Beijing

Dan and Tan are embarking on another adventure for 5 days. On October 3, Korea will be celebrating Chuseok (한가위) which is equivalent to Thanksgiving. During this holiday Koreans return to their hometowns to pay respects to the spirits of one's ancestors. We decided to leave Korea all together and are headed to Beijing to celebrate their national day on October 1. This national day will be a special one for China they have shutdown central Beijing to celebrate 60 years of Communist rule. We are so excited to continue learning about other cultures, be in the same city as the 2008 summer Olympics...the birds nest that we watched in awe from home, and most of all climb the Great Wall of China. We have been very blessed to have this opportunity and want to thank you all of you readers for keeping up during our year abroad.

Dan and Tan
(P.S. The picture above is a Chuseok gift from Dan's principal..these little fish are usually served at bars and restaurant as snacks)

Co-Workers

Sometime ago I posted about my co-teachers. Well, since that time our English Department has grown some. When I first started back in March I had two co-teachers, Kate and Grace. I taught with them for the majority of the time. In the first semester I taught 3rd and 5th graders with Grace. I had six 3rd grade classes and four 5th grade classes. I taught four 6th grade classes with Kate. Now that we are in a new semester I am now teaching five 4th grade classes instead of the 3rd graders. Co-teaching is really easy. We pretty much dominate the classroom together. In our textbooks there are four sections to a chapter. I do the lesson plans for the 2nd and 3rd periods of each chapter and Grace and Kate do the other two. We feed off of each other very well. I must say, lesson planning for these classes are really easy, mainly because of the book. The book give us a basic outline and we add and subtract from it as we please.
I have had another co-teacher, her name is Heather. I don't actually teach with her but we share an after school Special English Class. I don't particularly like the title but oh well. It is suppose to be for gifted kids not special in the sense of challenged kids. We have worked our schedule out so that she teaches the two hour class on Wednesdays and I on Mondays and Fridays. I fill in for her if she needs me too. She tends to be really busy. You see, she is not a designated English teacher she is actually a homeroom teacher. She teaches second grade. But because she ran the English program the previous two years, they Vice Principal felt it necessary for her to run the class.
I have yet one more co-teacher to bring it to an even four. Her name is Un Hey. She teaches in the BEST (Baekbong English Special Town) program. Once again, more of that special business. The new facility was built for after school English studies. The center is state of the art with a cooking room, dance studio, green room, reading cafe and huge multipurpose room. I answer to Un Hey when it's about my class in the BEST program. It's a writing class. and I just started it a few weeks ago. I teach it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love this class because I only have 10 students. It is much different than my regular classes of 35.
My other co-workers in our English department are Ben and Lydia. They teach strictly in the BEST program with the exception of a few hours. They are a couple from England. Latanya and I hang out with them often. We always seem to have a great time together.
So that's our staff. We all get along really well. I have heard many horror stories of really bad co-teachers and I find myself very lucky.

School Overview (Dan)

To start off school life has been a bit busy. I have been on the move ever since the semester started. School here in Korea is structured differently than the States. For one it is completely ran by the government, and with government comes a lot of paper pushing, bureaucracy. To order a new ink cartridge for the printer, for example, can take awhile. There are forms that need to be filled out and signed. All while, I could easily go down to the Staples equivalent and buy it in twenty minutes. Instead there is a process that must be followed.
It is also a process to record my overtime hours. When I work extra teaching hours I must fill out a paper with my lesson plan and all. That paper must be filled out by my co-teacher with the Korean translation. I must then sign the paper and then go down to the first floor and get the administrators signature. From there I move to the Vice Principal and get his signature on the second floor. Also on the second floor I must go to the Principal's office and get his signature as well. This is all assuming they are all in their respective offices at the same time, which is never the case. I teach twice a week for this particular after school class and must get the signatures often. It's a hassle to say the least.
Another difference in the school system, is the start of the school year. The school year in Korea starts in March. The first semester goes from March to July. They have a little over a month of a summer vacation, and then the second semester begins in late August. The second semester for the most part lasts from August to December. The winter vacation is a little over two months long. The students do have to go back to school at the beginning of February for two weeks to wrap up the second semester. I have been told that those extra two weeks are designed to finish up any curriculum that was not covered in the bulk of the semester. I also have been told that most classes are usually taught with fun activities for the students.
Another major difference is the school hours for the faculty. Here teachers and faculty are at work from 8:40AM to 4:40AM. Though school lets out at 2:40 we are all obligated to stay the remainder of time. It is designed so the teacher does not take work home. It gives us plenty of time to lesson plan. I am usually done with my main English classes by lunch at 12:10. From their I have about two to three hours of free time to prepare for classes. I am running two after school classes at the moment. One of them is an special English class and the second is a writing class I have mentioned before. Other than those major differences school is school. Kids still act like kids.
Next post I will go into more detail about my co-workers and students.

