Welcome Back Carol!

After a long and painful battle with her laptop (which has been sporting the "blue screen of death")Carol has reentered the world of home computing. Thanks Mr. Jung! Please offer Carol your warmest welcome as she has been living with the horrifying thought that her computer had become an overpriced paper weight for eternity, or at least until those funny little glass globe weights come back in style. Congrats Carol!

My New Hole in the Wall

So, my little piece of paradise is certainly modest, but it is clean. Its not much bigger than the cabin i was living in this past summer but its home. Clean and no bugs, i also have a pretty decent view frome my balcony/laundry room. The one thing i do miss is an oven. The kitchen is very small with a two burner gas range..which works great but i think i need to track down a toaster oven. You can only boil and fry so many things then its time for some baking and grilling.

Day Trip to Experience Centre

Near the end of our orientation we visited an experience centre where people can go and learn about traditonal culture. We were able to learn how to use traditonal Korean percussion instruments..it was very cool. However, after doing some drumming, a Korean women who spoke NO english tried to teach us a traditional Korean folk song....well, i'll tell you this...50 foreigners in a 100 degree room trying to sing a Korean song with NO lyrics...or training...it was a bloody mess. It was an experience all right. Later that day we watched some professionals preform on the same instruments that we played and then sat down to eat a beautiful Korean meal of Bulgolgi (beef, and potato noodles and other goodies wrapped in lettuce leaves. This was also the first time that we met our co-teachers.

Day Trips From Gwanju

While in Gwanju for our 10 day orientation we were able to head out on a few day trips to see local attractions. One of the sites we visited was the national museum..interesting...yeah..i guess..however they were renovating at the time so we almost all fainted from the resin fumes. (Fumes are even better in 100% humidity)
We also visited a provincial or national park, i'm not sure. The mountains were very beautiful, but the temples that were nestled into the trees were even more so.

Week 1 - Gwanju City

After a 15 hour plane ride, and a 4 hour bus ride, we arrived in Gwanju City around midnight to find a large banner welcoming our group...impressive. Next was a rush to find our rooms and new roomates for the duration of the orientation. Soon after dumping our luggage, the hotel put on a really nice buffet dinner for us at 1 am. This was our first introduction to Korean cuisine. Well, they eased us into it nicely, the food wasn't that bad. They were setting us up for the so called delicacies they would feed us for the rest of the week. The food ranged from sea slug soup to cold boiled squid and other unidentifiable fish parts. YUM...(it all looked so beautiful...but let me tell you...many of us learned about fasting)

Settled In

Greetings from Korea!
This is my first attempt at blogging, please be patient with me. I've been fighting with the password just to sign in. Now that i have that figured out hopefully i will be able to update regularly.

What can i say...i'm all settled in and quite comfortable in my new home. NO BUGS!!! Yeh..knock on wood. My little apartment is pretty comfy and Carol has been the greatest tour guide/welcoming committee/nanny. She has treated me like gold over the last few weeks, making sure that i am happy, comfortable and well fed. Thankyou CROAL. Although the culture is extremely different than home, i feel surprisingly calm and collected. Anyway, enough talk, check out some of my pics..i'll give more info with the pictures.

Hope all is well in Canada.I miss everyone dearly, especially you Big Guy!