Our first hike up Mt. Yudalsan...in the city of Mokpo

Like little kittens, Ellen and I are starting to stray a little further from home....little by little. Yesterday we went to the OTHER side of the city. Here is a map of Mokpo and it also shows our schools, where we live and where this hike took place:

CITY OF MOKPO

Found a way to get the picture bigger and also widened the blog so you can see these pics without losing too much detail. All good.

Ellen's school is at the top right. A little out of town down a country road. My school is on the right, which is a new area that is still under development. We live in what they consider a newer part of town, but don't let that fool you...there is still a few years on it. I'll tell you when I know. Relatively speaking though, everything is really close and accessible. We hiked Mt. Yudalsan which had a few stops along the way. Street level, before our assent, here is Ellen:
At the base of the hike, there was a nice Information centre that gave us paper copies of the map you see above. Nice to help visualize the city. Then our hike started. You want lush and manicured gardens, we were surrounded by them and everything was super clean.

We had some stops along the way at some temple like shelters. Here are a couple of those:

Funny thing is that along the way, there were many other people hiking with us including a group of 6-7 older men. I caught the guy 3 times videotaping Ellen walking instead of the sights....guess he had his eyes on the sights alright. They also took many pictures with Ellen in the background...good to be the visible Western minority! By the way...no ladies were taking pictures of me....haha! Haft way up our treck to 320m or so.....Ellen taking a little break with a really nice shot to the city. Clear day actually. We have not really seen extremely bad smog so far.

Then the peak of the mountain....hill...ok mountain...we'd achieved the goal.

Another view of the city without our faces in it. Break time before heading back.

Those were our adventures yesterday. Today is low key for us. Likely rent a movie or something. Bye for now!!

No deer in Korea...but

Before we left Korea we were at Thom's place in Grand Bend. Doing dishes, we looked out and saw a deer walking across the back yard. Here is a shot of that deer....not very close of course.

Well....in Korea, we also have had encounters. Ellen and I went for a walk in behind the institute where we stayed last week and we came across:

Not sure about those guys as far as being scared of us, or wanting to protect their ground, so we just doubled back. Some of the many differences between Canada and Korea.

Arriving in Mokpo

We were both supposed to get picked up at the institute by our co-teachers, but Ellen's girl got lost and did not make it. My co-teachers 4 door could not fit her, her husband and the little boy with us and our luggage, so we had to have a big wig supervisor guy drive Ellen and I to my school first. The plan was to have our co-teachers meet us there which did end up working, but Ellen's co-teacher was late....and when she sat down in the principals office (which was pretty nice with a huge 10' round glass table surrounded by 10 letter sofa chairs) a few words were exchanged and she started to cry. We felt really bad for her, but all was good after that. My school was built in March of this year and is brand new. Here I am in front of my school:

It is the only school with its own soccer field with grass. I must admit it is really nice. Check out the inside of my class. It is a dedicated Language Lab...this is where I'll be spending my days handling the grade 3-6 class....average class size is suppose to be 30, but the grade 4 class I believe is 40. I'm thinking that I'll find Toyota was a breeze compared to this. Anyways...probably good time to also add that we are not teaching this week either. We start Sept. 1st, so this week is off. Alright, here is the class...without kids...so quiet.
Class had two computers, nice team desks, a drop down projector and a drop down projector screen. It has a touch screen podium station...really I will have no excuses. Each class I am suppose to have the actual class teacher show up to my class to help with discipline and stuff. We did learn how to make rules and what work and does not work for disciplining of kids. A three strike system was suggested. First strike for the kid, he needs to sit quietly and behave or its to the second strike. Strike two...it was recommended that you have him/her sit in the back with their arms in the air. Try that for 5 minutes...they will do it...so much so that make sure you don't forget about the little one, 'cause they will literally do it until they fall over. Last strike is to send them into the hall...this is open season on this kid if another teacher walks by, or if the teacher in the class gets a hold of the kid. Now, this is based on other schools and really my school may be totally different and will maybe not require any of the above steps, but still...a little wild. Even teachers smack each other around apparently as Koreans are very direct at times. I will update this condition as I get more experience..I am just sharing some worst case scenarios for now. Alright....lets move on to our apartment. They have some huge stores here. E-mart, Homeplus and Lotte Mart are all 3-4 levels. A grocery level that is super clean and looks like a Sobey's type place...one level is like walking into Zellers or K-mart...clothes, pots and pans, everything you need. So...we have been filling in some of the gaps in our apartment. We had the following in our apartment: Microwave, large fridge, 2 gas burners, double bed, dresser, closet, TV, DVD player, pots/pans, dishes, glasses, cutlery. Things that we purchased to close the gaps...rough price in brackets: found a mini oven (39...was on for 49 but last model on floor so we got a deal...cooked chicken in it last night....perfect), large pot for making spaghetti sauce, cooking knife, Pyrex cooking dish, shower curtain and bath mat. That's about it. The apartment was also super clean when we got there. Here is a couple shots of it:

Pis mom...on a tes torchons en place. Pas pire la cuisine? Ellen voulait qu'on montre notre fridge vide! Vraiment propre....nous sommes au 6ieme etage du building. Tu peux aussi remarquer que notre linge est etendues dehors....pas de secheuse en Koree. On a une laveuse dans notre appart. Aucun problem...on est bien installe, alors ne t'inquiete pas!!

