A Fun Filled Weekend in Gwangju!

Hey Friends,

First off, I want to congratulate my sister Kim and her new Hubby Lorenzo who got married this past weekend! I’m so happy for them and super sad I missed the occasion. So, in order to keep the sadness away over the weekend I kept myself super busy.

On Friday night I went to a 'Guitar Bar' which is in my neighbourhood and only a short walk away. It was fantastic! They have a folk/cover band there that plays both Korean and English music. They were amazing and the bar was full of fun loving Koreans. It was such a good night for me and my appreciation for Korean grew stronger. For those who know me well know that I love live music and so I hadn't really heard any since I arrived and this is just what I needed. We ended up meeting up with tonnes of great foreigners and had some hilarious interactions with some really drunk Koreans. I ended up closing the bar with a few other stragglers and when there was only four of us left one of the band members played a few more songs while sitting at the table with us.

I've found this wicked group that a Korean girl named Han Na has started. It's called the Warm Hands Project and her mission is to bring Koreans and Foreigners together. The idea of it is that the Koreans can practice there English and the Foreigners can get help deciphering the culture all the while doing fun things like dinners and art classes.

As part of the Warm Hands Project Saturday afternoon I went to a leather working class. It was super cool! It ended up being a small group of 5 girls and we had a ball. We each got to pick what we wanted to make and then had to decide on designs and colours. I picked to do a wallet. It was all very overwhelming for a few of us because of all the decisions and the amount of people in the little workshop. Plus, I don't want to generalize but from my personal experience when Koreans do things they do them fast. I sometimes have a hard time picking my socks in the morning so picking designs and colours out takes me some time :) :) So, basically you have metal stamps/stencils that you use a hammer to embed the designs into your leather. Once that’s complete you use cotton gloves to brush your paint on and you can combine colours if you’re daring! We all had moments of frustration and feelings of failure however, all of our projects turned out well and we laughed a lot while doing them.

After our workshop we met up with the rest of the group to go out for dinner and drinks, it was delicious!

On Sunday morning I woke up early to call Quebec City to wish my sister and my new brother in-law all the best. It was so nice to talk to them and hear that all was going really well and that everybody was having a great night.

On Sunday afternoon I met up with some friends to go ice skating. HA! It was pretty wild and reckless. The skating rink was packed with people flaying themselves all over the rink. People were kamikaze, but somehow nobody seemed to be getting hurt (except the one guy I saw do a face plant into the open rink door...yikes!). You were not allowed to skate in the middle of the rink as it was dedicated to young figure skaters and speed skaters who were training. I have no idea how any of those athletes managed to stay focused with the small space and the chaos happening around them but I guess they are use to it.

So, now I'm back at school for another chaotic week of teaching English to young children! All I have to say is thank god they are cute!

The Pros and Cons of a Canadian Country Girl living in South Korea

Hey Hey Hey!

Hope everyone is well and living it up! I'm into the middle of my 2nd month here in Gwangju and life is all in all pretty good. I'm still unsure of many things but have managed to stay happy and positive while dodging the weirdness. Everyday I'm faced with things that I really like about this culture and things that leave me wondering 'why oh why would they do that?’ With that in mind I've put together some funny and not so funny differences from my life in Canada to my life in South Korea. This picture on the right is from the Liberty Bell in downtown Gwangju.

The Bad:

• I have to put this one first as it is the most annoying to me- the consistent smell of car/truck fumes wafting down most streets


• Some enjoy eating cute little doggies!!! When I first got here I noticed a dog living in a small cage around the corner from me. My first thought was 'I hope that is a pet'. But, with time I noticed that nobody really played with it and feared that it was going to get eaten. I tried not to get attached and only gave it treats from time to time. Upon my return from Lunar New Year he was gone! I was fairly devastated.


• The packaging! For some reason they love to individualize everything they sell. For example, if you were to buy your standard soda crackers in the sleeve like form they would actually come in about 15 little packages.


• When you go to a grocery store it’s as if you are going to Wal-Mart the day before Christmas except that it’s that busy every day. So I tend to stick to my small local chops.

The following can be good or bad depending on what kind of day you are having:

• The inquisitive, curious, glares/glances you get most of the time when in public. A girl described it once to me and I think it is the best way to say it -‘Some days I feel like a queen and other days I feel like an animal at the zoo’.

