Grand Hilton Hotel Seoul

... and I very much enjoyed watching Christoph punch and kick. It was a very thorough introductory class, even I learned some new facts about Taekwondo. At the end of the 1hr training, Christoph was presented with a certificate of participation from the Kukkiwon after promising to honour the Taekwondo's code: be strong, be proud and be my best. :) The training finished at 12pm and we were told there would be a Taekwondo performance at 2pm by ...

... is a most stress inducing, few years of your life taking, gray hair creating, and all around good time. I will surely hope that the can't stand still, unable listen to directions, do their own thing, lovable group of 12 seven year old's I call the Blue Jay Class will step up and do their best come December.

The date last week was not a date as I got my dates mixed up. As Ji Eun and I texted back and forth she wrote that it was the 26th not ...

... protected 24/7 and are required to be in their houses with windows and doors locked at 11 pm.  We got to the army base and we were told not to look soldiers in the eyes, point, smile, or engage in any sort of conversation with them.  When we got off the bus we were ordered into two single file lines and told to follow the person in front of us.  We were led into a tall observatory tower where we could see over the North Korean line that was just a jaunt away.  There was ...

... teachers who even slept through their classes as the students did busy work. For that reason, I have lost respect for this ESL program. If you are reading this, hear me loud and clear! Korea needs to have higher standards for its ESL teachers! I'm even talking about university teachers (who can barely be called teachers). Let's not get into hakwon (학완) teachers. This is ...

... play it out a bit more....we were around tons of people, close to home, and still wondering if we could work a free drink out of them. Ha! As it turns out these guys were Chinese. They bought us some more maekju and more food and then proceeded to attempt a conversation. At one point, cultural differences made a comic enterance when one the Chinese started harrassing Amanda for smoking. This was weird because he had just insisted we both ...

... to experience the exact same thing as back home? Anyway, that's my issue with Itaewon.) The night began with two hours of pre-party drinks in Amanda's apartment. Then we took a damn taxi (I get so car sick in cabs! I have to sit in the front seat or I am not going!) to Hongdae. There were five of us so we had to brib the taxi driver with 20,000 won so he would agree to take all five of us in his cab ...

"Norebang" translates to "singing room"..................its the Korean version of karaoke and it is soooo popular in Korea! There are norebangs everywhere! Just be mindful about the norebangs that offer "other" services! (Some places allow you to pay for a "girlfriend" for the night to drink and sing with......whatever.) Anyway, a group of teachers took me out to a buffet dinner (I ate jelly fish!) and then to a norebang. We went to ...

... kinds of sights will be so much nicer once the cherry blossom blooms in April... My calf muscles were still aching when I went into work on Monday morning, but Hew and me received some good news that gave us a lift. Basically, work had decided to drop the three month review as they were happy with our performances, and our personalities. I felt a lot more relaxed after this announcement because the lesson observations were really starting to annoy me - I felt under pressure, and ...

... made a great taco dinner. Fran contributed his lettuce, Russel had the seasoning, shells, and salsa, and I had the pan and the meat and cheese. Between the three of us we were able to come up with a great meal. We played some video game golf after that and after about 3 hours of play, ended up tying. Anticlimactic as it was, at least we had a great time.



Now, I'm back in school and about to start my last class of the day!!

... raining. Being a whimp and also being slightly sore from the past 2 days, I decided to sleep in.

When I got up, I followed the Lonely Planet's instructions for getting to a hiking trail (one made famous by kings getting carried up it). This was a big mistake (as it always is, honestly, I am not completely stupid when it comes to this kind of thing, I swear, but Lonely Planet maps have gotten me into trouble in several countries and it is not just me either, my Mum has had similar ...