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Category — Travel

Yang Yang!

[NOTE - this post should come before Mountains, Gramaphones, and Carnivals, OH MY! but, so no one misses it, we have posted it here. Enjoy...]

Our time travel landed us about “2 hours” after we took off, and we basically lost a day of our life, either to the spinning or to the flight. After the slightly scary car ride we arrived in Yang Yang (3 and half hours from Seoul – right after the 14 hour flight :-) at our “Resortel”. We were greeted by some other students who are part of the “Talk” program – a new program similar to Epik for students still in college or recently graduated to teach afterschool classes around Gangwon-do (our province). They are mostly Korean-Americans or Canadian. Their energy and excitement was a sharp contrast to our confusion and exhaustion. In our dazed and confused state we settled into our large condo/room. The room was very large with only a bed and tv, a kitchen with a few dishes, and another completely empty room. We ate a snack then went to sleep after being up for most of a day and half. The Jet-lag (or the rock hard bed) kicked in at about 5:00am when both of us layed awake – waiting for the other to move. Once realized, we hopped up and went out to the beach for a stroll in the Sea of Japan Sunrise. It was cloudy, so we missed most of it, but the walk was nice and we got a better view of our temporary residence. The water was nice and the beach too – although littered with shells from fireworks and beer bottles. The picture above is an abandoned carnival ride outside our resortel. Yang Yang is a tourist destination in Korea – although it doesn’t seem to be thriving anymore :)
We walked for a bit and came back in before breakfast and a free day. We arrived earlier than most of the new teachers so we got a day to hang out with the other early-birds and explore the area. We walked up the hill at the end of the beach to an amazing centuries old buddhist temple. I knew when we came upon the first temple that this was going to be one of those years you never forget. At that point also it finally hit me that I was in the most foreign place I had ever experienced. Scary? – not really. I had a few people I barely knew but already liked and of course Kate to make it all feel comfortable. And of course the sweet old monks who spoke a few words of English and wanted our pictures :) Communication aside – people are people and I started to realize then how much that simple idea will help me adapt and feel at home here. I don’t know how to try to predict anything here.. and that’s amazing. Anyways.. We had a great time at the Temple and got some great pictures. We rented bikes at the hotel and walked around the beach a bit. All in all – a long but nice adapting day. We met many new people as they arrived from their various homes or most recent travels. People from all over the world – The US, Canada, Britain, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and even Thailand. The next few days were full of lectures and events aimed at helping us adapt to Korea and to teaching. As many of us have never taught before this was very valuable, and even for those who have, the general overview and structure of the Korean Classroom was very valuable. We learned fantastic bits of wisdom that have and will help us to be accepted in our schools and respected for our work. Oh and to make sure the kids actually learn something :) Every day felt like a week, and we were always exhausted in bed by 10 or 10:30 but it was a great way to ease into it all. I’ll post more information on exactly what our job is and whom we work for (EPIK) in a later post. This orientation was provided by EPIK for a week before we moved to our respective cities. It felt like summer camp with our friends most days – as we were sheltered from real Korean life for the most part :) I can’t say I was upset by that though. It was a great week… :)

-Chad

September 9, 2008   Comments Off

Mountains, Gramaphones, and Carnivals, OH MY!


Our last full day of orientation in Yang Yang was a full one filled with Korean culture. . . mostly. The day began with a bus trip to Mount Sorak, one of the most beautiful mountains in the northern part of South Korea.


We were hoping for a little more of a hike than we got. Koreans love to hike but all of their trails are paved and there are restaurants every few steps. Not true for all mountains but I know its not that far off. Despite the paved path, it was absolutely beautiful and we hope to get back to get onto the not paved trails soon.


This is a huge Buddha statue before the trail heads. Chad caught a few extra couples in this snap shot. We didn’t get their names to email it to them. ;)

A nice view from our little hike. There are supposedly some not so plush cabins we could rent if we wanted to get really crazy and do a two day hike. We’ll see if we can squeeze that in before it gets to chilly.

Okay, Mt, Sorak was stop one of this adventure filled day. We travelled back to our Resortel (which like to pronounce “resortle“), had lunch, and boarded the buses for our next stop, our Korean cultural experience. . . . the GRAMOPHONE MUSEUM! How Korean can you get?!


