Life in Korea

PLAY DAY

Last Saturday (May 5th) was Children’s Day in Korea. My school therefore had a play day for students on Friday instead of classes. The students got to go around and play different games where they were given stickers for competing that could be changed into notebooks. It was a lot of fun and really nice to see my students having a good time instead of worry about studying (or misbehaving in order to avoid studying.) It was great to spend the time with my students outside of the classroom!

Seoul Flower Festival

This Sunday, Janay and I attended the Seoul Flower Festival. Through the crowds (apparently 2 million people) we walked through the streets and parks enjoying a variety of potted flowers and the beautiful Cherry Blossoms that line the streets for kilometres. It was an incredible sight and we walked from about 2:00pm to 8:30pm, only stopping to enjoy a pic-nic lunch, a little kite show and some dinner. It was a beautiful spring day with the sun shining and a temperature of 20C! The blossoms and flowers were beautiful and at night they are lit up which also makes them very pretty in a unique way. I’ve posted only a selection of the photos I took throughout the festival and only wish I could have captured how pretty they were but my photography skills are quite limited!

Seoul Flower Festival

Seoul Flower Festival.

Recently I started Pen Pals with some friends at home for my grade 6 students. They were very excited to write the letters and did an amazing job. Since I have sent the letters, the students have not stopped asking when their letters will come back to them. I think it will be a very positive experience for my students since they live in such a mono-racial culture and for some of them I am the only foreigner they have met. Thank you to the friends at home who are exchanging letters with us!

Additional photos from geocaching.

Lately Holley, Janay and I have really been interested in Geocaching. Basically it is a world-wide treasure hunt that Holley introduced us to and has been a great way to spend an afternoon outdoors. We both have the app on our phones now and choose an area of the city where caches are located and go and find them. It has lead us to some interesting spots in the city, we likely would never have discovered. A week ago Janay and I successfully found our first cache using actual coordinates and were so excited!

A few weeks ago I overcame my fear of riding a bike and went on a bike tour of the DMZ (Demilatarized Zone between North and South Korea). My friends and I went with a group and weren’t exactly sure what to expect but apparently we were participating in a bike-rally of sorts with about 100 other Koreans. Although, I had a near crash (as I was cut-off once) I succesfully overcame my fear of riding a bike in a crowd. It was very interesting to see such a heavily guarded border, filled with barbed wire and soldiers, and weapons. It really makes you appreciate the peace between our borders. Thank you to Janay for sharing her great pictures of the day with me (most of these are hers)!

Vacation Home!

Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home. ~Bill Crosby~

I am so happy that I made the decision to travel back to Canada for vacation! Although I am loving my time here it was the boost I needed. It was incredible to see my family, friends and Luke after being away for so long. I’d like to say I beat jetlag and wasn’t sleepy; however my very busy two weeks home left me feeling pretty tired but very happy.

Everyone was amazing in welcoming me home. Richard was home on reading week and so I got to spend a ton of time with my parents, brother and sister while I was home! I had forgotten how much I love just sitting around with my family and playing cards and board games.

I was very fortunate to get to have Christmas in February complete with turkey dinner, Christmas crackers and a stocking from Santa :)

The following day was Family Day so I spent the day ice-fishing with my the whole family. Although ice-fishing it not my favourite thing it was great getting to spend the day outside with my family and I even caught a pike!

I was very fortunate that my Grandpa & Janie and Grandma Sharon & Harvey came down to spend a couple days at our house so it was wonderful to see them while being home.

As always the kids were super cute and it was so incredible to get to visit with them! It’s hard to believe my oldest niece turned 13 when I was home and that Logan can now speak in full sentences!

I also was very spoiled by Luke’s parents with Birthday and Christmas celebrations, delicious meals and a trip to an Arts Centre to see a comedian. The four of us had a fabulous time going to see Gerry Dee (a very funny comedian who used to be a teacher) and then went out for a very delicious brunch at The Cambridge Mill.

Luke and I also got to spend some time with friends. It was really nice to get to see his friends again. We had a really fun trip to Toronto for a night of celebrations for our friend Sarah’s birthday. I was very fortunate to get to see the wonderful Danielle Martin twice while I was home and this made me so happy!! It was such a nice surprise that she was in Toronto twice while I was home.

Thank you to Luke for taking so much time off work, driving me around and doing the activities I had missed so much! Also, thank you to my family and friends for making my vacation home an incredible experience! Love and miss you all!

Traditional Medicinal Practices: Past and Present

Today I travelled to the Seoul Herb Medicine Museum and learned about traditional practices. What was more interesting is that after the museum I walked through the market area where multiple vendors were selling traditional remedies to eager buyers. The streets were full of both buyers and sellers of roots, dried fruits, dried and live fish and leeches, dried frogs, dried flowers, antlers and so much more. It was an incredible experience. Unlike herbal treatments at home -generally sold in pill form the raw goods were readily available for purchase.

I entered a traditional style pharmacy to ask if I could take a picture of the wall of medicine chests and to my surprise the owner/pharmacist was thrilled to have a foreigner enter the shop. He sat me down, made me an herbal tea and showed me how the machine worked to make and package herbal teas. He then showed me pictures of all the foreigners who had ventured into his shop and amazingly he remembered where they were all from. He then asked for a picture with me and we chatted about Canada. It was a very pleasant experience and I’m happy I picked that pharmacy amongst probably 30 along the streets to enter.

Overall it was an eye-opening experience to see how much of the traditional practices were still being used today to treat sickness and ailments even in a developed city like Seoul.