Vacation in Phuket, Thailand

We've just returned from a week in Thailand. The weather was 30 degrees celcius every day. Our hotel had beautiful pools to swim in or just lie around. I can't be sure how long we spent just sitting in the sun, but it was at least enough time for me to read three novels.

We were just a short walk from the beach. It was always a little crowded on the sand, but the ocean had plenty of room for everyone.

The hotel's breakfast buffet was loaded with things we haven't seen since we left Canada like cheese and watermelon. There was even beef stew! Sounds strange for breakfast, but beef is hard to come by in Incheon, so we didn't question this. The hotel also had a coffee and cake shop. Mmm cake.

Patong Beach, the area where we stayed in Phuket, is a tourist destination above all else. There are shops and restaurants along every street and then there are food carts and independent sales people of all kinds along the sidewalk. There is no safe place to walk where you will not be offered a ride in a "tuk tuk"(an open air kind of taxi) or pulled along by the arm to "the best custom tailor in Phuket". We didn't shop too much. Mostly we just bought more food and drink. So much deliciousness!

There are also a lot of tourist activities you can sign up for. The only one I did was Hanuman ziplining. It was an incredible experience. The people who run it come into Patong Beach area and pick up a bunch of people staying in the various hotels there. My group consisted of three Russian tourists, a family from Australia/New Zealand, and me. We all took turns taking photos of each other flying, less than gracefully, through the trees.

Corey enjoyed the night life. (I did too when I could stay awake). There was so much going on just on the streets that it was impossible to take it all in. There were whole streets of lit up bars and disco a-go-go places. There were people who tried to hand you monkeys to play with, while demanding 100 baht for this strange entertainment. Meanwhile you could have your pick of ferrel cats and dogs to play with for free (if you don't mind that most of them have fleas) because they'd stalk you all day and night, begging you to love them or, more importantly, feed them.

Lotte World

Winter English camp wrapped up last Friday. Corey's crew had red-carpet interviews and then screened the film they'd been working on all week. My students defeated the dragon and saved the kidnapped teacher.

On Saturday, we went to Lotte World. It's an indoor-outdoor amusement park that operates year round. It's also connected to a huge shopping complex and hotel. I think I'll do this blog in photos with captions because I'm not sure how else to describe the entirety of such a surreal place.

Corey by the entranceway fountain

Skating rink below the amusement park

Corey and I in front of the indoor carousel

Corey in the 3D art hall

Scene of a Queen and aristocrats at the Folk Museum

Emily in the 3D art hall

The outdoor part of Lotte World complete with Disney-esque castle

Corey at the candy shop where we bought 11, 000 won worth of gummies

Corey with pirates

COEX Night and Skating Day

2013 is upon us. It is still very cold here. We've been trying to find indoor things to do since the weather outside is frightful. One idea we had was to check out the COEX mall. It's located in the basement of the Korea World Trade Tour in the Gangnam area of Seoul. It's a series of shops, theatres, museums, and an aquarium that are all connected by tunnels underground. Corey and I went at night so the museums and aquarium were closed, but there were plenty of other things to see and do.

Corey and the fishes in the entrance of the closed aquarium

We browsed a 9 storey department store, admiring everything from fur coats to designer jewellery, home appliances, sports equipment, musical instruments and more. We went to many of the smaller shops as well and picked up some school supplies at a store similar to Staples in Canada. The best part was the bookstore we found with a section for Foreign Books. That's where we found shelves full of books written in English for us foreigners! I bought a copy of Mockingjay and finally finished reading the Hunger Games series.

On the steps of the COEX movie theatre

Thanks to the copious amounts of free time I have, now that the students are on holiday and I only teach an hour each day, I get a lot of reading done at school. (If anyone in Incheon wants to trade books to read-- I have Mockingjay and Eat, Pray, Love on hand)

Sorry, got sidetracked there, but anyway....back to the COEX experience. We ate dinner at an Italian-themed restaurant called Bruschetta. The food was pretty good though a bit pricey, since we were in Gangnam after all.