Fall

Fall is here. I don't know if I should be excited or not. I mean the weather is nice and cool and the humidity has subsided. It's just when I think of it getting cool I only think of the Winter to follow. It is definitely a light jacket kind of weather, in the mornings and evenings anyways. During the day it is warm. Not too much is happening as of lately. I started an additional after school class for some overtime. It is a writing class. When I told my mother I was teaching writing she was quick to point out all the mistakes I use to make in primary school as well as the mistakes I continue to make as an adult. Thanks for the support mom, just kidding. Anyways I have ten students in that class and I bought a couple of books to use for the semester's curriculum. It's only two days a week, so pretty easy money, I say. My other special class has dwindled from 22 students at the beginning of last semester to 17 as of late. And because of this Swine Flu epidemic our whole after school center has seen a drastic drop off in registration from the previous semester. I just realized I have not really talked too much about my school and keeping you all updated. I think I will follow this post with a focused post about school life. Bye for now.
Dan

Long time no see

Is this week over as yet???? The weather is starting to change California weather has spoiled me. It is too chilly in the mornings and evenings that I have to bring a jacket! I have traded my summer dresses and shorts for pants and long sleeve shirts...Argh. This has been the longest week ever so I decided to write on the blog. It has been a long time. I am enjoying teaching and traveling it has been an absolute blessing now I'm trying to guide my life in a way that it has more meaning and purpose. This really stresses me out cause I have no idea been what I want to do. Anyway, my school hired a new English teacher named Shin. I am so relieved to have a new English teacher. This is her first job out of college. Over the past few weeks we have spent a lot of time getting to know each other it amazes me how much we have in common. She is really outgoing and loves to ask questions about America the way she talks about it sounds like some magical place. It is but when living there you take everything for granted. Shin cracks me up her new dream is move to New York be a teacher and a part time NBC news correspondent because she read an article about Jenna Bush her exact words "If Jenna can do it so can I"..lol. Her positive outlook on life inspires me. After lunch we started a language exchange program I help her with her English and she teaches me Korean.

Tan

Poll

Well according to the poll I posted last week (to the left), we have very few followers or we have a lot of oblivious followers. I wanted to get a feel for our audience. According to the poll thus far we only have five people who read our blog, one of them being me. If you can please take the time to click the appropriate answer, we would appreciate it. It will help us out, so we know if we should be blogging more or less.
Thanks,
Dan

Back to School

We are back at it again. The second semester officially started this week. It's sad to know that our summer vacation is over. However it does feel good to be back in school. I must admit I missed my kids. Latanya most certainly is not too happy about being back at work. The getting up early is not her idea of fun. Other than school starting back not much else is going on.
We had some Mexican food the other week. In fact we practically had a whole Mexican week. There was a Mexican festival in Seoul. It was a grand re-opening of a restaurant. Plenty of tacos, quesadillas, margaritas and beer. We also ate at On the Border as well. It was really good. The unlimited chips and salsa were wonderful.
Also, I will be trying to get a lot of overtime in the second semester. Because of the new after school program my school asked if I wanted to work in the afternoon as well. It should be a good opportunity to make some more money.
Peace for know.
Dan

Thailand Vacation (Day 7 & 1/2)

