher Jasmine and her children (10 and 5).

Flowers

Today I'm (H) at my "country school." They call it that since it's not in the city and the size is quite small. This is a middle school, and there are a total of 48 students in 3 grades. It's a 30-minute ride outside of town, and my vice principal and math teacher picked me up (they carpool). I was surprised to see a "Welcome to our school, Heather" poster on my desk, and we had a small ceremony where they presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers (pic to follow). Both my principal and VP are women, so my male co-teacher informed me that they are thoughtful and enjoy doing things like that.
So far both of my classes have been well-behaved and happy to see me. I have the 2nd graders soon, and then I have to help a few students prepare for the Wonju city Speech Contest.
Tomorrow (Sat) I'm going to the boys school to help with their speech contest. Their school is so big that they must have a contest to see who goes on to the city-wide one. Kids go to school every other Saturday here, and since it's only a half-day, they decided to do the contest then.
This evening is supposed to be the time when our internet gets turned on, so that's exciting! Expect some photos!
The big Chusok (thanksgiving) holiday is coming up, and we've decided to go to Taipei, Taiwan. The price was right and the dates work out for our schedule! We leave on the 22nd and return on the 26th of this month!

First Day

Wednesday we both went to our schools expecting to teach. B goes to his "country school" every Wed, and it has a total of about 80 students. He was able to teach all three grades of middle school yesterday (7th-9th) without any problems. He can tell the difference b/t the city and country kids, as the latter are much more polite. H was scheduled to have 3 classes yesterday, but the students were in the middle of something else, so she sat at her desk in the teacher's lounge preparing lessons most of the day. We're still waiting on internet at our place, so luckily we can use it whenever we want at our schools.
We planned on getting internet today, but were discouraged to learn that since we are foreigners, we must pay 6 months in advance. So, we've got to pay about $225 up front in order for them to turn on our internet. Since we need to use a bank card, we have to go to the internet store, see if our card goes thru, and then on Friday they will hook it up if the card goes thru. The nice thing about our last city was that our directors were more than willing to help us with these sorts of things, but here our co-teachers aren't able to help us sign for the "native discount." So, we're getting used to it.

Monday

Today we both observed an EPIK teacher in action. H was at an all girls' school, and B was at a different all girls' school across town. We had a good day, and picked up a few tips on how to go about planning lessons and such. We also learned today that our boxes from Tongyeong are en-route and will be here tomorrow (hopefully). Surprisingly, it's only 5 bucks a box, which is so cheap considering it takes over 5 hours one way! Hopefully at this time tomorrow we'll be unpacking boxes.
Tomorrow we'll be at different schools again, and on Wednesday we'll be back at our original schools to start teaching. We're both ready to teach, so we're excited for Wed.
We're still trying to make plans for our 5-day holiday that's coming up in less than 2 weeks. We may go to Taipei, Taiwan, as flights there are both cheap and available at the moment! Everywhere else is either booked or 800bucks for a plane ticket!! We'll keep you posted on our travel status!

Hanji Paper Festival

Our city is well-known for its traditional paper (hanji). This weekend there's a festival in town, so today we went with my new half co-teacher Jasmine and her family. She has two girls, ages 5 and 10. The 10 year old goes to an English Immersion school, and her English ability is amazing. Her parents pay good money for this school, and her mom told me that she wasn't sure if it was the right choice, but after seeing her talk to B and I she's happy with her decision. It's fun for us to chat with her, and we're always amazed at how much she knows.
The 5 year old is very curious about us and loves coming to our apt. She even picked out her fave dress, had her sister do her hair, and brushed her teeth by herself b4 coming to see us today (she's age 4 by western standards). She's always happy and smiling, and we had fun today with the family.
Tomorrow we may head back to the festival, as we didn't take everything in yet. Luckily we found a PC room near our home, so we're not hurting too badly yet, just wishing we could get the pics on to correspond with our stories! The weather was perfect today, so we're glad we were able to spend it outdoors.

