Sunday Hiking Adventure

We are taking a well deserved break from school today and we went a long hike in Tapgol park, near our home. There was a lot of little surprises along the way. We walked about 20 minutes to get to the park and found a steep incline walking path that went straight up the side of a mountain. We made it pretty far above the city, very quickly.

We kept walking and got onto a normal path, which led us up to an exercise park... These exercise parks are very common here. They have exercise machines just kind of in the middle of nowhere, you wont be far from a good workout anywhere here in Korea, even at the top of a mountain... :/ (as if we didn't burn enough calories just getting there)

After our brief workout, we went forth and came across another very interesting thing, A path that is made of small rocks. The purpose of this is to walk on it barefoot for pressure points. I gotta say, it hurt!

About ten more minutes of walking, we turned a corner and saw a really cool modern looking building and a glass tower, it was an amazing view! Pictures do not do it justice. We found out after looking around more that it was a church. You can see the cross on the tower. We climbed the tower and it was about 100 degrees inside there.

So, that is what we did today! Back to school tomorrow. I hope everyone is having a good weekend, wherever you are.

Chayla

Let the teaching begin!

Hello there wonderful people,

Much has happened since our last post. We are now two weeks into the school year and getting along splendidly. We have now settled into more of a routine and have pretty much caught up on all our planning and organizing our classrooms.

Chayla has 4 girls and 3 boys in her AM class. Each has their own little personality and are cute a bugs (the cute kind, not roaches or something). Here is proof:

Personally, I don't know how she manages to teach four year olds. I imagine it is like herding cats. Yet she is doing an amazing job and the kids love her. In fact, on White Day (Korea's version of Valintine's day for the women folk) she got a ton of chocolates, gummy bears, macaroons, and candy. I think I even saw a gold encrusted truffle peeking out of her knapsack, but she keeps denying it. Anyways her kids love her a ton.

Chayla also has a shorter, PM class which I don't hear to much about other than it has 4 kids, but she is getting more.

I have my own AM class of first year 6-7 year olds. It is quite a class full of some real personalities.

My PM class is a more advanced, elementary class where the students can write their own stories. We also did a little project where students make up their own carnivorous plants. (my favorite being a plant that sends plant ninjas out to attack prey and bring it back to eat.) This class is right up my alley.

Our co-workers are pretty awesome as well. We've been our with them both weekends so far and we can tell they are going to be some lifelong friends. The Korean gent in these photos is dating one of our coworkers, Shannon. He is quite awesome and had taught me a bunch of Korean words I should know (and some I shouldn't). He has been very helpful translating things too, as our Korean is atrocious.

Finally, our area, Bundang, is awesome. We talked a little about it last time, but as we continue to live here it just keeps getting better. Hit the link for an awesome (and lengthy) tour of our neighbourhood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C52hmgqpQk