Our flight out of Ko Samui departed at 6:05am. We had to be there an hour before take off and it was about a 45 minute drive. Take into account getting ready and eating something, we basically got up extremely early. The taxi came promptly and we soon headed to Bangkok. The flight was quick and before we knew it we had landed.
When we arrived in Bangkok we went straight to the left luggage department and dropped off our bags for the day. We were going to be walking all over the place so we did not want to carry our stuff with us. It was only a couple of bucks to leave the bags.
After dropping off our stuff we went towards the airport shuttle bus area and bought a ticket to take us to Ko San Road. Buying the ticket was convenient and we hopped straight on the bus. I had done some research and mapped out our modes of transportation, however I did not expect it to be this easy. It seemed as if we were just having the best timing. The bus ride took about 40 minutes to get to our destination. We got off the bus and walked Ko San Road. This particular strip is a haven for foreigners and it is usually really lively, we were told. But at 9 O'clock in the morning, not much was happening.
We then headed to the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace is home to the king and queen. It was only about a 15 minute walk. We bought our tickets and went right inside. Before we bought our ticket though we had to rent a few pieces of clothing. You see, you can't wear shorts, me, and you can't show your shoulders, Latanya. So we needed a shirt and a pair of pants between us. We gave them the $6 deposit and put on the loners. It was especially funny looking at Latanya wearing such a big and baggy shirt. Let's just say she did not want her picture taken (I was able to take a few though).
Once we got in we took the tour around the grounds. It was pretty crowded. Because it was Sunday they were having a ceremony inside the large temple. The temple housed the Emerald Buddha that I wanted to see, but because there was a ceremony going on we were not able to see it. The Grand Palace itself was really beautiful, all the architecture looked amazing. We walked around for a little while longer and then returned our loners and headed over to our next destination.
The main tourist attraction we wanted to see was the Reclining Buddha. It's a giant golden statue of Buddha and he is reclining, pretty obvious right? The best part is that it's inside a building that is barely bigger than the statue. It was really amazing. Because we got there early in the day hardly anyone was there. We got to take our picture with no one else in the background. We stayed in the building for awhile and just took in the magnificence. We then left to our last must see destination in Bangkok, the shopping.
We hopped in a taxi and went to MBK. MBK is a giant shopping mall with individual vendors selling everything you could imagine. It was basically a huge mall designated for knock off everything. They sold knock off designer jeans to fake Rolex's. The best part was they were mostly really good knock offs for really cheap. The one thing they did not have an abundance of, were designer purses. They did not really have what Latanya was looking for. But as for clothing they had it all. I bought five polo brand shirts for about $4 a shirt. What deal right? And they look great. Latanya got some jeans, skirts, shirts and souvenirs. We also bought a cheap duffel bag to put all our stuff in. We were having such a great time shopping. After many hours in the mall, mind you Latanya also got a massage, we decided to check out the rest of area. We went to a couple other well known malls and walked and walked. We were really worn out when it came to the early evening time. I don't know how celebrities and rich people can go shopping all the time, it's exhausting. We ended up just sitting in a Starbucks for a couple of hours to kill some time.
It was about 9:00pm now and we needed to make our way to the airport. We grabbed a cab and he dropped us off right at the left luggage area. We got our stuff and then headed for our terminal and then gate. Our day in Bangkok was almost too easy. I had allotted some time for getting lost or longer transportation routes, but over all we made it around the city easily. I almost wished we would have fit some more sights in. We did do all we wanted though, so I guess we did not need to squeeze in anything else.
Our flight left at midnight. We took off just fine and actually I had started to fall asleep right away. I mean we had been up since 3:30am. So I was in my little dream land for a little while and then suddenly I was awoken by my neighbor to my left. She had put her pillow on my lap. That's odd, why would she do that, she should obviously know that I am clearly married and my wife was sitting on my right. Well she put the pillow there to catch the water that was leaking from above. Oh just great! It turns out it was the air conditioner that was leaking, and it was leaking onto my lap. The stewardess was very apologetic and was helpful. She tried her best to fix it, but the only solution was to have me switch seats. I ended up a few rows towards the front on the aisle. I was actually happy about the aisle. Dinner soon came and went. I then proceeded to fall asleep, again. About twenty minutes had passed and was awoken again by my new neighbor. It was an middle aged women who did not speak any English. She wanted me to move. I quickly said why? I was half asleep while we were conversing or charading. She wanted the extra seat for her son to be able to lie down to sleep. She pointed to another open seat that was between two people and I preferred not to sit next to. We argued back and forth for a few minutes and I finally decided to get up. When I got up I noticed the boy already fast asleep and not only that but he was like 14 or 15 years old. You have got to be kidding me. And why couldn't she have said something before when I first sat there? But no she wanted to wait until I was fast asleep. So because I was really frustrated and tired at this point I went back to my original seat that had a paper towel plugging up the leak. The stewardess attempted to talk to the crazy mother but she was not budging. After a leak and two seat switches as well as some always fun (not) charades I was finally fast asleep again. This time I slept for the rest of the flight.
We landed in Beijing and our layover was only 2 hours and then we got on our last flight to Seoul. Once we arrived we bought our ticket for our airport express bus and then passed out as soon as the bus left. Two short hours later we were back home. At this point is was about 1:00pm. The journey was long and interesting to say the least. We would have done it over and over though, it was all worth it. We had such a great time in Thailand. We will definitely go back.
Next trip, Beijing in October!!!

