Hello Canada

So I'm back. After a month or so of being MIA (Daejeon, Whitby, Dorset, Vegas, and Stratford), I am now settled, somewhat. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this blog, it started off as a way to keep in touch while I was travelling, but now we all share the same country code. I, myself, don't really enjoy reading people's blogs about his/her daily life because it seems kind of conceited to think that your own life is interesting enough that people might want to read about it. So I dunno... maybe I'll keep it going for a bit, and if life gets too mundane I'll stop.

Anyhow for those I don't talk to on a regular basis, I've been back in Canada for almost three weeks now, I made it up to the cottage for Thanksgiving, donated a chunk of money to the roulette tables of Vegas, bought a Beetle Convertible, and have moved into a hotel in Stratford to start Chef School.

Today was orientation day, where I got to meet the other first year students. There are 45 other students, which is the biggest class the school has ever had, the age majority seems to be mid-twenties, so I'm not too far over the hill compared to the others, though there are a handful of students just out of highschool, who cannot drink during the oenology classes, which makes me feel ancient. For the most part today was a lot of waiting in lines for uniform fittings, bill paying, book collecting and so on. During the town tour, where we saw where all our classes would be held the guide asked if there were any questions about the course or about the town. I asked where the LCBO was. I think I may be known as "that" girl from now on. But I had had a stressful day yesterday, I took my key down to Volkswagen to get a second copy made and they informed me that I had to bring the car in and have it reprogrammed as a security feature, which is not cheap. I did not have the car with me, as I was out with Mom, so I had to go back to the house and get it. Upon getting to the house dad informed me that my front tire was flat. We (okay more Dad, than me) had to take the tire off the car and take it to a mechanic to have it looked at. Then I had to take the car back to the other dealership to get the car programmed. Then I had to pack the teeny tiny car with ALL my stuff, and drive to Stratford. THEN upon getting here the engine light on the car came on, so I deserved a drink! And I spent twenty minutes driving around looking for the store with no success, so it was a legitimate question!

Anyhow after today's festivities I went out to Zellars and Winners (shopping is limited around here) to find a comforter for my king size(!) bed, but all they had in stock was ugly. So tomorrow after going to Midas for the engine light problem, I'm heading to Kitchener, because I also need kitchen shoes, shoes for working in the dining room (as a door greeter, water pourer, or silverware polisher), and black clothing for the dining room services.

So for now, I'm in Stratford. Apparently the program is grueling and from what I saw today, I have no doubt, but if you want to take a weekend trip to come up/down and see me, I have a pull out couch, a kick-ass coffee maker, and a mini fridge in my room. (I'm not sure whether this is a step up or down from what I had in Korea?) Anyhow you're more than welcome, just give me warning to clean the place up a bit.

As for now, I'm going to enjoy my glass of wine!

Happy Chusok!

Finished up a nice long weekend yesterday due to the Chusok holiday. Didn't do much for it but had great weather, which was perfect being that we spent Saturday playing frisbee outdoors. I suck at frisbee so mainly I was just running up and down the field working defense, but it was a great crowd of people and good exercise. We had a bbq down at the river later in the night, which turned into drinking 'yuk-a-flux' which is watermelon with the insides scooped out, alcohol poured in, and then chopped fruit added back in. The exercise, fresh air, and yuk-a-flux wiped me out and when everyone was ready to head to the bar I was ready to head to bed. But I stuck it out for an hour before heading home.

Sunday we did a potluck Indian/Thai night and had some really, really good for. Butter chicken, green curry, spring rolls, mandu, and naan bread. I had spent a large portion of the day cooking so by the time it came to eat I wasn't that hungry but the flavours were great.

As of today, I've got exactly three weeks left which gives me a whole mix of emotions about, but for the most part I'm going to try and enjoy the remaining time and not think about the goodbyes. Two things that have me pumped about coming home are Thanksgiving (turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cottage!), and Vegas (gambling and sky diving!!) .

Anyhow I've got nothing of interest to say so hope you are all well. See you sooN!

Never Ever Drinking Again

Just starting to feel mobile today after Jeremy's goodbye party last night. We all met at eight to go out for a buffet dinner, and then while we were waiting for people to arrive we started playing 31. I won forty dollars but by the time we were finished two rounds of it it was nine thirty and some people had abandoned ship after waiting so long for us to finish playing. We headed over to TGIFs instead of the buffet and when we got there there was a wait and some people didn't want to stay, and said we could just eat at Santa's. I don't like Santa's food so I didn't eat and just drank instead. Only Friday is ladies night there so all the drinks are made as doubles, which ended up being a problem being that I was drinking on an empty stomach. Was supposed to play frisbee today but I thought it would be fairly difficult to play from a fetal position, curled up in my bed.

