Our Story

I wrote this blog post for a friend who owns a company called Unsung Hero Apparel. I thought it would also be a good idea to share on our own blog as a means of introducing ourselves to anyone that doesn't know us and our story.

Julia and I met in 2005 while studying Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. With a common passion for health and fitness we easily became great friends, which in no time whatsoever turned into the greatest relationship either of us could have imagined. Shortly after we started dating, Julia introduced me to the world of endurance sports. She was an avid runner, and while I was massively into fitness, running wasn’t exactly something I ever did for ‘fun’. Nevertheless I obliged in joining her on some runs around beautiful downtown Ottawa and after a couple weeks of a brand new type of soreness I had never before experienced, I actually started to enjoy it. So much so that I decided to do my honours thesis on ‘The Motivation of Ultra Endurance Athletes’. While I enjoyed running around our neighbourhood, I couldn’t quite understand why people would want to run a marathon, ultramarathon or even an Ironman Triathlon. As part of my research, I interviewed a number of local ultra-endurance athletes and heard their stories. I learned what motivated them to get started in ultra-endurance, to train day in and day out, to start an event that they know won’t be finished for many hours and to keep going when their body is screaming at them to stop. My conclusions were that these were highly motivated, ‘type A’ people who are driven to set lofty goals and do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. My interest in this sub-culture of ultra-endurance became somewhat of an obsession and within a couple years I had run my first 10k, then half marathon (21.1km), then full marathon (42.2k) as well as my first sprint triathlon (500m swim, 20km bike and 5km run) and right up to full Ironman distance triathlon (3.8km swim, 180km bike and full 42.2km marathon run) at Ironman Canada (Penticton BC) in 2008. What made this race even more meaningful was that I was able to raise over $6500 for the Canadian Diabetes association in the process. At the same time, Julia was doing running races of 5 and 10k as well as duathlons (run-bike-run) and keeping up with overall fitness.

Aside from health and fitness, we also share a passion for travel. We are fully aware that we only get one shot at life and want a life of experience rather than a life of things. In the fall of 2008 we decided that we’d move to Australia for a year. I applied for Teachers College in Wollongong, New South Wales (about an hour south of Sydney) and was accepted, and Julia went on a working holiday visa. That year affirmed that travelling the world was a necessity in our lives and that ‘settling down’ would have to wait. In Australia, Julia ran her first marathon and I did my second Ironman Triathlon. Upon returning to Canada in early 2010, we got ‘settled’ back in to life in Ottawa and we were back to work in no time (although not teaching) and back to dreaming of a new adventure. For Julia’s birthday that year I bought her an adventure travel book that featured variety of adventures from different countries over the globe. With no real special skills (kayaking, rock climbing, etc.) we settled on what was probably the craziest adventure in the entire book. We decided, with absolutely zero prior experience, that we would hike the 4,200km length of the Pacific Crest Trail, which spans from the US-Mexican border in California, to the US-Canadian border in Washington. This was a 4.5 month commitment and we had about 6 months to prepare. We also decided that it’d make for a great honeymoon, and so we decided that we’d go against the grain one more time and have a tiny wedding (immediate family only) and a BIG honeymoon.

We had a very small outdoor wedding on Julia’s parent’s property in the Muskoka area in April of 2012, and two weeks later we hit the trail and started walking north from Mexico towards Canada. This was our life for 4 months. With only a single night in a tent prior to starting this journey, there was a GREAT deal of uncertainty and a heck of a lot of learning to do. The ‘first 700 miles (~1100km) is in the Southern California desert (Mojave) and it’s hot, dry, and there isn’t much drinking water to be found. You’re constantly filthy, hungry, tired and generally irritable. A far cry from a typical honeymoon, but it was our choice and not once did we wish we were on a beach in the Caribbean. Tending to each other’s blisters, chaffing, mild giardia, mental meltdowns and every other challenge that was placed in front of us, only helped to prove what a great team we are. Every single day of that honeymoon epitomized ‘Rise and Grind’. We’d typically get up around 5:00AM, sore from the day before, and break camp and start walking within 30 minutes. We had to beat the heat and get in as many miles in the morning as possible before the heat of the day set in. After 700 miles of dealing with the heat, the lack of water, the rattle snakes and spiders, we finally reached the Sierra Nevada mountains and were soon consistently up above 10,000 feet of elevation. Finally we were treated to cooler temperatures, clean, natural spring water and hardened bodies that could deal with what the long days of hiking had put us through. We continued hiking through California and into Oregon. By this time it was August and some injuries (tendonitis in Julia’s foot) had kept us off trail for a week and put us behind schedule. The injuries lingered and we decided, after hiking more than 3000km that it was time to go home. We felt we had accomplished what we set out to do – which was to have the most incredible adventure we could imagine - and with a lifetime’s worth of memories, maybe now we could settle down, buy a home and start a family.