Eating some Italian pizza at Bruschetta restaurant

On Thursday, we met up with the Boardgames in Bupyeong group. It's always a highlight for me! We met up with the other foreign teachers at our favourite Pakistani restaurant in the food court at Bupyeong's underground mall. (Yes, we live mostly underground like mole people now. Don't judge. It's colder than Canada here). Then we walked, OUTSIDE, for about five minutes to get to Coffesmith, which is the cafe where we always go to play boardgames. They have fancy hot drinks that are quite expensive, but they're nice about letting us push tables together and set up camp for a few hours each week to play a nerdy selection of boardgames. This week, Corey and I were involved in a game where everyone works as a team to save a castle from orcs and trolls. We lost twice to those vicious monsters, but the third time we managed to save our castle and it was kind of a big deal.

This weekend we decided to suck it up and brave the cold for a skating day at Seoul City Hall. We met up with our friend Chris and took the subway right to the rink. We bought tickets for a 2:30pm skate time, which left us an hour to grab lunch before we had to come back to rent our skates. We found a place called Burger Hunter close by. The menu had a huge variety of burger options and some interesting sides to choose from. Everything we ordered was delicious (although for some reason we all stayed away from the more unusual burgers like P.B. and jealousy, which had peanut butter, jam, and bacon on it).

hunting burgers at Burger Hunter

Back at the rink, the air was cold, but the sun was shining. We got our skates and joined the crowd being herded around in circles on the ice. It was a lot of fun!

Ready for some ice time

Chris left after a while to go to Myeong-dong. Corey and I headed toward the subway for home, but on the way we ran into a changing of the guards ceremony at one of the palaces nearby. We couldn't resist stopping to watch and then taking pictures with the other tourists who were crowded around the costumed guards. 

Corey and the palace guards

Then in the subway we came across another national treasure--Psy socks. We may or may not have purchased some for a couple of lucky friends to receive as souvenirs. Ha ha ha

Gangnam style

Anyway, I should probably do something to get ready for day 4 of my winter camp tomorrow. I'm using a really elaborate Creature Hunter template I stole from Waygook, but at the end of each class my students always want to hang around and play games in English. Especially hangman. We usually play for an extra half hour after class, except that the administration turns the heat off when class is officially finished so it gets pretty cold by the end.  I've only had between 4-8 students show up each day, but they're so enthusiastic that it makes camp really fun and worthwhile.

Happy Holidays from Korea

Merry Christmas and happy almost New Year! It's been 4 months since Corey and I arrived in Korea. Crazy, eh?

We're still working at school, but we did get a day off for Christmas on Tuesday. It was freezing cold! We mostly just stayed in and opened the presents that Santa brought us. Yes, Santa. Corey remembered to leave cookies out for that jolly old guy so he brought us some presents all the way over here in Korea. Corey got some weights and whiteboard crayons to play with at school. I got a rainbow coloured slinky. I guess Santa knows us well. We had KD for dinner with lots of butter and milk! Yay for a delicious dairy fix!

On Friday, I got invited to go on a staff trip to Seoul. The principal, vice-principal, and about 30 teachers took a chartered bus to the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. We had the audio tour guide explaining about the ancient artifacts kept in museum part 1 and then we stared at modern art pieces, trying to comprehend what they meant and how we felt about them in museum part 2. I ran into another foreign teacher from Canada who I originally met at orientation. She was at the museum on a staff trip too, so I guess it's a popular destination for that. My co-teachers were surprised that I ran into someone I actually knew in Seoul. Honestly, I only know about 100 people in the entire country (which has a population of about 50, 000, 000) so I was surprised too. 

a ballsy artistic statement

After the museum, there was more planned. Much more. We got back on the chartered bus and rode to the 63 Building. It is so named for it's 63 stories. On the first floor, we toured the Sea World aquarium. There were some really interesting fish and even some otters, sea lions, seals, and penguins! I took a few pictures, but without flash so I wouldn't startle the creatures, which resulted in mostly blurry photos. Anyway, it was so cool! There was a section with those fish that are popular right now for spas to use as part of mani/pedis because they like to eat the dead skin right off of people. You could stick your fingers in and feel the fish pushing each other out of the way to get at the most delicious dead skin cells. Yum. One of the teachers dared me to put my hand in, so I did. Afterward I washed my hands thoroughly with a lot of soap, but no regrets. 

