A brand new school year

Wow, it's been busy for me and Keith lately! We started our new school year the beginning of March. I unfortunately spent the first week home sick in bed, with no appetite and a horrible stomach flu (which was going around the area), although at first I thought it was food poisoning from our recent trip to Thailand, but I don't think that was the case.

But, I am healthy and back to teaching now, and so excited about all the new positive changes this semester. First, it feels so nice not being the new teacher anymore! I am still teaching in the same middle school with boys and girls (they are in separate classes), so all my 2nd (7th in US) grade students know me from last year and I am familiar with the school and feel closer to my students since I know more Korean and know more about the Korean culture and my students' interests. This all helps so much in the classroom because my students participate more, feel closer to me and I know how to be the best teacher I can be for them (I understand that I have to speak more slower...when I do this, I am so proud of how closely they listen to my words in order to understand what I am saying. I also have learned what English vocab words and terms they know, and that it helps when I ask them to say the word in Korean to check their comprehension, ect).

Here in Korea, teachers change school every three years in order to keep the teachers working hard and to change up the staff. For this reason, I have many new Korean co-teachers this semester. Instead of only having 2 different co-teachers, now I have about 6 co-teachers all together, but it is still only one co-teacher in my classroom at a time. My new staff members are great!! They actually speak a high level of English, sit next to me in my office (which is still on the main floor) and are always there to help me. I appreciate them so much! My principal and vice-principal are the same, which is also nice since many EPIK teachers had to change schools and get new principals that they must impress for the new school year.
Unlike in America, the new school year begins in March and ends in December.

What else have we been busy with? Well, Keith is still continuing to take muay thai kickboxing lessons from the wonderful kickboxing instructor near our house at Dragon Gym each night after school from 6pm-7:30pm. I have been going to our gym near Mt. Sarabong (15 minute walk from our apartment) where I run, lift weights, abs, take yoga classes, and will hopefully begin swimming soon.

The weekends are just as busy, since we just started teaching Saturday school 2x a month. On these days, Keith and I are both picked up by a teacher, who brings us to an excluded pretty elementary school out in the country area. The school has tangerine trees in the backyard and flowers and plants in archways inside the school near each classroom! I love the relaxing atmosphere. We both teach from 9am-12pm, and then are dropped back off at our apartment, which is convenient. We get paid 120,000 won (about $110) for only 3 hours of teaching (which is rare to find here)! I am loving the classes so far because now I not only get experience teaching in my middle school, but also teaching 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at this elementary school 2x a month.

On the Saturdays that we have off, Keith plays ultimate Frisbee for most of the day (which he is practicing for the upcoming Frisbee tournament that he will be playing in), while I run and take a yoga class at the gym, and on Sundays, Keith and I usually go to church (which is walking distance from our apartment), and then go to the gym, where Keith now plays on a Korean college team as an intramural sport, while I get my workout on.

The weather is still cool most days, usually around 50-60 degrees F and sometimes very windy. Everyone here on the island is waiting anxiously for the warm weather to hit and stay, which supposedly happens sometime in April/early May. One great sign of spring arriving has been the beautiful pinkish white cherry blossom flowers that have bloomed on many of the trees here found all around the island! Last week they had their annual cherry blossom festival, however, everyone was a little disappointed that the new location for the festival did not have a single cherry blossom in site! Didn't understand that! lol The festival, like most here, was filled with Korean food and snacks, such as seafood and veggie pancakes, pork, kimchi and rice, seaweed soup, corndogs, fish pancakes filled with red bean paste, popcorn, cotton candy, etc. There was also a few funny male performers who were singing and playing drums, and dressed up in girlish clothes (skirts, face paint, hair up in a ponytail, etc.)...don't ask because I have no idea what the tradition was...but I did take a video, so I'll put it up here later. Besides the food and music, there were carnival games like darts to win stuffed animals, there was some type of Korean gambling/ betting (played on the ground), and there were 3,000 won stylist hats (=$3) which of course I picked a USA hat out for myself..it's a tradition now that I shop for hats at festivals, since it is the best price I have ever seen for hats. We only went to the festival for about an hour or two because it was so cold!!!! I really hope it gets warmer soon, considering there's palm trees on this island and it's supposed to be the Hawaii of Korea. lol

Well, once the warm weather begins, everyone will start heading off to the beach. Most foreign English teachers will be participating in the upcoming V-ball tournament which will be held near the end of May. Basically, like last semester, it's 2 days of playing v-ball on the beach, followed by partying and camping on the beach at night. I sat out last fall and cheered on the side because of my shoulder, but now have decided to be on Keith's team. We have a pretty good team and I can't wait to start practicing! Plus, I can't wait to start being active outdoors...running, swimming, maybe biking, hiking, snorkeling, fishing, etc.

