Wow 2009 has gone and now we welcome 2010! I really miss 2009, it was the best year for me. Sorry, I havent been updating my blog. It’s just that I have been going places and too lazy to update and everything gets backed up and now I’m going to have a super long blog lol.

I went to Incheon, Insadong, Seoul Tower, Lotte World, Yeouido, Christmas dinner at Shawn’s, NYE at Jay’s and count down at Manhatten Bar, Changdeok palace, experience Korea’s biggest snow storm (and loved it!) and Suwon.

1. INCHEON -  14.11.09

On Saturday, Ivan, Hye Ok, Shawn, Erin and I went to Incheon for a little field trip to see the 5th longest bridge. We had lunch at a seafood place, a lot of seafood i haven’t eaten before. We also visit China Town which is opposite Incheon subway station. It was a cold and windy day but we all had fun.

5th longest bridge

China Town

Us having lunch at a seafood restaurant.

2. Insadong + Seoul Tower, Saturday 21.11.09

Ssamziegil 쌈지길, Insadong

 Then at night, we headed to Seoul Tower. We walked to the base of the tower and then walked around a bit and looked at all the locks with messages that couples left on the wall. Then we went up the elevator to the top of the tower. My oh my, the night view of Seoul was AWESOME! My camera doesn’t take good night shots, you just have to go there and see for yourself ^___^

Night view of Seoul from Seoul Tower

Seoul Tower

 Just before we went home we went pass and saw the 2009 Seoul Lantern Festival was still on so we couldn’t resist and went for a quick look and take some pictures of course, hehehe. It was so amazing!  We were very late catching the subway. I think we just made the last subway home…lucky! But it was an awesome outing ^___^

2009 Seoul Lantern FestivalHan River

Lanterns - People can write their wishes on the lanterns.

 3. LOTTE WORLD, Sunday 22.11.09

Rick, Ken, Shawn and I went to Lotte World in Jamsil. Wow it’s like Disney Land for me . I’ve never been to Disney Land so this is the closest to it for me. It was another amzing outing with the boys. Lotte World was HUGE! There are 2 sections, one inside and one outside. We went in winter so the line for rides wasn’t too bad, but it was cold though.  I saw the carousel used in the Korean Drama ‘Stairway To Heaven’! If you havent seen it and want to cry your eyes out then watch it, it’s a very sad drama.

The inside of Lotte World, with a gigantic ice skating rink right in the middle!

The gigantic castle on the outside part of Lotte World...Awesome!

Me and the boys (L-R Rick, Shawn, Ken, Me)

 I checked Lotte World website before i left the night before and they had a really good discount for foreigners. We got 40% off our tickets! Awesome ^____^ Thanks guys for coming We all had an awesome time.

 4. YEOUIDO, Saturday 19.12.09

A group of us went to Yeouido to celebrate Hye Ok and Shawn’s birthday. We went on the cruise around Han River, and had dinner at Seven Springs, a really nice buffet restaurant. I didnt take pictures of our dinner, I was too hungry to lol, we had to wait a ong time for our table.

Han River

Building 63 and Han River

 5. CHRISTMAS + NEW YEAR

We  celebrated Christmas at Shawn’s place. We all gathered and everybody brought a plate of food or cake. We end up having 3 cakes lol, we ate it all with chopsticks! We had chicken curry and rice, potato salad, chicken and corn soup, tomato and egg, sushi, cakes… and more but i dont remember. We met Dan for the first time, Dan found Shawn contact from Facebook and contacted him. He just arrived in Korea teaching English here. So welcome to Korea Dan! Shawn even organised a little christmas scavenger hunt for us (Dani and I). Thanks Shawn it was a lot of fun! ^___^

 We celebrated New Year Eve at Jay’s place. We had dinner and then an awesome ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. We watched a a movie and then headed out to Manhatten Bar for the count down!

Ice cream cake

I had an awesome Christmas and New year. Thank you to all my friends who celebrated it with me ^___^

6. CHANGDEOK PALACE (2.1.2010), SUWON (3.1.2010) and SNOW IN KOREA

 Dani, Scott, Kerry and I went to Changdeok Palace in Seoul. Changdeokgung was amazing! It was very grand and the snow made it even more beautiful. Shawn, Rick and Pat joined us after out palace tour since they didnt make in time for the tour.

