Happy Birthday Eric!

Today was Eric's 23rd birthday (which we got to celebrate 16 hours early since we are all the way in Korea!) and to celebrate at work we bought a Costco cake!! It was a big hit but we can honestly say that it does not taste the same as home.  The frosting is quite different but none the less it was still exciting and delicious!  In addition to the Costco cake, I got a strawberry cake for the two of us, one of his kindergarteners brought a chocolate cake to share with the class and one of his elementary students gave him a small chocolate cake too! Needless to say there was no cake shortage at home or work for his birthday!

Mike and the Cars cake he brought for Eric Teacher

A Weekend at Haeundae Beach

We took the KTX train down to Busan this weekend.  Busan is the second largest city in Korea (and really the only other major city in Korea), located on the southeast coast of the peninsula.  While on the train we were able to see what Korea looks like outside of the city.  Yes, there is country in Korea.  Many green hills and of course the majority of the flat country land is made up of large rice fields.  The train took us three hours from Seoul Station to Busan Station where we hopped the subway over to our hotel on Haeundae Beach, one of the most popular beaches in Korea.  After dropping our backpacks in the hotel we headed straight for the beach.  It appeared that many, many other people (I'd say mostly foreigners) were spending their long weekend at the same place.  The beach was beautiful and the weather was perfect.  It's not a very long beach but still a good walk up and down it with plenty of people watching and sunbathing along the way.  There is a big sand castle festival next weekend but some sand artists already had a good start on their creations so we were able to admire them as well.  After dinner we headed back to the beach with our books and spent the evening relaxing by the sea.  There was even a small firework show coming from a boat not too far from shore.

We spent the majority of our Sunday on the beach also.  On one end of the beach was a nice wooden pathway that took us along a scenic path, across a suspension bridge and to a small lighthouse where you could get good views of the beach, the city and Gwangan Bridge.  In the afternoon it got warm enough that we even ventured into the sea to cool off (though it was quite chilly so it didn't take long to be cooled off!)  We did some more relaxing on the beach and tried a local Korean BBQ restaurant for dinner which was very delicious!  We were also proud of ourselves as we ordered completely in Korean and must have had decent enough pronunciation to get everything we wanted.  Once again after dinner we did more reading and relaxing on the beach into the night.  We also walked back to the lighthouse to get a view of Gwangan Bridge lit up at night.

Even after staying out late on the beach Sunday night I decided I needed to get up early and see the sun rise on our last morning.  So at 4:45 I started my walk to the beach.  Unfortunately there were still many of those foreigners that give all foreigners a bad reputation out and about, but I was able to find a quiet spot with only a few fishermen and other photographers to watch the sun come up behind the city before going back to bed.  Eric's cousin Matt lives in Busan so we had breakfast and walked the beach with him, his wife, their two kids and his mom who was also in town visiting.  We then headed back to Busan Station and returned to Seoul Station (where we greeted with rain and humidity unlike the nice weather at the beach!)  All in all we had a very nice relaxing weekend getaway to another part of the country!

 Someone made Admiral Lee out of sand

 Haeundae Beach

 Gwangan Bridge

Busan Sun Rise

Check our website or Eric's Facebook page for many more photos from our weekend!

A Busy Week Almost Over

It's been quite a busy week at work this week.  Last Friday was the monthly test day for elementary classes which meant grading and report cards needed to be completed by Tuesday.  We start new units with the elementary classes on Tuesday which meant monthly plans for each class needed to be done by Wednesday.  Our kindergarteners took their first quarterly test on Monday which meant grading and progress reports for them done by today.  All of these things are very simple to do, just time consuming when they are due all in the same week.  However, we still have never needed to do any work outside of our normal working hours (something you hear many foreign teachers, including some we work with, complaining about).  On top of that I got another little girl in my kindergarten class, my second new student in just over a week.  She attended a different SLP location for the last couple months which means she is right up to speed with most of my other students which is nice.  Apparently our school will be getting several new kindergarten students next week.  Supposedly Eric may even be getting four new boys in his class.  That means he will have ten students... all boys...

