Well here we are again...blogging. Hopefully we can keep up the good work (I know, two posts in almost a week? Yes, we are crazy). Well here is the second part of our too short vacation (but then who's isn't?).
So we left from Jeju city on a Saturday afternoon and flew to Seoul, arriving at Gimpo airport. The flight was great, only 50 minutes, and no one lost their passport! After an immediate stop at Starbucks, we headed for the information booth to find how to get to our hotel. There is an amazing amount of people who speak English in Seoul and almost all of the information booths we found cater to English speakers. So we got the skinny on how to get to our hotel and were off on a bus.
Our hotel was a nice change from where we were staying in Jeju. We decided to "splurge" a little on our hotel in Seoul, and we were nicely rewarded. The hotel had central air (something often to be desired in Korea), two beds (also not that common), a balcony, a huge shower (no shower shoes needed) and even a bidet (what a treat). Only Shawn had the courage to try the bidet, and for those of you who really "know" Steph you can understand why she would never try it.
Well on to more interesting subjects...the events of Seoul. The first night we kept it pretty low key, just visiting Itaewon (a major foreigner hang out) for dinner. For this trip we made a strict vow to eat no Korean food (not that we don't like it, but come on we get enough!). So for our first night we enjoyed a nice, romantic Thai meal. Well, alright it wasn't that romantic for us, but the restaurant sure tried. After dinner we just visited a few of the local "hot spots" to check out the Seoul night life...no more on this subject.
The next day we roused ourselves in the early afternoon for a little shopping, which Seoul is so famous for. We were completely underwhelmed by the Namdaemun shopping district (supposed to be the largest open air market in Korea). Not that they didn't have a lot for sale, just not a lot we wanted. We emerged from this shopping trip with only one purchase: a dog costume for Steph's old dog. After shopping there was only one obvious choice, a visit to a palace. Deoksugung Palace, is located right in the heart of Seoul next to city hall. This palace was originally built as a home for King Seongjong's older brother, but then became the home of the King after the Japanese invaded (one of the many times) and burnt the King's Palace. Didn't know you were going to get a history lesson did ya? This was a good first choice for us, as it is one of the smaller palaces and not nearly as overwhelming as our next palace. After our first palace experience we needed a little rest and relaxation, before we ventured to Seoul tower that night.
Seoul tower was an experience in and of itself. Really if you have visited one tower, you have visited them all...but that didn't stop us from being the tourists we are and including it as a "must see." This was a long ordeal. The wait just to take the cable car to the Seoul tower base was almost 1/2 an hour and then you are stuffed in for your ride up. Once you get there you then have to purchase an elevator ride to the top of Seoul tower and wait again for your turn. When your turn comes around you are crammed into an elevator with as many people as they can safely fit and up you go. The view from the top of the tower was pretty much what we expected... lots of lights from the city below. Not that it wasn't pretty, we're not sure that it merited the wait required. After a quick stroll around the tower, we made the long trek back to the bottom.
The next day was filled with more shopping and more palaces. This time we visited Insadong, which is famous for it's Korean souvenirs. We spent a couple hours browsing the selection, which all started to look the same after a couple shops. We both had intentions on buying gifts for people, but both went away empty-handed. Sorry guys, maybe next time. After our shopping trip, we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. This was the main palace during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). I believe this is the largest of the palaces, measuring in at 5.4 million square feet. It definitely was a beautiful palace, but like we said, if you've seen one, you've seen them all. So after milling around for an hour, we decided to head back to our hotel. This was our last night in Seoul so we went out for a nice Italian dinner and even had ice cream for dessert. After a long day of walking around Seoul, we decided to call it a night.
The next day we were up and off, back to our "lovely" town of Chilwon. Shawn had never taken a train before and wanted to pretend he was Harry Potter for a few hours so we headed off to the KTX station. Unfortunately, the trains in Korea are nothing like the ones on Harry Potter so he was slightly disappointed. But nevertheless, we managed to get home in one piece. All in all, it was a very nice vacation.
Stay tuned for pictures from Seoul.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Vacation Pics from Jeju Island
Beautiful scenery in Seogwipo City
This is Seogwipo City where we stayed for 4/5 nights in Jeju
Jungmun Beach where we did our suntanning... or in Steph's case sunburning
Shawn's senior picture... On a cliff near Seogwipo
A beautiful waterfall!
Next installment: Seoul vacation....stay tuned!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
We're back!
Yes, we are still alive! Sorry it has been so long since our last post...we've had a busy summer with school, English camps, and vacation, but we're back and we'll update you on our lives.
School vacation started on July 25th. No, we haven't been on vacation this whole time. We were lucky enough to teach 3 weeks of summer English camps. English summer camp was an experience to say the least. What it involves is students from all over the county come to our school and we teach them English. Our first two weeks of camp were the 4th and 5th graders, who we taught for 4 hours a day. It was actually pretty fun. We played a lot of games and did fun activities. Then our last week of camp we had the 6th graders... dun dun dun. This was quite possibly one of the worst weeks of our lives thus far in Korea. This week of camp started at 9:00 and went until 4:10, with no breaks. We even had to round up all 30 students and take them to a restaurant everyday for lunch. Basically, to sum up the week, I think our school recruited the 30 worst, most misbehaved students from our county. Just writing about it is bringing up too many bad memories so I need to stop...Let's move on to our vacation!