Changdeokgung

i love the colourful tiles on the roof of the palaces.

Beautiful lake and pagoda covered in snow...so beautiful!

 We went back to Insadong and had tea at this little tea place and rice snacks. The tea was very good, I love Korean teas, soooo good!

our tea and rice snacks...mmmmm yummmmmy....

Suwon Museum

suwon

suwon fortress

suwon fortress

 Korea had its biggest snow storm in a very long time and I love it ^___^ I’ve never seen so much snow! Made me very happy!

my school covered in snow!

 Okies im done…phewwww!

CYA ^___^

Well it has been just over a month after my LASIK + Wavefront operation and it went very well. I got it done on the 4th December. You need someone to go with you so Shawn went with me (thank you Shawn! ^___^) I had to wait a while since a came a little late so the schedule was moved. Anyways, I got in there and the prep me for the surgery, the nurse put anesthetic drops on my eyes and basically just sit and wait.

Finally, the nurse helped me into the surgery room (my eyes were closed the whole time) and the operation started. My doctor talked me through the whole operation, like what he will do and what will happen so I’m not suprised. The whole procedure was went very well, the only uncomfortable feeling I had was when a metal ring was placed on my eye. It felt like someone pressing their finger on my eye. After the ring was put on, I couldnt see for like a few seconds. I think thats the step where your coneal layer is removed for the laser treatment. The whole process took 10 minutes! They even played a “Congratulations” song after your surgery…I was a little suprised to hear it lol.                                                                                                                                             I layed in a nice warm room with music for about 10 mins. Then i was taken downstairs and was given directions for after care and I went home. My eyes were so sensitive to light I had to weat sun glasses for the train ride home.

I came back the next day for a check up, then again a week later, and again a month later and now 2 months later. I see perfectly well now without my glasses and it feels awesome! I had to wear eye shields for a week and put eye drops in my eyes. I see halos sometimes at night but thats about the only thing that’s kinda annoying. I’m very happy with the operation and the staff at Dream Eye Center in Myeongdong was AWESOME!!! Thanks you very much guys ^___^

CYA ^____^

Anyways, I went for my consultation last Friday and everything went well. It turns out I have small pupils, astigmatism, thick cornea layer so I’m a perfect candidate for both LASIK and LASEK. Personally, I prefer LASIK because the recovery time is quicker than LASEK and it’s not painful!

The surgery doesn’t take long at all (about a minute for each eye) and then testings before and after surgery, so approx. 30mins max. Here is a description of the procedure from the Dream Eye Centre website if anybody interested ( http://www.hellolasik.com/eng_site/refractive_surgery/lasik.asp).  Everyone there was very nice and helpful, especially my doctor/consultor, she talked me through every test that she did and also answers all my questions. 

After the surgery I can pretty much see with my glasses ( ~70-80%), but I ‘d have to wear sun glasses because the eyes gets very sensitive to light. My LASIK+Wavefront surgery will cost me 1.8million won ( I got a 10% discount because I’m a foreigner ^___^), and that’s including everything before  and after the surgery care. Will write more later.

CYA ^____^

Last weekend a group of us girls, Michelle, Erin, Audrey, Megan and I went to Seoraksan in Sokcho for the weekend. We set off at 9am on the Saturday morning and the bus trip took 4.5hours. We got to Sokcho at about 2pm and went to look for the the no. 7 bus to take us to Seoraksan. We were waiting at the bus stop for a long time (1hour) but the bus didnt come.

A taxi driver stopped in front if us after a 10 mins wait and was asking where we were going. We told him we want to go to Seoraksan and he said something along the line of…the bus you want to go don’t come here, I will take you…10000won. Michelle was like 5000won seoraksan go…he says 5000won too cheap…and now he got out of the taxi  and was saying more stuff to us in korean, which we dont understand. I understood a little  but didnt want to say anything in korean because we don’t want to take his taxi. We didn’t trust him, but apparently he was telling the truth lol. The bus driver that was driving past us like 3 or 4 times was asking us where we wanted to go. We told him and he said we’re on the wrong side of the street lol.