Besides our active lives, we have had many friends' birthdays on the islands, which means lots of dinners out and celebrating in the downtown city life of Jeju-si! Plus, since it is a new semester and I have some of the same students, I have been making all new lessons this semester. The last few weeks, my students have been interviewing and introducing their partner to the class, while playing a competitive Typhoon game. This week my students are learning about family relationships, in which I teach them vocabulary, then show them my family tree (which I copy/pasted a picture of each of my family members onto a power point family tree) to help illustrate the relationships. Of course I had to add in the possibility of Ricky getting married to Angelina Jolie and having a son...in order to have the students tell me the relationship of sister-in-law and nephew. I also added in if Ricky got married to Britney Spears and had a daughter, so my students can tell me the relationship of sister-in-law and niece. After this example as a class, I had my students practice by telling me the relationships of the Simpson's family tree. They have really enjoyed the lesson so far this week. Next week my students will be creating their own family trees, in which they can use their own family members or celebrities/ cartoon characters. This lesson will then be tied into comparisons (teaching "______ is stronger than ____", "_______ is older than ________"). They will use their family trees and a celebrity family tree that I created (it's very funny!) to make comparisons of the family members.

Last Friday was also a BIG exciting day for my students at my school because Keith came to visit!!! His school had the day off, so before he ran errands in the afternoon, he came to watch my three classes in the morning. As we walked around the halls of my school, boys and girls shot their heads or bodies out of their classrooms and yelled, "Handsome!! Oooh, soo tall!" and lots and lots of oohs and ahhs from the girls!! It was as if Keith was a famous celebrity visiting their school! The girls were so cute and shy in that they would smile at him and yell handsome, but then cover their faces and turn the other way. I think it was a bigger deal also that Keith visited because I am the only foreign teacher at my school (besides Cynthia who only comes on Mondays to teach). It was definitely a special day for me too, since Keith helped in my classroom to make the lesson extra fun, and since everyone who has heard so much about Keith finally were able to meet him, including my co-teachers, my students and my principal/ vice-principal.

Also, before I head off to do more lesson planning, I just want to say Happy Easter to everyone for this upcoming Sunday. God bless and hope the weather is nice for you and that your spring (and spring break) is warm and sunny! Miss you all! And if you haven't heard yet, Keith and I will be coming home in August to visit for a few weeks. We'll be looking forward to seeing all of you! Can't wait!

Final night in Bangkok/ final day at the HUGE Jatujak market

Sadly, this was our final day in Thailand. I knew that I was going to miss the Thai food, the many bargain markets, the beautiful flowers, and the wild animals very much! On our last day, we went to one of the biggest markets in the world! This market is only held on Saturdays, so we planned our trip around being here on that specific day to make the market. At this market, you could find anything!! Literally! They had any type of clothes….business, dressy, fashionable, boardshorts, etc., artwork…sculptures and paintings, lots of food, things for your house, Thai souvenirs, hand-painted shoes, tons of watches, jewelry, clocks, pottery goods, etc. Anything you could think of pretty much. Keith bought some boardshorts, while I found some summer dresses and we picked out some nice placemats and elephant coasters for our low table. At one of the markets, we met a whole family from Burma….all brothers and sisters about our age, who worked there selling Keith his boardshorts. They were very kind and also willing to give us a good deal because we bought so much and were so happy for the business. We also saw some entertainers on the streets around the huge market. ONe that stuck out, was a young boy who energetically danced around and played some type of unknown instrument Great music...listen to the video I took of him! After spending practically the whole day at the market (and we weren't even able to make it around the entire market..it was that big), we headed back to our guesthouse, where we were picked up by a bus to be brought with other tourists to the Bangkok airport. This completed our Thailand trip….but we’ll be back! Possibly in 2 winters we want to take another trip to see Southern Thailand, where we hope to island hop. Thanks for reading the blog and let me know if you have any questions or comments!

Tiger Temple and Hellfire Pass Tour!

Friday was our last full-day tour that we had booked. The driver picked us up early at 7:15am and we jumped into the long van that only had one more couple that rode along with us. They were a young couple like us from Australia. We took a three hour drive to Kanchanaburi, which was a city northwest of Bangkok, very close to the border of Burma. However, we first stopped at a floating market on the way, where we went on a little canoe boat which had a huge motor. For about an hour we rode along the river and were able to see locals and tourists selling and buying fruits, veggies and souvenirs from other canoes or from the sides of the river. Keith and I bought some mango in sticky rice and some coconut to have for breakfast.
The next stop was to the War Cemetery, which was dedicated for all the people who died constructing the death railway. These people consisted of people from various countries in SE Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Then, we then went to the bridge over River Kwai, where we walked over the very old and narrow bridge which had plenty of spots that we could have fallen through the holes into the river below…yikes! I saw one woman wearing heals and I couldn’t believe the risk she was taking!