Returning to Ottawa in September of 2012 and finding an apartment to settle back into felt so familiar. ‘Getting settled’ has become quite routine for us. I’ve been incredibly fortunate through all of these adventures that my employer in Ottawa (Popeye’s Supplements) has always taken me back. I had worked in the stores, as a manager and headed up our event and expo team, and this time I was promoted to be a member of the head office staff as ‘Head of Business Development and IT’. It was shortly after taking on this role that I was introduced to Skyler and Pete and the Unsung Hero brand. After talking with them for the first time at a Starbucks in Ottawa, I fell in love with the brand. Its message and vision resonated with me immediately. The ‘Rise and Grind’, ‘No Quit All Hustle’ approach to life is something we’ve always aspired to and so I knew that these were the type of people I wanted to work with. I’ve only become more impressed with what these guys have grown this business into. Not only a retail clothing brand, but so much more. A brand whose vision includes serving the community and inspiring youth is one that I can certainly get behind. Since that day in 2012, it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with these guys for a number of joint projects (National expos, television commercials, charitable events, etc). Popeye’s Supplements has only benefitted from such a partnership.

In the fall of 2013, within a one week period, Julia and I moved into our new house (purchased in the Spring), signed up for a TESOL (Teach English to Speakers of Other Languages) course and ran 387km over 4 days in a relay style effort while raising $3700 for the Ottawa Mission. When we finally got ‘settled’ into our new home it felt great, but not quite right. The next year was absolutely incredible. We both continued to grow, learn and challenge ourselves in both our work and personal life. I raced three half Ironmans, as well as a number of other triathlons and running races, while Julia raced a number of 5k and 10k running races and placed at or near the top of her age / gender group each time out. Somewhere in the summer we decided that none of this was enough. We needed to see the world and we hadn’t yet done so. How do we see the world on our terms? The way we want to travel, not as tourists but as travelers? We took that TESOL course that we had signed up for nearly a year earlier and committed to moving to South Korea to teach English. But we were home owners. So, how would it work? The whole idea may have seemed way too complicated and daunting, but we had spent 4 months hiking the Pacific Crest Trail as our honeymoon, so we knew that anything was possible. There’s always a way, and with a little ‘No Quit, All Hustle’ attitude, we knew we could get it all sorted out.

I write this from our apartment in Buyeo, Chungnam Province, South Korea. We’re living in rural South Korea, where absolutely nobody (aside from ~8 other English teachers) speaks English. We’ve been here in Korea for nearly 4 months. We can read and write the language and can get by with very poor (but improving) Korean and mediocre acting. This is truly a master class in adapting to a new culture. The daily challenges we face here were exactly what we were looking for. In four short months we’ve learned more about ourselves, each other, Korea, teaching and in life than we could have imagined. We’re driven to constantly challenge ourselves and are 100% committed to being lifelong learners. We’re not exactly sure when we’ll return to Canada and ‘settle down’ (again) but likely not in the next few years. This weekend we were registered to race in the Spartan Beast Race Korea (20km running with 25 obstacles). Unfortunately it was cancelled due to the current MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak we having going on here. What eases the pain is that we’re anxiously awaiting a delivery from Ottawa that’s due to arrive this week that includes the newest UHA T-Shirts!

