First Blog! Woohoo!!

Hello Everybody!

I'm so excited to finally join the 'blog' world! My very own little Internet spot! I hope that this message finds you happy and healthy!

I'm about a month and a half into my South Korean English teaching adventure. It's been quite the trip...with many highs and many lows! I feel like every day I learn something new about kids and about dealing with people who have no idea what you are saying to them. I'm slowly picking up some of the Korean language and hope to be able to read it within a month or two. So far I can say- Thank you, please, left, right, straight, my address, be quiet, read, repeat, bad, really bad!, hello, goodbye, and my favourite Cheers!! (kombae).

So, I've settled into my cute little apartment pretty nicely and I'm adjusting to everything fairly well. My school life has been very interesting and frustrating all at once. I'm working at an Academy otherwise known as a Hagwon. This means that it's a school where parents pay for their children to come and learn English. I teach 4-7 year olds in the morning and 7-14 year olds in the afternoon. You would all have a laughing attack if you saw some of the crazy things I come up with to keep these kids entertained and learning.

I teach from Monday to Friday from 10-6:30. Outside of those hours I've found lots of fun things to do. I'll give you all little run down on what I've been doing and I'm going to do it bullet form (because I can..hehe ) :

• Found the local foreigner hang outs (I have a few bars in my city where lots of other English Teachers hang out)
• Visited Buttah! One of my fellow UCers from Laurentian. I went to visit him for New Years. He lives about 5 hours north east of where I am. It was great we partied it up Laurentian style and I got to see the Sea of Japan via an amazing beach.
• Hiked two mountains. One is super close to my house and only takes about 30 minutes to get to the top. From there I can see a great view of the city! It's pretty wild most people live in huge apartment buildings that all look the same. Plus, you can see the big World Cup Soccer stadium (in the spring I get to see a game!)
• The other one is called Mount Mudang and it's the third biggest mountain in Korea. A big group of us went last Saturday. It was really nice to get out of the city and into some fresh air (see pictures for more of a visual).
• I've been on many walks were I've been entertained by the daily life of a Korean city. For those of you who know me well I'm such a people watcher. Well, this is one country that I could just look for hours on end! So, many random things to see!

In a few weeks it's Lunar/Chinese New Year which is one of the 2 bigger celebrations in Korea. I get about 5 days off so I'm heading to a small island of the coast of Korea with a group of great new friends. I'm buying a camera real soon ( I know I've been saying that for awhile but I'm serious this time!) so I will take tonnes of photos and post them.

I miss everybody at home a lot but know that this year will fly by and I will be back with many stories and a better idea of what the hell I want to do with my work life in Canada!

I think of you all often and wish you all the best in 2008!

Peace and love from Korea