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.

Yay Photos!

Then again maybe not... I'm having issues with my uploader... WAAAA!!!

Back with a Bang! Jeju!

Yes yes yes... it's been forever. I apologize to those who think I've died because I haven't updated. Truth be known, I'm not only fickle but I'm also a procrastinator. Sigh, I know. The disappointment in not being perfect is even heavier on my shoulders than yours I assure you. Enough of this... On with this show!

So! Jeju! Please be assured that if you're reading this, it was the first official broadcast of what happened in Jeju. We only just arrived home an hour ago, unpacked, grabbed coffees and I uploaded my photos. All in all the trip was spectacular! We had one hitch that was easily solved. But I'll get to that later.

Let's just start with a small preface saying that the tickets were booked 3 months prior to departure and during the last month of work, I kept feeling like I needed a vacation. The week before we left I started feeling antsy. The day before, it was all I could talk about and I couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear. The night before, I didn't sleep I was so excited. I was a bit worried that not sleeping would definitely impact my energy level on the first day, but when we landed, I was ready to go.

Our first place to stay was a pension and they arranged to meet us at the airport to pick us up. We had the details of the car and besides waiting a bit, were greeted by a very friendly Korean man who was very glad to see us. He didn't speak a lot of English and so communication was kept simple and involved lots of actions on both parts. Curtis and I were both really happy that he was trying to communicate though and didn't just give up.

The nearest beach to our pension, Iho beach. It was nice but there were lots of little lava rocks scattered on the shore so not as comfy as we would have liked

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A fisherman on the rocks.

A mural of the women divers on Jeju, called Haenyo.

We couldn't check in right away so we went to the beach. We didn't stay long as we wanted to have a shower and check out other things in the area. I had read about a park with wooden and stone sculptures that sounded interesting. It turned out that they sculptures were mostly of driftwood that had been arranged in an artful way rather than carved. Some of the pieces had really funny names but others were really inspired and amazing. There was also a shrine to the founding fathers of Jeju-do. Apparently, the first inhabitants of Jeju were three demi-gods who crawled out of three holes in the ground. I guess we all come from caves somewhere down the line.

Speaking of caves, that was next on our tour. Since Jeju is a volcanic island, there are many interesting volcano related topographical features! Woo hoo!! I was in my glory and Curtis was very patiently listening to me babble on about how this cave was created and why it has this or that feature. I learned a bit too from the signs they had posted. Lava is so cool!! The cave it self was a 20 degree temperature drop from outside that day and boy was it welcome! 10 degrees has never felt so good.

After the caves we went to see a crater that's pretty unique. It's completely forested but the north facing slope has a completely different ecosystem than the south facing slope. One is sub-tropical while the other is temperate. It's really deep and wide, quite amazing to behold for sure. The forest within was really thick and jungly too.

We'd been trying to pace ourselves and so only saw a couple of things each day. The third day we planned to sleep early and wake up before sunrise, walk to the peak of an ocean crater and then watch the sunrise from up there (it was recommended in Lonely Planet). It's quite famous for the sunrise view over the ocean so we were dedicated and got to sleep early. The pension we stayed in this time had a bunch of single units rather than an apartment style. It was nice too. Haewabada is the name, I recommend it to anyone staying near Seongsan because taxi's actually know it, it's clean, and it's nice.

Ok, so we got the number for a taxi so we could call before dawn to get one to the foot of the crater. We woke up at 4:30 am, yes that's right mom and dad, it is possible when you've got something to do. We headed up the crater walk with about 100 other people. The sun was already starting to light up the horizon and I was getting worried we wouldn't make it. Curtis isn't as much of a morning person as I and was having trouble keeping his temperature at a comfortable, unqueasy level so we had to stop often. As much as I would not have wanted to see it without him, I was nervously counting our resting minutes hoping we wouldn't be late. We were some of the last to the top and as any good climb goes, the top was magnificent. We were about 20 minutes behind sunrise schedule though. We looked out to the horizon to see that the sun had not risen! It was patiently waiting for us behind some thick clouds and was casting some pretty glorious colours. We stayed to enjoy for about an hour listening to the cicadas and chatting with some fellow expats. A white rabbit appeared and he was too tame, so we decided that he'd been a pet set free by his generous if not naive owner.

