A weekend on Muuido

We spent this past weekend on an island called Muuido with some great friends that we met at EPIK orientation back in February. Muuido is just off the backside of Incheon airport, which itself is on an island. Just getting to this island, and the beach where we were staying, was an adventure in and of itself. We woke up a bit early to catch the earliest bus to Incheon. It left Buyeo at 7:10 and took 2.5 hours to get to Incheon. We (I) assumed that it was going to Incheon airport. I don't know why. I guess I don't think of Incheon as being a legit city, just the place where the airport is. Boy was I wrong. We got to Incheon's main bus terminal and were still a ways from the airport. We managed to find an information desk in the terminal and asked how to get to the airport. We got so some information and knew where to go and which bus to get on, but quickly decided that it would take way too long to get out there. Our friends (Nick and Lanie) took a cab and we decided to also. The cab itself took around 40 minutes (and was ~$70) but took us right to the ferry, which was another bus ride from the airport. We then bought our $3 return ticket to take the ferry to the promised land. Once on the island, we caught a $1.50 bus ride across the island to our final destination, Hanagae Beach. In a word (or 4), it was worth it. The beach was great, not too busy, nice sand and the weather was absolutely perfect. Hot enough to make a day at the beach the ideal thing to do, but not too hot that we could enjoy ourselves.

We were met by Nick and Lanie as we arrived and we quickly and easily rented our hut. It's 30,000 WON ($35 CAD) per night. It's super basic, but had linens and pillows which I wasn't expecting. We dropped off our stuff and went for a walk before finding food. As the tide was out, (WAY OUT) we could walk pretty far and find some cool sea life along the way. Mostly crabs and sea slugs of some kind, but also jellyfish. Lunch was Pajeon. The rest of the day involved good conversation, playing in the water and a quick down the zip line. As it was the 4th of July, there were plenty of foreigners there to party, and did they ever. Lots of drinking, singing and fireworks. ALL NIGHT. It was a bit annoying as none of us could sleep all that well, but we managed. On Sunday morning we killed time until the convenience store opened at 8AM and we grabbed some snacks and drinks, while we waited for the bibimbap restaurant to open at 11AM. It was a long wait (and they opened late) but it was soooo worth it While waiting we went for a walk up the beach and Lanie found exactly 28,000 WON randomly in the sand. Lunch was exactly 28,000 WON and that is no coincidence, that is fate. While up at the far end of the beach, we found a huge pool of soft, slippery mud and Nick couldn't help but go for a full dip, and so I naturally HAD to follow suit. We were absolutely filthy but it felt incredible and was pretty darn hilarious. We cleaned up and headed for our free lunch. After lunch we hung out for a bit and then made our way out to make the reverse trek home. It was the same, but in reverse and this time we could split the cab fare with Nick and Lanie. We got to the bus terminal and their express bus home to Andong left in about 45 minutes, while ours left in 3 hours. Luckily the bus terminal was attached to a huge department store that had an absolutely incredible food court. To kill time, we ate and did groceries at EMart. We hopped on the bus at 6:00PM and immediately fell asleep for nearly two hours, only waking up when the bus stopped in Gongju and all but 4 of us got off.

Finally getting home around 8:45PM, completely exhausted but completely satisfied with a fun weekend.


The zipline was pretty short, but well worth the $16 or so we paid. 

 
 

 The mud was awesome, but absolutely filthy. Took a while to clean up after our dip!

These little pieces of sushi were something like 75 cents each. They were fantastic and were the perfect food for the long bus ride home.I got these at EMart. The selection was pretty awesome.

 Julia's dinner at the bus terminal. A baked squash, stuffed with a rice, bean mixture.

My dinner was a couple of these delicious Korean traditional dumplings. Stuffed with some meat, rice and veggies.

Our EPIK Life in Buyeo

This blog post is well overdue, and I’m a little worried about the daunting task ahead of me here. It’s been way too long, and way too much has happened since my last post. I’d love to be able to document all of the details, but so much happens each day that it would be impossible.

The Teaching:

The teaching has been great so far. We're teaching middle school, which here is grades 7 - 9. It's been fun so far, but we're really now just getting into the thick of it. I have a tricky little set-up though. We both teach at multiple school (Julia 3, me 4), but my situation is a bit more hectic. Julia teaches out of the standard textbook at all of her schools, so she'll be making 3 lessons per week on average. I have two schools that I teach from story books (right now it's Cat in the Hat and Big Fat Cat and the Mustard Pie). For those schools, we read a few pages and then I make up random activities and games to have them practice reading and using some language from the text. I can be pretty creative and do what I want here, but I also have to discuss the lessons with my co-teachers (I have 7 total). At another school (which is a 45 minute bus ride away) it's a totally different situation. I have no co-teacher, and I teach the same 11 students for 3 periods in a row. It's considered extra-curricular. I can do WHATEVER I want. Right now we're remaking the music Video for 'Friday' by Rebecca Black. An absolutely awful song, but it's hilarious, and pretty simple and the kids are digging it. These kids are great, and I know I’ll have a lot of fun with them this year. They chose to be in this class, so they're well behaved and motivated. At my 4th school, I teach from the textbook, so I'll likely be stealing Julia's lessons and tweaking for my class sizes. At my main school I have 11 classes per week, and then 3 at each of the others. I'm technically 2 short of where I should be (22) at the moment, but I'm okay with that. :) All in all though, the teaching is going well! We're both learning lots and just taking it all in as it comes. We have some pretty funny things that happen all the time. We’re told we’re handsome / pretty, have long noses, ‘special hair’ (Julia), I was told I have big muscles. The kids are hilarious. Classroom management is the trickiest at my main school because my class sizes are more than double my next largest (they’re ~32 – 35 each). We’re still working on perfecting our lesson planning and trying to become quicker at it, but it will take time to test things out in the classroom and see what works (in general and in our particular situations). This will all come with time though.

