I must be one of the worst bloggers since I very rarely update it. So much has been going on. I'll do my best to fill you in. Let's see. I've been in Seoul 2 months now, almost to the day. But I feel like I've been here a lot longer!! It's been great so far! I've met some really cool people. My school is just 'okay'. But I'll survive. Good news!!! Something I've been praying about!! Reuben & I found an amazing english speaking church today!!! I'm so excited! It's very missions focused with a global vision!!
This was my first Christmas to EVER be away from family. So on Christmas Day, it was sad. But it was still a great Christmas! We opened presents at Dianne's. Over the xmas break Christina & I went to China, Hong Kong & Macau. I could TOTALLY LIVE IN HONG KONG!! I LOVED IT SO MUCH!!!
Our journey started off in Beijing. We left Seoul on Christmas Day. Oh, Dianne had a Christmas Eve Party/Christina's birthday at her house, was fun.
So we flew in to Beijing.
We stayed at the same hostel as my friend Megan & another Christina. We went to the Forbidden City (was cool, but really big!!). It was a city that was closed to the public, only royalty was allowed in. That's where the Dynastys & Emperors lived. That night we went to an incredible acrabatic show with the 2 Megans & 2 Christinas. The show was mainly kids & teenagers, some adults. They would get in the most unnatural positions. So talented!!
But it was kinda sad, that some of them were so young! There's no child labor laws in China.
Next day was pretty interesting. We decided instead of going on a tour to The Great Wall, that we would find our own way there. Uh-oh, we should have known better. But it turned out to be an unforgetable experience. So, we read that we're suppose to take Tourist Bus #2 to get to the wall.
We went to Beijing Central Railway Station like it said & looked ALL around! Couldn't find the bus anywhere. And no one spoke a word of english. Time was of the essence because we had already booked an overnight train to Shanghai for that evening. I was determined to go the the wall, christina didn't care all that much. SO I decided to ask a taxi driver how much it would cost & how long it would take (if we could make it back in time for our train).
He said it would take 6 hours & that was out of the question for us. Feeling defeated I turned away & we started to think of how we would spend the rest of our hours in Beijing. I was really bummbed, I mean, that was the main reason for going to Beijing!! This guy came up to us & said he could take us & it would take 2 hours round trip....totally doable!! Christina made it very clear that she thought it was a horrible idea! But, if you know my stubborn way of traveling & how I can be a bit nieve when it comes to traveling & trusting people, we went for it! The guy took us to his car (that's right, not a taxi driver, just his car). But it was totally understandable to me, he wanted to make some money. So it took about 1.5 hours to get there. We got out, found a toilet, walked up some stairs, saw a very brief view of the wall. But even though it was a fainting glance, it was TOTALLY worth it!
The wall is incredible!! I would love to spend HOURS there! If only we had had more time. But, at least we got to go & see it & walk around a bit.
Next, we took an overnight train ride to Shanghai. The train was one of Christina's highlights from the trip. We shared our cabin with 2 older chinese guys. You should have seen the look on their faces when they opened the door & saw 2 white females...they look scared to death. So funny!
We arrived early the next morning in rainy Shanghai. The area we were in seemed a bit dodgey. We had already decided to just spend the day in Shanghai & to go ahead & book a train that night to Hong Kong (so we could spend more time in warm weather!). So we went immediately to buy our tickets. Turned out they were sold out till Dec 31, which gave us NO time to spend in HK since we were leaving the night of the 1st to go back to Korea. We were bummed. So we spent the next few hours deciding what to do. We ended up booking a flight that day to Hong Kong. A bit out of our budget but turned out to be worth it!! I'd like to go back to Shanghai sometime, i'm sure it's a cool city.
So we got to Hong Kong that night & immediately were happy with our decision. Warm humid weather, just the way we like it!! I instantly liked HK!
SO INTERNATIONAL!!! Everyone spoke English! We got to our hostel, a rough area! People were from ALL OVER THE WORLD in our area! The next day we went to a ton of markets! They had really good cheap shopping! That night we met 2 guys that we hung out with the whole time. Dan, from Miami, who is a chef in HK. And Adrian, who is from HK but lived in Canada for most of his life. They showed us all around & were extremely hospitable.
On New Year's Eve we took a ferry to the island of Macau (a former Portugese colony).
We just went for the day. I loved Macau! I felt like I was in Europe, surrounded by a bunch of asian tourists! It had cobble-stone streets, colonial architecture, plazas, and the twist....tons of Casinos! You would see a dilapitated building with a huge shiny casino behind it. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was amazing!, walked around, ate some portugese food for lunch, & headed back on the ferry to spend New's Year's Eve in HK!! We got ready at Dan's place & were going to meet up with him & Adrian when they got off work. We realized it was almost midnight! We looked out the window at the fireworks & saw the neighbors (who we had heard, sounded like a fun party!). They motioned for us to come next door. We ran over & made it there just in time for the countdown! So we got to welcome in the new year with new friends! They were so cool! We stayed & chatted with them for awhile. They ALL spoke amazing english, they studied in Vancouver.