Wonju (원주)

We're in our new city of Wonju! We're taking in lots of info, in terms of our new schools, meeting important education people, and taking everything in. For starters, B is at a co-ed middle school. It's a brand new school, and for now it only has 1st grade students. Next year they will bring in 2nd grade and so on. He has another school on Wednesdays, but that's all he knows about that so far. His co-teacher lives 6 blocks from us, so he gets a ride to and from work everyday. Not a bad set up!
H ended up at an ALL boys' middle school. There are about 750 students, and one native teacher! I will only teach 1st and 2nd grade boys, and on Fridays I will go to a country school, reportedly with 90 students in the whole school. My co-teacher was an older man who is "uncomfortable" with having a female co-teacher, so I'm in the process of getting that straightened out.
Our apt is very nice. The building is 10 years old (old by Korean standards) but we're happy about it. It's in a nice location from what we've been told, and we're pretty excited about it. True to form, our hot water wasn't working the 1st day, so we took cold showers! Now that's fixed, so all we need is gas for the stove, internet, and perhaps a phone. We'll most likely get cell phones instead of house phones.
Our district coordinator Sonya lives in Wonju, and we're really lucky to have her in our city. She's quite helpful and very nice. She set up a big group dinner tonight for all the new and returning native teachers. It should be fun!
This weekend we're hoping to unpack our stuff and get things organized at our place. We're still trying to arrange for our things from Tongyeong to be sent to us. All in all we're doing well and are easing into our new adventure!Pics will follow as soon as we have internet at our place.

Back in Korea

We made it to Korea. Our flights were ok with nothing special to report. We arrived at about 10pm on the 30th in Korea. We took a 2 hour long bus ride into Seoul to meet our recruiter, and finally made contact with him at 12.30am! He dropped us off at a motel, and came back for us the next day at noon. We grabbed some lunch and took off for Yangyang, the city where the orientation is taking place.
There are 50 people in our orientation, with the majority being from the US. There are a few from Canada, Australia, and Ireland. This orientation is a new thing for our province, so there's been a lot of down-time and confusion. It's also been raining for the past 2 days, so all of our outdoor activities have been changed.
The real program starts tomorrow, with all of the "big dogs" coming to observe, take pictures, and shoot video of us. We're hoping it's more interesting than the past few days, as we feel like it's all old news for us.
We will go to our new city on Wednesday afternoon, and will most likely be shown around our school on Thurs and Friday. Our orientation director is stating that we most likely won't start teaching until Monday, which is nice to know.
Other than that, we're pretty bored! Our condo's internet isn't working so this is the 1st time we've ventured into town to use a local PC room, about a 15 minute walk from our place. The food at the cafeteria isn't as tasty as real Korean food, so we'll grab a bite in town b4 heading back to our room for the night. Our sleep schedule has been surprisingly irregular so we're working on that. We'll get some pics on as soon as we take them!!

One more time

We've got all our ducks in a row and will be leaving this Wednesday (the 29th). We fly out of MSP at 3:05pm on NWA flight 19 to Tokyo and then NWA flight 7 to Seoul. We get to Seoul 9:30pm local time, 7:30am WI/MN time. Our training starts on the 1st and will last 5-6 days after which we'll go to our new city, Wonju, and move into our apartment. Beyond that we don't know too much, we'll find out more during the orientation and let everyone know from there. We were glad to see everyone we did and regret we couldn't make it everywhere in the short time we had. Of course everyone is welcome to come see us too.

In front of the White House in DC.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia.



Liberty Bell, Philadelphia.

Hold the phone

Due to a change in the visa application process our schedule has changed and we won't be leaving until August 29th. Luckily the Korean government is going to pick up the $540 tab to change our flight date.

