Happy Canada Day

Joyeuse Fete a notre beau pays. J'espere que vous allez avoir beaucoup de plaisir lors de votre longue fin de semaine. Nous allons prendre la fin de semaine tranquile et faire du surf a la plage.

Bonne Fete Canada

Pic of the day

The flowers and vegetation are so beautiful in this rainy season since everything is so green.

Break throw and the famous Abbs poach (lazy)

Hello everyone,

This weekend we went to Ulsan on the east coast of the peninsula to play in a Hat ultimate tournament. (To inform all you none ultimate players, a hat ultimate tournament is tourny were people come together and new teams are formed on site. You don't know who you will play with before hand and you there will be a lot of different caliber players on each teams. ) We had a great time and even made it to the finals. We left work a little early and made our way down to the North side of the island to Jeju City. We cut it a little close and arrived 15 minutes before the plane was set to leave. It's a good thing you don't need to be there 1 hour in advance. We took a flight to Busan and then had to talk another 1 hour bus ride to Ulsan. We were playing at the University of Ulsan campus. One of our buddies works there and he organised it all. The campus is really beautiful although we really don't know how nice the city is because we didn't venture downtown or to the port. It's a industrialized port city so I don't know if we missed much. We had a lot of fun running around on the lush green fields (They're hard to find in the mountain terrain of Korea).

A break throw (Throwing through the defender to were he doesn't want you to throw.)We arrived in Ulsan on Friday night. This was the night of the final Korea game against Swiss. Everyone was getting ready for the game at 4AM and a lot of people were enjoying themselves. We registered for the tourny on the campus and everyone was in red and ready to cheer on the national team. We had enough players to make six teams and I was chosen to lead a team. I think people like to think I want to control everything while I am playing a sport. The rest of the night, we mingled with the other players and met our teamates.

Campus students were getting ready for the big soccer game but we passed on it since we knew we had to play 5 games on Saturday. Everyone else partied and we went had to find a hotel. The only hotels around were the famous Korean MOTEL D'AMOUR and since there was a big game going on at 4 AM all the rooms were booked up and we ended up in a pretty dodgy place. The place was cheap (30$) and it had a round pink bed with gold trim. You walked out of the elevator and you found a hugh shelf of naughty videos. To say the least, we slept in our clothes and were out the next morning pretty early.

Saturday was amazing, the sun game out and we had a pretty good day for people who had never played together before and we also some three players that were playing in their first tournament so we had to explain the rules to them. We went 2 and 2 on the day. I was happy with the performance and we learned to play together.

We then had a fun, barefoot allstar game on this luscious green green grass. We had to play barefoot because we couldn't put divits in the grass. The game was fun and there were a lot of great players and plays. The game ended in a tie 13-13 called due to lack of light. People were going all out and enjoying themselves. It was really intense. It would awesome to get all these players together to play for one tournament in Asia but it's really and expensive to go to a tournament out side of Korea. Karina had an awesome catch in the endzone and I handled pretty well all around. There are some really good players here although it's hard to get them altogether for a tourny. It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves.

After the allstar game, we went and showered and made off for the restaurant. We had a quick bite and then went to party at the local foreigner bar near the campus. We headed home not to late and passed out in a better looking love motel.

The next morning, we got up although we could of stayed in bed for another few hours and played three games in the rain. We ended up winning our first two games and making it to the finals. I played pretty much every point in the first two games so by the time the final game, I was out of gas. We got beat pretty bad (10-5) but we had fun and I hope we learned alot. It was great playing again after a two month layoff but our muscles are really sore now. We ended up staying Sunday night in Ulsan and watched the England game before passing out. We didn't get the greatest sleep on the floor of our buddies place. We left the next morning at 6 Am to catch the intercity bus back to Busan airport and to make it to the island.

We are dead tired and are going to sleep when we get home tonight. The weekend was fun and as any ulty tourney, we didn't get much sleep. We had fun and there are some pretty good fun people to play ultimate with hear even if we only get to do it once every two months. I can't for the next tournament to come up so I can run around some more.

Later

Christian and Karina

A poach is when you are really far away from your man as you can see in this picture. You are supposed to be right on the your man's heals and even a step in front but it didn't happen on this point or maybe as I like to think it's the camera angle or I have just thrown it down the field and we've just caught it in the endzone. Poaching is not good defense, it's lazy defense.

Surfing

Hello,

We are enjoying the waves that we have on the island. I am having a lot of fun on the water and I am trying to catch the biggest waves. It even looks like I know what I am doing. Our buddy John has a broken wrist and is nice enough to lend us his board. We hope to gain a lot of experience during this summer.

