more japan pics

these are the good ones
the sunset is my fav, it is in Mitoma

Japan

Here are the dates
August 22 - August 27
my vacation, after one month of working as a teacher for YesYoungdo
so my first day of vacation consisted of me lugging a suitcase from suwon to migeum to help emiel move. and for those of you wondering what that is like: take a large suite case, and take a subway with about 40 people in car about 10 minutes then take a bus from London to waterloo, and then walk about 10 minutes through rush hour traffic in Toronto. That's what I did late Tuesday night. I helped emiel pack and had a good night sleep, we woke up early the next day to do the same thing, but through Korean rush hour, which is insane, but this time we had two large suit cases, and two backpacks, full and heavy. an adventure I would like to forget, but at the end it was worth it. emiel moved successfully from one end of Seoul to the other.

so know our vacation begins. we used three forms of transportation. KTX bullet train, hydrofoil - boat and of course a bus. great times. we made it to Japan in about 7 hours total, we did spend a night in Busan, which was nice we visited the beach and a closed surf shop. we took a few pictures but nothing to special, I just tried to figure out how to use my new camera. anyway we found the beach and a nice little local restraunt to eat at. we thought we were being dragged down a dark alley way, which we were, but to our surprise it was a great little place.
to sleep, 5 of us crambed into a hotel room and slept well for about 30 each.
so up in the morning emiel and I left early to catch the hydrofoil first thing, we met a very friendly American girl who spoke with a very American accent, the brunt of a few jokes after she left our presence later the next day. but we made it to the Korean consulate in Fukuoka, Japan and had a good trip despite being separated from the rest of our group for the first part of the day.
from there we ventured further in Fukuoka and found a nice hotel for a reasonable price, about 41 each, again we crambed into one room. so that night we found hookerville Fukuoka by pure accident so we stopped at a liquor store bought some tequila and made our own bar on a small bridge close to our hotel and chatted the night away.
the next day we found our way to the beach in Mitoma, it was a beautiful beach with no one on it. emiel and I spent most of the day trying to buy surf boards while the girls spent there time enjoying the heat and the water, but after a few hours of debating we realized the boards were to small for us and moved on and enjoyed the beach a little more. I have an amazing sunset pic.
so that night we had another enjoyable time and debated if we should hit up another beach or go to Hiroshima, being young and tired, we chose the beach in Nagasaki. so three hours on a bus we are in Nagasaki. our hotel was traditional Japanese style, amazing experience. we went to the island Io. it was nice and quiet exactly what I wanted to do. we ended up at a nice beach on the pacific and swam and enjoyed this quiet little nook in the south end of Japan.
so over all, we basically headed back to Korea over the next day. so yes I spent four days in Japan, no Tokyo, Hiroshima or did I eat sushi, I did have sake, and it was good, made me a little hyper. but it was a good trip for all of us. good time, no souvenirs because I didn't have a million dollars, Japan = money.

enjoy the pics.

Off to Japan

Well I am off to Japan on weds, I am pretty excited about the trip
we will be staying in Busan and then off to Japan for a few days, our plan is to go to Hiroshima one day out of the 4 and then hit the beach and enjoy some time off. Well look forward to some stories and new pics from my new camera, yes a new camera.

My classes during August

these are my classes
S3 - J5 - J1

One more small step

as i write these little stories for you i have to catch up to where i am now. so please forgive me if you feel like i am missing a detail.

my first week was interesting. i spent most of my time observing. which to Koreans means watching other teachers for a few hours so you can become like them and teach the way youngdo wants. luckily for me that wasnt to difficult. youngdos methods are all about getting the students to talk and do tests. easy enough yes?

the students are no different then students back home. they are good bad and even ugly. i like most of the students. some of them were a little quiet at first as i was the tallest guy there and well, the newest so they didnt know what to expect from me.

oh here is a little bit of story for you. my second day at youngdo, although i a wearing a shirt and tie with some dress pants and decent shoes, i feel like crap. after the first break i am sitting in the staff room and trying to remember everyone's name and who is cooler then the guy with the headphones on. when i am asked to come out of the staff room and enter the foyer of youngdo to be greeted by about 25 students with cameras and cell phones looking for that good shot of my weary face. i though it was a bit odd that no one was stopping this, but i just picked up my step and made a quick pace to the nearest class room and sat down hoping the heard would go to their respective classes. this was not what i wanted on my second day in Korea. but hey a good story yes?

so back to teaching. it is good and it is fun. i just finished doing about 30 report cards which i though i would never do in my life. but here i am, half a sleep and ready for bed.

