And so it begins

It is the beginning of spring and so comes the rain. On March 28th at 3:30pm this is the view outside from my class room window. I am not even sure how to explain it.

Korea vs Uruguay

This is beauty at it's best. I am not sure what to tell you other than it was an amazing night. Emiel and I met a bunch of people from my hockey team, ate some delicious pork and then made our way to Seoul World Cup Stadium for Korea vs Uruguay. We drank more than our fair share and at $2 a beer it was easier than I could imagine. Needless to say the game got more exciting as it went on. Korea put forth a valliant effort that was fruitless in the end as Uruguay came out on top 2-0. It was a shame, but the excitement was unforgetable. A good night, which was capped off with some dancing and a good bye to our friends Neil and Annette from South Africa. We will seem them in 3 months but they will be missed. Sorry no picks, as i forgot, silly me.

This is Chris

Me, Amy, Sharon, Victor, Dave, and Chris, photo by Mandie.

The young Korean on the far right is Chris. He was one of my students who has an excellent English ability. He sort of worked hard but most of all he wasn't afraid to speak. He went to Canada for 2 months after Christmas and is now back. A few of us saw his pictures and heard his stories. He was more excited than i have ever seen a student. It was great to see him.

Now a little history, before the trip he did not want to go. He said it would be pointless and boring. Well not in those words but close enough. He just wanted to stay in Korea and hang out with his friends. His English was excellent for his level but by no means completely fluent. He is 16 in Korea, 15 in Canada.

And so the story goes, he stayed with a great family, or so it seemed, and he was put into a grade 8 class when he should of been in grade 10. I think who ever made that decision was very smart. Anyway to make this long story short, he loved his trip and wants to go back. I can't blame him. His English level has preceeded anything he would of learned at a Hagwan in Korea, unless I am his teacher again, which goes to show how much a little travel can change a person even if it is for a short time. I hope to see you again soon Chris, good luck in high school.

Unnecessary words

Snow, Spring and Boarding

Two weekends ago Emiel and I set out on a journey to any resort that a bus could take us. We left my place at 530am and with no bus reservation we took a chance, no a big one mind you but a chance nonetheless. We usually make a reservation with my councilor at work but she forgot, oooooor she didn't understand, more of the latter I suppose. I usually ask the more fluent Sunny who is great. I though I would give her a break from my hassling and so the story goes, stick with what works. Well we made it onto a bus headed for Phoenix Resort with some trouble from the bus driver but since we played handsome dumb foreigners we made it to the hill. Now imagine leaving a place that is far above 0 and without any sign of snow for a 100 km. And so we show up at a hill with some snow looking good enough to ride for the day. We approached the ticket booth and a young mad asked if we are paying in cash and as there is no other way for me to pay, here we are, YES, he says, I will get you 50% off, just wait. OK. done and done, we saved about 40 bucks cdn on the kindnes of Koreans. We made it, we are happy and ready to go. Now Emiel just got back from Columbia and I have to say I did not expect to see such aggressive behaviour on the hill from him. He was trying everything. It was great to see. We ended up having a great day of nice rails, nice jumps, hard falls and well, as the picture shows a lot of snow. we couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us for about an hour, it felt like home. So with the day near an end. We tried a few more rails and as you can see in the picture it is a metal rail. My last attempt on this bad boy just about put me in the hospital. I approached, it looked good, but then I hit a wet spot, lost speed, my board stopped and i kept going up into the air and smack down onto the rail. Luckily I hit on an angle and my shoulder to hip took most of the force. I hung over the rail thinking how I should be out cold right now. I pulled myself off the rail and looked up, only to see white and more stars in the sky that anyone should see during the day. Emiel was in shock and didn't know what to do. But in the end I was ok, only my ego was slightly bruised. I spent the rest of the day drinking some hot choco and waiting for the bus to take us home. All in all it was a great day for two friends to spend together.

Kitty Cat By Accident

To make a long story short, I was teaching the students about shadows and the sun. The eyes of this cat represent what will happen if you stare at the sun. The centre of your eyes will become black and you wont be able to see in front of you. The whsikers show how your shadow will move as the sun moves. The nose is a stick figure person to represent where the shadow comes from. The head is the path of the sun. And the bow is showing the sun in the east, and well i only drew two because I am lazy. The ears were added as mountains to make the neck as a giant shadow and that my friends is how you draw a cat using the sun and shadows. I will be here all night.

Sing Pics #3

Part 3 Singapore

There is a lot to say, I must say, so I will say the best I can say.
The hockey tournament I participated in this past weekend in Singapore was a great highlight of my time here in Eastern Asia. It is something that I never thought I would do. Playing hockey in Singapore with a bunch of cool dudes from Canada and the States. We played against teams from all over Asia. Thailand, China, Japan, Qatar, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Macau, Arab Emirates, Myanmar and of course, South Korea were all there to have fun and play what turned out to be some serious hockey. We played against 6 different teams by the end of the tourny. We played a round robin of 4 games and then we had two playoff games. We won 2 games and lost 4. it was a great tournament despite our outcome. I haven't played hockey like that since playoffs in Jr. C. It was fast paced end to end, although the ends were pretty close to each other. It was a different game than your normal 5 on 5, we played 4 on 4. It was a good experience for me. It was a difficult game to adjust too, it was not my style so changing it up and playing toghter was tough. Most of you know I am an open ice skater, I like the open ice style, but in the end it took a game or two to get used to teh tight checking and aggressive style. I scored 5 goals and had 5 assists and I feel I did well, I had lots of fun and met some cool people along the way. Our team did an amazing job of working together and staying positive when we were losing to an obviously more experienced team. In the end we all have a story to tell, we played well as a team and had a great time on and off the ice. All in all there was more hockey played than sleep was had and more beer drank than pucks put in the net. So, if you ask any of the guys from our team, everybody was a winner. I would do it again in a instant.

More Singapore

It was hard to take pictures as it was raining a lot and well, we play 6 games in 3 days, so we were slightly busy, haha, but here is what I have. Enjoy.

Singapore

Well, I promised a great story and with a great story you need time, haha, so here are some pictures to wet your appetitte for the real deal. The past 4 days were spent in beautiful Singapore. Singapore is an amazing country. But for me it wasnt a vacation, it was all for a hockey tournament. I went with 14 guys from Canada and the United States who are all teachers here in South Korea. They are a great group of guys and we had a blast. It was really only three full days and trying to see any country in 3 days without playing hockey is pretty tough, even for Singapore which is about the size of Toronto. However, i did manage to make it the island of Santosa which is like a little tropical paradise that Singapore has worked hard to create. Only problem is the 20 tanker ships just off the coast which are slightly unsightly. The island itself is a magnificient piece of work. So these are some random pics from my short time, more pics and more stories to come.
The one pic of me and tigger is all about me winning tigger from 1.00 Singapore dollar playing the claw game, one try, one victory, it was excititng.