A quick video:

Hey I thought I would just post  the footage we have of Hongdae for you, so that you can get a feel for the vibe, its nothing special, but it does more justice than the pictures, enjoy!

Seoul!!!!!

Hey Guys!

We have had a packed and amazing weekend so we have so much to catch you up on!

We were feeling pretty drained and bored from the week at work, so we were thrilled when our new friends here Jill and Laura invited us to go to Seoul on the weekend for our first real experience in the big city!

We took the evening bus on saturday into Seoul and stepped out into one of the most amazing cities we had ever seen !

We went on the subway straight into Hongdae, which is a young, trendy district, very popular among the foreign english teachers:

Hongdae..

Laura and Jill pointed out this place to us, a karaoke bar where you have a room that is all windows, facing the busy streets of Hongdae, everyone watches up to you doing your karaoke moves!

It looks awesome and YES I plan to go SOON AS POSSIBLE!! :

Hongdae was absolutely amazing! The streets are lined with super trendy clothing stores, restaurants, bars and music venues and the shopping there looks AMAZING! I was having trouble holding myself back from running into every store I saw. Laura and Jill and I are going on a girls shopping trip next weekend in Seoul, so I am super excited :)

After walking through Hongdae a bit, we headed to a Hookah Bar. The inside of the place was so cool and decorated from top to bottom. We had a cute little table for the 4 of us, and we ordered some really good kiwi-lime and grape flavoured hookahs.

After the Hookah bar, we went a couple doors down to a Canadian Bar called Rocky Mountain Tavern, which is a wildly popular spot with all the foreign teachers. We walked in and it was so surreal! It was if we were back home in Canada! The walls were lined with Team Canada Jerseys and Canadian flags, the music was all stuff you would hear back home. The most surreal part was the fact that the bar was packed with about 50 white people!!! We were finally a majority again!

We stayed there late into the night dancing and singing, it was a lot of fun. Even Andrew was busting a move all night!

Laura and Colin

Jill, me, Laura and the DJ

Jill and I Dancing...

The Next morning the four of us went out for some pancakes at "One Tree Hill" and I FINALLY got a cup of good coffee when we made a stop at  Starbucks (YAY!)

After breakfast we went to the official foreigners district, Itaewon, and made a stop at a foreign food market to try to find items we had been missing and needing.

Andrew and I managed to find some of our favourite thai foods, indian curry mixes, and some canned items we had been needing, which will be very helpful to our cooking and eating all week!

Eventually we headed home to Ganghwa on the bus, and are now sitting at home relaxing and eating a big pot of chili we were finally able to make ! (yay for the foreign food market!)

We have another long week ahead of us! I'll have some good updates for you after my much anticipated shopping trip!!!!!!

We leave you guys with some pictures from throughout the week, going out for dinner with friends, and pictures from around the Island:

Some of the Teachers from Eryns school, out for lunch:

We have had a great weekend! It was really re-energizing to see the city. The Island can be very quiet and isolating and after a quiet, slow week at work you start to feel a bit down, but Seoul is really a fun and amazing city and is the thing that keeps many of the english teachers sane. We see why and we we're really excited to go back again soon.

Thats all for now, more updates soon! Love and Miss you guys all like crazy...

Eryn and Andrew 

xo

A Walk in the Woods..

Hey Everyone!

Today Andrew and I went on a nice hike through the trails and woods which we have discovered completely surround the back of our apartment.

We live in a very cool location because on one side of our building is the bustling city, while on the other is the quiet serene forest, filled with buddhist temples and statues.

We decided to go exploring this morning and found some pretty amazing things which are SO close to us!

The road which our apartment is on turns into a trail and as it does, it becomes lined with these beautiful multicolored lanterns to guide the way:

We walked along this trail for a while and at the top of it, was a Buddhist Temple, Filled with lanterns, statues and ceremonial grounds, it was so cool to see !

A lot of it looked as if it hadn't been used in years, sort of abandoned. Cups and candles and incense were left all over the place, it was the weirdest sight! We were saying to each other that it had a spooky feeling to it, because of the sense of abandonment you felt when you were there..

Some of the Rock Structures..

We continued our hike past the temple and ceremonial grounds and struggled our way up a steep steep hill side to get to what looked like it would be a good lookout point at the top, and sure enough, A BEAUTIFUL view at the top of the mountain, AND it was clear enough to see down, which is rare in this foggy, polluted country!

The City Below....

Rice Fields:

We stayed admiring the view at the top for a while and then decided to trek home.

