Vacation to Busan and Japan

Brenton and I went to Japan for 7 nights over our summer vacation (via a few nights in Busan and the Ferry). This blog post will probably end up being quiet wordy so if that's not your thing stop reading now :-)

We spent 2 nights in Busan. The weather was terrible so no beach time for me :-(. On the Monday we went to Hyundai beach (in the rain) and to the aquarium there. That night we met up with our friends orientation (2 couples) and had dinner and a few drinks. It was really nice to see them. I thought it would be strange, seeing as we only knew them for 2 weeks 5 1/2 months ago (we have only kept in touch a little bit over facebook), but it was great. We went right back to sharing stories about our first days at school. It was like orientation was only a week ago! Hopefully we will get to see them some more over the next 6 months! 

Leaving Busan on the ferry

Tuesday we caught the high speed ferry to Japan (to Fukoka). I guess the ferry was really fast (it took about 3 hours), but it is hard to tell when there is nothing to judge the speed against apart from open ocean! It took us a bit longer to leave Fukoka than we had thought (it was hard finding an ATM that accepted foreign cards and we had no Yen) so a bus ride and 2 train trips later we were in Kyoto, we got there a little after 11.

Leaving Busan on the ferry

A high speed ferry going the other way

Kiyomizu-der Temple

Wednesday we did the suggested walking tour in the Lonely Planet, which included a few temples and walking through a couple of tradition neighbourhoods. It was really nice, but also really hot. The heat made the entire trip not quiet as enjoyable as it could have been. It was 35-40 everyday with the same level of humidity as Daegu. Because things are so much more expensive in Japan and we were trying to not spend to much it meant we didn't take as many breaks in coffee shops and the like as we should have!

Kiyomizu-der Temple

Thursday we hired bikes and rode to the Manga museum and another temple complex. Bikes were much better than walking because Kyoto is so flat it meant you could get out of the heat quicker! That night I went to have a look around a traditional night-life area. When I was riding my bike back to the hostel I went down some back streets and saw a Geisha walking towards me! She went into a house before I could get a photo, but pretty cool none the less!

Traditional night life area in Kyoto

Traditional night life area in Kyoto

                                                                         

Friday we were meant to go to Tokyo but I accidentally told our couch surfing hosts Saturday and Sunday so we stayed in Kyoto another night. 

Saturday we finally made it to Tokyo. I was worried we wouldn't be able to as apparently that weekend is the busiest for people going on holidays and all trains and flights out of Tokyo were full booked and there were 40 km traffic jams! Not as many people were going to Tokyo, so we only had to wait 45 minutes for a train with free seats. That afternoon we went to Shibuya crossing, a park and the observation deck in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Bullet train to Tokyo

Shubya Crossing

View from the government offices

Sunday we visited the Sony display centre, the Imperial Palace East Gardens, and an area where all the Cosplay girls apparently hang out (we only saw 2, but it was an interesting shopping area full of alternative kind of things).

Imperial Palace East Gardens

Cosplay Girls

Monday we moved from the couch surfing to our hostel. Then we went to electronics town and explored a bit. That night we went to Tokyo's oldest temple.

Tuesday was home again! So there is it a quick (ish) summary of our trip to Japan. Overall it was a really good trip, but like I already said the heat took it down a bit. It was really interesting to see the differences between Korea and Japan, I thought they would just be the same! Japan had a lot more varied fashion, obeyed road rules and the architecture was more varied than your standard grey apartment block. Korea does have some things over Japan, the public transport systems are much easier to navigate!

Who is your favourite sports star? ... Someone ...

Once the first semester ended and my students left school, I was still there to desk warm and run some holiday programs. I ran a week long holiday program at another school located nearby. This was a good change as I got to teach both boys and girls instead of my usually all girl classes.

I choose to do a hollywood themed program which covered movies, singers and celebrities during the week. I had a problem with one of my students who wasn't exactly well behaved.

I was having the students write down their favourite celebrities. Favourite actor, singer, sports star, etc. I walked around and read the students answers. I got to this particular student but couldn't see what he had written down.

Me: So, who is your favourite sports star?
Students: Someone
Me: Someone? Who?
Student: Someone!
Me: Who? You need to write down their name. What is their name?
Student: Someone!!
Me: Write down that person's actual name!
Student: I did.

The student then pointed to the student next to him to indicate this was his favourite sports star. I looked down to read what this student's name was and it read "Shong Won".

All this time the kid was telling me that his favourite sport star was the guy sitting next to him....not someone! The student's name was Shong Won.

Summer Camp

Summer vacation lasts for about 5 weeks but in my contract I only get 8 days off so I have to come to school for most of the vacation. Brenton has already written a bit about desk warming so in this post will fill you in about our other vacation activity: teaching camps. Before I arrived I thought that camps would be arts and crafts, outdoor activities and day trips. It's not, it is just English classes.This summer I taught 3 3 day camps for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. They were a lot more fun than normal class as the atmosphere was much more relaxed, we played more games and gave them long breaks. Here are some photos from my camps:

Grade 3 boys

Grade 3-playing a whisper game

Grade 3

Grade 3-playing the dress up game (Brenton's pants).
The kids had to whisper and item of clothing down the
 line and the last student had to find it and put it on.

