Great version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer by Ray Charles

Hi all. I wanted to teach my grade 5's how to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and came across this fantastic version from Ray Charles. It totally bombed with the kids as the lyrics are pretty hard to learn, but I really like this version. Man could this guy sing. Turn up the volume and enjoy. Missing our family friends especially this time of year, but so it goes. Hope all the preparations for the holidays is going well back home.

Christmas parties in Korea

Another wonderful weekend for Ellen and I. We were invited to a bad sweater Christmas party on Friday and on Saturday we attended a very nice UNESCO dinner in Gwangju (one hour bus ride).

The theme for the party on Saturday was bad sweaters. I fell short for the dress portion, but others did a great job.

Here is one of our hosts, Dean. He is actually from Guelph and has friends in common with Ellen. Awesome sweater. He is making us some popcorn. Old school style on the stovetop.


Here is Dean's girlfriend Chelsea with their batch of eggnog. Made from scratch with nutmeg sent from Canada. No way you would find eggnog in the stores around here. It was very good.



I was checking to see what time some of the boyz were going to show up and make sure they had the directions. My outfit was a red Christmas ball on my shirt (Rudolph in a snow storm) and the antlers. Thanks Ellen!!


Here is Chris. One of the guys I play hockey with on Thursday's. He is snug in his womans red sweater. Nice. Chris went to University of Guelph for some time. Small world eh?



He is Andy. He is from Dryden and is married to Jane. They are posted on an Island and takes them 3 hours by boat to make it in to Mokpo to visit. We've had them over for dinner and get along with them really well.



Nick here is from Minnesota and made his own shirt. He is a very good hockey player and also plays hockey with us on Thursday's. He was going on TV the next day to shoot a Korean cooking game show. He was out like a trooper!!! He made his own sweater too!!



Here is Ellen showing the gang her chin-up abilities. I'll let her tell the story.


The UNESCO dinner was the following night. Don't bother looking for us, as we are not in this shot. Very few shots of us, but we had a great dinner. 25 of us also went on stage to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Christmas in Killarney (Irish Christmas song).



We finished the night walking around Gwangju and looking at the Christmas lights.


Really nice weekend to put us in the Christmas spirit. We only have 8 more days of classes to teach then Christmas break. I am off until Mar. 3rd if all holds up well. Ellen is teaching two weeks in January. The beauty of teaching. I'll enjoy the break and hopefully with things are back home, I won't be off for two months next Christmas. Hopefully I'll find a job ok. Times are tough, but we feel great and optimistic!! Bye for now.

Teaching action shots!!

These are really boring and dark, but they are the only shots I have of my teaching. Our admin took them for some reason. I was told the day before to look good. Good thing, 'cause they are really great shots...not. My grade 5 class look attentive and standing up there with me is Mrs. Ahn my dedicated and very helpful sidekick. She is great at keeping those kids in line. They are really cheap with the heating in Korea. This was my first class of the morning. The class is cold when we get in and it takes sometime to get 'er warmed up. Hence, the scarf. Yes I know it does look very stylish, but that is only a secondary benefit. Haha!!






There it is. Proof that I am actually doing some teaching over here.

If you have not noticed, you can now click on the picture to make them bigger. I just noticed this now, but it only works for recent picture posted. None of my doing, but some higher power is allowing this to happen. Anyways, try clicking on a pic. Later.

Let it snow, let it snow.

We knew we would see some snow a couple times, but all of Mokpo was surprised to see it actually stay on the ground. It snowed close to 5cm last Friday day and night. When we woke up Saturday morning, we could not help but go for a walk and take some pictures.

Here is our little neighborhood street just outside our apartment building under snow.





It's business as usual for everyone. Guys are still making deliveries on their scooters, and they are still selling vegetables on the side of the street out of their trucks.







Saw some unusual signs that a true tells of the frequency of snow here in Korea. Check out this guys scrapping his windows!!




A couple pictures we took as well showing the scenery under snow. Must say it did look like it cleaned the place up to have it draped in white!!




We had seen this before. Looks like the dog is wearing earmuffs, but his ears are actually dyed.


This taxi cab was thinking. He threw on the chains. Saw a couple cars out there with them on. A couple levels safer than the guy riding his scooter eh?




The kids also had a blast in the snow. You can tell by the look on his face, he doesn't see this often. Actually...we've seen this look before...usually when the kids see us!!


We had time for a self portrait of course. Also a nice shot of the waterfront with the snow covered trees.







Here is more proof that you don't need to spend money to have fun. Check out the basic sled this kid is strutting. The girls are also sliding on some cardboard boxes. Good simple fun!!