The Goods:

• Cheap healthy/unhealthy food! Kimpab is one of my faves. its Korean style sushi and you get a roll for a buck!


• Heated floors everywhere as most people sit on the floor. My apartment has them as well so when I do yoga it's like my very own little hot room yoga.


• The random people who cheer you on when you are running like you’re in a race! It gives you a real boost!


• Cheap Cabs! You can get anywhere in the city for under 8 dollars but usually only about 5!

I'm drawing a blank now as I sit here and write so I'll stop there and as things come to me I'll post them on here.

Peace and love from Korea MUAHH

The picture below is of the cute Vegetarian restaurant in my neighborhood:

Lunar New Year Korean Style

Lunar New Year for Koreans is one of the two biggest celebrations of the year. It is a time for all to return to their hometowns and spend time with their families. As well they go to the graves of their ancestors to show their respects by bowing to them. At my school I got the opportunity to dress up in traditional clothing (Hanboks), play traditional games and eat traditional food. It was super fun and really interesting. All the kids wore their Hanboks, they were soooo cute!!

Because of this celebration I got a few days off. In Korea you don't get many days off so you have to take advantage of every minute. So, five of my friends and I went to Jeju Island. It's the furthest South you can get in Korea although that doesn't mean that it is hot but definitely a little warmer.

It was fantastic!! We took the Ferry from a small town called Wando to the port in Jeju-Do. The islands along the way were beautiful and the water was that really nice blue that I love so much! The Ferry experience was great as the waters weren't too rough, but I've heard that if you get a windy day it can be pretty terrible.

Once we arrived in Jeju-Si (the biggest city on the Island) we found a Mexican restaurant!! I haven't been eating too much western food since I arrived in Korea so this was a nice treat. Once we had filled our belly's we took a city bus for about 45 minutes to our resort. We scored big time! Our accommodations were right on the beach with tonnes of beautiful nature including palm trees, a small stream and a really wicked rocky shoreline. The first night we stayed at the hotel and rocked the Nori-Bang (Karaoke) rooms.
On our second day we had a driver with a minivan to tour us around the island. I had been reading lots about the island so I got voted as the team leader for awhile which meant I got shotgun (yup still winning shot gun across the world Court, Mahal and Meag! :) ) Here are some of the highlights:

• Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak- an extinct volcano from about 100,000 years ago. We climbed to the top were we saw an amazing view! It was interesting as I had never thought about what the inside of an extinct volcano looked like. It basically looks like a big shallow field that you would want to frolic in (well I would).


• Random Korean grocery store- We were hungry after the hike so we wanted to get some food, but as it was the actual day of Sollal (New Years) everything was closed. We managed to find a grocery store that was open and decided on Ramen (noodles) which sounds boring doesn't it? However, we ended up eating in the back of this grocery store and the grocery store worker made us rice and gave us kimchie and other side dishes! It was delicious she even handed us some bananas as we left. Koreans are so very accommodating and caring (sometimes).


• Lava Tube and more random things- We walked through a really big cave where lava had once been flowing. In Korea they tend to take something really natural and add more things to make it more of a tourist attraction. So at this same place we saw an amazing cactus exhibition (I took lots of pictures for my aunt who loves cactuses), crazy ostriches, wicked trees and many more randomly cool things.


• Orange Farm- We stopped at an orange farm where we were able to pick oranges from the tree and wander around.
• 2nd Volcano Site- It wasn`t on the tourist map so we had the entire volcano to ourselves. We were inland and we could see to the coast where we had climbed the original volcano. We walked up the side and then around and finally down into it. It was really cool.


• Mystery Road- Basically some taxi driver was trying to find an address a couple years ago and he noticed that although he was going up a hill he appeared to actually be going down! It's pretty wild! We poured some water on the road and it worked it should have been going down the hill but it was going up! Wild!

The next day we took it real easy and went to the beach. We collected seashells, played a little football, threw a Frisbee around and just took in everything around us. We then returned to our hotel and had a Barbeque and then a campfire beside the ocean. It felt like home for awhile with everybody just sitting around the fire shooting the breeze. Hearing the ocean waves come in at the same time as the fire was amazing!