Grade 2-dress up game (my boots)

Grade 3-closing ceremony (Golden Bell Quiz)

Grade 4 camp-the naughty boys

Grade 4

Grade 4-Countries pictonary

Grade 4-Taste test

Grade 4-Taste test

Grade 4-Taste test

Grade 4-Dress up game (my boots)

Grade 4-Dress up game (my sweater)

The average reaction to desk warming

To desk warm or not to desk warm....that is the question.

For those of you who are not familar with the term "desk warming" let me explain. This is when you have to sit at your desk at school with little to nothing to do. Your job is to be at your desk all day...that's it. This is something that many foreign teachers hate doing as it is a major waste of time and the school's money. The alternative to desk warming is having time off work which is much better than trying to amuse yourself at school.

When I came to Korea to teach at a school I was lead to believe that everyone would have to desk warm for a few weeks over vacation periods. I was happy to hear that desk warming was not an activity that occurs at my school. Apparently the last teacher was never made to desk warm.

A few weeks before vacation my main Korean co-teacher told me that this year all teachers at all schools have to desk warm. I was told that the office of education is enforcing this new rule. After speaking to other teachers from other schools I found that this wasn't entirely true...but I couldn't do much about it anyway.

So once again I accepted that desk warming was something I had to do. I even grew fond of the idea of being able to do whatever I like at my desk all day. But then, from out of no where, 2 days before my desk warming adventure would begin, the head teacher at my school spoke to me. He called me over by saying my name. This alone surprised me quite a bit. This guy speaks very little English and I didn't even think he knew why I was at his school, let alone my name. We exchanged a few sentences in our native languages. After he relised we couldn't communicate he called an English speaking Korean teacher over to translate. He told me that I did not have to desk warm and that I could have all of the vacation time off. I was wrapped. This teacher is far higher up the hierarchy than any other teacher.

The very next day, 1 day before desk warming would start, I had some heart breaking news. It turns out the head teacher was unaware of what my co-teacher was told so the decision was reversed and once again I was told to desk warm. I did not take this news well. Previously I was fine with the idea but after being promised freedom then having that stolen from me, I was pissed.

I am now in my 3rd day of desk warming and have calmed down. There is no one at school with me except one teacher, the gardener and some guys installing new windows in a classroom. I have no work to do and am very sick of spending my whole day doing the little things people do in their spare time (watch tv, play video games, surf the net). This may sound like a good thing, and don't get me wrong it was but one person can only do this for so long before insanity starts to kick in.

Life is normal

Here it is, more than halfway through July, and we have only made 1 post! Slack...

Life in Daegu has become very normal, particularly over June, since we stayed in Daegu (doing normal things like eating, shopping, seeing friends) for about 4 weeks straight.

2 weekends ago we were meant to be going on a beach party trip. The organiser had held the same trip for the first time the week before and the feedback was really negative. We heard that the buses left late, got lost, and there wasn't enough food or drinks. That weekend there were only about 90 people and the weekend we were scheduled to go there was around 500. We decided to go ahead with the trip as we didn't want us cancelling to effect our group of friends. So Saturday morning we were up bright and early and at the bus pick up point at 9am. When the buses hadn't left by 10:45 (after 2 false starts where we drove 100m down the road) Brenton and I gave up and got off. Of course the buses left about 5 minutes after that.

This weekend I went to the Mud Festival with some friends. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boryeong_Mud_Festival
I had a good weekend. The company I went with took us to the actual mud flats first (not the beach where they take the mud for the festival) and we played some games and did an army training course. Then we went to the actual festival where we spent the afternoon and night playing in more mud, swimming at the beach, drinking and eating. These photos are the same as the ones on Facebook, so sorry if you have already seen them!

Chicken Game at the mud flats

Army training

Another game

Fireworks at the festival

Over the next month my parents are coming to visit, we are going to Japan, and Kate is coming to visit, so I promise we will post more blogs!

Things are different in Korea-4

Korea does rubbish a little differently from home. When we first arrived working out the rubbish system was really hard. We were told all sorts of different things, which made me wonder if Koreans even know how the system works. This is what we decided to do (but if you come to Korea, don't take this as the rule it is only a guess!) Firstly you have to separate out your food scrapes and put them in a little compost bucket, which you can put out for collection 3 times a week. This is actually not quiet as disgusting as I thought it would be, and I can even clean out the bucket without dry retching (people who have seen my clean my bag teeth will know this is a pretty good accomplishment)! We keep our food scrapes in the freezer until we put them out to keep them from stinking up the house.

Our compost, waiting for collection on the doorstep.

Secondly, you have to separate the recycling and rubbish (just the same as at home), but instead of putting them in bins you just put the bag out on the street. As far as we can tell there are no certain nights to do this, just when ever you want. Often this results in bags being split open and there being rubbish all over the streets. 

Rubbish on the corner of our street.

I haven't seen it this bad, but it has come pretty close.

Adjuma's and Adjushee's (old women and men) come and sort through the recycling, taking whatever is more valuable to the recycling station??? (this is only a guess). Sometimes Brenton will take our recycling down on his way to work and when I leave 15 minutes later all that is left is a water bottle! They must have a recycling rader superpower.