NYC

We had a great time in New York! There was so much to see and do, and we hit it pretty hard. On Sunday, we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center/Plaza, Times Square, the Empire State Building, we saw a Broadway show called "Curtains" with David Hyde Pierce, and we saw comedian Tracy Morgan perform at a comedy club!
Monday we woke up early to see if we could get some Conan tickets, but we were too late. We saw a taping for the Today Show, but didn't have a cute sign so we didn't try to get on tape. It was just cool seeing how they do it. We took the subway to Battery Park and boarded a ship for a tour of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. There were both amazing places. Next we walked by the WTC site. We also walked along Wall St. We left NY around 6.30pm, and made it back to Maryland about 10.30pm. Today there's a heat advisory for this area, so we'll be taking it slow, but want to check out Baltimore for sure.

In the East

We arrived 15 minutes early to Washington D.C. yesterday and Brandon's brother Chris was there waiting to pick us up. We proceeded down to the National Mall and walked around the monuments for a few hours and were able to meet with one of Brandon's college friends who moved here to teach. They yakked it up for a while and then we met Brandon and Chris' aunt Lynette and her family. After dinner we walked some more and headed out of town a little after 8 o'clock. There is still a lot for us to see in the Capital so we do plan on going back for at least one more day. This morning we are going up to the Big Apple, it' s only three hours from Chris' place. We'll spend the night there, and the greater part of tomorrow. We also hope to see parts of Baltimore and maybe go down to Richmond, VA. Time to hit the road so stay posted and we'll write more later.

Keeping the airlines alive

On Saturday we're taking a trip to the East coast to visit Brandon's brother, Chris. We're going to spend a week over there, touring Baltimore, D.C., New York and anywhere else we can squeeze in. We come back the Saturday after and then begin the countdown to 3:05pm on August 22nd, when we head out to South Korea for one more year. We're doing our best to see everyone we can for as long as we can. Brandon is getting set to order the last batch of pictures from our last year's adventures from Snapfish.com. All in all we'll probably have 20lbs worth (2200 4x6s). We've already got the albums bought and when we're finally finished putting them away we'll have easy access to a whole lot of good memories.

In case you hadn't heard

We are back in the U.S. now, we had a 10 hour flight from Tokyo that went smooth and got us in 30 minutes early. We left Wednesday at 3:40pm and got to Minneapolis Wednesday at 12:00pm. Currently we are at Brandon's mom's house but are going to be moving about often trying to see everyone we can. Both of our cell phones are turned back on so you can call us at our old numbers. We will leave again the last week of August so our time here is short, but we will make the most of it. Thanks for reading our blog and if you're interested you can check back in a few weeks when we've returned to South Korea.

Still Safe

Well, the weather in Japan just doesn't want to cooperate with us! Today we found out that a large (6.8) earthquake rocked central Japan. We were not affected and only learned of it when our tour guide told us. We visited Mt. Fuji today, but it was quite cloudy all day and we didn't get to see very much. The clouds did part for about 3 minutes so we were able to get a few shots, so that's good. The tour would have been awesome had it been a bit more clear.
Tomorrow we're going to Nikko, an ancient city that's been preserved. It's about 2 hours outside of Tokyo, and we're scheduled for another tour. They're quite convenient. We leave Wed, the 18th from Tokyo at 3.40pm, and get into MSp at 12.40pm that same day! How fun. We're not really looking forward to the 11 hour flight, but we can't wait to see everyone!! The internet is a bit touch and go, so I'll try to upload a few pics if possible.

No Worries

There's a typhoon approaching Japan right now, but it's going to miss Tokyo. Today we experienced a lot of rain, and they say that tomorrow will bring more, but we're not in danger and we're just wet! We're having fun here, and will post more later!

