ET Festival

ET Festival = English Together Festival 2010

Jujeon Elementary school is a part of the Dong-gu area in Ulsan. The Dong-gu area had an English festival and all of the elementary schools in this area had to participate. This means that I (the native English teacher) and my mentor teacher (Christine) has to come up with some type of game or activity to do with english, and we will have our own booth at this festival. Children from the Dongu-gu area (approx. 600-1000) will come to the fair and participate in the activities, win prizes, and hopefully, learn some english. This was on a saturday which meant 8 hours of overtime.

Our game is: Word Tornado...so we decorated our booth with cool looking tornados and gave away candy canes if the students won the game. I had three helpers from my grade 6 class, which helped a lot with the constant stream of kids all day.

 

my three helpers: Bini, Ashely, Brenda

By the end of the day I really thought I would have lost my voice. Thankfully I didn't lose it, but it was extremely sore.

Shalini and Christine (my mentor teacher)

This was a great experience for me, I had a lot of fun, it was very tiring to prepare and actually be a part of. But it was great to see so many students understanding and playing our game!

Andong Cultural Trip

The Ulsan POE organized a cultural trip for the TaLK teachers to visit Andong and see the very famous Andong mask festival. We all met Saturday morning bright and early and headed three hours away to our first destination: Andong city.

We were able to see a dance performance, but I wish it would have been a mask dance instead. We were only scheduled to be here for a couple hours so there was not much time to see the entire festival. There were a lot of stalls to look at, play games, make your own mask, and lots of yummy food and samples. My camera died and I left my extra batteries on the bus :S...not something I usually do, so I didn't get many pictures from the actual festival. I went and i'm glad that I got to visit one of the famous festivals in Korea.

There were a lot more places for us to visit before the end of the night. Our next stop was a traditional Korean village where there are still farmers that live in these homes; they have continued to preserve the traditional Korean homes, culture, growing crops, and way of life.

 

It was very rainy and gloomy so no one really felt like walking around, but we had a lot of time to sight see while we were there. After dinner we were supposed to go to a fireworks show, but, because of the rain, it had to be cancelled. We had "free" time, meaning, we went to our hotel room earlier and hung out. We couldn't go out because our hotel was in the middle of no where, it looked kind of sketchy but our hotel room was nice. We did try to walk ouside for a bit to see if we could find a place to eat some patbingsu, but it was raining so much and a lot of us didn't bring umbrella's with us. Instead, Tiff and I, since we were rooming together, decided to get some snacks and bring it back to our room and watch some tv.

The next day we had to be up early to visit a couple more places and get back to Ulsan at a reasonable time.

First stop after breafast was a scholrs village. This is a cute little village made to look like where the first scholars taught, learned and lived.





being carried away to jail





year of the rabbit '87



After the scholars village we headed to Buseoksa to visit a very beautiful temple famous for the beautiful carvings on the exterior. There was quite a hike up to the temple, but of course, as always. when you get to the top it's breath taking.

After the scholars village we headed to Buseoksa to visit a very beautiful temple famous for the beautiful carvings on the exterior. There was quite a hike up to the temple, but of course, as always. when you get to the top it's breath taking.

Our last stop to end our cultural trip was to the Applepia Organic apple farm. Every year I go apple picking during Thanksgiving with my family and I would miss it this year, but, when I found out we were going apple picking I was very happy that I could pick my apples and take a family picture like I always do. The apples were huge and yummy. I've been eating apples for two weeks. One apple took me about a half hour to eat, it was like a complete meal. It was so much fun picking apples with my new friends and taking pictures lol. It was the perfect end to our cultural trip.

 



family pic



There are so many posts that I need to put up, bear with me, i'm getting there!

Chuseok...Korean Thanksgiving

I thought this post would be about our cultural trip to Andong but I wanted to one post about my vacation during Chuseok. For Chuseok we had three days off, almost one week vacation in the first month of teaching. September was going by fast and this vacation made it a lot easier to get through the first month. I did not plan on going anywhere like most of the native teacher's here. Instead, my good friend Erin, who lives in Nonsan (about 3-4 hours away) decided to come visit me for a few days. Unfornately, the day Erin was coming I suddenly started feeling sick :S. I still wanted her to come, so she did. I was very sick all week but we made the best of it. On top of that the weather was not great, very rainy.

In Ulsan, I wanted to show Erin the ferris wheel, my beach, eat some patbingsu, and just have a good time, Steven couldn't make it so we were a little sad. Most of the week we watched a ton of movies and relaxed, something neither of us had done since we moved here in August. While Erin was here, we went into town and had dinner at a Turkish restaurant, I took her to Is Coffee, which has the best green tea patbingsu ever!...went to the beach and layed there for a few hours, had a chick flick marathon and drank tea while sitting on the beach at night, watching the waves crash. It was exactly what I needed. Some real down time and girl time. I missed Erin so much and it was really great to be with her again!

On friday night I received a phone call from Steven saying that he will be coming to Ulsan in the morning. Erin and I were both psyched that he was coming. Saturday morning we both went into town picked up Steven came back to my place and showed him the beach. Then, we packed up and headed back to Samsandong to my friend Kenton's place. He let us stay at his place while he was in China for Chuseok. We got ready and had a really nice evening out. We met up with my Ulsan TaLKers and finally went on the ferris wheel that over looks Ulsan.