We both love our kindergarten classes a lot.  We actually like the kindergarten classes more than the elementary classes most days.  Something neither one of us would have expected!  This week I started teaching my little three and four year olds how to put letters together to make simple words (at, bat, cat, hat, etc.).  I loved how excited they got when they realized they were reading!  I only wish I got them for more than a few hours each day.  Even with our short time each day I'm pretty sure I will have these kids reading English in no time, even before they can read Korean!

Even amidst such a busy week it has flown by once again as we are already at Thursday night.  This weekend we get our first three day weekend (Happy Birthday Buddha) and are taking the train down to Busan for a weekend at the beach.  Eric's cousin lives in Busan and we look forward to meeting his family while we are there.  Pictures of the East Sea and Haeundae Beach coming soon!

 Took my kinders to the playground one day last week.  They had a lot of fun!

The Weekend

After a fairly busy week at work, we had a more relaxing weekend.  On Saturday we journeyed to the KINTEX Convention Center in Ilsan with two Korean friends to go to a travel expo put on by our friend's travel agency.  There were countries from all over the world being represented by different hotels and attractions.  All of the pictures looked cool (they even made places like Vietnam and Cambodia look nice) but 95% of the brochures were in Korean so the information was not so helpful.  We got excited when we found the booth about Portland.  They had big pictures of Mt. Hood and Multnomah Falls.  Speaking of Portland we also saw an ex-Portland Trail Blazer up close at the expo, Ha Seung-Jin.  Let's just say that at 7' 3" he stands out more than we do in a large crowd of Koreans!

We also made reservations for Thailand in July!  We get to spend five nights at the five star Marriott Resort and Spa in Phuket during our summer vacation.  We can't wait for that!  Today we traveled into Itaewon, the big hub for foreigners, because Eric needed shorts for work.  So we did some clothes shopping and bought some peanut butter because I decided it's been too long since I ate some.  Tonight we will be grading papers and relaxing by the river.  We sure enjoy the spring nights here.  The temperature stays comfortable even into the late evening and it's so nice to sit or walk right on the river.  Next weekend we are taking our first trip outside of Seoul to another part of the country so stay tuned for pictures and news from that adventure!

 We were excited to show our friends the places in America we had been

We also met Spongebob advertising a resort in Phuket (no it's not the one we will be going to)

Thursday

Just wanted to share a bit about our day.  This morning when we went outside to pick up our bikes and ride to work we realized that my bike was most definitely not there.  Yes, sometime between 7:40 last night and 9:40 this morning someone stole my bike that was locked to the bike rack.  As we rode the bus to work (checking out every bike we passed through the window) we wondered if we could file a police report, but doubted it since a bike isn't worth all that much in comparison to other crimes.  However, within about ten minutes of arriving at work there were two police officers outside the building taking down the report.  We told one of our Korean friends about my bike and he was quickly on the phone with the police who arrived three minutes later (which I consider quite impressive since traffic never pulls over for them whether they have their sirens on or not).  I just have to throw in the comment that when my car was stolen four years ago, I never saw a police officer in person.  Korea must take bike theft more seriously than America takes car theft!  Anyway the report was filed and the day at work went on.  After lunch the school secretary, who speaks very limited English, told me the police called and my bike was upstairs.  Unsure of quite what she meant I followed her upstairs to find Eric standing next to a new, pink bike he had bought me on his lunch break.  He said he felt bad for me and didn't want me to have to walk or take the bus the rest of the year so he bought me a classic "girly" bike that is even much cooler than my stolen bike. 

I know the "retro" style might be out back home but it is very much still "in" here in Seoul.  I will probably look even more Korean with my pink, retro bike!  And yes, both of our bikes will be parked in our small apartment from now on.

Also check out the following video from our birthday party celebrating May birthdays today.  Alvin doesn't quite get the blowing out of the candles even with Eric Teacher's help.

Happy Teacher's Day to Us!