Starting to think about packing up around here and have given most of my things away, or at least have made a list of who wants what. I've got so much stuff to go through, and it makes me sad to think that I'm going to be leaving here for good, I haven't event started to think about the goodbyes yet, and that is going to be terrible when it's time.

In other news, coming up two weeks from now is the Poly conference, where all the teacher from all the Polys in Korea get together for completely useless seminars, and even worse, have to give up a Saturday for. Despite only having a week or two left at that point, I'm still expected to go, which is craziness. Not the way I want to spend one of my last Saturdays in Korea. However, at last week's staff meeting Jason asked if anyone was interested in picking up some extra cash to lead one of the writing seminars so Andrew and I volunteered. I really hate public speaking of all sorts, but we each get paid $300 for it, and being that we have to be there anyhow we might as well cash in on it, plus it's only three 60 minute seminars, which works out to be just under two dollars a minute. The next day in Seoul there is a big poker tournament at the casino for a $300 dollar entry, that Andrew had been planning on playing in, so now his entry is paid for and I can go and have a little fun at the roulette table. However, unlike last week, if I get up to $1300 I am going to cash out and leave like a sensible person would do, rather than dwindling it back down to nothing.

Anyhow it's about time I showered or did something with my day, otherwise I might curl back up into my ball and never ever get up.

Cheers!

Weekend

Actually managing to post twice in a week, good on me!

FINALLY have an end date at work, which is October 2nd, and I've said I want to leave the very next day, so Jason will be getting my flight sorted next week. Nice to know I managed to squeeze almost a full month's extra salary in, and will still make it home in time for Thanksgiving.

The semester at school ended today which means on Monday all of our classes will change. Because of my impending departure I don't actually have any of my own classes, except for my kindergartens, instead I will be spening the first week of September with a new teacher's class while she shadows me. Then for the following three weeks I will be covering for a teacher who is going home for a vacation. Shouldn't be too bad, but next week will suck because the new teacher's always get terrible schedules with low level classes, and no spare block for prep, which means I'll be teaching more next week.

This weekend is yet another going away, this time for Jeremy. He has been one of the fellow gamblers all year long, so he wants to head up to Seoul for one last try at the casino. The casino is quickly becoming my home away from home these days, but it's okay cause I've been winning. I promise the casino trips will stop...right after Vegas!

As for now, it's time to start getting ready for tonight's debauchery...have a good weekend!

Blah blah blah

Don't have much to say; had a relatively normal weekend, which involved too much good food, too many good drinks, and too little exercise.

Was my neighbor, Erin's, birthday so we celebrated that by going to Cin Cin's, an Italian restaurant, where our food bill was $150 or so and our wine bill was $350...which actually isn't as bad as it sounds because there were 12 of us, so that money went way further than it would have in Canada. After that we went to a bar called New York, that is set up with bed-like couches, which were super comfy, but after a bottle of red wine at the restaurant, really all it did was make me pretty sleepy. Managed to stay out until 3 or so, but ended up coming home about four hours earlier than everyone else!

Other than that there isn't too much excitement. This week is the last week of the semester and next week classes change over. I won't have my own classes due to my pending departure, but instead will be training a soon-to-be arriving teacher, and then covering for a teacher who is heading to Canada for a short vacation.

Tomorrow is open class for the parents and I will be teaching a kindergarten science class, which is like pulling teeth on the best of days. Today to prepare the class, I showed them exactly what we would be doing and went over the answers with them... so hopefully all goes smoothly, if not I can just tell them I'm leaving soon anyhow.

Anyhow gonna head out for a roller blade now cause I skipped the gym. Hope you had a nice weekend!

Japan

Promises to write more last week fell through due to laziness and time flying. Just got in from Japan tonight and too tired to sleep, which is gonna be great when I have to wake up early for work tomorrow.

Along with it being our weekend to go to Japan, it was also Joe's last weekend in Korea, so on Thursday night a bunch of us headed out to TGIFs for dinner after work. Their night carried on into the wee hours of the morning, I'm sure, but Andrew and I had to head out to Busan in order to catch our 8:30 ferry to Fukoka. The KTX train doesn't leave early enough in the mornings to arrive on time, so we had to head down the night before.

We considered grabbing a hotel for the night, but then realized we could just spend all night at the casino instead, which would be wayyyy more fun. So at around one o'clock in the morning we arrived in Busan to a torrential downpour and then headed over to the casino. On the train ride up I kept thinking I was going to play 19 and 23 until they hit, so I got some chips and started playing, the second number that came up was 23 and I won about $300. Two or three spins later and 19 hit. I was loving life. The night continued on like that and I was way up, but then I started to go down. I should have cashed out but figured we were there to spend the night and sitting around was no fun, so I cashed out what I had put in originally and figured that at the very least I would break even for the night. We continued playing right up until 7:30 in the morning and I walked out of the casino up $250, perfect for some spending money in Japan.

We headed over to the ferry terminal and got through customs with about 1 minute to spare before the jet-foil, super fast boat sped off. Immediately Andrew and I fell asleep. Now if you think we were tired from being up all night, I should give Andrew credit because he had been on a two week trip over in South America because he won a trip for a PokerStars tournament, so he was still recovering from his first trip.

At around one we arrived and both of us were looking a little rough around the edges from lack of sleep, so we found a somewhat cheap hotel, had a few hours sleep, and then got ready to go out exploring. One of the guidebooks recommended that Nagasu was the place to be for young salary earning men and women, and we figured that would be a great place to find some sushi and maybe meet a few other foreigners to hang out with. Turns out Nagasu was the red light district and Andrew and I agreed that we didn't want to eat dinner on "stripper street." Instead we headed to Canal City, which is a massive mall that the guidebook also hyped up. After exploring all the food options we sat down at a sushi train and had a few pieces of sushi, but it wasn't all that special so we decided to make that our appetizer and head somewhere else. We settled in at an oyster bar and ordered some wine and asked the server what he would recommend. He pointed to one on the menu and said he liked it because it was the biggest. We thought that sounded better than the creamy one he also suggested so we ordered two of them. They were like the size of a fist! It was a little daunting at first to eat it, but after Andrew ate his and said it was pretty good, I tried mine and actually thought it was the best oyster I've ever had. We also had an oyster pasta which was pretty good as well.

Next we decided we needed to find somewhere to drink for the night and were still amazed that we hadn't found any foreigners. From neighborhood to neighborhood we went and nothing seemed promising, finally we ended up at a 80s pop music bar that had a few Japanese people in it and we decided we would stay and have a drink. Andrew had rye and ginger, I had wine, and our bill ended up being $3200 yen...which is like $40! Ridiculous.

More wandering around and still nothing. Finally we stopped in at an internet place and looked a few places up online. We got to one foreign place and it was okay but we thought we would check out a place called Dark Room because it was toted as being Fukoka's best foreign spot. Turns out it was pretty awesome and we ended up staying until six in the morning.

Slept through Saturday morning and felt a little better than death upon waking up. We headed over to Canal City to do some shopping and eat some food. We decided on Wendy's, because Korea doesn't have Wendy's, and I thought it would ease my hangover a little. It was pretty delicious. I originally had wanted to shop around, but the mall was crowded and everything was expensive, and nothing really grabbed my attention. Instead we ended up walking all along the rivers and ended up back down at the harbour which was a nice way to spend the afternoon.

It was into evening by that time and we headed back to the hotel to change to go out for a nice Japanese dinner and then maybe go to a concert we had heard about the night before. Upon getting to the hotel, both of us sprawled onto our teeny tiny beds for a short minute, and before we knew it we had been asleep for an hour! I showered and got ready and came out and Andrew was still sleeping. I figured he was probably exhausted and let him sleep a bit longer. Then he woke up and said he had to get ready, but fell asleep again about 30 seconds later. This went on all night and in the end we didn't go anywhere and I watched the Olympics on TV. It was a little disapointing for us because we had wanted to go out, but in the end I think he probably really needed the sleep, and the boat back this morning was so rocky that I was relieved I didn't have a hangover to contend with.

Anyhow we arrived back in Busan around four, headed to the beach area because there's a great Indian restaurant there and managed to make it to the train station with just minutes to spare for our train.

Overall it was a great weekend. Fukoka didn't have a ton of stuff for us to do, but we traveled well together and it was nice to get to see another country before my time here expires. Sadly/happily next time I go through customs will be on my way home to Canada!

All Nighter

Made a trip up to the casino yesterday with Thomas and Jeremy. We had been trying to organize a day trip up for the last few weeks but vacation time got in the way of it. We found out before going that there was a closer, but smaller casino, right near Seoul Station, so we decided we would check it out, instead of the one we've been to before that's way out of the way.