Erin left the next day and Steven and I hung out for the day ( I took Steven to the Turkish restaurant and we managed to get some Jasmine Shisha,...this was a lot of fun!). On Sunday morning Steven and I had our last meal together at kimbap heaven. We had...lol kimbap! then we said our goodbyes and he was off back to Chuncheon.

Even though I was extremely sick I had an amazing time with my friends! My first Chuseok is defnitely one to remember.

First trip to Busan....the 2nd Seoul

My friends and I decided to make trip down to Busan for the day or possibly weekend and I thought how could I not go, Shayna (my new friend from New Zealand) lives there and I have to visit her since we barely had a goodbye when we left Jochiwon.

eating yummy corn snacks at the station

Fortunately, the intercity bus to Busan from Ulsan only takes one hour to Nopodong station which is where the intercity and express buses arrive as well as the number 1 subway line starts.

The bus ride there felt short and once we got to Nopodong station I called Shayna so she could meet us somewhere in the middle. We wanted to get some shopping done and were told that at Nampodong station there is the International market and an underground shopping mall.

Our first stop was Seomyeon station where we met a few other TaLKers and had lunch. After lunch we were off to Nampodong for some much needed shopping.

first stop,Seomyeon station



Our day was long from all of the stairs we had climb and all of the walking we did. Before dinner we went to the top of the Lotte Department store to an observatory where there is a look out over Busan. The cutest thing I've ever seen is the couple's buy lock and keys and lock it to the railing and drop the keys in this key box. This was the first time I've ever seen anything like this (besides carving your names into a tree trunk)

We weren't sure if we would go back to Ulsan that night or stay over. We didn't know where we would stay yet either. Around 9 we were still in downtown Busan and unsure of what we wanted to do. A few from the group decided to stay and a few of us felt like we wanted to go back. The day was long and needed to come to an end. Unfortunately, the last bus from Noposong station to Ulsan was at 10 and we were at the opposite side of Busan and it was 9:15. We said okay, we'll try and if not we'll come back. We hopped back on the subway back to the top of line #1. We got to Nopodong station at around 10:07, ran up the stairs and to the intercity buses. Just our luck there was the last bus just about to leave, with just enough room for us to sit on the bus .




Ulsan friends: L-R > Shalini, Tiffany, Shayna, Yuri, Ben, Nicole

 I had so much fun with my Ulsan TaLKers, a great eventful day...almost felt like we were on the amazing race by the end of the night trying to rush back to Nopodong station. All in all a really nice trip to visit Busan and Shayna.

More next time...Andong Cultural Trip

laterz

SHINee - Lucifer (MV)

This song is very popular right now in Korea. These boys are really cute, and the tune is so catchy! My students love this song.

I really hope by the time I leave Korea that I can sing all of these songs when I noraebang (in Korean)





I will randomly post my favourite K-Pop songs while i'm here, look forward to many many more...

bah bye

Hallyu Dream Concert

I've heard about K-Pop many times before coming to Korea. Of course I knew Rain, but the others, not so much. When I came to Korea I didn't think that I would really get into all the K-Pop songs. That is until foreigners were given the opportunity to go to the Hallyu Dream Concert for free, which featured 25 very popular groups and artists on one stage, for one night.

So off we went, my little group of friends took the train from Ulsan station to Gyeongju station. 45 minutes later we were in Gyeongju. We made our way to the venue which was only a 3 minute taxi ride. Our taxi driver was driving at least 100 km/hr, it felt like we were on a roller coaster, it was fun, but those taxi drivers are crazy.

on the train to Gyeongju

We got there around 12:30 and the concert started around 7pm. We waited in line for many many hours but it was well worth the wait. There were about 6,000 foreigners and 6,000 Koreans at the stadium. It was amazing to see a sea of people with there glow sticks and fan cards. The girls screaming and singing along were so loud but so much fun to be a part of. 

I now have a long list of new favourite artists and groups in Korea. The list includes: Shinee, se7en, Beast, SuperJunior, T-ara, Miss A, Secret, Davichi, 2pm, 2am...and the list goes on. Everywhere I go in Ulsan I hear these songs and can't help but sing, even my students know all of the words to most of these songs. So if I play a youtube video of Shinee's Lucifer my kids goes crazy, singing and dancing. I love watching them dance and sing and the actual music videos are so entertaining, it reminds me of how much I used to love my boy and girl bands in the 90's.....

..keep reading, there are more posts to come!

bi bi

Chopin Ballade No.1 in G minor, Opus 23 by Tzvi Erez HQ

This is my favourite piece of music by chopin, I really tried to learn this on my own a long time ago, when I was at my best when I played piano. When I get back from Korea I will try again...hopefully I can get through it. It is a tough piece of music, but if you listen to it in its entirety you'll realize how beautiful it is.




Enjoy! and please comment, I'd love to know what you think of my blog

ba bye

Toronto > Jochiwon > Ulsan > JUJEON...final destination

I live in Jujeon, Ulsan

Jujeon beach to be exact.

Literally on the beach.

The black pebble beach.

There is no need for many words in this blog, the pictures will speak for themselves.



my beach house...in Korea it is called a pension





 













Next up, maybe a blog on my school or my very first K-Pop concert!!

We'll see...very soon i'm sure