penguins

Jay Leno Fish

Dead-skin-eating-fish

After Sea World, we went to the 63rd floor to see the Sky Art Museum. They have some Chagall and Salvador Dali paintings, but it's hard for the art to compete with the view. You can see out over the Hangang river and most of the buildings in Seoul.

view from the gallery on a foggy day

Finally, it was dinner. On the first floor, once again, we went to the 63 Buffet. It had the most variety of food I have EVER seen anywhere in my entire life. There was a Chinese food section, Japanese, Western, Korean, and more. Each section had its own chefs working non-stop to turn out fancy dumplings, delicate sushi, fresh pasta and pizza, and an entire "make your own" pasta bar with an unlimited selection of vegetables, seafood, and sauces to add to your personalized creation. There were some foods I'd only ever heard of but never seen before laid out too. Escargot, frogs legs, cow tongue, and ox tail soup to name a few. I decided I should try escargot, but the frog legs were just too froggy looking for me to will myself past that. By the way, escargot tastes exactly how you'd imagine a snail tastes. It's slimy, chewy, and still tastes like dirt, but what do I know. I won't even go into details about the dessert. I'll just post the picture and save 1000 words.

I probably should have reserved "Finally" for this paragraph, but it really felt like "Finally, it was dinner" because I was quite hungry. Actually, finally was the show that we went to in the theatre (in the same building) called B-Boy Marionettes. It was a hip-hop dance musical about marionettes with a bonus performance of beat boxing and dancing tacked on as the epilogue. The choreography and dancing was amazing, but I didn't quite understand why there were so many gimmicks and why the story line expressed so well through dance had to be written (in 4 languages) on the screen behind the dancers. Yes, I'm a food and theatre critic now. 

In conclusion, it was a very fun evening and a nice chance to talk with a lot of my co-workers. If you ever get invited on a staff trip, by a Korean school principal I would recommend that you go. 

Now, Corey and I are off to do some more adventuring. Maybe even get some lunch. Have a happy New Year and there'll be more updates in 2013!

SaChoom

Winter holidays don't officially start until January in Korea, but over the past week the school has felt a bit more relaxed than usual. Final exams are over and this means that I don't have to teach the textbook anymore (in most of my classes.) I've mostly been doing games and holiday lessons with the students. My school computer is broken so I can't even do much prep for winter English camp.

Wednesday was a day off for Korean election day. Park Geun-Hye is the new president of Korea. From my very limited knowledge of Korean politics, this is similar to a Conservative or Republican victory in North America. My co-teachers said that most of them voted for Moon Jae-In (the more liberal candidate) but their parents tended to vote for Park. Anyway, there's a lot of information about the election on-line if you want to know more. I meant to mention--we just went to the movies and watched The Hobbit

Yesterday, Corey and I went to Seoul to see a dance musical called SaChoom. Corey read about it and thought it'd be fun to go, so I got us tickets as his Hanukkah/Christmas present. The theatre was on the fourth floor of a building that looked from the outside like a typical office building. As we climbed the first three levels we saw that the building was filled with innumerable instrument shops. Each shop sold its own specialty instrument so we'd pass a few stores filled with guitars and then one that was just for drums, clarinets, saxophones, violins, cellos, piccolos and more! The fourth floor led out onto a rooftop courtyard and across the courtyard was the box office where we got out tickets for the show. SaChoom has its own theatre, but next door there is another theatre with its own main show, and one more theatre after that with a third show. 

We took our seats in the spacious theatre and I was surprised to see the place was packed despite the fact that this show has been playing in Seoul for 6 years and it plays once or twice each day! As the show started, we realized it would be quite different from any musical we'd seen before. The tagline for SaChoom is, "dance is an interaction" and they really mean it.  The dancer/actors encourage patrons to interact with the show, which means talking, standing, taking pictures, and even using cellphones is not only allowed but encouraged. Throughout the show, people are brought up on stage to dance and the actors joke around with audience members. They greeted Corey and I, asking where we were from and quizzing us on our Korean language abilities. They also squirted water at the audience and passed out candies during a birthday party scene. 

After the show, the actors pose for pictures with audience members. As a whole, the show was pretty cool, but definitely not everyone's cup of tea. 

