More Cycling Pics

Now that I now the way to Seoul, nothing can stop me. It's really not that hard of a cycle since it's along a river valley and there are so many gorgeous things to see on the way. Here are some photos of a pond, where my little stream meets the mighty Han River, and some flora and fauna I've seen.

Hello Kitty Exhibition

Since March I've been part of an online community who count calories and track exercises in the hopes to manage their weight. There are weight gainers, losers and maintainers on the site. I joined because I wanted to keep track of what I was eating. I had some severe stomach cramps and other digestive discomforts that I'd been ignoring for almost 10 years and I finally decided I was going to do something about it. Anyway, I started a food journal and then got to see the other aspects of the site. I just recently started interacting with other people and discovered that they have a group set up for people in South Korea.

The reason I'm writing this is that it largely preludes what I've been up to lately. Having chatted with someone, I found out about a Hello Kitty Exhibition running in May and June in my neck of the woods. Since it was pretty close, I decided to cycle. I took my bike and off I went. Here are some photos of what was in the exhibit. I found so much of it at least slightly amusing. They had all kinds of multimedia displays as well. One wall hanging lit up when you made noise around and beside it. There was also another one with a screen and some rings on the floor. They set it up so that they gave you a seed, you stomped it into the circle (or soil) and then a Hello Kitty flower grew on the screen. The later part of the exhibit was a bit more avant-garde though so consider yourselves warned. Enjoy!

50 k in one Day!

I know... it's been forever. Anyway, I just had to tell you about this because it's the most amazing thing I've done in my life! Yeah, that could be an exaggeration, but why not read and decide for yourself.

Naomi suggested a bike into Seoul on Saturday, so we packed a picnic lunch and we went. Little did I know, round trip it was 50 km. The ride there was amazing and beautiful. Along the river there were some beautiful different places to stop and we enjoyed every moment. A particular highlight was when three cranes were in the water doing what cranes do as we cycled by. It was breathtaking. They are such magnificent birds! Anyway... The picnic was lovely and we laid out in the sun a bit. On the way back, we all started noticing the pollution more and more as it was gritty on our faces and made us cough and breathe shallow. I thought I was having a mild asthma attack at one point. The wind also made the return journey really tough. We decided to take it a bit slower and made it through. Hurrah!! I feel like a super star champion of the world! Who knew I could cycle 50 k??

Kate and Dave

In the past couple of days we've hung out with our new co-teachers almost everyday. It's been really great having them around. On Monday, Kate wanted to go for a hike up a small hill near our house. We thought it might take 30 min to get up so we decided to meet at 10:00 am. At 10 to 10 that morning, Kate and Dave show up at our place with bells on obviously awake are raring. I greeted them at the door in a towel as I was just barely awake enough to hear the knock. They patiently waited for our lazy butts to get ready and then we went out.

The hill only took 10 min to scale and then we played on the workout equiptment at the top. Yeah! Outdoor weight benches, without weights of course, and chin up bars and parallel bars... it's crazy, really. Here are some pics.

After that we walked all the way around the hill to burn some more energy and then decided to monkey around some more on the climbing wall! It was so fun! By the end of it Curtis has fully woken up and had some energy too so he even did a couple of poses. Ohh and we saw an enormous spider.

New Co-workers!

Last Thursday was our first day without Green and Andrew. It was completely melancholy and I'm not just being dramatic. There were definately some huge shoes to fill. Curtis and I had heard so little about our new co-workers that we were imagining the worst. At best we thought young partying hooligans who don't give a crap about teaching or kids were coming our way. Needless to say we were pleasantly surprised when Kathrine and David showed up. They made amazing first impressions on everyone (the kids were aglow with curiousity and delight) because they were smiley and happy. That normally wouldn't sound like a feat, but they got off their plane at 5:30 am, got on a bus, got lost, didn't have time for a nap and then came to school to work 8 hrs. Now I know what a Super Trooper is! Thank you ABBA for giving me an appropriet song for this moment!!! Everyone Sing Along!


Besides being extremely good natured, we also have quite a bit in common. They are around our age, share our sense of humor, are here to travel and want to learn the language and experience the culture, adore the kids, are responsible and THEY BROUGHT A BOARDGAME!!! Hehehe. It's funny, but Curtis and I thought we wouldn't pull that passion of our out of the closet until they got settled in a little bit, but then they brought it up. We were flabbergasted.

They just had their first full day of teaching and are still recovering from jet lag. I'll add some photos when we have our first full blown adventure. Ciao for now!

Photos... Hopefully...

Yahoo!!! It worked!! I'm so glad to bring you more photos!

This is from the beach we went to within an hour of landing. It was nice, but not spectacular. Lots of black lava rocks were strewn about.




The top two and bottom left are from a wooden sculpture park in Jeju City. It was pretty interested. Some of the driftwood sculptures had awesome names. The top lright is called "Walking Virgin Forest".



The bottom right is from a lava tube cave. I know I know, it looks dark, but I think it captures how awesome it was. This is a world record holding lava tube column.



This is my handsome husband looking out over a green lava crater.

I stitched together a panorama of the craters of Jeju, too bad it turned out so small. :(





This is the sunrise peak that we climbed at 4:30 am. This is the day before we did it, just marveling at it's wonder and beauty. Sigh.

This is the day we climbed... it was amazing! Note to those planning on doing it. Lonely Planet says it takes 20 minutes... that's if you're an avid hiker that does this sort of thing 5 times a day. Most of my reasonably fit friends wouldn't be able to do this in 20 min. Plan on 40 so you don't miss the sunrise.

Jungmoon tourist area pics. Waterfalls, temples and pineapple on a steek!

Really cool spheroidal weathering on the Yeongmoori coastal walk. The folks we drank Soju with is at the bottom.