Today was a very important day for teachers in Korea: Teacher's Day.  To Korean parents this is a very big deal.  Many of them go out and spend a good amount of money on  nice gifts for their child's teachers.  Today we were given things like brand name socks, expensive rice cakes and candies, a gift certificate to Lotte Department store, expensive wine and of course flowers (even Eric Teacher got flowers.  He also got anti-wrinkle hand cream.)  Along with the gifts came some nice cards in which the students talked about how much they loved us.  Aside from the gifts and cards we were both amazed at how much the parents seemed to care about showing their appreciation.  We have known all along that the parents cared very deeply about their child's education.  But apparently they also care deeply about showing their child's teachers how much they appreciate them.  Even taking the time to stop by and say thank you or calling and asking how their child is doing, like many parents do all the time here seems to boost the morale of all teachers.  Although getting to work with the kids everyday is all that really matters, I wouldn't be against making this day a bigger deal back home as well :)

Here's a look at some of our gifts from Teacher's Day

A Day up North

Today we went to what just might be the most interesting place we will go to for the whole year: the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ.  Since we have arrived in South Korea we have become increasingly interested in learning about North Korea, much more interested than we ever were back home.  To some, hearing about our trip to the DMZ area may not be interesting at all.  But to us it was quite an experience.  I will warn you now that this is sure to be quite long since it was a full day and we want to share a lot about what we learned today.  Hopefully someone will find it interesting!

Our Saturday morning started at 5:00AM so that we could get ready and take the subway to Camp Kim where our tour would depart.  There is a strict dresscode (business casual, no sweats, jeans that are faded or have holes, sandals, tank tops etc.).  There are many tour companies that run tours to the DMZ and other stops in the area.  It took us just over an hour to get from Camp Kim in Seoul to our first stop: the Joint Security Area (JSA).  The JSA is located in the UN owned buffer zone between North and South Korea.  It runs for two kilometers on each side of the official border line between the North and South.  Foreign citizens are the only ones allowed inside the JSA (we originally wanted to go on this tour with one of our Korean friends but found out he was not allowed to go).  Apparently they are worried that a South Korean citizen might try to cross the border (I know, I don't get it either).

Once inside the JSA our bus stopped at Camp Bonifas where a United States soldier took over our tour.  We were given a short briefing on the history of the JSA- how it was created right after the war by the United Nations and is still owned by them today and a few incidents that have happened in the JSA since it was established.  We were also told about the strict guidelines we would need to follow while on the tour- only take pictures when we were told its okay and only of the things we are told we can, no pointing, shouting, or gesturing of any kind towards North Korea or any North Korean soldier, etc.  We also had to sign a declaration saying we would follow these rules or be removed from the tour and that we knew we were entering what could be a dangerous area, etc.  We also learned about what it takes to be stationed in the JSA.  For a US soldier you must have high aptitude and a completely clean military and civilian record.  For a South Korean soldier you must have a high aptitude, be fluent in two languages, have a college degree and be a master at both Taekwondo and Judo.  The DMZ has the largest military presence of any border and is the only place in the world where a soldier must look his enemy in the face day after day without action.  Once the briefing was done we got on a different bus, one specific to run tours within the JSA, driven by a South Korean soldier and led by the US soldier.  We were not allowed to take pictures in this area for security reasons but will try to describe a few things we saw.   There are big things that look like barricades with concrete slabs on top on the sides of the road in one spot.  These barricade looking things are rigged with explosives so that if the North ever decided to cross the line in a large group the explosives could be triggered by someone on the south side and the concrete slabs would fall and block the road.  In addition to the barbed wire surrounding almost every open space, the fields are also filled with land mines.  These things would all make an attack on South Korea extremely difficult to pull off.

Our next stop was the MAC Building.  Just outside the MAC Building we got our first view of North Korea.  We were strictly told to not go down the steps but could take pictures of everything that was in front of us (North Korea).  Since we were being closely monitored by North Korea's video cameras and soldiers, the US soldier told us it would only be polite to return the favor and take pictures of them.  We were able to see a North Korean soldier standing on the steps of their own building about 100 meters in front of us.  He would often look into his binoculars at us then duck behind a pillar.  We thought he was hiding from us but our guide said there were more soldiers inside the building, as well as a phone on the other side of the pillar and he was communicating with them.  Apparently the North Korean soldiers really like their binoculars.  The US soldier told us about how there have been several times he is giving a tour to someone important (like the White House staff a couple months ago) and gets even closer to the North Korean soldiers.  Sometimes there will be only a sheet of glass a few feet separating them but the North Korean soldier will still be using his binoculars to look at him.