Tokyo

We're in Tokyo, Japan! We took off from Tongyeong this AM at 7.30am, and after a bit of discomfort at the Busan Airport, we were on the plane. For some reason, NWA wasw conducting "security interviews" with some of their passengers. We arrived with 7 bags, and were naturally a good choice for said interview. Also, right before we boarded the plane, all passengers had to go thru a security pat-down once again. We're not sure exactly what caused this heightened security. Luckily, we made it to Japan about 30 minutes early. It took us about 2 hours to get to our hostel, and we made it with no problems (we checked some of our bags at the airport). It's rainy this evening so we're staying close to the hostel. Everything's quite expensive here so we've opted for a hostel. We met one of our roommates, and he's a very nice fellow. He's a sports reporter from Quebec and told us some interesting stories.
We've got no set plans for the next two days; but we've scheduled a trip to Mt. Fuji one day and a famous old city Nikko another. Hopefully we'll meet up with our friend Min who now lives here! Nothing else for now. Hope all is well!

Friday: We visited a beautiful floral island an hour from Tongyeong with our friends!

Sunday: We took this Jeepney from Manila to the pier to catch our ship to Puerto Galera.

Sunday: We hired a man to take us to 2 spots to go snorkeling: 3 hours f0r $11.


Monday morn: B found a friend on the beach, who liked to fetch rocks!

Last Day

We've arrived in Korea from the Philippines. We had a wonderful trip, and although it was short it was fun and worth it. Today we're busy packing up our last things in Tongyeong, taking care of a few loose ends, and keeping our sunburn moisturized! Tomorrow we leave from Busan to Tokyo at 11.40am, and get there around 1.30pm. We're looking forward to exploring Japan for a week, and can't wait to get home. We'll try to put a few pics up if we have time! Can't wait to see everyone!!!

One More Trip!

We've just learned that we have the chance to go to the Philippines next week! Heather's director takes students there every vacation to study at English Camps, and we'll be able to go with!
We leave July 6th after work and will stay in Manila for three full days! Then we'll come back to Korea, get our stuff, and head for Tokyo the next day, July 11th! We're pretty excited and it should be a fun time! Now we're super busying getting our last-minute packing done! YAY!

Jeju Island 5-26 Illchulbong

Jeju 5-26: Stone Grandfathers

DMZ 6-2: Standing in North Korea.

Suwon Fortress 6-3:Traditional Guard near the wall.

The Link to the photos of when our friends visited:

http://uwrf.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039284&l=c6a81&id=184902869

The link to our Jeju Island photos:

http://uwrf.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038490&l=c48dd&id=184902869

Slackers

We haven't been keeping up with our postings lately, but we haven't done that much either! It's officially Monsoon Season, so it rains pretty much every day. It's quite humid, too, so we've learned to seal our food air-tight!
Last Saturday we met up with B's former co-workers. We had a nice dinner, and then had a few beers! It was really great to hang out with them one last time. We are now setting up plans to meet with people who we hope to see again b4 we return to the States.
Hopefully we'll get to visit a few more cool places near the Tongyeong area over the next two weekends, and if we don't get rained out we'll hopefully have some good shots!
We really appreciate everyone who's checked our blog this year, we can't wait to see you all very soon!

21 Days

Well, we've officially got three weeks left in Korea. Some things will be missed, but we're looking forward to seeing family and friends again! Plus, we'll be back in September, so no worries.

On Saturday, H visited a friend who just had a baby. We attended her wedding in September, and now we've been able to see her baby. It was a girl, but no name has been given yet. It's common for that to happen here:the family must choose a name that they think is fitting for the child. Many visit fortune tellers, who instruct them on good names for the baby. It's supposed to be a busy year for child births in 2007, as it's the year of the Golden Pig, and it's supposed to be very good to have a baby during that time. My friend's sister and sister-in-law have both had babies within the past 6 months!!

This weekend we plan to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary at a beautiful beach near Tongyeong. We've not yet been there, but have heard great things about it! Pictures will follow if we don't get rained out. It's the beginning of the rainy season here, so we've got to play some things by ear.

A Nice Vacation

My two best friends visited us for 10 days, and we had a blast. They got to experience a lot of interesting things, and fun was had by all. We visited Seoul this past weekend, and pics will follow soon. These are a few shots from around Tongyeong.

5-28: H, Emily, and Tara at a tasty restaurant!