As per usual, I found a roulette table and plunked myself down at it. I bought fifty dollars worth of chips and started betting on random numbers. Not too long into it I hit my first number (which is worth about $85 if you have one chip on it), and then I hit a second number right after that! My lucky streak was on! A couple hours into it I was up about a thousand dollars, and the three of us decided to take advantage of the free restaurant that the casino provides, in order to soak up some of the free alcohol that we had been consuming.

For the first rational time in my life, I took the six - one hundred dollar tokens outta my pocket and cashed them in, and figured I would just play with the stack of chips that I had left back at the table. I'm not sure if you know this about Korea, but the highest bill they have is $10, so I had quite the wad of cash in my purse.

Anyhow, after some food we headed back to the table and my luck started to wear out. I sat at the same table until I had dwindled my stack down to a hundred and then I decided it was time for some black jack, but the low minimum tables were full. Instead, I started playing a game called Casino War, which is pretty much beat the dealer. I won and lost a few hands there but didn't really like it because it went way too fast and there was no thrill in it. Back to roulette. Still couldn't get my lucky streak back and by this time I was down to what I had cashed out earlier. Thomas was in the hole, and ready to move on with his friend who had arrived. So Jeremy and I headed back to Seoul Station, and despite having lost almost half my winnings, I was still pretty happy about what I did have. Turns out we missed the last train by about ten minutes and were stuck in Seoul for the night. Back to the casino.

We managed to play for another five hours, eat some more food, and drink some more drinks, in which time I managed to make back what I had lost earlier and cashed out at just over $900! Which is awesome because when we were on our way up that day I had said to Jeremy that the most I had ever won was around three hundred. Also, next weekend I go to Japan, which is super expensive so now I have a bit of mad money to play with, and I have some savings for Vegas in a month or two!!!!!!!!

Anyhow we managed to board the first train this morning at 5:25 and were back in Daejeon around 6:30. I slept for a few hours but now I'm raring to go today. Not sure what I'm going to do, because it is 35 degrees outside and even with the air conditioning pumping inside I feel like I might be melting.

For a change, I actually have lots of different things to write about so I might post a few times before heading to Japan on Thursday. Enjoy your weekend!

Back from Taiwan

Been back now for just over a day, was meant to have had a productive day with cleaning and unpacking and running around but instead stayed out far too late and ended up sleeping the day away. All in all, had a fairly good trip, despite lousy weather and lots of bus travelling:

Monday - woke up at 6:45, checked the weather status in Taiwan to see if the pending typhoon was going to cancel our flight. The ten thirty flight had been delayed, but our one o'clock flight was still on schedule. Arrived in Taipai around four in the afternoon, to grey skies and drizzling rain, but far better than we were expecting. Checked into our teeny tiny hostel and headed out to Shilin night market. The market wasn't what I had been expecting as it was mainly food stalls and the markets that weren't food, didn't have anything I really wanted to buy. After that we consulted our guide book and checked out a few foreign bars, but being that it was a Monday night most were fairly empty.

Tuesday - still lousy weather, my mood proceeded to get grumpier. We headed out in the middle of the morning to see a temple and a downtown part of Taipai. I thought it was fairly old looking and not that different than Korea. Still grumpy. We debated what to to with our day, seeing as the weather was messing up our plans for a week at the beach, we decided that we should make our way towards Kaoushing, another major city, in hopes of better weather. A four and a half hour bus ride later and we were in the city. Fortunately we were on a luxury bus that had lazy boy seats, personal tv monitors, and loads of room. I definetly liked Kaoushing better than Taipai as it seemed a little newer and there were some prettier sights. For dinner we went to a Taiwanese restaurant and I decided to try one of the dishes that had been mentioned in our guide book - drunken chicken. It was not good, it vaguely tasted of wine, and it was served cold, with skin, next to some grated ginger . After that we headed to a bar and sat and played cards for a few hours. By this time I was thinking that the trip was going to be a total bust and I just wanted to go to sleep.
Wednesday - still gray skies, still grumpy mood. We decided that despite the weather we might as well stick with our plan for Kenting because the city wasn't that interesting, so we boarded another bus for a two and a half hour ride to the beach. This bus was not nearly as luxurious as the first one, and right before we left for Taiwan I managed to break my Ipod charger, so now I was without music as well. The ride went fairly quickly, and despite being worried about being carsick, I passed the time by reading a book. Finally, we arrived at a little town outside Kenting, right on the beach. We headed to a hostel Tom had stayed at before, but it was all booked up, so we ended up staying at another little place down the road. We decided it was time for the beach, even if the skies weren't bright. Ever the optimist (hahaha), I slathered on some tanning oil and settled onto the sandy beach. After a few hours of frisbee, beach walking, and some playing in the waves, we decided to head to Kenting for some dinner and shopping. Had a yummy meal which seemed to be a cross between Taiwanese and Thai food, and it finally started to feel like we were on vacation. After that we spent a few hours looking through the shops and stopping at bars for random drinks. Just as we were walking down the street to grab a taxi home, we saw a guy drive by on a scooter, slide off it, and hit a pedestrian, this changing my mind about renting a scooter for the following days. Don't know how the two people were but did see two ambulances drive by about twenty minutes later.