It's a lot of fun and also frustrating but if everything goes well we can have an endless summer (Check out these awesome surfing movies: Endless Summer and Endless Summer 2 - lots of beautiful places to catch a wave)and surf everywhere on our way home.

Later

Christian and Karina

Watching Korea's 1st Game at the Stadium

Hello,

We are enjoying the World Cup here in Korea. As already stated we are trying to watch some of the games but the time difference is a killer.

Last night, we went to the World Cup Stadium in Seogwipo to watch the game with some 10,000 cheering Korean soccer fans. It was cool to here everyone route for their country.
We went with a few of our friends and enjoy the atmosphere. Everyone was very excited until Togo scored in the first have. The crowd wasn't too happy but the Korean team scored the equalizer in the second half of a free kick. It was a sweet goal because the Togo captain was sent off with a red card on the free kick foul.
The togo team was now down to 10 players and the Koreans were pressing hard. The crowd was erupting whenever Korea had the ball. Korea scored a second goal and everyone was so excited. Korea won 2-0 and we enjoyed it all. It was amazing to have so many people excited about the win and to enjoy the World Cup fever. We don't have that at home for the World Cup.
After the game, we went to a restaurant in the harbor and watched the France and Swiss game. We stayed up pretty late and enjoy the game even though it was a 0-0 draw. We went to bed before the Brasil game started at 4 AM.

Korea plays next monday agaisnt France at 4 AM and hopefully I will wake up and watch the game. I am not sure if that will work. I know that Karina won't get up and will stay in her comfy bed.

Tae Ha Min Kuk (Korea)

We hope Korea does well because it will be fun to enjoy the atmoshpere of the World Cup.

Later

Christian and Karina

PS RAF If you read this, I am so sorry to here that Poland got there ass beat 2-0. Better luck in four years. Later buddy, I hope you enjoy Canada Day in Ottawa.

The short but sweet visit by Christopher

Hello everyone,

We had our first visitor last week. Here are a few pics from the 5 short days. It was a lot of fun to have him around.
We went to our favorite bar to watch some games and brought him to a few Koreans restaurants.
We also went up Hallasan and had enjoyed the clean air at the top. It was a little cold and it started to rain at the top but we had fun. We were well treated by the some Koreans at the top. They gave us some Soju, Kimbap and Kimchi.

We also went to the beach a few times and visited the big temple on the island. Chris even got in on the surfing while Karina was hosting a baby shower for our friend Joy.

We watched the World Cup opener at our favorite hangout and showed him our life and friends. Chris even sat in on one of Karina's classes. The kids were a little hectic and had millions of questions for him.

We had a great time having Chris with us and showing him our life. He is off the Fiji for a bit. We can't wait for our next visitors. Friends and family are all welcomed. We have an extra bed.

Talk to you all soon.

Christian and Karina

The beaches, surfing and the World Cup

Hello everyone,

We are still enjoyiong ourselves and are getting out to our favorite beaches three times a week. We have even started surfing. The waves don't get that big but it's a great place to learn. Our friend is lending us his board until he gets his cast off. The water is great and this past week, we had our first visitor from backhome. Karina's brother, Christopher came out for a short drop-in. He's off to Fiji to live on a boat for a bit.
We had a great time with him and took him up the mountain and to the beaches. We did them both on the same day. It was nice to have him around and show someone how we live and introduce him our friends. We watched a few World Cup games at our bar and then went to the beaches. The water is nice and we hope to be experienced surfers by the end of the year. The best part is we don't need wetsuits.
Karina and I are having fun and living the life. We are off to the beach in the morning, then teach for a few hours then relax and get ready for our next outing. The weather is beautiful and we always have something to do.

World Cup fever.

It's awesome being in a country that is actually playing in the World Cup. Korea plays tomorrow and we are going to watch the game at the Stadium on the island. I can't wait to experience of 20 thousands fans cheering on their team. For the past 2 weekes, everyone is wearing supporters shirts and everyone is going to watch the game. The only problem is that the games are pretty late for us, 10 PM, 1 AM and 4 AM.

Next week, we have volleyball on the beach and then we are off to Ulsan for an Ultimate Hat Tourney. We will visit Ulsan a bit and get to play some ulty. Everything is going so quickly here, we will be travelling before we even know it. We finalising our itinerary for when we are finished working here. China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, New Zealand, Austrailia and Fiji here we come.

Talk to yo all soon,

Christian and Karina

Five people in a Tico

It's hard on the suspension.

Camping on the beach

Hello everyone,
Here are a few pics from the last two weekends. We went camping on the beach two weekends agao and last weekend we caught the sunset at another beach.
This weekend we are off to the North side of the island to go camping again. We are having agreat time waking up to the waves.

Talk to you all soon,
Christian and Karina