It was a great hike, and we will definitely explore more as there were many many different trails leading to the big lookout point. We'll slowly explore them all throughout the year :)

We're so happy that we live right along side all of this!

Andrew made sure to bring his energy drink along, 

Mmmm Sweat! Sounds delicious..

They seem to give food and drink here in Korea the most unappetizing english names...

On friday night we went to a Karaoke Bar with some friends, here In Ganghwa-Eup, it was the most AMAZING thing ever!

This was no normal karaoke bar, You get a PRIVATE room with just your friends and the room has disco balls and flashing lights and a full wall of screen with images on it, as well as the words to the songs. There were 100's of songs to choose from! The mic even distorts your voice a little to make you sound better, and rates your voice after the song hahaha It was SO much fun. We couldn't stop mentioning how much Canada needs one. (Brent, we thought of you alllllll night, and even sang a lil Jon Bon Jovi in your name)

Such a great time, we're definitely going back there!

Anyways, that was our weekend!

Back to work tomorrow for week number 2..

More updates soon!

xo

Teaching Teaching Teaching

Hey Everyone!

 

Well, we have finally started teaching at our schools here on Ganghwa Island!

I am actually sitting right now in my classroom in between classes.

Andrew and I are finding that the job here is so different than what we had envisioned!

On the first day, I walked to school at 8am. My school is literally 3 minutes down the road, Andrew on the other hand has a bit more of a hike, a 30 minute walk. His Co teacher has been driving him for the first week, to get him acquainted, and he’ll just buy a bike soon.

I went straight to the teachers lounge when I arrived at the school. The schools here only heat the actual classrooms, so teachers wear their jackets inside during the winter and you go from room to room very quickly. The teachers and principle were all very kind and welcoming to me, offering me coffee and green tea. They all told me I was very tall, pretty and “So Smiley! You Smile All the Time?!”

I met my co-teacher Seo Won Choi, who is very talkative and has pretty decent English but a thick, thick accent, which makes it hard to fully understand her.

She showed me my schedule, my desk and the classroom, which is very nice and comfortable.  The school then had an assembly and they had me stand in front of the school and introduce myself to all the children.

The schools here are run VERY differently than the ones back home,

Schedules and classes are changed on a dime, with no warning, so there is very little structure in the school. I was supposed to have classes all morning of my first day, but something changed and so I had only one small one. The children were told to ask me any questions in English that they wanted to know about me, the questions I got were:

 

Have you had plastic surgery?

Do you have a baby in you?

How many times you make baby with husband? (yuppp they asked that)

 

HAHAHH oh man…

I literally sat at my desk, next to my co teacher all day, on the computer. I kept asking her “Is there something I should do? Can I do something for you?” But she kept saying no, that during hours of not teaching, all I had to do was sit around and wait, sooo my day was full of a whole lot of nothing! Lesson plans aren’t even really expected from me, they all come from a textbook, so the work is quite easy and mindless, actually.

I sat at my desk and at 4:30 on the dot, we all left to go home for the day, aaah what a hard day at work. Here are some pictures of my classroom and school:

My Desk:

 Turned out Andrew had a very similar experience at his school. He isn’t actually teaching classes until march, so all he has to do for the next month, is go into school and clock hours at his desk, and prepare any lesson plans or assignments that the teachers need him to do. All he did on his first day however, was laminate one thing and sit at his desk on the computer, also with nothing to do!

After our first day, we went out for a dinner with the other English teachers on the Island. We met a bunch of teachers whom we hadn’t met yet, and went out for a Korean meal at a restaurant near our house. We had some Kimchi, some kind of spinach and sesame dish, a big beef bone stew with potatoes, and a type of fried rice. Afterwards, we went out to a local music venue/bar sort of place and hung out with everyone some more.

 Today involved a little more for me at school thankfully (it can get a little TO boring), I played a game of english word hangman with the 3^rd graders, and then got to teach an entire 4^th grade class all my by myself while my teacher was busy at a meeting. The Kids all wrote me letters in my class, which were hilarious and adorable:

My Favourite "Teacher tall 173 cm Good" HAHA

 And afterwards when I was sitting at my desk between classes, a few girls ran in and gave me a gift and letter they had written me, very cute. They gave me a hair tie, a chocolate and one of those dangly toys you put on your cell phone (a STAPLE item in korea).

 Well that’s about all the updates I have for you now, Tonight, Andrew and I are going to trek out to Costco and finally stock up on some groceries, were getting sick of eating out and are craving home cooked meals.

 

Will update again soon, love you alllllll

xo