So we walked back to the bus terminal and saw the information booth. It’d be helpful if we had saw it before lol. Anyways, we asked her where we supposed to go to catch the bus to Seoraksan, she told us we have to walk to the Express bus terminal and catch the bus no.7-1, which was not far from Intercity Bus Terminal. I also asked her if there was any hostel near Seoraksan and she pointed out the Seorak Youth Hostel, I asked her if she could call for us because I knew they wouldn’t know much english. LOL this was all done in broken english/korean and sign/body language. She was extremely helpful.

Now that we know where we ‘re going, we caught the right bus, took us 25minutes to get there. We got there, checked in at 4pm but it was too late to go to Seoraksan so we just walked around the area until dinner. Suprisingly, there  were not a lot of restaurant around there. At the hotel reception there was a Dominos pizza ad so we all decided to have Domino pizza for dinner. We asked the lady at the reception to order for us…lol…she took a really long time though. The pizzas were so good, maybe because we were all starving hehehe. We talked and talked and talked, we all had a great night…a lot of laughs ^____^ Although, everyone got bitten by mosquitoes, poor Erin she couldnt sleep because the ondol in the room was too warm and was itchy the whole night.

We set the alarm for 5am since we wanted to see the sunrise. So after 3 snoozes, we finally got up and got ready to check out. We took a bus to Seoraksan, we waited in line for the cable cars. The line was soooo long, because there were so many people there already. We got our tickets, cost us 8500won each. The boarding time was 1.5hours later so we decided to walk around and go see the temple. Seoraksan was just amazing to see in person, I checked the internet and saw pictures of Seoraksan and it was so pretty, especially in Autumn. The trees are in shades of green, red, orange, and yellow. 

We bought waffles for breakfast lol and it was delicious, waffles with whip cream and syrup…mmmm…!  We saw this huge statue of the buddah, a lot of people praying, taking pictures and just enjoying the moment. We checked out the temple 200 meters from the entrance. The temple was obviously beautiful with the decorations on the door, the roof, and the inside of the temple.    

I have to mark grade 5 mid terms exam so i’ll continue with part 2 and post pictures later.

CYA ^____^

Hiking Surisan

Today after lunch a bunch of teachers, the Principal and two Vice Principals hiked Surisan. Mount Suri is in Gunpo also near Banwol. I remember because I remember Ahran took us to Eunice’s Garden in Banwol. The hike was fun but since I haven’t hiked for a while it was hard work lol. I like it though, nice fresh air and beautiful scenery, but no ice cream at the top like Suraksan though, bummer…

The hike was a little over 3 hours. At the top you can find a small temple, I love temples here because they are decorated beautifully with lovely patterns and colours of the rainbow. There was also a little well where hikers can drink from, the water was so refreshing. I also saw a stone that looked like a couch…check it out…

After the hike, we all went for dinner at the same place we had dinner before so i didnt take any pictures of the food. I’m not sure what it’s called in english but i think they’re a type od snail, mixed with soybean sauce and wrapped with lettuce. I love the steam egg they have there, it’s so good. We also had soyabean soup, and many side dishes.

The people living there painted their fence and gates with very cute pictures.

me lol

On the way up, I saw this bee farm, look at all the honey!!! I was tempted to buy some but that jar is way too much for me. oh wells...

Also on the way up, I saw a lot of these. Can you make a wish if you place a stone on the top of the pile and the pile still stands.

Some buddha ornaments near the well.

Beautifully decorated doors

The stone that looked like a couch.

At the top, now down we go...

 CYA   ^_______^

At lunch today I said hi to the to Vice Principals and one of them told Emily, my Korean coteacher that he was going to call the police! I was shocked and embarrassed, I said Choe-song-haminida (“Sorry”) to them.

It was an experience I dont want to experience again lol.

CYA ^____^

Ken and Rick deciding on what they want to have.

Erin, Michelle and Me ^___^

Erin, Michelle and I decided that we would share our dinner so we ordered 3 dishes and a bottle of white wine.

our Crab & Lobster Pasta - Garlic Cream Sauce Pasta rich in Crab and Lobster Meat

Our Fresh Shrimp & Garlic Sprout Pasta - Pasta with Fresh Shrimp and Garlic Sprout in Light Olive Oil Sauce

Our Garlic Snowing Pizza - Mad for Garlic Special Sweet Garlic Pizza topped with Shrimp and Pineapple Slices. I LOVE this pizza!!! ^___^

The two birthday girls - Lin & Me

Our AWESOME grand piano chocolate cake! Thanks Ahran!