Next, we stopped into the Hellfire Pass Museum. The name was given to the railway cutting on the Death Railway in Thailand. It was known by the Japanese as Konyu cutting, and was built in WWII, in part by prisoners of war. They would work by torchlight at night, which gave the name. The Australian, British, Dutch and other allied POWs were forced by the Japanese to work 18 hour days. Many were beaten to death and many died from disease, starvation and exhaustion. The workers were made promises of good job conditions and high pay; however, these were never kept. The railroad was to end at Thanbuyuzayat in Burma, with the total distance within the Thai territory being 300km, and only taking one year to complete. It was built from October 1942-October 1943. It was sad to learn about Hellfire Pass, and I was surprised by the history since we had never learned it in school. Keith and I saw a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance outside of the museum, and then took a walk down a path into the forest where we were able to see the site of Hellfire Pass. There are no longer trains running on this stretch of line; and only this part of the railroad still exists. After a delicious Thai lunch which consisted of about 6 dishes that us and the Australian couple shared, we headed to my favorite part of the tour….the Tiger Temple!

Our tour guide made sure that we arrived right at 1pm, which was right after the tigers ate their lunch (turkey). These tigers have been raised since they were born by the trainers and monks. Although they are friends with their trainers who they grew up with, sometimes they can be playful and scratch (usually only the cubs and younger tigers though). Since it was probably the hottest part of the day too, the tigers were very sleepy and most were taking their naps. We took a few pictures with some of the smaller tigers and were able to pet them, but were told it was very important to press firmly on the tiger’s back because if you pressed too lightly it would feel like a tickle and the tiger might be playful and scratch you. I was a little nervous at first, but then I forced myself to feel comfortable, because I know that animals can detect when you’re nervous. There were many precautions by the many trainers who were there and they all made sure to have you stay behind the tigers at all times. The trainers were the only ones who took pictures and they did a great job of taking three quick shots for each pose. While we were taking pictures, one trainer put a cute hat on one sleepy tiger while Keith was taking a picture with him. How cute!

Next, we were put into a line and gave our cameras to the trainers and everyone took a turn walking one of the bigger tigers, with a monk on the other side, holding the tiger’s leash and leading him into the main tiger temple. This was definitely very crazy and exciting/scary! Once all the different lines were finished taking turns leading the bigger tigers into the Tiger Temple, a trainer shared some information with us about tigers. We learned that tigers will continue to double in size for the first 4 months until they are full-grown. Also, most the money from the tours goes towards protecting, raising and feeding the tigers. While he was talking, I noticed the trainers and some monks squirting water on the tigers to keep them cool. Although we only went to the afternoon session where the tigers are brought into this specific area to have pictures taken with them, they also have free time in the morning and in the evening to play in a different area of the temple. You can sit in a safe area and watch them play wildly, or you can feed the cubs.

We both had lots of fun having the photo shoot with the bigger tigers, which was next on the agenda. Each person was taken one at a time, and led hand-in-hand by two trainers around the temple, where about 15 big tigers were all laying around, chained up of course. There were about 20 or more trainers on site, but it was still a little scary; I’m not gonna lie, but definitely something you have to experience at least once in life! Afterward, before heading out, our tour guide walked us past where there was a 4-week old cub!! It was so adorable, and although it was not part of our tour, we spent about five minutes each being able to hold the little cub. It looked exactly like a kitten…check it out in the picture below. We thought it would be crazy if the cub accidentally got put into a kitten pet store and someone bought it and took it home thinking it was a kitten and then it grew into a tiger!!! We were sad to leave the Tiger Temple because it was one of our favorite parts to the tour and of the week.

Our last stop was to an Erawan waterfall/national park, which was famous in Kancharanaburi, and also a Buddha Cave and an old railroad. The waterfall is a major attraction, named after the three-headed white elephant of Hindu mythology. The seven-tired falls are supposed to resemble the Erawan.

After our busy busy tour day, filled with history, excitement, new experiences, and a dip into the Thai culture, we napped in the van on the 3 hour ride back to our guesthouse. That night when we returned, we grabbed some dinner and stopped by a few bars on our street to see the nightlife. We randomly met up with the German couple who we had met earlier on the overnight train from Chiang Mai. What a small world! We hung out with them, had a few beers and listened to a guitar player/singer at one bar. It was a fun last night in Thailand. The next day was all market/shopping time and heading back to the airport.