Later, Corey and I wandered around Insadong which is a popular area for tourists. There are a lot of traditional craft and antique shops as well as tea shops and restaurants. Corey and I decided to go for Chinese food at a place called Hong Kong. It was a nice cozy restaurant on the third floor overlooking Insadong Ro and the food was delicious.

After dinner, Corey and I went to Jongno tower. We'd heard that it had a restaurant on the 33rd floor where jazz musicians sometimes played. We took the elevator up to the restaurant called Top Cloud and the hostess greeted us kindly, asking if we had a reservation. Of course we didn't and when we asked to see a desert menu, the hostess said apologetically that they didn't have one. I glanced at the entree menu and saw dishes starting at $100. Definitely out of our price range! Corey took a couple pictures of the view anyway. 

Then we went to the next best dessert place, which was conveniently located just across the street from the tower--Dunkin' Donuts. For under 5, 000 won (about $5) we had hot chocolate and a donut for dessert. Again, we took a picture of the view out the window--The Starbucks on the next corner over. Yes, there is a bit of absolutely everything in Seoul.

We also had some street food in Incheon and I promised to keep you posted on this stuff, so here it is. A double-battered pogo and a pot of boiled bugs (I think they're silk worms). I haven't actually bought the silkworms as street food, but we do get them at school occasionally and I never have my camera with me in the cafeteria so I thought I'd take a picture here. They aren't my favourite food, but they're not my least favourite either.

Skating in Seoul

This past week was not very busy for me at school since the first and second year students were writing their final exams for three days. I did find an awesome outline for winter camp on waygook.org that I've been adjusting to fit my students' levels and interests. This week was also Hanukkah and my birthday so Corey and I have been doing a lot of fun celebration type stuff in the evening. We lit the candles in our menorah and although we did not make latkes, Corey attempted to make smashed potatoes with gravy.

Today, we went to Seoul in the afternoon. We had big plans to go skating at the rink outside city hall. When we got there, at 5pm, we were informed that the earliest skate time we could buy tickets for was 8:30pm. We bought the tickets and then went wandering around, but mostly we saw hotels, a few expensive stores, and a lot of museums that were closed for the night.

We bought a couple of Christmas cards and then went in search of somewhere to eat dinner. The first place we went to was Mr. Pizza, but the menu was way too expensive, especially for pizza. We went with the back-up plan--hot drinks and a blueberry bagel with cream cheese at Dunkin Donuts. There are a lot of Dunkin Donuts around Seoul and Incheon. Actually, there's a Dunkin Donuts in the subway stop where our schools are and across the street from our apartment at Juan, but this is the first time Corey and I ate at one since we've arrived here.

It was almost 8pm when we started walking back toward city hall. We got there in time to rent our skates for 1,000 won and then we headed to the ice. Corey tried to take a picture, but the rink guards came over and insisted we had to be wearing gloves. Corey and I had mittens, so we wore them as instructed, but that was the end of our ability to capture skating moments on camera. 

I can tell you though, the rink was very crowded. The lights and the music made us kind of forget that though. We could just enjoy skating around the rink and swirling in and out of the way of people who were trying not to fall over. There were about ten people fallen down on the ice at any given time and it was rarely children that had crashed, but everyone seemed to bounce back and keep skating. Corey kept racing around and lapping me, but neither of us fell. I think that is success.

At the end of our skating hour, Corey and I returned our skates and asked a guy sitting on a bench near the ice to take a picture of the two of us. We got on the subway and came back home to light our eighth Hanukkah candle. Now it's time for bed I think. I hope this entry makes some sort of sense since I'm writing it at midnight.

Tips if you plan to go skating at Seoul City Hall:

1. Check this website for operating hours in 2012: http://www.visitseoul.net/en/article/article.do?_method=view&p=06&m=0003001006005&art_id=59545&lang=en

2. Get there early (City Hall Station exit 5 [on line 1] will take you right to the rink)

3. Buy your ticket at the information/ticket sales desk (you cannot rent skates until you have this ticket in hand)

4. Know your shoe/skate size in centimetres because this is how the skates are organized at the rental shop.

5. Bring gloves. They're mandatory. Or you can borrow them from the information desk, I think.

6. Lockers (to keep your shoes and bags etc. in) require a 100 won coin for deposit, but you get this back when you return the key to your locker.