Things are going great for us. We also had some friends over on Sunday for a Christmas baked good sharing party. We had some vin chaud and also spent the morning watching hockey with some friends. It's Monday now, and the snow has pretty much all disappeared. I also had a great start to my week today. I was on the phone with Drew, Denver and Frank. Our neighbours back home from Lakeview in Waterloo are all set-up on Skype and we made first contact this morning. It was great to hear Drew and Denver. Only three more weeks of school left. I am off on Holidays from Dec. 24th until March 3rd. Tough life! Post again soon.

Festival de l'école élémentaire d'Ogam

Re-bonjour de la Corée. Tout ce passe très bien pour nous et on s'amuse beaucoup avec notre temps libre avec plusieurs activités culturelles. Vendredi passé c'était le festival pour les enfants de mon école. Ils ont préparés un show pour leurs parents. Vraiment une grosse affaire. Le gymnase était décoré avec des fleurs et des balloons, et plusieurs mères sont venuent voir leurs enfants. Voici quelque photo.

Ici les maîtres de cérémonie habillé au max. Les filles en costume traditionnelle et les gars, et bien en tuxedo évidement.


Une orchestre complète avec le mari de notre vice principalle qui est un maestro professionelle.

Voice des filles de quatrième année habillées en costume traditionnelle qui nous montre une danse traditionnellement Coréenne.


Des enfants de troisième année qui avaient pratiquées une danse choreographiee avec des parapluies.


Pour une école du niveaux élémentaire j'avais trouvé le show quand même assez impressionant merci. Pour l'après midi, les profs allaient en randonnée pédestre. Avant la randonnée, on est allé a un resto. Mais pas n'importe lequelle. Un resto ou leur plat special c'est de la pieuvre bien fraiche. Non, mais vraiment fraiche. Checké bien ça!!


Très vivante dans le bol. En plus, c'est vraiment difficile des prendres, car ils se collents avec leurs ventouses de leurs tentacules après le bords du bol.




Lui il avait la tentacule collée après ça joue.


A mon tour d'essayer ça. C'était super gluant, pis je peux pas dire que c'éetait vraiment bon, mais pas mauvais non plus. On buvait aussi du Soju (20% alc) alors je peux admettre que j'ai pris une shot ou deux pour aider le goût. Il faut vraiment macher beaucoup car les tentacules on tendances a voulair se poigner après n'importe quoi. Un moment donné elle a essayé de se prendre dans ma gorge qui n'était pas super cool, mais je les sorties, pis remaché un autre `tit coup pour être certain.


Je peux dire que je l'ai essayé. Les profs m'expliquait que ça aide ta stamina. Ils me disaient, que ça m'aiderais dans notre randonnee. J'avais bien compris. Une randonnée de 4 km pour digérer.

Par chance qu'on a mangé de la pieuvre car le 2km en montant n'était pas évident. Pas tous les profs se sont rendues au sommet.


Nous on c'est rendu.


Juste pour vous montrer que le bois en Corée, ben yé épais!



Après notre randonnée, on tout le monde on est allé souppé. Et oui, manger encore. On était environ 18 personnes. La pour le souppé c'était plus dans ma pallette. On a mangé du poisson cru, des crevettes, des huitres fraiches et une soupe au fruit de mers qui était pas si pire. Il y avait plein de petit plats différent, au mois 15 différents choix. La gang a aussi tombé dans le soju, la bière et du vin Coréen au framboise. Tous les profs etaient assez feeling a la fin du soupper. Fini a 8pm j'etais de retour chez nous a 8:30pm.

Samedi très tranquil hier. Moi et Ellen on a joué au badminton. Aunjourd'hui dimanche, aussi très molo. Comme vous voyez, toujours des aventures en Corée. Bonjour a tous. Bye pour maintenant.

Korean kids are tough

UNESCO Volunteering Weekend

Ellen and I had last Friday off, as we had signed up to go to a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) weekend. This was organized through the Jeollanamdo Office of Education. We did not get too much info other than we were going to cook at some point and to buy what we needed. It was a fantastic weekend and we really loved it. The volunteers like us were both a mix of teachers and students. There were people from the US, Canada, Nepal, Gabon, China, Tanzania and New Zealand. The teens participating at the event were 13/14 years old. The kids had been selected by their school to attend, and usually only one or two from each school. All the smartest kids in the province were there. Upon arrival on the bus at the camp facilities, there were 125 teens cheering and yelling "we love you" holding signs they had made that morning:

Kids had spent the morning making signs for us. Each person had 3-4 teens assigned to them for the weekend to interact with and learn each others culture as well as participate in the activities. There were opening ceremonies in a the International Hall where there were speeches by officials and then each group of kids gave us the signs they made us as well as our name tag for the weekend.