Thursday - sunny skies, my mood a little cheerier! Woke up to a blue sky and big waves on the beach. Grabbed my towel, lotion, and book and headed off. After about two hours the sun was pretty intense and I decided to walk back into Kenting so I wouldn't end up looking like a tomato. Had a nice peaceful walk in, spent some time wandering through the shops, but was disappointed that there didn't seem to be anything that I wanted to buy. Walked back to our town and met up with Tom who had rented a surf board and was practicing his skills. Despite what we had seen the night before Tom was still keen to rent a scooter, and I conceded that if I didn't have to drive, I would still be game for it. So we rented a scooter, which was cheaper to rent for 24 hours, than our taxi had been the night before, and headed back to Kenting for some dinner. Being that Kenting was kind of expensive we opted to go back to our place, buy drinks at 7/11 and sit on the beach, which we did for a few hours before going and sitting outside of a hostel and playing cards for a bit.

Friday - another beautiful day, and my mind frame was finally on vacation mode, which was appropriate, being that it was time to head home. We spent a bit of time at the beach swimming, but both of us were fairly red from the day before, so we headed to our hostel, showered, and set out for a day on the scooter. It was really nice to drive all around and see the ocean views that way instead of from a bus window. Tom got me to try driving, but after a loop around a parking lot, I was quite content to remain as a passenger and just enjoy the scenery. Being that it was the last day it passed by fairly quickly, and towards the evening we had to start thinking about the long trek back to Taipai. We opted to go in a shuttle car back to Kaoshing, rather than the bus, and our crazy driver got us to the city in just under an hour and a half. This gave us two and a half hours to kill in Kaoushing, and Tom decided to head to an internet room, while I went and walked through a night market. Then we had a four hour bus ride back to Taipai, and the bus had almost no suspension which made it fairly impossible to sleep. At five in the morning we ended up back in Taipai and then we had another hour bus ride, plus the flight, plus a three hour bus ride back to Daejeon.

I got back here yesterday and with very little sleep. Heather and I met up to talk about our different vacations, and then we met up with some others from the neighborhood and went out, instead of getting some much needed sleep.

All in all, it was a pretty good week, but I don't think I would ever go back to Taiwan or recommend it as a place to go, the places we saw were nice enough, but from the other countries I've visited there is much more to do and see, with vast cultural differences from Korea, and for the most part, a lot cheaper. On a more positive note though, less than two weeks from now I will be in Japan and hopefully that will be everything that people talk it up to be!

Anyhow I'm off for now, time to start thinking about going back to work tomorrow. Hope you all had a good week.

Taiwan!!!!!!!!!

Less than a week until Tom and I go to Taiwan and I can't wait!!!!!!!!! I'm at school right now and my kids are doing a test so I've been looking up things online, and now I just want this week to be over!

We are arriving in Taipai on Monday, late afternoon, and we are going to spend the first night at a hostel, right by one of the most famous markets in Taiwan. Supposedly there is tons of great food and shopping to be had there.

On the Tuesday we are going to head out towards a place called Kengting, which is good for beaches and sightseeing. We are going to rent mopeds one day and cruise around the area, which will be exciting, although my motorist skills might be a little shaky.

For the middle part of the week we are going to hang around that area, and maybe head out to an island one night and camp out, cause Tom is thinking of bringing a tent.

Then on Friday we need to head back to Taipei because our flight leaves early on Saturday morning to bring us back to dreary old Korea (rainy season is in full effect right now).