Then we headed to meet up with our friends. We went to this dodgey area where we ended up meeting these 2 Swiss-Australian brothers. They were a lot of fun. We went to this outdoor area where everyone was celebrating the new year. So much fun! We went to get some food & when we were finished & walked outside we were amazed to see that the sun was coming up! We pulled an all nighter, not intentionally! I guess it's true, time really does fly when you're having fun.
That day we took a much needed nap & packed for our overnight flight back to Seoul. Trip recap, 2 nights in Beijing, 1 night overnight train to Shanghai, 3 nights in Hong Kong, 1 day trip to Macau.....life time of fun memories!!
As far as Korea goes, let's see. I started taking Yoga & Korean Language lessons. I can read Hangal! Very exciting! Lunar New Year is coming up & Megan & I are going to Japan! I'm really pumped for that!
A group of us headed to Jindo, the very southwestern tip of Korea on a weekend at the end of April. It was about 4 hours or so by bus. We took a midnight bus & arrived SUPER early the next day...in fact too early, about 4am. The bus that would take us in to Jindo wasn't for another 2.5 hours. We thought about trying to sleep at the bus station, but ended up taking a cab to where the festival was. We totally lucked out & found a hostel right smack dab in the middle of the festival. So the peeps that went were Rueben, Megan, Tara, Lee, Ashley & Bonnie & we ended up seeing people we knew so they stayed with us too. The hostel consists of one big empty room for the 9 of us...& we sleep on mats. Not too comfy, but grateful for a place to sleep!
We all dressed up in traditional korean clothing (hanboks). The kids bow down to their elders and get money, so we practiced this at school. So cute! 
So teaching kindergarten is HARD WORK!! Oh my, much more difficult than I thought. My thinking before I left for Korea was, "they're little kids, how hard can teaching english be?" Boy was I wrong. It takes so much energy, patience, creativity, and hard work! 
We work pretty long hours, but it goes by really fast. I work with all girls & everyone is really cool. Christina went back to the states so we got a new foreign teacher, Catie, from Nova Scotia, Canada. Hyo (one of our korean teachers) is getting married so we got a new one, Ray. 
And of course there's still Cecilia, Serene & Dianne. We just started a new session at the beginning of March, so we got a lot of new students & new classes. It's been crazy busy! I'm teaching 8 classes/day. But I'm starting to like the kids a lot now! THey really grow on you! I've been staying super busy preparing & teaching. Not to mention, I'm working a 2nd job. It's through the headquarters of my school called Edubox. Basically, I am being filmed teaching lessons for public school students. I'm just talking to a camera though. I have to be loud, perky & really into it, so it takes a lot of energy. But it pays well so it's worth it! Let's see, what else has been going on?...we've been snowboarding a couple of times & I LOVE IT!!!!!!! I found my new favorite sport! I had done it before many years ago, but I didn't give it much of a chance. But now, it's so fun! I learned to turn so that makes it much better! We've been a couple of times here in Korea. I already can't wait till next season! 
I've also been doing yoga & I'm really getting in to it! Not the whole meditation part, (it's in korean so I don't understand most of what they're saying), but I've gotten more flexible & it just feels so good for my body! I found a new church that I LOVE! It's called Jubilee. I found out about it through Billy & now Megan & Tara are going too. We're going to join a Women's Bible Study so I'm super excited about that. Pastor David is AMAZING & the worship is incredible! That's about it. I moved in to Christina's apartment & it's SOOOO much better! It actually feels like a home. The bed is huge, I have a couch that folds out to a bed, a kitchen area that's separate from the rest of the apt & a big bathroom. God has been teaching me about patience & to be true to myself & HIM (no matter who I'm with or where I am in the world)...HE is always there.
So we decided to stay & check it out. Glad we did because we saw several geisha walking to their 'appointments.' It was kinda sad though because it was so crowded with paparatzi type people. (wonder if that's due to Memoirs of a Geisha)? Anyway, we had time to kill because we were taking the midnight bus from Osaka to Tokyo. So we arrived in Tokyo early the next morning, totally exhausted. I had started getting sick right before leaving for Japan & it started to settle in. I started feeling really bad, had zero energy. 
It was a beautiful way to see the Tokyo looking over the harbour by going on the Rainbow Bridge. 
Then we went to our hostel, took a nap, woke up & went to Roppongi that night. We ended up meeting this guy on the subway that tried to take us to the final day of the National Sumo Wrestling Competition, but the tickets were sold out. 