Thailand Vacation (Day 6)

Saturday was our last full day in Ko Samui and our second to last day in Thailand. We had one more sight to see on the island and then back to relaxation on the beach. Latanya wanted to see the Big Buddha which was about 15 minutes north of Chaweng and about a half hour drive from our hotel.
After our usual breakfast we hailed a cab to the Big Buddha. We told the cab driver as well as the bell hop and a front desk person exactly where we wanted to go. The taxi driver and I decided on a price and we were off. We were driving through Chaweng when the driver kept asking us what hotel we were going to. We responded with, no hotel, just Big Buddha. This is where the communication got rough. He ended up stopping in downtown Chaweng and said here you are. We said, we wanted to go to Big Buddha and he said Chaweng. After a couple of minutes of back and fourth conversation he finally said, oh Big Buddha with a thick accent that we obviously did not have. We said yes Big Buddha, trying to replicate his exact pronunciation. He then told us double the fare. I said no way. I said, we told you Big Buddha and decided on a price we did not want to come to Chaweng. We argued back and fourth pretty calmly as a matter of fact for a good five minutes. It got to the point where I said we will not pay because we did not want to come to Chaweng. He then pointed at the traffic police stand and said, I will call the police. I then said, go ahead I will explain how you are trying to rip us off. Once I called his bluff and attempted to get out of the cab he said, ok. After another 15 minutes or so we finally arrived at the Big Buddha safe and sound with the original accepted fare.
We looked around the site and made our way to this Big Buddha, which better have been amazing looking after the whole cab fiasco. It most certainly was worth the trip. A giant statue of a Buddha was atop a stair case. We took some pictures and walked around for awhile. We then took a Tuk Tuk back to Lamai beach to the spot we were the other day.

We did some more relaxing and just chilled out on the beach for most of the day. The weather was amazing. It was hot and sunny. The water was so refreshing and we were starting to get sad about having to leave.
After the beach we walked the Lamai strip. We had some street eats for a late lunch/dinner or lunner as I call it. Latanya had some more Pad Thai and I some more curry. We stopped by a Tattoo shop, I wanted to get a battleship done on my chest. I thought it would be a great way to send us off....Just kidding. No, actually Latanya wanted to get a tiny star on her right foot, just between the strap of her sandal and the big vein that runs through the top of the foot. She got quoted a price and we made the appointment for later in the evening.
We then went back to the hotel to do some late afternoon/early evening swimming at the pool. We had fun just swimming around. After saying goodbye to the pool we freshened up a little and headed to the tattoo appointment.
The guy was really nice and friendly. He was also very patient with Latanya. Not to say she did not handle it like a champ...well...actually she handled it ok; With the exception of her screaming after the needle barely touched her as well as every time after that. It was really entertaining for me to watch. The tattoo artist used all sterile equipment for those worried moms out there. It took a whole 15 minutes, when it should have taken 5. After it was all said and done Latanya loves it. I think it looks good as well. It really is small. It's smaller than a square inch.
After the tat we headed back towards the road and stopped by the local Family Mart to get our last two beers in Ko Samui. We had to call it an early night. We needed to wake up at 3:30am to catch our flight. Ko Samui was great to us. We will definitely be back, but our vacation was not over yet, we still had a full day in Bangkok.