 Looking at North Korea's building.  The North Korean soldier is looking through his binoculars on the middle left of the building.

Once our time was up for taking pictures of the North Korean soldier staring at us and hiding from us, we got into a single file line and got to go down the steps we told not to go down earlier.  We walked into a small building located right on the official Demarcation Line (the official border).  This is the conference room used for peace talks between the North and UN countries.  Half of the conference room is in South Korea.  The other half is in North Korea.  Yes, we can officially say we went to North Korea.  Inside the conference room were a few tables and chairs and one UN flag.  There used to be one North Korean flag and one South Korean flag but both countries continued to bring in a bigger and bigger flag.  Soon things got out of hand and the flags barely fit inside the room.  So they (meaning the UN) decided that only one small UN flag would be allowed in the conference room.  There was a microphone on the table that records everything ever said in the conference room (including us) and is monitored by the UN and North Korea.  There were two South Korean soldier inside the conference room and a door leading out the other way.  If you were to step through that door you would be in North Korea and could not get back.  That's why the South Korean soldiers are there guarding the door (like I said they are Judo masters).  Many years ago an incident occurred where North Korean soldiers waited on the other side of the door and when a South Korean soldier went to lock the door (it is secured by two deadbolts) they rushed in and tried to pull him into North Korea.  After that several soldiers had to make a human chain through the conference room whenever the door needed to be locked or unlocked.

 I'm standing in North Korea.  This was as close to the South Korean soldiers as you could stand before they might practice their Judo.

After we left the conference room we got back on the bus and went to Checkpoint 3.  Here you are surrounded by North Korea on three sides.  This was also the place where Eric got a little too excited about being able to see a North Korean truck driving on the road and pointed it out to me by literally pointing.  Don't worry I grabbed his arm before anyone noticed (except probably the North Korean cameras that were constantly monitoring us).  From this viewpoint you can see the North Korean flag pole.  It is 160 meters tall and the flag weighs 600 pounds.  As you can imagine we did not see it flying.  It takes 35 people to raise and lower it.  It was created shortly after South Korea put up a flag pole that was 130 meters tall.  North Korea seems to really enjoy having their things always be bigger and better.  In the same area as the flag pole in North Korea is "Propaganda Village."  This is a small area made up of empty buildings.  Many of them don't even have real doors or windows.  The exterior features are simply painted on them.  Inside they are hollow buildings with four walls and a roof, not tall buildings with many floors.  Since these are the only supposed civilian buildings and homes that can be seen in North Korea by the outside public they want to make you think their whole country is full of nice homes and buildings.  Near the flag pole is a large radio tour that used to send out propaganda messages 6-12 hours a day.  Most of them contained messages about how great Kim Jong Il was.

 The large North Korean flag pole and Propaganda Village

On our way back to Camp Bonifas where our JSA tour would end we passed the sight of the 1976 axe murder incident.  Some US and South Korean soldiers went to cut down a large poplar tree that was blocking part of their view from a checkpoint.  They were met by many North Korean soldiers who told them they could not cut down the tree because Kim Il Sung himself planted it (mind you Kim Il Sung would only be 100 years old this year and this was a very, very large tree).  The soldiers from the South agreed to only trim it but North Korea did not like this either so a scuffle began, the North Korean soldiers took the axes and murdered two US officers (Arthur Bonifas was one hence Camp Bonifas).  According to the North the attack was of course started by the US "hoodlums."  Three days later the US and South Korea launched operation Paul Bunyan in which they had dozens of armed soldiers with chainsaws cut down the tree while helicopters and military planes swarmed over head and a US navy vessel waited with more soldiers and equipment ready for combat if necessary.

This is the site of the Axe Murder and the circle is the size of the tree when it was cut down.

Along the road there are also small white boxes that can be seen.  These boxes contain a telephone and instructions for North Korean defectors.  When someone defects successfully in the area they are able to use a phone to call Camp Bonifas at which time soldiers will rush to pick them up and welcome them to freedom with open arms.  A side note on defectors:  The South Korean government, and maybe the UN as well, gives them a lot of aid right after they defect.  They are given a place to live, help finding a job and monetary support for the first few months.  Once they successfully cross the line there is nothing North Korea can do to them.  Unfortunately, there is much they can do to the family they likely leave behind.