Everything Else

We finally got gym memberships. We’re at Gangnam fitness (yes, Gangnam). It’s not a huge gym, but it’s got the basics and isn’t terribly busy. So far so good. It’s about a 10 minute walk from home. Only drawback so far, which we found out this morning, is that they’re not open on Sundays. Very disappointing! Instead of working out, we walked about 17.5km.

Right across from where we live is Busosaeng Mountain. It’s amazing up there. It’s a big park with trails and monuments and all sorts of stuff. It’s not a hill, but not a mountain. You can walk to the top in about 30 minutes or less. There’s lots of trail to keep busy in there and we’ll be spending a lot of time in the park this year. 

We found that we can go out on the roof of our building. This excite us because we’ll bring some basic gym stuff out there and do workouts. We can bring stuff like a skipping rope, kettlebell, maybe even a box for box jumps, and get in workouts more conveniently. 

We got our bank account last week. We just need to figure out how to send money home to Canada. We do have mortgage payments to make still! We’re with NH Bank. 

We got cell phone plans this past week also, pumped for that! We’re with SKT. 

On Friday we had a couch delivered. We ordered and paid for it ourselves. Julia is sleeping on it until the mattress shows up. After 3 weeks of sleeping on the floor, our bed frame arrived on Saturday, but no mattress just yet. Hopefully in a few days. 

We have 3 restaurants that are our favourites. One we go to for Bibimbap, one for Ssambap and one for Wallamssam.  They already know us well at all of these establishments. Meals are $6, $7 and $12 respectively.

Next weekend will be our first weekend vacation of sorts. We’re going to Seoul. We’re going to meet up with another couple from Tennessee that we met at orientation and hang out with them for part of the weekend. At some point we’ll meet up with John (Julia’s cousin) also, if he’s available. 

Random points:

-        We love rice cakes. Here they are not diet food, they are dessert, and they are fantastic.

-        Non-Koreans are few and far between. We’ve seen 4 – 5 in 3 weeks. 

-        We get 4 English channels on TV: Euro-Sport, BBC Knowledge, Nat Geo Wild, History Channel

-        We’re ever so slowly learning the bus system around here. We need to bus to our other schools, so we take the busses 3 days a week. 

-        We found an amazing network of bike paths that, when joined, we can travel all over the country! I want to plan a long distance trip.

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Settling in, in Buyeo

It’s been a few days and much has happened. It feels like it’s been a month already and we haven’t even officially started teaching! 

We’re in our new apartment. It’s (expletive) incredible. Brand new, amazing location, everything we could ask for and then some. We weren’t expecting the first place to be so bad, and we certainly weren’t expecting this place to be so friggin’ amazing. We got very lucky. It must have been a sight to see us carrying the big ole bike box from one apartment to the other (about 1.5km). That bike box travelled in 1 SUV, 2 Airplanes, 2 Busses, 1 Car and then by hand. It’s finally in its final resting place. I’m excited to get the bike built and get some riding in!

This week we’ll be getting a lot of stuff figured out with setting up our life here. First is the alien registration card, then bank accounts, cell phones, gym memberships and taekwondo classes. We need to buy a bunch of stuff for the apartment including a table, armoire, chairs, kitchen utensils, couch etc. A fridge, washing machine, bed and TV are provided and all will be brand new. So far we have a fridge. Our sleeps have been lackluster, but we are by no means complaining!

 

 

I had a welcome dinner with my school to kick off the new year and it was awesome. I love watching and learning. I drank a bunch of soju until I felt pretty comfortable. Korean drinking culture is great. People will walk up to you with a shot glass and bottle of something, give you the shot glass and pour you a drink. You drink and then return the favour. I did this a bunch and worked up the nerve to do it with the principal, vice principal and head of administration. I was told it made a very, very good first impression. The whole evening was awesome. I feel more like a part of this team, even though I can only speak to a handful of people (still more than Julia… which is totally minimal). 

We’re exploring our area and finding our favourite restaurants. So far Ssambap and bibimbap and great options for Julia, and I’m pretty open to anything. Yesterday I ate pork belly and larvae of some sort, but likely won’t make a habit of it. We also have a nice coffee shop right behind our place. We can walk there in roughly 1 minute, door to door. Dangerous. 

It’s true, wifi here is next level. Even in a rural area like ours, we can find it just about anywhere while walking down the street.