New Years Eve

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone has recovered from New Years. We had a great time. We went to Jeju city to meet up with some of the fellow teachers for the night. We hopped on a bus in Jungmun for 3.50$ and took a 50 minute bus ride to the city. To know how this felt, it was kind of like taking a taxi ride in New York City at night but you are in a 50 person bus. It was a little hectic at times but we made it.

We then met up with some friends and went to eat some chicken at this restaurant. We were about 12 people. We ate some vegies, a bunch of sweet potatoes and a bunch of Chinese lettuce. It was really good. We had a few conversations with this guy from Texas and his girlfriend. The night was going so well when I hit my head on the small doorway out of the washroom. It was even bleeding.

Then we left that place and went to a bar called Kansas. Everyone had a few beers and had long conversations about leaving in Korea and enjoying the sites. Since we were pretty much the newest people to join the group, we were trying to get the most info from everyone. After finishing a few pitchers of beer, we headed off to the foreigner bar called the Blue Agave. It was an interesting place but they're a few oddballs there. We celebrated New Years 14 hours ahead of everyone in Ottawa and had a great time until some drunk guy tried to pick a fight. The fight broke out and we left in a hurry. We picked up all our friends and headed to another bar at around 1:30 or 2 am.

We left the bar and went to this amazing dance bar. They played some amazing music until we left at 3:30 am. The bars don't really have a closing time. We hopped into a cab a few blocs away and drove back to Seogwipo. It came up to a 20$ ride for around 50 minutes of driving. It is really cheap to get around on a taxi. The taxi went over the mountain and at times it was a little slow because the Koreans where all driving up the mountain to catch the first sunrise of the year at the top of Halla Mountain. I did not see a thing of this because I was sleeping but Karina said it was pretty amazing to see all these people walking up the roads at 4:30 in the morning to get to the top of the mountain. Out of 4 of us in the cab, only 2 were awake when we got home. I should say, it took the 2 sleeping people about 5 minutes before the passed out in the cab. I don't think I made it out of the city awake. Luckily for me, Karina took care of me and we did not lose anything.

The next day, we woke up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I took a few pain killers and tried to go back to sleep. We stayed in bed all afternoon and watched movies. We got up for supper and then went right back into bed to watch another movie. We did not leave the house that day. It was nice to relax all day.

We had a great New Years. We do miss our friends and family but it was really nice to talk to some off them at 2:00 pm(New Years in Ottawa). It was a fun experience and who knows where we will be partying it up next year. Hopefully we will be in Australia or maybe China or Thailand. It is such a long way away.

Yesterday and today, we have been back at school. As stated in the past, we have a new schedule. Everything is going very well and we are still enjoying teaching.

I WISH EVERYONE A GREAT YEAR IN 2006. Hope you all succeed in everything you do. HAVE FUN and ENJOY LIFE.

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina