Canadians in Seoul?!

We headed into Seoul this weekend for an unexpected surprise: Two of MaryAnne's students from home would be there for the weekend! It was really sweet. One little girl moved with her brother and mother to Toronto for the year to learn English. She moved back to Korea in July. The family keeps in touch with another family from Toronto. The little girls talk on the phone to each other twice a month and the mothers are very good friends, too. Anyway, the Toronto family decided to visit them in Korea for two weeks. They were so excited to see MaryAnne! We went for lunch and caught up on some Toronto news.

Afterwards, we walked around for quite some time trying to find a love motel. These are the cheapest places to stay in Korea. They range in prices anywhere from $30.00-$150.00 per night. They are generally places where Koreans go to have affairs, but we had read so many good stories about the excellent ammenities available that we had to check them out. The first places we looked at were in the $30.00 range and clean, but basically just a bed, TV and bathroom. You could also rent these rooms by the hour. We found one in a nice area with tons of cool stuff inside (don't worry...video will be coming soon!) including a computer with hundreds of current movies that played on the 50" TV.

The next day was a bit rainy but we wandered around and did some shopping. We also saw some yellow dust! This is something we've heard about from our students for months. Apparently for a couple weeks, all the pollution and sand from China blows over Korea creating really bad smog. You're supposed to wear a mask. We didn't really see anything, but our students told us today that it was indeed there.

One more thing: We were trying to find a coffee shop by the bus station and saw these posters for Tim Hortons. Obviously Tim Hortons is NOT in Korea (let alone Pohang), but this is a perfect example of how little regard there is to copyright laws. We cannot WAIT for Tim Hortons coffee!!!!

Happy White Day!

Here in Korea, Valentine's Day is celebrated twice: Once on February 14th and once on March 14th. The idea is that women buy for men in February and men buy for women in March. The displays of candy are insane...tons of lollipops put together in flower-like bouquets, chocolates like you've never seen before, etc. Please enjoy our gift to you with a new video! How to Make Korean Kimbap This is one of the first Korean foods we actually liked so if you haven't tried it, you should...or maybe you'd prefer to stick with sushi.

Anyway, we finished part one of our special education course and are going to sign up for part two. Time is starting to go by REALLY fast and we can't believe that it will soon be time to go home. We're thinking about doing a month-long tour of some south-east Asian countries when we leave (Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia). We still have to speak with the director but if it's possible, our last day at school will be at the end of June, we'll travel for a month and then come home to Toronto.

Now that the course is over, we'll make sure we keep up to date with this blog, posting photos and making more videos. It's a great journal for us because many of the things we thought back in August are really different from the way we think now. This has been a really huge learning curve and it took a while to adjust to being all the way over here, but we've really grown to appreciate so many things about teaching abroad!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the new video!