5-29: Em & Tara with one of my classes.

5-30:The girls visit Hansando shrine.

5-31:We climb Mireuk Mountain in the early AM.

Jeju (재주), the Schmidt and the Museus

Our four day excursion to Jeju Island was just what we needed. We packed as much into every day as we could. Lots of waterfalls, palm trees and volcanic formations. It's hard to get tickets to and fro because travel agents buy all of them and then sell tour packages so we were forced to return early Sunday morning but all we had to do was kill the day in Busan and wait for the Tara and Emily to arrive. They walked out the gates at 9pm and we were off to Tongyeong. They're gradually getting the feel of the city, people, culture and time zone. Everyone wants to meet them so we're all getting a lot of free meals. This weekend we'll head to Seoul and the DMZ.

Briefly

Over the weekend we ventured up to Seoul, the four and half hours feel shorter every time, for the Birth of Buddha Lantern Parade. The parade was Sunday night so we spent Saturday and most of Sunday exploring. We met one of Brandon ex-coworkers for lunch and did some catching up. The parade was unlike any we've seen in terms of size and theme. For two hour solid lines of people marched down one of Seoul's main corridors carrying lanterns with larger lanterns on wheels interspersed amongst them. The monks and other marchers were all smiles and the street crowd cheered, clapped and occasionally got sucked into the parade.

We leave for Jeju Island bright and early Wednesday morning so we're busy packing and cleaning and won't get pictures on for at least a week (we had to take the night bus home so we got home at 4am Monday morning, cutting our prep ane recovery time short). The Schmidt girls have less than a week before they meet Asia and Heather may be just as excited as they are (Brandon doesn't get excited). If we get internet service while in Jeju we'll post and try to slip a pic or two on here.

Feel free to leave comments...

The group from "Hero" Taekwondo school. Some of the little guys were testing for their 3rd degree belts!


B and I awaiting our birg test. Notice the sea of white in the background!

Since the last time...

After our trip to the English Village Brandon got pretty sick, he missed a day of work and went to the hospital twice ($35 the first time, $15 the second [total: drugs and doctor visit]). They said he had bronchitis/acute tonsilitis but apparently that's what they tell everybody with a fever. The next weekend we tried to go to a Buttterfly festival a few hours away, but we made the mistake of going on Children's Day so we saw a few hundred thousand people and a dozen or so butterflies. We didn't stay long because the lines to the exhibits were huge and just trying to walk around took a lot of effort and patience.
Last weekend we devoted to Taekwondo and tested for Black Belts. Saturday we trained for three hours, making sure we knew our Poomse (choreographed movements) and sparred for a few minutes. Sunday we started at 10am with more review, then we had lunch and headed to Jinju where the testing was taking place for all of Gyeongnam province. We had to wait our turn amongst the other 6,000 people taking tests so we didn't get in until 5pm. It looked like an army of children in white uniforms. We'll get pictures on a little later. For the test the judges picked one of four Poomse and we had to do it, then we sparred with a partner for about 30 seconds just to prove that we were willing to kick and be kicked. We won't know for sure if we passed for a few weeks but our fingers are crossed. Neither of us really wants to go through that again, it was pretty nerve racking to wait seven hours in anticipation and you can believe we were the only foreigners around so all eyes were on us.
A few more days and then we'll be back in Seoul for Buddha's birthday, there will be a big lantern parade through the streets Sunday evening. A few days later and we'll take a trip down to Jeju-do for an island getaway. We'll be there four days and then come back to Busan to meet our friends Tara and Emily at the airport. They'll be here about 10 days and we'll do our best to give them as complete an overview of Korea as possible.
We've got just two months left before we come home. We'll stopover in Tokyo and look around the largest megalopolis in the world for a week. We've got a visit to Mt Fuji planned and expect to have a very memorable experience. We'll get back to MSP on July 18th and probably be stateside until September, when we'll come back here for another year. So anybody who didn't get the chance to come has another opportunity to expand their horizons. That's all for now, we'll get those pictures on ASAP.