Korea has been good to me so far. foreigners are instant friends unless they make a point of not talking to anyone and well lets just say that they become the brunt of most jokes. dont be a jerk in Korea and you will never have trouble making friends that was my week one lesson from a few teachers.

so the teachers i met are very nice, all except one who wears nothing but soccer jerseys and oddly enough he carries the soccer attitude as well. at least the stereotypical one anyway. so the staff consist of two south africans, four canadians, an austrailian two americans and one korean. it is a good group. i am very lucky to have these people as coworkers. they have helped me in many ways. i only hope i can do the same one day. the pictures you see are of my class having a little bit of fun, enjoy.

Korea and me

Good afternoon everybody.

well, as some of you may know or are just finding out now, i am in South Korea, or as it is also called the Republic of South Korea.

So i have made a pretty big decision to move to Korea as i have left many things at home that i miss a lot.

To start this little adventure I first had to say goodbye to my family, including a new member on the way, she will be known as Brianna. My sister is pregnant, which was the hardest decision of all as it is a once in a lifetime deal. But i think being a part of her growing up is a little more important then just being there for the birth. It will be all the more fun and exciting when I go home in a years time. Also i am missing my friends Jesse and Shannons wedding, and that for sure is a one time deal.

Well, Korea is fun--it is a nice place with very little crime in the area that I am in. People are generally good to you and keep to themselves, although when you try to speak Korean they look at you like you are still speaking English. Emiel suggested the reason is probably because they have never had people butcher their language the same way that people butcher the English language--Korea is a pretty culturally isolated place. Because canadians have heard just about every accent and try and speak some kind of broken English, so with that in mind, there is no broken Korean, it is either perfect or you look like a dumbass. I am trying to not sound like a dumbass.

I have much to tell but i think will do it in spurts, if thats alright.

So I got here after a 17 hour trip, well probably more like 20 by the end of it, door to door that is. I left bright and early on monday July 17th, left around 530am from my house and I arrived in Korea on tuesday around 4pm. I arrived to my apartment, which by the way isn't much bigger than my kitched at home. That was around 6pm. Then I met the councilor that is was supposed to take care of me. She stands at the door of my apartment and says you go to sleep now, rest yes rest, and see you tomorrow. So I am standing there fully rested with nothing to do but look at my whole apartment from the door. I do not want to sleep and need to figure out how to get some food. Plane food sucks by the way. So despite her best efforts to leave me hanging, she did manage to introduce me to a girl named Mandie, who ended up being an angel from America. She did everything short of holding my hand while I got everything done, food, drink, found the school, the washing machine, how to turn on the aircon, the hot water and even to get to the train station and meet up with Emiel. And yes you may be laughing but you come here and try to figure out the hot water on your own. Yeah not easy, well it is easy but when you dont know you feel pretty dumb.

So we have become good friends now and she has managed to change my opinion about Americans in general, so that is one good thing so far.

So, now i am standing in Suwon Station which puts any station in Toronto to shame. Not that i have been to them all but think, 10 million people who want to get to seoul and that station does it. Enough said. So Emiel knows I have no idea how to get there, or how to find him once I am there and have his phone number or in Korean, han pon. haha Konglish is hilarious. So we are both in Suwon Station but have no idea where each other are. So after many phone calls and heated conversations about who should know what we embrace and said hello, good to see you so far from home, and for the first time korea, it started to feel like home. There were four of us, Emiel, Jolie (e's gf) Mandie and myself, walking in the rain, an not the typical shower we have at home, a steady down pour that felt like walking through a swamp. We did manage to find a nice little Korean BBQ spot just down the way from the entrance of Suwon Station. It was delicious.

The first meal I had in Korea was pretty amazing. We sat cross legged on the floor, eating cut up pieces of meat wrapped in lettuce with many other items inside such as kimchi, sprouts, bean sauce and garlic to name a few. It is probably the best thing to eat here. So in the end I was full and happy. I slept well that night with no worries but how I was going to teach. You would think this might worry me enough to keep me up but the jetlag took care of any sleep trouble that might have arisen otherwise. I slept well.

So that is it, a little bit of my first experiance here in korea. It has gone well so far. And last night will be a fun story, when the time comes.