Julia's Buyeo Birthday

Yesterday was Julia's 29th birthday. We spent it right here in Buyeo. It seems like every few years she has a special birthday abroad. In 2009 we were in Australia and she turned 23, watching the sun rise over the ocean, hanging out on the beach and enjoying a special dinner that I made for her, inspired by Masterchef Australia. In 2012 we were in the High Sierras of California, hiking the PCT, the entire day was somewhat typical for that adventure,  but the beauty of our surroundings made it epic. What lacked in the area of dining was more than made up for with ambiance. This year, again three years later, she turned 29 here in South Korea.

First thing this morning I went and picked up Korean rice cakes. Julia's favourite dessert here. You can find them pretty much anywhere (market and grocery stores) and Julia's favourites are the big white ones. So rice cakes for breakfast it was! The forecast called for rain all day, but we made the best of it before it started. We went out for a bit of a workout on the mountain, running around and ding bodyweight exercises.

After a quick clean-up, we hit up the grocery store and picked up some essentials. Not exactly an exciting birthday excursion, but important nonetheless. After lunch we headed out for a walk and ended up at Gungnamji. It's a giant pond / maze that's jam packed with Lotus plants. They bloom in the summer and in about a months time there will be a big festival with many, many tourists coming to our little town. Today was also busy, and for good reason, it's absolutely beautiful! The plants have grown immensely and the flowers are starting to bloom. We wandered around and took photos, but it started to rain heavier so we had to run and find shelter. We decided that it was a good time to go eat dinner, as it was now 4:45 and we were both a bit peckish. There's a place right near the pond that specializes in Lotus Leaf Rice. They cook rice and wrap it in the lotus leaf and add some beans and a couple other vegetables. It's pretty delicious and one of Julia's favourites! The owner of the restaurant speaks almost fluent English, which was a bit of a shocker the first time we went there!



















After dinner we were standing out front of the restaurant and trying to get a taxi home ($3) as it was raining pretty hard and we didn't have an umbrella. We tried to hail a few, but with no luck. Eventually, one of the employees of the restaurant came out and handed us an umbrella! So generous. It was a tad small, but we were more than happy to accept and walk home with it. We still got a bit wet on the walk home, but were able to duck into the market and walk through under some cover... and also pick up some more rice cakes.

The rain continued for the rest of the evening, so we stayed in and milled around. I got myself ready for this morning's bike ride (90 - 100k) and Julia tidied some things up and Skyped with her mom. A great little finish to her 29th birthday.

Today we're planning to head to Boryeong and go zip lining. We'll catch the 11:25 express bus, which should get us there shortly after noon.

Here's a video tour of our town of Buyeo that I took the other day.

Showing:
Busosan Mountain
Downtown
Buyeo Boys Middle School
Gungnamji
Geumgang River Path
Buyeo Girls Middle School
Gangnam Fitness
Hwarang Mart
DC Mart

Baekje Cultural Land

This past Sunday we walked from our place to Baekje Cultural Land, which is about 5.5km away, near the Lotte Outlet mall. It was Julia's first time checking it out, and I had only been once before. There's a ton of history here in Buyeo and it was neat to see this spectacular attraction right here in our little town. It was a scorcher of a day (30C or so, with no clouds) too, so a tad bit uncomfortable, as we were both sweating like crazy by the time we got there. There was a small performance going on when we arrived, so we sat and watched it for about 20 minutes. We didn't completely understand it, but it interesting nonetheless and there was some impressive Taekwondo thrown in also. After the performance we wandered around the temples and took a bunch of photos, before heading over the the mock village. It wasn't very busy today so we took lots of great photos. Here they are in no particular order!

Teaching In Korea - Economics

I thought I'd write a short post to outline one of the major deciding factors for many people, as to whether or not coming to Korea to teach English is a viable option - Money.

This information is as it stands now (the landscape of teaching in Korea is changing) in 2015, specifically for Canadians and with some added information for couples in particular.I'll use bullet points for the most part, to keep it as simple as possible.