Ansan English Village

This past weekend we traveled with B's school to an English Camp. We took 25 elementary-aged children, and the bus ride was a long 6.5 hour ride! Once we got to the camp, it was pretty interesting. We ended up being assigned 6 students to care for. Mine were older and quite well-behaved. B's, on the other hand, were a bit too rowdy for their own good. He spent the majority of the time keeping them out of trouble or apologizing for their mis-deeds. The older girls walked away with some good memories and learned some important things along the way.

We got home Sun at 10pm, and the next day B wasn't feeling well. Tonight (Wed.) he had afever of 102.8 so we figured it was time for a visit to the hospital. Roundtrip it took us an hour, and we learned that he has an acute case of tonsilitis, for which he received 2 shots and a bunch of pills. Total cost: $30, including the taxi rides. His temp has already dropped 2 degrees and it's only been an hour.

Here are a few shots from our Ansan Adventure!

B's boys working on a science experiment.

Amy, Lisa, Lucy, Lauren, H, Victorie, and Michelle.

B and Emily, his most playful student!

Jindo Sea Parting Festival.

Thursday, looking at the people from a bird's eye view!

Our nice new friend, Mr. Park and Brandon.

http://uwrf.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035704&l=df547&id=184902869

Sea Parting Festival

On Wed. and Thurs, we took vacation and headed to the west coast. There was a sea parting festival going on, and we thought we should check it out. It took us over 6 hours to get there, as the town is on an island and it quite small. We changed buses 3 times and finally made it there around 2pm. The festival itself was outside of town, so we hopped on a city bus and made it to the grounds around 4pm. Luckily for us, the actual parting occurred at 5pm, so we timed it perfectly. We grabbed some rubber boots and started marching across the sea from one island to the next. It was a really amazing experience and we're glad we had the chance to participate.
On Thursday, we ended up being shown around the whole island by a government official who works in Seoul but is from Jindo(the island). We were with him for over 5 hours, and he took us on a ferry boat cruise, out to lunch, a temple, a museum, and finally back to the Sea Parting Festival. We were very lucky to have met him, as we would not have been able to get to all those places without a car. He was a very friendly man and we learned lots of interesting things.
Saturday we had TKD for 2 hours. It's closely approaching our black belt test date, May 13, and our teacher is having Saturday classes for all the students to fine tune their skills.
Next weekend we're going with B's school to Seoul to visit an English Village. That should be fun.

The path leading to the temple.


One row of the famous wooden scripts.

The rarely decorated outer hall.

Daegu (대구) & Haeinsa (해인사)

Yesterday we visited the 3rd largest city in Korea: Daegu. We'd been there b4 but only to the famous amusement park there. H's school had a meeting there, so we hitched a free ride in the van. While the teachers were in the meeting, we checked out downtown. Unfortunately for us, the city is pretty spread out and we spent more time trying to get places than we did actually enjoying them. At 4pm we met up with our group again, and were pleasantly surprised when they decided to visit Haeinsa, a famous temple.
This temple is famous as it holds the "Koreana Tripitaka" the oldest Buddhist scripts in Korea. They have been preserved for at least a thousand years in their original storage place! Another interesting thing is that the temple had just finished holding a festival, so there were colorful banners everywhere! We'd never seen that at a temple before. It was a beautiful spring day and we had a great time. When we got home around 10pm we were greeted by our new camera that we won from the contest! It's pretty sweet!!
Yesterday was also an important day as Emily Schmidt and Trent Museus were married in Brainderd, MN. We're really sorry to have missed their special day. We wish them the best!

Weekend in Seoul

Last weekend we spent a wonderful weekend in Korea's capital, checking out a cherry blossom festival held in the heart of the business district. The weather was nice, and we had a lot of fun. I put about 40 pictures on my Facebook account, and if you want you can check out the link. We have no concrete plans for this weekend yet, but with the weather warming up we want to take advantage of it. We hear it's been snowing a lot back in the States, and are sad if it's caused any hardships (my sister is now playing softball indoors).

http://uwrf.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015745&l=f055a&id=184902869

On the steps leading to the tower.