Once our tour in the JSA was finished we got back on the tour bus with our regular tour guide and went to a tunnel.  North Korea at one time built many tunnels from their side to the South, one defector told the South Korean government there was 20.  South Korea has located four of them and one of them is open to the public.  We were not allowed to take pictures but we were able to go down inside of it and walk it to a certain point.  It is very narrow with a low ceiling (glad we wore helmets!) and getting down to it (and especially back up) is not easy as it is very steep.  When the tunnel was first discovered the UN asked North Korea why they had done it.  North Korea said they were mining coal.  Before it was discovered they had conveniently painted over the granite with coal dust.  However, it is still very clearly granite and not coal so no one bought that story.  We were also able to go to the Dora Observatory where, on a clear day, you can get a very good view of North Korea.  Today it was overcast and we did not get good pictures because there is a line you must stand behind to take pictures.  We did get a good view for ourselves when we walked all the way to the end, but couldn't take pictures close enough.

Our last stop was a Dorasan Station.  This is a train station that was built with the intent to have a train that ran to Pyongyang in North Korea, as well as even farther, all the way through North Korea, China and all the way to Europe.  Unfortunately, shortly before it was finished North Korea took back their agreement to let trains pass through and stop in their country and today a very nice train station and train tracks sit completely empty.  This is the closest train station to North Korea and everyone hopes that one day it will be in full operation.

 Here we are standing on the train tracks at Dorasan Station.

This concluded our tour but we were so glad we did it.  It was such an experience to be so close to North Korea and technically even standing inside of it for a few minutes!  North Korea is a very sad place.  From what we have learned about it it is not just a communist country but a cult.  Their people are brainwashed from the day they are born about the Eternal President Kim Il Sung.  How night and day revolve around him and he is to be worshiped forever.  Their people are barely clothed and starving but they are confident the Great Leader's family will provide.  They know little or nothing about the outside world, only what their own country's propaganda tells them.  It is a very sad place and it seems like all of the South Koreans are hoping for the day the Korean peninsula is reunited again so that their suffering can cease.  One time one of the questions a group of my students had to answer for homework was "If you were the president of South Korea what would you do first?"  All of them had written down something about achieving reunification with the North and South.  Even the children here see the value in reunification. 

Well like I warned you in the beginning this was a very long post!  But we couldn't wait to tell about our trip North and many pictures will be posted to our Shutterfly page very shortly.

A Day in the Life of an English Teacher

Some people have been asking us what our typical day looks like as an English Teacher in South Korea so I decided to write about our usual weekday schedule....

9:35- Leave our apartment, get our bikes from the bike rack and ride to work (consistently ringing our bells to try to get people to move as we swerve through the swarms of people and parked cars on the sidewalks)

10:00- Arrive at work

10:20- Start working with our kindergarten classes.  All of the students have English names they use at the English academy, either given by their parents or teachers.  Eric has a group of six boys (Mike, Alvin, Alex, Jerry, Johnny, David), ages 5-6, who are all first year students.  Stephanie has a group of four girls (Emily, Laura, Elizabeth, Sophie) and two (soon to be three) boys (Tommy, Matthew, and boy-to-be-named tomorrow), ages 3-4, who are also first year students.  We have a curriculum book that we are required to teach.  (The curriculum that we use for ALL of our classes is produced by Sogang University, a large university in Seoul.  That is also why our school is called Sogang Language Program.  It is supposed to help children be prepared to get an education at Sogang University when they are older.)  For my young class this consists primarily of coloring and learning the ABC's.  For Eric's class that is a little bit older, they do a lot of writing and reading simple words while they learn phonics and practice writing.  (Side note for any teachers that might be reading this: There seems to be no debate about phonics vs. whole language approach when it comes to teaching kids how to read English here.  It's phonics only with all the curriculum we use and from what I can tell pretty much all of the private English academies here.)