Our situation:

Base Salary
Despite a Graduate Diploma in Education, I'm (Brian) starting at the 'bottom' of the pay scale (level 2) as jobs are so competitive that EPIK is not hiring what they consider to be a level 3 (only a bachelor's degree in any discipline). You need some sort of accredited ESL teaching certification (TEFL, TESOL etc). Because of where we are located (Chungnam Province) this puts us both at a base salary of 2.2KRW.

Extras
Add to this a rural bonus of 100,000KRW per month for not having the same conveniences as if we were in a big city. Our town is Buyeo, and has pretty much everything we need, but we do go to a neighboring city every 3 - 4 weeks to do a big shop at a major department store.

Finally, because we both teach at multiple school, we get another bonus. I (Brian) teach at 4 school, while Julia teaches at 3. Each additional school is 50,000KRW extra. This puts us at 2,450,000 and 2,400,000 respectively.

As of today, 2,450,000KRW = $2,700CAD.

We also each received a 300,000KRW settling allowance to help us get set-up in our apartment (buy new linens, toilet paper, kitchenware etc).

Bonus / Exit Allowance / Severance / Pension
After our year contract, should we renew, we get a bonus of 2,000,0000KRW. If we leave and go home, it's $1,300,000 (Exit Allowance, to cover flights). When we complete our final contract we get a severance bonus equal to one month's salary. We also get back our national pension contributions (9 % of our pay) which we contribute half and our school matches the other half. So upon completion of the final contract, that's a sweet little chunk of change to put in the bank when going home!

Expenses / Saving
When our salaries are added together, we're still not making quite what we were back home, but there is one major difference, we aren't paying rent / mortgage. Well, we do pay a mortgage back in Canada, but we have a renter that is more or less covering that. 

Bills - Monthly
Rent = $0
Heat = 50,000KRW (average, we had two high months around 75,000KRW - 80,000KRW as it was still cold, but we rarely use the heat now other than for showers and dishes, so this most recent month was 35,000KRW)
Electricity = 10,000KRW (yeah, roughly $10)
Cell Phones = (58,500KRW - but we have pretty much unlimited everything, you can certainly go cheap here)
Home = $800CAD (accelerated mortgage payments, car payments, storage unit)

Other Expenses
Transportation - it's $1.25 for a one way trip on a bus.  We can get pretty much anywhere in our town for less than 8,000KRW by taxi.

Eating in restaurants is CHEAP. A basic meal is about 5,000 - 7,000KRW for bibimbap or ssambap.

Groceries (especially produce) is much pricier than in Canada. Many things are close to double, which makes eating out even more attractive. We try to eat as much as possible at home, simply because we like to know exactly what we're eating, but you could get away with eating most meals out and not pay much more.

A (express bus) trip to Seoul (2 hour bus ride) is ~12,000KRW one way and Nonsan (department store) is ~2,500 one way.

All this said, we've been able to save ~$1500 - $2000CAD monthly, with little to no effort. We've taken weekend trips to Seoul, a 5 day trip to Jirisan and Busan, and have spent a good chunk of change to get set-up here.

Now that we're a few months in and expenses have dropped, if we can save $2,000 per month (which should easily be doable, even with travel) we'd save around $22,000 after the first year (with slower first couple of months). If we leave after one year (not likely), that swells to over $35,000 with severance, exit allowance and pension repayment.

So there you have it, our economics in a nutshell. If you're thinking about going down the ESL path and are doing your due diligence with research, you'll have most likely heard that in Korea 'it varies'. Every situation is different, and you need to be prepared for something completely different than what you envisioned. When we applied, we pictured ourselves teaching in a single elementary school in Busan, the second biggest city in South Korea. The reality? Teaching middle school in rural South Korea at a combined 7 schools. As it turns out, we absolutely love our situation, but that isn't the case for everyone. Many people struggle to deal with their placement and are unhappy for a year, if they last that long. We're lucky to have each other, which certainly makes things easier, but it's important to be ready for ANYTHING in Korea.