Thailand Vacation (Day 5)

After an interesting night at the full moon party, Latanya and I still woke up around our usual time, 8:00am. We got our usual breakfast and were pleased with our little routine. Today we wanted to ride an elephant. It's not everyday that you can wake up and decide to ride an elephant and actually be able to do it, right? Well since we were in Thailand, and they just so happened to have elephants, we decided to take one for a spin.
We arranged an elephant ride through our hotel. They booked a reservation for us at a local animal part. There were a few parks on the island that had elephants so we chose the best one in our mind for what we wanted. Some packages included other sightseeing but we just wanted to do a half hour with an elephant and no other exotic bird shows or unique monkey shows as they put it.
After we were fed and ready for the day we hopped on a Tuk Tuk as usual and it took us straight to the park. When we arrived on site we could see about a half dozen elephants just walking around with people on top. We started to get excited at this point. I mean, once again it's not everyday you can do this. The truck dropped us off and we were directed where to go. We handed a man our receipt and we then walked up some stairs to a rather large hut on tall posts. It was the elephant seating station. Soon enough an elephant came walking up to the hut with two other foreigners on it and a trainer sitting on the elephants neck/head. The foreigners got off and we got on. Strapped to the elephant was a chair and a small rope that held us in. The trainer was very nice and spoke a little English. We took a photo before we departed and then away we went, atop a giant elephant. WOW!!! We road the elephant for a half hour. It was a lot of fun. The elephant even left a little present for us along the path. Out elephant was old but strong. It was a little bumpy at parts, but so much fun. We were actually riding an elephant in Thailand. Sweet!!!
Once we got to the end of our elephant journey the trainer let us off. We then wanted to hike up the mountain side to find the nearby waterfall. It was only about a twenty minute hike or so, not too bad. Latanya was definitely getting a workout. Once we got to the falls it was amazing. The water was so refreshing and crystal clear. We hung out there for a little while and then made our way back to our Tuk Tuk. Before we left the animal park I saw a baby elephant I wanted to take home with me. Unfortunately I was unable to pack him in my backpack so we had to leave elephantless.
Once we got back to the hotel we decided to go to Chaweng once more and took another Tuk Tuk to the beach this time. We both really wanted to get another massage. The previous day I got an oil massage, which was an all over body massage. Today on the other hand I got a back, shoulder and neck massage. I can tell you that I have had knots in my lower back for as long as six years. I have never been able to get them out. I mean we are talking huge knots, the size of Montana huge. The Thai lady I had went to town on me. She worked my lower back like no one has done before. I swear I was bruised for the whole week after. But it was all worth it. She made my back feel so much looser. She got out about 80% of the knots, which is pretty good in my book, especially for a six year build up.
After the massage and just relaxing we hit up the strip of Chaweng for some food. We stumbled upon this Thai place and Latanya and I had the best Lemon Grass Soup in the world. Latanya had been searching for this soup all vacation. Not only searching for it, but looking for the best, and we found it. I too found something equally wonderful. I discovered Phanaeng Curry. I asked our waiter to make it extra extra spicy. He smiled and said sure. When they brought out our dishes he also brought extra peppers and spices to add to make it even hotter. I was in heaven. It was so good. The service was amazing. The food was great. And of course it was so cheap. We were loving Thailand for sure.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel for some late night swimming and then off to the room to relax. The next day was our last full day in Ko Samui, we wanted to make it count. We had one more touristy thing to accomplish on the island before we left.