Hello everyone,
I hope everyone is doing great. We are still enjoying ourselves although we are busier then ever since spring has arrived. It's been a long time since we have posted since we had to do grades and we went to Seoul for the weekend and then I got sick. My health has recovered and we are getting ready for an ultimate tournament at the end of the month of April.
Since March 20th we have done a ton of things! We went with our entire staff to a soccer game - Jeju United (the islands new soccer team) vs Suwon. A pretty fun game, too bad Jeju got smoked! But it was great to see crowds of people out to support Jeju's new team. We even had some of our students come to the game (theyare the children of some of the staff here) and they were really cute and excited. They kept on trying to explain the game of soccer to us in their broken English. One of our students Jack was so funny. When asked the question "How are you?" he would yell "I am soooo happy!!!"
Speaking of our students, we are both lucky to have some really great classes. The students love Chrsitian's funny facial hair (its now a weird moustache and soul patch) and they call him Hippo Teacher. And I have so really cuties who I adore. One of my little kids is 5years old and her name is Ruth. She is younger than most of the students, but her English is fantastic. When ever she sees me (I'm usually doing my last minute photocopies) she'll run up and hug my legs! Ahhh, so much fun! Here are two pics of both of our younger classes. They are in second grade here, but are still 5 and 6 years old.
Anyways, we had a great 4 day weekend and decided to really take advantage, so off to Seoul we flew for a whirlwind trip! Seoul was a lot of fun. We did a lot of walking during our four day weekend and did not stop from 8 AM till 12 PM.
We visited a beautiful palace that was right downtown. We wandered the beautiful grounds, surounded by decorated palaces, pagodas, and a ton of school groups! It was really interesting to see how old this palace was, and to learn about the history. We also explored an area called Insadong, a renouned traditional tea area! It was probably my favorite area - tons of unique little shops and art galleries! We also did some shopping in two huge outdoor markets - you could buy anything from pickled ginger to high priced shoes and handbags! But the markets had a traditional and modern feel, all mixed together! However a big thing on my list was oatmeal. We also got some couscous, a chocolate orange, and a funny t-shirt for me ( it's an English t-shirt, but the grammar on it is all wrong.) We ate great food and enjoyed the markets. It was really cool because of all the people that were there, it was packed! However, the shopping aspectwas pretty funny - we had a real big problem finding anything that fit us. It was a pain because any shirts they had was a Free size meant one size fits all - and that would be one size fits all Koreans...not us!!! And there are no changing rooms, so if you do want to try you are exposing your self to everyone around! Ahhh c'est la vie!!!
We even met up with one of our adult students who is from Seoul. Him and his girlfriend took us for a tour of their old university (Yonsei Uni, the 3rd biggest in Seoul) and then they us out to a great traditional restaurant. After we all went to this really interesting game room...literally and bar where you rent out blocks of time and play any kind of board game imaginable! Anyways, after that they escorted us to a cool hiphop club. It was an interesting place jam packed with people and the music was great. We don't really have any huge clubs here on the island so it was excellent!
We even managed to pick up a game of ultimate with their local league. It was so nice to play the game again! We actually are having an international ultimate tournament here in Seogwipo at the end of April, so we met many of our soon to be adversaries. It was a good group of people and we are excited to play against them soon.
So that is our whirlwind trip to Seoul in a nutshell! We had an absolute great time, but it was wonderful to get off the airplane Monday morning and smell the fresh ocean air. It felt like home!
This blog may have been slightly confusing because we both wrote it!
The next up date will be here soon! (And pictures will soon be up too!)
We love you and miss you all!
Anyoung!
Karina and Christian
Hey,
Hello,
The first pick is of us at the main palace.
This is one of the main gates around the old city. It was really cool. They are pretty big and now are surrounded by new buildings. As you can see I had to find out where the next Subway station was.
This is a manmade lake in the middle of the main palace. It was really cool. This is were the royalty with meet there foreign guest for supper.
Same place but from the other side. I needed a break from all the walking.
More pics around the palace.
This place is enormous. There are at least 100 buildings. This is were the king would meet people during ceremonies.
This is the main entrance into the main palace.
This is another gate at night. there were 4 gates in all for main directions. There used to meet a fortrous wall but this was demolished though wars and growth of the city. 
The last picture is of a park in the middle of the city where the start of the Korean uprising against the Japanese during the 20th century. In the back ground you can see a 9 tier Pagoda. It was really cool but you can't get any good pics since it is sealed in the glass structure for protection.