11:00- Eric continues working with the curriculum, reading books to the kids and playing games in the classroom.  Stephanie takes her class to the gym where the kids can run around, listen to music and build with blocks.  I have to say my kids have learned quite a bit from our gym time.  The first day they did not know how to line up, how to share or say anything in English.  Now they know exactly how to stand in line, sometimes share the toys with each other and tell me about what they build in English. 

11:40- Stephanie takes her kids back to the classroom.  We continue with our coloring while also singing the ABC's, the phonics song, the wheels on the bus and the itsy bitsy spider.

12:00-  (Tuesdays/Thursdays)  Eric takes his class to the gym where they play an organized game.  The first day they did not know how to play (or say) "duck, duck, goose" or "red light, green light."  Now they are experts and they love it.

12:40- Get ready for lunch

12:50- Lunch time.  Lunch consists of rice, soup, kimchi, meat and a side dish everyday.  We eat lunch with the kids and then they go to the gym with the Korean teachers to watch a movie or look at books.

1:50- Students go back to their classes and we continue teaching (or coloring or singing).  Although our kids do a lot of coloring and singing they learn a lot from hearing the same language over and over and repeating after us.  Since we both got the first year classes none of our kids knew much of anything on the first day.  We are both very proud of what most of them know now :)

2:45- Kindergarteners gather in the gym to sing the good bye song and get taken to their bus.

3:00-4:20- First period of elementary classes.  The curriculum that we use for these classes is also laid out very well and is also produced by Sogang University.  The classes range in size from one or two students to about ten students and in age from seven years old to about fourteen years old.  Each class is forty minutes so we teach two classes during this time.  The students get 40 minutes of instruction from a Korean teacher (vocabulary, reading and grammar) and 40 minutes of instruction from a foreign teacher (talking, listening and writing). 

4:30-5:50- Second period of elementary classes, same as above.

5:50- We both are finished teaching and can use the rest of the time to plan or do whatever we want.  On M/W/F Eric does phone teaching and on T/TR Stephanie does phone teaching.  This is when we call some students, kinders and elementary (they all get called by a teacher once a week), and just have a short conversation with them on the phone so they can practice their conversation English some more.  Each week we have to write a lesson plan for the kindergarten class (this takes about five minutes) and each month we have to write a monthly lesson plan for each elementary class.  This is also very quick since every lesson is laid out in the curriculum.  We also give monthly tests to our elementary classes which we then grade and write report cards for (probably the most time consuming part of the whole job and it's still easy to get done during our break time)

7:20- Go home

7:40- Get home, cook dinner and relax

The days might seem long but we really have no complaints.  They go by very quick, aren't difficult and are fun.  It is sure exciting to see how much the kids have learned in the ten weeks we have been here.  We can't wait to see what they can do by the time we leave!

A Day at the Zoo

Today we went to Seoul Grand Park, which amidst many other things is also home to the Seoul Zoo.  The Seoul Zoo is in the top ten zoos in the world when it comes to size and scale (3400 animals and 360 different species).  We could definitely tell this was true since we were there for almost four hours and didn't even see everything!  The zoo has an interesting history to it.  After the Japanese occupation of Korea began, the Japanese government decided to create a zoo on the grounds of Changgyeongung Palace in Seoul as a way to insult the Korean people in 1909.  The zoo stayed and was even maintained by the Korean government later on, all the way up until 1984 when the zoo was relocated to Seoul Grand Park so that restoration of the palace could begin.

The zoo has a botanical garden, numerous flower gardens, an elephant tram, dolphin and sea lion shows and even a sky lift.  Outside of the zoo in the rest of the park is a large pond and even Seoul World (which looked like a very pathetic version of Disneyland.  I think we will go with Lotte World for our amusement park of choice here!).  We went on the sky lift which allowed us to see some of the zoo from above and did a ton of walking around the zoo to see many different animals .  However, we will be going back at some point since there were still many animals we missed.. Like Eric didn't get to see the snakes or turtles and I didn't get to see the dolphin show and panda bears. 

It's back to work tomorrow to start our tenth week already.  Another field trip this week too!  Time is sure flying by.  It won't be long before we are already back home.  But for now we enjoy the time that we have here in this busy city we currently call home.

 Sun going down at Seoul Grand Park

 

 View from the sky lift.

Many more pictures coming to our website soon!!