Jinhae Cherry Blossoms

Last Sunday we visited Jinhae for the Cherry Blossom Festival. The day was overcast and it tried to rain, but that was ok for us as less people ventured out. The thing we didn't know was that a sand storm had come to Korea from China, and it was advised that people stay indoors. We did get a text message about this, but we can't understand Hangul. Oops. There were still enough people so that the area was crowded, so we must be ok.
There were two parts to the festival; first we climbed 365 stairs to a look-out tower, and then climbed the tower's stairs. We had a good view of all the beautiful trees. Next, we took a shuttle bus to the Naval Academy and got to walk around there a bit. It was a good time.
We plan on taking a night bus to Seoul this Friday after work. There's a cherry blossom festival in the middle of the city, so that should be pretty cool.

Winner!

B and I entered a contest a month ago. It was an internet-based contest for people who have nice shots taken in Korea. Well, of course we jumped all over this one! I put together a slide show, and set it to traditional Korean folk music, and I thought we had a pretty good chance of winning something!
It turns out that our show was one of 6 grand prize winners! Luckily for us, we are supposed to get a free digital camera out of the deal! We just found out today that we were winners, so more info on the camera will follow. But for now, here's the link if you want to see our slide show!

http://korea.net/event/event_20070330/ucc_contents_view.asp?seq=6&page=1&flag=1

A Full Weekend

We were quite busy this weekend. We travelled to two small towns, as each was holding a festival. The first town was Hadong, which has an amazing apricot blooming festival every year. It's held on a farm outside of town and the views were amazing. The weather was warm and we had a blast. Next we took an hour long bus ride to an even smaller town:Gurye. We visited Sansuyu Village, where trees with yellow buds are blooming. We saw some good things here as well, although a lot of people had their cars and were speeding by us. On Saturday night we stayed in a hotel in Gurye, and got up bright and early Sunday to visit a famous Korean Temple. Hwoemsa was quite a place and we had a good time here as well. Traffic was stop and go for about an hour getting back to Tongyeong, but now we're home and happy that we made the trip. I've posted about 50 pictures on a different website, and you can click the link below if you want a peak at them.
The next festival is the cherry blossom festival, which should also be a good time. The weather is warming up, and the forecast is saying 60 by the end of the week. Spring is here for us in Korea!
http://uwrf.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032731&l=2ec2f&id=184902869

With regret

We're sad to mark the passing of Brandon's cousin Rachael. She died at the age of 14 from astrocytomas of the brain stem and spinal column. She was much too young to have had to deal with such ailments but her courage and spirit were far beyond her years. Our thoughts are with her parents and brother in this time of sorrow. She'll be missed and fondly remembered.

Spring Rain

We haven't posted in a few weeks, but we really haven't done anything too exciting, either! Last weekend we got new glasses. We were amazed when the eye exam consisted of us looking thru a machine for 10 seconds and the machine judging our prescription for us. It was unbelievable (and free). That machine must be expensive, but totally worth the money. We had a more difficult time choosing frames, but ended up satisfied an hour later when our glasses were finished!
Yesterday we traveled to Busan for the day. We met up with our friend and her boyfriend, and saw the movie "The Pursuit of HappYness". It was a very good movie. We then ate lunch at TGI Friday's, which turned out to be spendy but tasty. The skies looked like it would rain, but it held off and we were able to walk around for a few hours.
Today the rain came, and came, and came. The wind joined in and it was pretty exciting for awhile. The temps are really warm lately and I'm not sure if this is normal or not. But, with weather these days, what's normal anymore?
March is the time when Korean school-children start new grades. So, our hagwons have been changing classes around to accommodate with new students. This week should be fun as we will most likely give out several western names to the newbies.
We hope everyone is doing well and look forward to seeing you in July :)

Feb. 18, 2007: Just arriving at Mount Seoraksan (in Northeast South Korea).