The museum was interesting. First we went into a screening room chalk full of speakers which Chad go talk about for days. We watched some music videos on a large screen tv and listened to the speakers.

The museum was started from a Korean man’s collection of gramophones. He received his first when he was 6 and I think he got up to multiple thousands in his collection.

Chad is pictured above with the first iPod!


Blending in with the scene.


Checking the acoustics.

After the museum we headed back to the Resortel for dinner. After dinner we saw a traditional Korean mask performance which was interesting. We wern’t ready to go to bed so Chad and I headed to downtown Yang Yang (tiny). We bumped into a couple of friends and stumbled upon and almost deserted carnival.


This lovely young woman pictured with me bargained with her friend so that I could play the dart game for a discounted price. I hit some balloons which means I got a pink rubber ducky like toy!


Our friend Alex (far left) played another game and won. His prize was a furry pink pillow with “I love you” written on it. Also with us in the picture between Alex and Chad is our friend Hai. :)

Thanks for checking in!

K

September 8, 2008   Comments Off

Up and Down

Drive. Take off. Land. Drive.
Saturday morning (the 23rd) we loaded up into Julie and Zane’s civic (THANK YOU!) and headed off to O’Hare. When we got to O’hare we drove to the international terminal, Delta was not listed there so Julie dropped us off at the Domestic Delta terminal. WRONG! We were right the first time. Julie was gone so we slowly arranged oursleves (2 large bags, 1 camping back-pack and one purse/computer bag each) and made our way up down over and around back to the international terminal. No big deal, just bags, bags and bags.
Speaking of bags, our bags were perfect. The night before we left Kokomo we loaded into the car and drove to Chad’s Dad’s church to weigh our bags. After some shifting around and some major adding to our carry on, all of the bags became about 2 lbs under the weight limit, wiggle room is always good. When we checked our bags the woman asked us if we had weighed ahead of time. We were that spot on!
Okay, big bags gone, we made our way to security. I took off my jewlery, chad got rid of his belt, no problem! I went through, no beeps. My bags went though, no beeps. Chad went through, no beeps. Chad’s backpack went through, BEEP BEEP BEEP. Okay, no beeps, actually a security oficer’s face became incredibly stern and staring at the monitor he uttered, “Oh. My. God.” Seriously, I watched the man. I felt like I was in some hoaky police movie and I was going to lose Chad to a white room and lots of men in uniforms. Bomb, no, but close to it on a computer screen in the international terminal at O’Hare. As most of you know, Chad likes electronics. One of his carry on bacgs became harddrive mecca (this was due to the check-in pounds explained above.) He got through fine. :)
After a helter-skelter experience at O’Hare we made it onto the plane safe and sound. The plane gently transported us for 14 hours over Canada, Alaska and Russia (that what I can remember) we landed in Incheon (and island slightly west of Seoul). At Incheon we got through customs with no bumps.
Lunch on the plane. So yummy!
Lunch instructions! Due ot the fact that we do not look Korea, the flight attendant took some pitty on us and handed us an instruction sheet for our lunch!
This is Chad eating his lunch. Along with the Bibimbap there was seaweed soup, a roll, two side dishes of vegtables and wine. I am getting a little ahead of myself but I just want to mention that our meal on the plane was the last meal we had before we ate Korean’s version of Western food in a caffeteria for about 5 days. We should have taken more pictures.

This picure is not that interesting but the little man we saw when we took this picture was. As we drove through the toll booth we were sternly greeted by figures in orange militant looking uniforms. Each figure was adorned with a tan face mask complete with eye holes.
Maybe my favorite picture so far, the first scultpure we found in Korea! It was right outside of the airport.

Some apatment buldings on our drive toward Yang Yang.

This is our “plane bling” video. Chad also took videos of us taking off. Panic! :)

Well everyone, thanks for reading. Some time in the near future (assuming home internet is in our near future) I will set up the blog so you can get emails everytime we post instead of you having to check all of the time.
Happy first day of school to everyone starting up soon!
K

August 30, 2008   1 Comment