After our decent, we went back to bed for a few hours and then went on to the next destination. With our back packs, it was much easier to arrive at our lodging, drop our bags and then go sightseeing. The last place we stayed was called Gold Beach Pension. This is the accommodation we had a bit of a snag with. On the day we arrived, I called around to the other pensions to communicate that we still intended on staying with them. I wasn't quite sure where this one was and when I looked it up online, it looked completely out of the way. I got nervous so I called Rachel and asked her to translate for me.

As it turned out, I had booked our stay for Saturday night and Sunday night... rather than Friday and Saturday. Also, since it looked out of the way, I thought we'd be better to cancel and see if we could get something closer. Rachel was able to find out that they could still accommodate us for the two nights we needed and that it was actually quite easy to get to. Since we already paid the deposit and couldn't get it back, we'd decided to stick with it, even if it was a bit of a taxi ride to and from. When we stepped off the bus,we flagged a taxi right away, not having a clue where this place was. The taxi wasn't sure either so we called up the pension and handed the phone to him. The taxi driver laughed, drove about two blocks on the same street and then pulled over and pointed to the sign. It was right there!!! We couldn't believe it! It was in the Jungmun tourist area which turned out to be quite handy as it's in the middle of most of the attractions. Phew!

We didn't intend for this to be the stair master day, but boy was it ever! We went to see a three tiered waterfall and there were steps up and down that sucker. It was quite amazing and beautiful and the pools were the best part. I have never seen water that colour before and might never again. It was completely unique. After we went to a part of the coast with really amazing topography. There are rocks that have spheroidal weathering on them where the salt in the water has eroded circular patterns into the rock. It was fabulous. We stayed there about an hour walked all over these rocks. At then end a group of people was having a picnic and they invited us to have some soju with them. Being polite we enjoyed a shot glass full. They were eating a type of raw shellfish that some women were preparing and selling. They offered us some and after explaining that Curtis was "allergic" I took a piece and crunched on it. It was really tasty but the texture was strange and cartilaginous... wouldn't eat a whole one by myself for sure, but I don't regret having tried it. Plus the people were really generous so I didn't want to offend them.

Having seen more of the coast we figured it was time to fit in a Buddha in a cave. Once again, neither of us suspected it, but more stairs were in order to reach said Buddha. We thought the stairs wouldn't end. Then we saw a rock face instead of brush cover and we though, geez, we must be close... nope, more stairs! Finally the cave and buddha. The buddha was a buddha, I mean, I haven't studied Buddhism enough to know what each buddha pose represents and I don't speak enough Korean in order to ask so mostly they all look similar to me. The cave however was fantastic. I got a picture but it's a bit dark... and like always, never does justice to the subject. We finished the day of the stairs, got a bite to eat and then slept like babies.

The next day we got up at 7:30 to get ready for our scuba dive. We were both just trying it out to see what it was like since we haven't taken any courses. Before I got in the water I was a bit nervous having read some of the safety precautions on the internet. Once I got suited up and got in the water it all seemed very fluid and calming. Ralph (Big Blue 33 dive shop operator), the dive master helped quite a bit with his calm professional manner. He also had a good sense of humor. The corals were spectacular in bright pinks and purples. There were many schools of fish swimming close and investigating. No uber-amazing appearances of unique species, but then, I really should study up a bit more on my fish species. I was just so happy to be swimming with the fish that at times I forgot to move ahead and keep going. :)

We only went down once on account of our being new divers and thus sat on the dive site most of the day. We both got pretty bad sunburns even though we liberally applied SPF 40 to ourselves. Dagnabbit!! Carrying backpacks the next day was a bit rough and I whined a lot. We didn't end up doing much on the last day, just going to the airport and relaxing. The last thing we wanted is to return home from our vacation being completely exhausted. We felt like we saw everything we wanted to and relaxed as well. It was perfect.