Lin's friend, Lin, Me and Ahran.

Afterwards, we went to Jungang for drinks and noraebang. We decided on the Sports Bar and we ordered a pitcher of beer…it’s so tall! It looked so cool, I’ve never seen something like that before ^____^

Taking the train home...soooo many people...sardines in a can!

Thanks to all that came and celebrated our birthdays. I hope everyone had a great time, I know I had a blast! ^_____^ 

DEATHLINE

I love playing this game! It’s  called “Deathline” and it’s a shooting game. Come in, pay, choose your gun and start shooting. It cost 1000won for 22 pellets, 2000won for 33 pellets. I also get points for playing too. Right now I have just over 60000 points. Some of my friends contributed because they didn’t have a card. That’s one of my high score there…3170. I love this game cause i get points for playing and i’m good at it hehehe ^____^

Deathline...Awesome game!!!

Vietnamese Water Puppet

Me and My Prince! ^____^

This scene was from the Korean drama GOONG...so cute!

Another scene from GOONG

 

 

 PICNIC at Ansan Park

On Saturday, Ken, AJ, Allen, Rick, Yeosul and I had a picnic in Ansan Park. This park was really nice and had a big waterfall, very nice for your family and friends to relax. It’s a pot luck picnic so everyone brought a plate of food and we all shared.

The entrance to the park

me, AJ, Allen, Rick, Yeosul, and Ken (is taking the pic for us)

The food we made or brought to the picnic

I went to The Ugly Truth Movie premier with a korean friend. The movie was suprisingly good. The movie was about a romantically challenged morning show producer is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result (from imbd.com). Afterwards, we walked along the Cheonggye Stream. It was a really nice walk. Had a great time ^__^

SUSHI

There’s a really good sushi retaurant, SUMO SUSHI near Handaeup station about 10mins walk from my appartment. I walk pass it all the time and never see it, because it’s just a small little restaurant. The sushi takes a while to make but trust me it’s worth the wait. The price was quite reasonable, for a roll (10 pieces) its about 5000-7000 won. The monkey brains was 3000won for 5 pieces. My first time was at Allen’s birthday and another was just dinner, it was 2 consecutive weekend too lol.

Monkey brains

Salmon roll

mine - Seafood roll with bbq sauce...yummmmmmm

2009 ASIA SONG FESTIVAL CONCERT

On the 26th September, a group of friends and I went to the 2009 Asia Song Festival Concert at the World Cup Stadium in Seoul. We left around 2pm because we had to exchange the tickets we printed out from the internet to actual tickets. It turned out we didnt have to. As we got off the subway to World Cup Stadium Station, there was just people everywhere, Koreans, foreigners, and people who came from all around Asia to see the concert.  

The line to get in was extremely long! I have never been in a line that long before in my life, but luckily they were letting people in faster near the end so i think overall we waited for a total of about 1hr 30mins.

just outside of the station

Vendors selling souvenirs

A sea of people waiting to get in 0_0

I took this picture while walking up the stairs to get into the stadium. I heard this loud roar and turned around and I saw everyone starting to run towards the gate and towards the stairs to the satdium. I look at the people in front of me starting to run too so my instinct tells me that i need to follow the crowd lol. That was a little fightening though. I think they thought that there wasnt gonna be enough seats for everyone but there were plenty.

the stage inside the stadium

Our seats were in the middle but quite far from the stage. There were 2 hugh tv screens on each side of us so sometimes we watch the tv sometimes we watch the stage for a better view of the concert. I had such a good time, I got to see some of my favourites performing…2NE1, Super Junior, Girls Generation and BIG BANG!!! They were AWESOME!!! There was a vietnamese singer, Ho Ngoc Ha, she was ok but i was disappointed that she didn’t sing any Vietnamese songs. She sang all english songs.

2NE1

Ekin Cheng!

Girls Generation

Super Junior!!!

BIG BANG!!! Hotties! ^___^

I had a blast watching this concert…

CYA ^____^

 

Hwang Ju, Grade 5

Chae Yeon, Grade 4

Chae Yeon and Yun U (Grade 3)

the mighty 4 and me

The kids, me, my Manager and the Principal

Hwang Ju is going to compete in the Korea’s Speaking Contest, more participants and will de more difficult, so I wish him luck. We (English teachers here) will help him with his speech. Hwighting! ^___^

CYA ^____^

Sorry about the lack of updates. Haven’t been doing much so I was lazy. Anyways, after summer camp I started my vacation but I didnt do much. There was some troubles at home with some paperwork so I was worrying about that. I had to get those paperwork signed by someone from the Australian Embassy and send it back to my parents. Finally got that done.