The first half of our vacation was spent on Jeju Island. This is Korea's "vacation" island. We spent 6 glorious days basking in the sun, or at least partial sun. The highlights of the trip included scuba diving, laying on the beach, and for Shawn, Asia's largest hedge maze.
The beach is pretty self explanatory so we'll give you the details on scuba and the hedge maze.
For those of you who didn't know, this was our SECOND scuba dive. Yeah, that's right, we're kind of a big deal. We got to the scuba place in the morning, greeted by the stoic German scuba instructor, wearing his speedos. We signed our life away and off we went. He told us we would have "down time" on the "beach" so we brought along books and music to entertain ourselves. We loaded all of our gear into the boat and sailed off to the island we would be diving off of. Well this "island" turned out to be a giant rock, sticking out of the ocean. The beach turned out to be rock. Funny how this sounded much more appealing when it was being explained to us. We were then informed, since we were not certified, we would have to dive one on one with Mr. Speedo. What this meant for us, is we each got a 2o minute dive, and 6 hours of sitting on the giant rock. Now, let me tell you a little something about high tide. This rock kept getting smaller and smaller, so it turned out that on this trip we not only got to scuba dive, but also rock climb. The rock was not only occupied by us, but also by thousands of nasty water bugs. They too were trying to escape the high tide so we ended up getting pretty close and personal.
As for the actual dive part, I mean, what can we say? It was a pretty coral, and there were some interesting fish, but when your ears feel like they are bleeding from the pressure, these things are harder to focus on. The one good thing about this trip was that no sea turtles were spotted. See previous posts if you don't understand.
Shawn's one wish on this trip was to go to Asia's largest hedge maze. It was actually pretty interesting, and by the end, half the people there were following us. Apparently we looked like we knew where we were going. Little did they know it was Shawn that was leading us. But after many wrong turns, we made it to the end and Shawn waited in line amongst the little kids so he could ring the bell at the end.
Most every night was spent enjoying a nice dinner next to the water. Steph and Kristen usually polished off a bottle of red wine or two each night, while Shawn sipped on his beloved beer, or for one moment in time, a Manhattan. I know, classy right? After our summer camp from hell, this was the perfect vacation to relax and unwind.
We have not had a chance to upload our pictures yet, so you will have to wait. ( Don't worry, we won't make you wait almost 2 months again!). And stay tuned to hear about the 2nd part of our trip!
School vacation started on July 25th. No, we haven't been on vacation this whole time. We were lucky enough to teach 3 weeks of summer English camps. English summer camp was an experience to say the least. What it involves is students from all over the county come to our school and we teach them English. Our first two weeks of camp were the 4th and 5th graders, who we taught for 4 hours a day. It was actually pretty fun. We played a lot of games and did fun activities. Then our last week of camp we had the 6th graders... dun dun dun. This was quite possibly one of the worst weeks of our lives thus far in Korea. This week of camp started at 9:00 and went until 4:10, with no breaks. We even had to round up all 30 students and take them to a restaurant everyday for lunch. Basically, to sum up the week, I think our school recruited the 30 worst, most misbehaved students from our county. Just writing about it is bringing up too many bad memories so I need to stop...Let's move on to our vacation!
The first half of our vacation was spent on Jeju Island. This is Korea's "vacation" island. We spent 6 glorious days basking in the sun, or at least partial sun. The highlights of the trip included scuba diving, laying on the beach, and for Shawn, Asia's largest hedge maze.
The beach is pretty self explanatory so we'll give you the details on scuba and the hedge maze.
For those of you who didn't know, this was our SECOND scuba dive. Yeah, that's right, we're kind of a big deal. We got to the scuba place in the morning, greeted by the stoic German scuba instructor, wearing his speedos. We signed our life away and off we went. He told us we would have "down time" on the "beach" so we brought along books and music to entertain ourselves. We loaded all of our gear into the boat and sailed off to the island we would be diving off of. Well this "island" turned out to be a giant rock, sticking out of the ocean. The beach turned out to be rock. Funny how this sounded much more appealing when it was being explained to us. We were then informed, since we were not certified, we would have to dive one on one with Mr. Speedo. What this meant for us, is we each got a 2o minute dive, and 6 hours of sitting on the giant rock. Now, let me tell you a little something about high tide. This rock kept getting smaller and smaller, so it turned out that on this trip we not only got to scuba dive, but also rock climb. The rock was not only occupied by us, but also by thousands of nasty water bugs. They too were trying to escape the high tide so we ended up getting pretty close and personal.
As for the actual dive part, I mean, what can we say? It was a pretty coral, and there were some interesting fish, but when your ears feel like they are bleeding from the pressure, these things are harder to focus on. The one good thing about this trip was that no sea turtles were spotted. See previous posts if you don't understand.
Shawn's one wish on this trip was to go to Asia's largest hedge maze. It was actually pretty interesting, and by the end, half the people there were following us. Apparently we looked like we knew where we were going. Little did they know it was Shawn that was leading us. But after many wrong turns, we made it to the end and Shawn waited in line amongst the little kids so he could ring the bell at the end.
Most every night was spent enjoying a nice dinner next to the water. Steph and Kristen usually polished off a bottle of red wine or two each night, while Shawn sipped on his beloved beer, or for one moment in time, a Manhattan. I know, classy right? After our summer camp from hell, this was the perfect vacation to relax and unwind.
We have not had a chance to upload our pictures yet, so you will have to wait. ( Don't worry, we won't make you wait almost 2 months again!). And stay tuned to hear about the 2nd part of our trip!
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