We have also been hitting the pavement in Mokpo to find out what's what and where is what. Here is us around town a little. Waterfront boardwalk, on an overpass to safely cross the street.

So that's it for now. Plan this week is to find some bikes, get Internet hooked up so we can call, get a cell phone (one only for both of us and no land line as we will call using Skype). Friday we are also going to get our Banking done with my co-teacher Mirah and get our Alien Registration Card. Would also like to join gym so I can lose some weight. Taxi cab driver called me sumo guy when I got in the other day...thanks pal!! haha. Later.

End of Orientation Week

Hey again and what else did we do last week? Before getting picked up on Friday we had a chance to detail some traditional fans at the Gwangju National Museum and also had a chance to take a group picture.

That's the whole gang up there and I'd say 80% were from Canada and others from the States. People from BC, the Peg, Edmonton, and Ontario. Not too many engineers in the gang, but many qualified teachers, philosophy, Laurier Business guy and even a Yuk Yuk's stand up comic!! We had a chance to venture the streets and Ellen went nuts when she saw the shoes for 10 bucks or 10,000 Won. Good thing there a little small for her. He we are in the streets of Gwangju and also stopping in with the gang for some good lunchtime eats. Actually, was pretty good. We had rice served in a Bamboo glass, and had a variety of vegetables, fish and meet dishes to mix into our rice. There were also lettuce leaves which we used to make mini wraps. I did enjoy some mini anchovy types things.

Here we are later in the evening belting out some tunes at a local Karaoke bar. The bar was called German bar and is mostly a foreigner bar, so in no way represents what traditional Karaoke rooms would look like in Korean. I'm sure we'll show you later this year.

I'm sandwiched between Kerry and Norm. Both great guys, but neither of them are in Mokpo, however, visits will be needed. Good part about meeting people from all over the province of Jeollanamdo as we will have an opportunity to visit. Alright...that wraps up the orientation...next is us on our own. No more hand holding and off we go.

Arriving in Gwangju and orientation week

Anneyong Haseyo and yes we have arrived safe and I have not needed to go to the hospital....except for our blood test and urine test of course. Ellen and I had a good thirteen hour flight and were greeted at Toronto airport by our placement agency (Canadian Connections) director Shane Finnie. He was with us and about 30 other teachers for the flight and also the whole week up until last Friday.


We were brought from the airport to the Jeollanamdo Language Program Institute where Ellen and I shared a room complete with bathroom...reminded me of University dorms. We were given meals three times a day, we had classes on how to manage our students, teachers gave us the low down on what to expect in class. You are going to be a star, kids will be staring at you constantly, and don't be shocked if you see some corporal punishment if the kid acts up. The facilities also included a gym which we use with the other teachers we met to play ping-pong, volleyball and some badminton. Great bunch of people we met. Here we are at a historic village with our co-teachers. Mirah Park on the left is the co-teacher assigned to me while Seul gi is Ellen's. We even had time to play some good old throw the stick in the tube! Good times let me tell you...but seriously it was a good day...especially when you have statue like the one below to break the ice.



I was walking around with my co-teachers husband. He is also an English teacher and has excellent English skills. Within 10 minutes he told me that he did not understand why we were there as he had many friend who were qualified English teachers and did not have jobs. Thanks for holding back buddy. Did not mean disrespect, it is Korean culture to be quite direct. No worries, we just kept chatting about other things. I got the hint. Good thing we came across this statue to break the ice a little:

We sat down for some lunch...and no not all my posts will be this detailed, but its my first, so just let me be..ok?




Look at the smile on Ellen's face of eating that delicious cabbage with hot red peppers and also trying to keep it together while I eat my fish based soup with shrimp. Not bad...good thing there was rice and a good selection of non-spiced vegetables. All good!! Wait until you see below what else we had the next day. The afternoon was spent at a Temple which had 120 practicing monks. Here are a collection of shots....I'll start cutting the comments a little.

I'll cut this post now as this was quite a busy first post focusing mainly on one day. Wait until you see tomorrow!!!! We really had a great week being toured around in an air conditioned first class bus with a flat screen showing Olympic games. Met some really great people both in Mokpo with us and others within an hour or so, and we are planning on visiting for sure. Next I'll show you some more of the week!!!