But we did end up taking a picture next to a sumo dude. We were utterly exhausted by that time so we went back to our hostel & took a nap. We woke up & went to Roppongi & saw the Tokyo Tower. 
There were some crazy fish, etc there! Still alive & moving around & fish I had NEVER seen before! We went to a temple that was in our area, close to our hostel. We got did this fortune thing & Megan got the worst fortune ever! Seriously, it was kinda freaky. Little did we know it was a forshadow of what was to come. 
Fun to people watch! There was defintely some crazy fashion, but I don't think quite as much as I was expecting. They had some weird hairdos. Oh yeah, we ate sushi like 4 times that day. SO GOOD!!! We stopped by Yoyogi park but wasn't much going on. It's suppose to be really interesting on the on the weekend but it was a Monday. It ususally has alot of outdoor activities like people playing in their bands, music instructions, dancing, sports, parading gothic fashion etc. 
Well, we went to the train station, went to check out where we were supppose to catch the bus (just to see where it was), then went back inside to get changed for the night, etc. We were just killing time. Well, the 'midnight' bus left at 11:20pm!!!!!!!!!! We MISSED IT! And there were no other buses or trains leaving for Osaka that night! SO we would have to buy an expensive bullet train ticket the following morning. A pain to spend that money, but that was the least of our problems. Everything around the train station was CLOSED!!! The station was closing & didn't open back up till 4:30am. We thought about getting a taxi back to our hostel but it would have been incredibly expensive. So, we decided to go back to the restroom we changed in & sleep for a couple of hours where it was warm. Well, we got kicked out of there. We were left homeless for the night. So we started walking around, trying to find any place that was open. It was COLD out! Nothing, abosultely nothing. So, we started getting desperate & were going to settle for sitting on some steps going underground, etc. But everytime we tried a place it was 'taken' by homeless people. 
We didn't understand how the most densely populated city in the world could totally close down! Seoul has 24 hour places all over. Afer walking for hours in the freezing cold, we sat down next to a building & huddled together to keep warm. We couldn't take it anymore & finally found a Kinko's that was open. So we had to pay to use their internet, at least we were warm! It was finally time to head back to the station. We bought bullet train tickets & headed to Osaka. It was a relief to get on the plane! We made it!
But it was kinda sad, that some of them were so young! There's no child labor laws in China. 
We went to Beijing Central Railway Station like it said & looked ALL around! Couldn't find the bus anywhere. And no one spoke a word of english. Time was of the essence because we had already booked an overnight train to Shanghai for that evening. I was determined to go the the wall, christina didn't care all that much. SO I decided to ask a taxi driver how much it would cost & how long it would take (if we could make it back in time for our train). 
He said it would take 6 hours & that was out of the question for us. Feeling defeated I turned away & we started to think of how we would spend the rest of our hours in Beijing. I was really bummbed, I mean, that was the main reason for going to Beijing!! This guy came up to us & said he could take us & it would take 2 hours round trip....totally doable!! Christina made it very clear that she thought it was a horrible idea! But, if you know my stubborn way of traveling & how I can be a bit nieve when it comes to traveling & trusting people, we went for it! The guy took us to his car (that's right, not a taxi driver, just his car). But it was totally understandable to me, he wanted to make some money. So it took about 1.5 hours to get there. We got out, found a toilet, walked up some stairs, saw a very brief view of the wall. But even though it was a fainting glance, it was TOTALLY worth it! 
The wall is incredible!! I would love to spend HOURS there! If only we had had more time. But, at least we got to go & see it & walk around a bit. 
SO INTERNATIONAL!!! Everyone spoke English! We got to our hostel, a rough area! People were from ALL OVER THE WORLD in our area! The next day we went to a ton of markets! They had really good cheap shopping! That night we met 2 guys that we hung out with the whole time. Dan, from Miami, who is a chef in HK. And Adrian, who is from HK but lived in Canada for most of his life. They showed us all around & were extremely hospitable. 
We just went for the day. I loved Macau! I felt like I was in Europe, surrounded by a bunch of asian tourists! It had cobble-stone streets, colonial architecture, plazas, and the twist....tons of Casinos! You would see a dilapitated building with a huge shiny casino behind it. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was amazing!, walked around, ate some portugese food for lunch, & headed back on the ferry to spend New's Year's Eve in HK!! We got ready at Dan's place & were going to meet up with him & Adrian when they got off work. We realized it was almost midnight! We looked out the window at the fireworks & saw the neighbors (who we had heard, sounded like a fun party!). They motioned for us to come next door. We ran over & made it there just in time for the countdown! So we got to welcome in the new year with new friends! They were so cool! We stayed & chatted with them for awhile. They ALL spoke amazing english, they studied in Vancouver. 