For our last day we were going to rent scooters but that didn't work out so we went back to the beach to play some soccer and take in all the sun. It was so nice out!! Then we left the boys for a bit and went to the saunas for some girl talk time J. We ended up meeting four other foreigners which was a nice surprise. That night we all went out for a great supper and then out for one to many drinks ;) .

It was a great trip balanced with both adventure and relaxation. Thanks for checking out my blog, love you all and sending you smiles wherever you are in the world! MUAHH!

Helping the world one Pebble at a time!

This past weekend I had an experience of a lifetime. On December 6th an oil tanker was punctured off the west coast of Korea. 66,000 barrels of crude oil spilled out into the ocean and washed up along 35 kilometres of coastline. Most of the people who live along that coast are fishermen or are supported by the tourism from the beaches. However, with the spill all of these people have been devastated. So, in hopes of helping in some way I went with 3 of my friends to volunteer with the clean up mission.

It was an adventure. We woke up on Saturday morning around 6AM and made it just in time to grab the 7:20 bus headed north. We weren't really sure where we were going as we all forgot our guide books (I know sounds like my home friends!) which made it more interesting. The bus we were on was definitely the milk run. We had one transfer were we managed to find a huge dollar store and got some supplies. We then arrived in Taean. We knew we had to get to the city hall in order to get to one of the cleaning sites. So we got a cab and we knew we were in the right place when we pulled into the parking lot and saw tonnes of relief supplies like water and food. We managed to find a few people who spoke a little English and with many actions and laughs we got across that we wanted to help and that we had rubber gloves and masks but that all we needed were boots and a bus to one of the sites. We met this one guy who was amazing! He was so funny we managed to figure out that he was a forest firefighter. So he hooked us up with this other guy who spoke English really well and he took us in his car to one of the amazing beaches that have been devastated. For a minute we thought we might be heading there in the back of a huge truck and were pretty psyched!

The drive from Taean to the coast is about 20 minutes and is covered with Ginseng fields. They are wild to see, they look like huge fields of lean-to black tents. We discovered from the guy who was driving us that 17,000 volunteers were helping all along the coast on that day and there was 16 different sites where volunteer missions are set up (were not sure that we got all these facts straight as there was still a slight language barrier, so don't quote me :) ). Once at the site we were set up with boots and coveralls and managed to book a 'convention' which is another word for a bed and breakfast for the night. Once all the logistics were figured out we headed down to the beach. It wasn't as shocking as I was gearing up for but that's because a lot of the oil has been buried by the tides coming in and out. However, the entire coast line is stained black and the smell of oil was unavoidable. The most shocking part of the entire experience was when we were showed what to do to help. Basically, we were given a bag of rags and showed to where you dig up oil covered rocks and then start cleaning each rock/pebble one at a time. It blew my mind that with all the technology in the world that this was the way to clean up this mess. Because of the tides coming in and out all the oil has been covered up or pushed back out to Sea. Although, in more murky areas in the bays you can see the oil sitting on top of the sand.

So, we found a good spot on the beach and in the sun and began to scrub rocks. We were surrounded by hundreds of Koreans doing the same thing. Many people came up to us as we stood out like a sore thumb. We were four of the few people wearing white coveralls and everybody else was in blue (representing Seoul) or yellow (representing Incheon). We met some great guys who we are going to stay in contact with and posed for many pictures with curious Koreans. After a few hours of this we were greeted again by our driver and told that we had to get going as the day was over.

Back on the road we travelled down a few sea side roads to our amazing beach house. We had a cute Korean style bed and breakfast. The owner made us and everybody else staying there some great soup and other essential Korean food like Kimchie and rice. It was fantastic! So tasty! We settled in for the night and managed to buy some Soju, beer and some mystery meat that the boys insisted we get as we had a BBQ.

The next day we cleaned right outside of where our bed and breakfast was. So we just walked down to the volunteer site and got geared up again. It was another gorgeous piece of coast with cliffs, huge rocks and an amzing blue colour to the water. We were again greeted by many amazing Koreans who were very thankful for our help. We packed it in around one in the afternoon and started our journey home.

It was a great experience and although I know our contribution was so very minor in the grand scheme of things I know we made a difference.