So afterwards I decided to explore Seoul, I took the Seoul Bus Tour and went around to famous places. I started in Deokson Palace and I got there when they were doing a show, I think it was the changing of the guards. It was interesting to watch.

Deokson Palace

I wanted to go in but the entry line was sooooo long so I decided to move onto the next destination, the War Memorial of Korea. This museum was HUGH! I was there for a good 2 hours. There were a lot real planes models and other models displayed outside, it was really good to see the actual size, so big!

monument outside the museum

guns!

models outside the museum

me and the BIG Plane

After the War Memorial of Korea I wanted to go back to the palaces but the tour guide on the bus told me its already closed. So I decided to go to Insadong. It was alright, a lot of antiques shops, a lot of tourists and a lot of souveneirs. I found this shop that sells leather jackets, they were really nice but were really expensive. I found one that i liked but it was like 450000won! Yikes!

After Insadong, I decided to go to Myeongdong for night shopping. Wow Myeongdong at night is great, i really like it. The atmosphere is different from the day time, very busy and A LOT of people!

Myeongdong

Techno Mart

On another day I went to Techno Mart. Techno Mart is similar to Yongsan Electronics Mart. There’s 8 levels full of electronics, any kind of electronics you can think of it’s there, phones, vacumn cleaner, TV’s, computers, laptops, microwaves, fridges, fans, air con…etc…

Techno Mart

A nice piece of architectural in the middle of the shopping mall. There’s not just electronics, there’s also clothes, food courts Kosney, and many other shops that can occupy you for hours

TKD sleepover

During the summer vacation, the Taekwondo place had a sleepover with the kids, so I joined them. We had pizza for dinner and watermelon for dessert. The kids being kids, it took a long time to get them to sleep lol.

the kids getting ready for bed

Seafood in Jaebudo

Ahran, AJ and I on a nice Sunday afternoon decided to go to Jaebu Island. We had seafood for dinner. We don’t know half of what we ordered so we didn’t know how to cook it. LOL we kept asking the waitress how to cook them and how long to cook them LOL. I’ve never had to cook seafood before, all my seafood were cooked and then served. So it was a little awkward cooking it.

Me and AJ in Jaebu do

Afterwards, Ahran dropped us off in Jungang because she has to meet a  friend. AJ and I went around Jungang and went past Deathline, a shooting game. It cost 2000won and you get 33 pellets, I’m a pretty good shooter, I was suprised, it was a lot of fun. After that we went to a snooker  place. Overall, had a great time

English classroom

The new English classrooms have finally finished. They started renovating since summer vacation and didn’t finished until last last week. The room is the old music room, it’s hugh. Since there’s 2 English teachers, they made it into 2 rooms. I took before and after pictures of the room. The room had this massive 72 inch touch screen TV, it’s HUGH! We have started teaching, the kids gave their wow’s and awwww’s whe they see us using it. It was fun to watch. We had the opening ceremony last Thursday.

English Classrooms-renovating stage

newly renovated English Classrooms

A student is trying out the 72inch Touch screen TV!

The new English room Opening Ceremony.

Yeong hung island, paragliding

I got to some korean friends through Ahran, they’re a group of koreans who learns English and have their own English Club. They invited me to a weekend trip to Yeong Hung Island, near Jaebu Island. It took us just over an hour to get there. We waited for the others to arrived and then off we go for lunch…sashimi…i have tried eating sashimi a few times here but for some reason I don’t really like it. People say just try it and you’ll like it. I’ve had some kind of sea slugs and raw fish and the rest of the bones of the fish were made into a hot pot.

Yeong hung Island

sashimi

After lunch we went back to the pension (a name Koreans call holiday house in Korea) and rested for a bit. Afterwards, we went to the beach nearby and tried paragliding. I tried it but i was too light and the result was me being dragged around LOL, but it was fun. Even the guys were having trouble with it

me trying to paraglide

 Overall, my summer vacation was great. Had fun spending time with friends old and new. 

CYA ^_____^