We were brought to our rooms which of course had the boys and the girls separate. Here is the boys view. On the right there is Kerry. A stand-up comic for 13 years from Edmonton, Alberta, he made me laugh all weekend. Ellen met up also with Nicki (on the right. Kerry's wife) and Jen who she had made friends with during orientation when we first arrive, but we had not seen since getting to Korea as they teach in a different town.




After some preliminaries, we jumped into the cooking contest. Each country was represented and made their own dishes. We decided to make des beignes come au Quebec. On voulais les faires aussi bonnes que celle a ma tante Reine, mais ils nous manquent encore de la pratique et surement quelque secret!!






After dinner we were treated to a show by three shows. A Concert by the Bridge Viola Chamber Orchestra, Modern Dance, as well as a Taekwondo demonstration. The shows were put on by people not part of the camp. They came by bus to put the show on for the kids and volunteers. It was quit a show we got which lasted just over two hours.


The orchestra had 8 violins, a grand pianist and also a clarinet player. Very nice classical music was played.



The dance was interesting, but got most of us out of our seats was the Taekwondo demonstration. Kids jumping/kicking off of kid made pyramids breaking boards:


This little guy is skipping inside a double dutch jump rope (2 ropes).



There were also about 3 choreographed dances including standard poses that were done to very popular Korean pop songs. They were really into it, and you could tell they had practiced a lot!!


After the show wrapped up around 9:30, we headed to an observatory to look at the stars.




Once all the kids had gone to bed, they brought in some beer and Soju as well as lots of pizza for all of us and the staff to relax and have a snack before bed.

Saturday morning the kids were up at 6 doing exercises in the yard. You could here the military like orders blaring from the leaders. We got up close to 8:00am, had breakfast and then went on a 2.5 hour hike with the whole gang.

We stopped at the end of the hike for a team picture.


They all love their English writing on their sweaters. Doesn't matter what it says, as long as it is in English. Check out the guy in the yellow sweater. Says he didn't even know what it meant, but I'm sure he knows exactly and had looked it up on the net or something. We did laugh, but c'mon.


After a hike and lunch, it was time for us to mark our weekend with a Mosaic. This was the 5th annual camp at this location, and every year before, mosaics designs had been made by each country, then actually made. Here is one from a previous year:


Kerry who has the artistic sense help come up with design and then with a simple color/number system, the kids went at it cutting up the colours in shapes and gluing them onto the poster.



Here is most of the team with the finished work. It has Northern Lights, mountains, and an Inukshuk. Appreciate nature and its beauty when you get a chance to admire it, to remind you of the importance to keep it as it is and respect the environment (northern lights). The mountains are a sign of strength and beauty in Canada to prosper. The traditional meaning of the Inukchuk is "We were here" or "You are on the right path".



On the Saturday night we had to go up on this huge stage and each country would do an act or sing Karaoke and then have a fire. We had an animator break the ice with all these games that revolved around Rock Paper Scissor. In Korea, Rock, Scissor, paper is the Ultimate decider. They use it for everything...and they swear by the outcome. No matter who loses, they must do whatever. We use it in class if there is tie for a winner. One of the games, was the loser had to give the other a piggy back. I was teamed up with this tiny little Korean girl from my group. When she lost the for RSP showdown against me, she immediately turn around and hunched over waiting for me to get on. I told her it was ok, 'cause there was no way she was holding my 190 lbs up. We had a dance showdown later too. I showed them the worm. When came time for us to do our Canadian show, we did Stompin' Tom Connors (The Hockey Game Song). I went to the cafeteria, we got spoons for everyone. We also sang Oh Canada and a couple other tunes. Good times. Every country did a dance or song representing their country. Afterwards was the fire. Not just a fire though. There were roman candles, words lit up with gas, and a big fire fuelled with gas. Not super safe, but what the hay. That`s they way they do it.






The Frienship in flames was a little different, but appreciated by most all the same. The people from Nepal took it pretty personally though that Friendship was burning. All good.



What a weekend! Whenever there was some relax time, which there was, we filled the yard and played sports. Canadians had brought Frisbees and a hackey sac which was completely new to the kids. The US boys brought a football, which was also totally new to the kids. The Korean kids introduced some of their games as well. Like playing volleyball, but only with your feet. We had a wonderful weekend and we really glad we participated. Good laughs with our friends and also all the boys and girls we met. We really had an amazing time. Here is Ellen as we were saying goodbye with the girls in her group that stuck to her like glue. Everyone called Ellen barbie or movie star. She was a real hit with all the girls and some boys of course too.