Hiking up to the waterfalls.

A different part of the mountain: we took a cable car up here. It was amazing!

B trying to tip over the rock. All of those little piles are good luck piles made by various people.

At the foot of the mountain stands a big Buddha!

Happy Lunar New Year! We're lucky as we get a 3-day weekend, so we decided to head up north. Last night (Friday) we stayed in Busan with H's boss at her in-law's house. Then this morning we went back to the eye doctor. H's eyes are returning to normal, so that's a good thing.
At 11.20AM, we boarded the bus for Sokcho. We roasted for 6.5 hours, and made it here with no incidents. We saw the East Sea, and were surprised to see barbed wire set up along the coast. This is to keep the North Korean's out. We found a really nice hotel and ate a good meal at a local restaurant.
Our first impressions of this city are quite good, and we can't wait to sight-see all day tomorrow and Monday!

Year of the Pig

One perk that comes with living in Asia is that you get to celebrate the Lunar New Year by skipping work. For our long weekend we're trekking to northernmost corner of South Korea to discover (ideally) snow covered mountains and temples. Mt. Seorak is purportedly the most dramatic mountain range in this country and we're hoping will be worth the 7 hour long trip up there. http://english.tour2korea.com/03Sightseeing/TravelSpot/travelspot_read.asp?oid=1822&konum=subm1_1&kosm=m3_6

Waiting for the ship to set sail, a nice man voluneered to snap a photo of us!

The beautiful sunrise, as seen on 2-11-07 on our way to Yokji-do.
The view of Yokji-do, an island town of 2,400 people.

One of the many awesome views! We were told that Korean movie stars come here for vacation, to get away from it all and enjoy nature.

A Good Weekend!

We had a very nice weekend; things started on Friday when my co-workers took me out for a nice dinner for my birthday. Saturday we ate my favorite meal: cream seafood spaghetti at the Italian restaurant in town. We walked around town for a bit, and when it started to sprinkle, we rented a movie and headed home.
Sunday we got up at 5am, as we had to be to the boat terminal by 6:30am. B, our friend Catherine, and I took a ship to an island about an hour from Tongyeong: Yokji-do. Another friend of ours just moved there, and she offered to show us around.
The island has 2,400 people, and has a really cool feel to it. Our friend seemed to know everyone we saw, and she's only been there a few months! She even borrowed a bottle opener from a restaurant, as she didn't have one.
The views were really amazing, and the sunshiny day was perfect. We had a great time, and by the time we got back on the boat at 4:30, we were all worn out! We slept well last night.
This weekend we're lucky as we get a 3-day weekend (Monday is the Solar New Year, and thus a holiday). We're still deciding where we'll go, but we may try to go up north to see some snow before it all melts!
Hope you enjoy the pictures, and thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!!

Brandon, Roxy, and Arnie at school. Tina, B's youngest (and smallest) student.

Brandon & the kindergarteners. Roxy, Lauren, H, B, and Arnie at our fave bar.

There is an amazing new program called Google Earth that everyone should try. With it you can see satellite images of anywhere on Earth. The more developed the area is the closer you can zoom in. I think in most of America you can get to street level and with larger cities abroad to the same degree. It's unbelievable and it's free. You can find Heather and I by doing a search for Goseong, South Korea, we're the urban area directly south of Goseong. While you can't get to street level in Tongyeong you can get an idea of the city. We're at 34^50'18.95"N, 128^26'08.09"E. If you've been to places like Washington DC, Paris, Caracas or Tokyo you'll love this program.

On the other hand Brandon's kindergarten graduated yesterday so he has one less class everyday. We also had eye exams to see if we're eligible for eye surgery yesterday afternoon. Brandon's pupils are too big and Heather hadn't stopped wearing contacts long enough for her eyes to return to normal so they couldn't make a decision for her. Today, Sunday, we'll just hang out at home and play with Google Earth.