Jeju Island

The night before we left for Jeju, Blake could hardly contain his excitement and kept getting up out of bed thinking of things to do. He reminded me of a kid the night before Christmas! At 2am in the morning, he had the random thought of 'which countries were the biggest in the world in order from 1-10' and simply could not wait til a later time to find the answer!

Our flight to Jeju was great; aside from the rough landing. Jeju is absolutely beautiful! It's so warm and tropical with palm trees and great fruit! Our mission for our 3 day vacation was to make our way around the entire island and see as much of it as we could.

There was a lot of seafood that we weren't so keen on and we had a pretty hilarious experience (although not so hilarious at the time!) at one restaurant we went to. We thought we were getting pretty good at Korean when it comes to ordering food. We sat down at this restaurant and ordered Korean barbq, but the waitress came back with pork that had flesh and black pig hair still on it! We were horrified, but apparently it's a delicacy in Jeju. When it came to paying for the meal, we were told it cost $27! Normally Korean barbq costs around $10. Blake stood there holding his open wallet with a dumbfounded look on his face. I thought he was going to have a temper tantrum right there in the restaurant. Fortunately there was a Baskin Robbins nearby where we could get some good ice cream. Blake saved some money by ordering us 1 big bowl of ice cream instead of two small bowls and was able to save some money. For those who know Blake, swinging any sort of deal makes him happy and he was partly appeased about the expensive, uneaten, hairy pig! Here's a picture of it!

We found some really cute little motels to stay in while we were there that cost about $30 a night. One of the highlights for us was to get up early one morning and climb a mountain to watch the sun rise. It was so neat that we were some of the first people to see the sun that morning. Absolutely breathtaking- God of wonders!

We bought some Jeju cactus chocolate to share with anyone who is interested in coming to visit us!

Spa Valley

Blake and I have Wednesdays off together this term and the weather finally cooperated this week for us to go somewhere! We decided to go to Spa Valley which is a big waterpark with slides, pools and a spa. Because we can't read any warning signs, our strategy in these types of situations is to proceed until stopped by a flailing Korean. One lifeguard chased us down and handed us bathing caps to wear, another wanted us to wear lifejackets in one of the pools. Because September is an off season, they rotate some of the waterslides so they don't have to staff all of them at once. We kept trying to ask when some of the big slides were going to open and they were having trouble conveying the rotation schedule. Finally, the effort to make us understand became too much so one lifeguard personally opened the rides for us- it was so much fun! It was a pretty hilarious sight to see Blake and I eagerly anticipating our turn in line with all the kids.
In other news, we leave for Jeju in 3 days! We're charging the camera battery, packing our bags and we're ready to explore!

Holiday!

We have some exciting news... we are going on a holiday to an island called Jeju Island from September 24-27th. Our school hardly ever shuts down, but Korean thanksgiving (Chuseok) is a really big deal. Our boss just told us that they are closing for 2 days which means we have time to explore! Jeju Island is comparable to Hawaii so we are totally pumped! Gavin helped us book our flights already so we're counting down the days.

In other news, Gavin is leaving CDI. He is travelling Europe for 40 days starting the beginning of October and then he is going to start his Masters Degree in Architecture in the city of Seoul.
We are very sad about the reality of CDI without our dear friend Gavin. He has definitely made the transition from Canada to Korea easy and pleasant.

Happy Birthday Blake!

Happy 25th Birthday Blake!

One of the things that we dreaded thinking about while considering a year in Korea was having to miss celebrating special occasions with family and friends.

Nevertheless, we are so thankful for the invention of skype! My mom arranged a birthday party with my family and Blake's parents over the webcam on Wednesday night. We got some cake from the store nearby, but because of the time difference we had to enjoy the party here at 10 on Thursday morning. It was a little weird eating cake before breakfast, and the icecream cake from DairyQueen looked so much better than Korean cake, but it was great to feel like we were part of the party.

We also had a surprise party for Blake here in Korea with a bunch of friends from church. I think he felt pretty special by the time all the celebrations were over!

Athlete's Foot

Here's the athletic shoe store called 'Athlete's Foot.' We laugh each time we pass it. Above is the soccer player Wayne Rooney who the Koreans think Blake looks like.

Public Transit in Korea

It's hard to believe we've completed our first term of teaching. We have now been in Korea for 15 weeks. 3 more terms to go and we're home! I'd like to take this opportunity to detail some of our recent adventures with public transportation in Korea.

Blake and I have been getting pretty confident with our navigating skills and are becoming quite adventurous around Daegu. Last Sunday our good friends from church offered to give us a toaster oven that they didn't ever use. We were thrilled because we don't have an oven in our apartment (ovens aren't common in Korea) and it presents a whole new assortment of meal options. The only trick with this toaster oven is that we had to get it from our friend's apartment to our apartment which is quite a distance away. Our friend told us to catch the 403 bus in order to get home so we stood at the bus stop and waited for a really long time. At this point I should mention the fact that a fellow teacher had told us that any bus that had a '4' in it went right by our house. When the 403 still didn't come, we thought we'd try our luck with the 649 bus (keeping in mind we have a huge toaster over with us).
As we continued to ride this bus, we keep assuring ourselves that it was making a big circle and would eventually come back to our home. When all the Koreans got off the bus and we were sitting there alone with our toaster oven, the bus driver looked at us with a funny expression on his face. We said, 'Bummuldong?' (our home) He laughed and laughed at us and gave us the thumb for us to get off his bus. So Blake and I and the toaster oven got off the 649 and found ourselves on a little travelled highway at 11:30pm with no sidewalk and no lights. Feeling quite stupid at this point! Koreans stare at us white people as it is, let alone being on some abandoned road stumbling around in the dark lugging a huge toaster oven. We had no money on us and and we were a little concerned when we couldn't find any taxis. We had absolutely no idea where we were and couldn't even ask anyone for help!
Well I guess we could ask for help, but it wouldn't do us any good.

A taxi finally did show and when we said 'Bummuldong' to the driver he turned and said, 'Daegu?' We were totally outside of Daegu!

We were never so happy to arrive in Bummuldong! Home sweet home! We were thankful the taxi driver let us go to a bank to get money for the very expensive taxi ride back home.

So we learned a few lessons the hard way... All buses with a '4' do NOT go to Bummuldong, always carry some extra money for those emergency taxi rides and NEVER EVER get on the 649 again!

All in all, we got a tour of the city and a deal on a fantasitc toaster oven...we just try to forget the fact that we paid for it with the taxi ride home! ;)