Once again, I'm having issues uploading photos... I'll do a whack later, but for now, the written will have to suffice.

Elanie and John's Turf

Being that July 4th was John's birthday we decided to celebreate in style. We planned to go into Seoul after work on Friday night to a bar that we happened across when John, Elaine, Curtis and I wandered through an area of town. It was called Monkey Beach and because it served drinks in pails and baby bottles and most of it was rediculously cheap, we decided this was a get drunk bar.

Now, people who know Curtis and myself know that we're not generally down with the whole bar thing. Not to mention that we get off work at 9:40 and it would be at least an hour and a half out to the bar. We both were feeling a bit reluctant when we set off. We got there and the party had just kicked up to full speed according to Amber who had joined us with Matt to celebrate. John was already feeling quite "happy" so gave us each about 3 gigantic hugs and said, "Wow! So glad you made it." That's the first thing that started to swing things around and start the weekend on a good foot. The other thing is that they had lockers. I know it sounds strange, but instead of having to lug my purse around or have someone watch it, we stuck it in a neat little cubby and locked it all up. Besides my purse, we also had all of our sleep over clothes for the weekend.

The rest of the night involved the girls; Amber, Elaine, and I, getting a bit free with the stripper ploes they had set up on the dance floor stage/table area. It was wild! I never thought I'd do that in my life, especially at a dingy foreigner bar! It was fun because I knew Curtis was keeping a close eye on me and the girls and I were just having fun and being a bit goofy.

We headed to John and Elaine's place to spend the weekend and despite the fact that they were both a bit blitzed, we got to their place safe and sound. We didn't wake up until the afternoon the next day and after that we wanted to find a Dr. Fish cafe. We went to a cafe... and they had Dr. Fish... but the Dr Fish were "sick" so we weren't allowed to dip our feet in and let them nibble. We were a bit disapointed. Since we were there and wanted to experience a Korean self service coffee shop we decided to stay. Curtis and John got into deep conversations about travel and looked in some magazines, Elaine and I chatted about a lot of everything and nothing, but mostly travel and dreams. We had a bit of a self serivce foot bath where they put some salts in a tub lined with cedar wood and let the water run. They gave us a timer and some paper towels and let us sit with our feet in some hot water for 20 minutes. I'm not sure what else I would have expected for $2.

We tootled around in Beomgye a bit after that and decided to see what was playing. We went to "Wanted" which has made it into my worse movies ever list. It was so bad that it was fun to dis afterward and therefore not a complete waste of time. We got pizza and John and Elaine's favortie place and then headed to a park to watch the water fountains. By the time we'd arrived, they'd already finished for the night. We chilled out in the park a while longer hoping that they'd come back on. After 10:30 we lost hope and were also getting geared up for the next, long awaited Nore-bang!! I sang "Suddenly I See" by KT Tungstall and figured out it's perfectly my rage. Another song to add to my blazing repetoire. Elaine was channeling Leona Lewis when she sang "Bleeding Love". The new pop songs make me feel so old! I never know the latest songs... YIKES!

After Nore-bang we headed for a drink at a more relaxed venue called "Danke". They had German beer and besides the name, I'm not sure what else was decidedly German about this place. We sat down, got drinks and then I noticed something in the corner of the room. It was like a seating area with no table. I was incredibly curious and decided to wander over. It was a pool!!! With Dr. Fish!!! I couldn't believe our luck! Elaine was the first brave soul and though she was giggling like a mad person, we all eventually got our feet in as well. It was rediculouly ticklish to begin with. I'm not sure I got over it entirely in the whole 90 min I was in the pool, but I learned to control my flinching so I wouldn't scare the fish away. It was really neat to see them come up closer and then take a bite, well I guess a suck. I'm not sure how they do it in a real spa, but I'm pretty sure someone has to work our feet a bit in order to get the dead skin off in the areas the fish don't like as much.

Going home late again meant that we slept in quite late again. We didn't get to the zoo with John and Elaine, but they'll always be a next time.