The good news is that I only come back for just under two weeks and then it is off to Japan for a visa run. Originally I was going to go by myself, but Andrew, one of my co-workers, decided that he is going to come along for the adventure. We were going to head to Tokyo, but it turns out that the city we arrive at is closer to Korea than it is to Tokyo, so we would have to spend 5 hours on a train, and double the money of our ferry ticket, getting there and back, so now I think we are going to stick around the Fukuoka area. Andrew likes the casino, maybe more than I do, so hopefully we can find one in the area to amuse ourselves for a few hours.

Anyhow my kids are starting to finish their tests so I need to amuse them with a youtube video or something. Hope everyone is well!

Koreans are Scammers

I went to Mudfest on the weekend. I would love to write about it, but right now I'd rather bitch about Korea.

Andrew and I went to the pension office at lunch today because we were fairly certain our boss was scamming us on our pensions, and paying in less than he should be. A big no-no, but something that all hagwon owners do here, because apparently us foreigners are stupid. (I've been getting my pay stubs for a year and haven't put any thought into, think what you will. Just keep it to yourself). Anyhow we took our stubs down to the pension office, and for starters Andrew's and my pay stubs are itemized differently, which has sketchiness written all over it.

Anyhow the lady looks at it and says she doesn't think anything is wrong, because the Korean government changed the laws, and now foreigners are exempt from paying taxes on 30% of our income, which she tries to tell us is a bonus for us. In reality, we only pay like 3% taxes, and our pension is worth 9% by the time both parties pay into it, so who is it really a bonus for? And on top of that, Koreans are also allowed to allocate a maximum of $100 per paycheck as a "food allowance," which coincidently is also tax exempt. So despite the fact that I am making almost 30% more this year than I did last year, my pension is going to fall short by about a thousand dollars, which sucks. Grrrrrrrrr....

I'll See You in September

I will be gainfully employed for one extra month after my contract is up, which is great news for my bank account, and for the fact that I'm not quite ready to say good-bye to this strange little country just yet. On the other hand, a part of me this weekend kept envisioning the month of August filled with days lounging on the dock, boat rides, and bbq steak dinners. Fortunately, I remember what it's like to be a poor little student, and the month of employment seems like it will provide more satisfaction in the long run. Technically I will be done September 10th, and I will probably have a fairly quick departure after that because all my loose ends, (pension, etc) will have been tied up at the completion of my August contract.

The humidity around here lately is ridiculous. Summer in Korea is not pleasant, although yesterday a group of us tanned on Andrew's deck and that was quite nice. In the next week or so rainy season will kick in, and that will be terrible, but for the next month or so we won't be around much because of mudfest and work vacation. Tom and I still don't have plans sorted, but we are trying to work out a week in Boracay. And by we, I mean I'm sitting back and letting him do most of the planning.

Other than that all is quiet around here. Mudfest is this weekend coming and I can't wait for it. We've got our bus tickets and room booked, and I am meeting up with a friend from university, who I haven't seen since third year, which is kind of exciting! Maybe. We only know each other from classes and hallway conversations, it could actually be kind of awkward. Meh... we'll see.

Anyhow Heather and I are about to go for a walk in the buggy humidity. Hope you are all well.

Update

In an interesting turn of events, yesterday I found out that I might not be able to extend my contract by a month because of the new visa restrictions on foreigners. Basically I need to get a criminal record check from Canada, which says on the RCMP site that it can take up to 120 days; I need it done in about 14 days. So I don't know what the school is going to do, if they have a replacement teacher they might pack me up and ship me back to Canada, or if they don't, maybe they will let me work i*l*g*l*y...which they have done in the past for one or two people. Also I might be able to find a short term thing at another school for a month if they are in desperate need of a foreigner. So right now I don't know what's going on, I might get to spend August on the dock of the bay, but I hope I get to extend because August is coming up way too soon. Either way, I will probably know better next week.

meh

I'm kinda off posting right now. Sorry. Give me a week or so to cheer up a little and maybe I'll have something to say in a positive light. Right now if I post it is going to be stories about me consuming a 26er of vodka at a poker tourny on the weekend to drown my sorrows, or how I'm bitter at all of Korea right now. This will past and I'll be back to my normal sarcastic self, but for now I just need to be introverted.

Things to look forward to though:

Mudfest - thousands of foreigners playing in the mud all weekend (mid-July)
July trip - Tom and Diana do China...or Philapines..... tbd
Sept - Diana returns to Canada

Namhae

Had the greatest weekend away. Namhae is the most beautiful spot I've seen in Korea, I think. The beach we were on was fantastic; nice and sandy and totally secluded. The pension was right on the beach and really nice for a Korean pension house, not that it mattered too much to us because we were camping in a tent, but it was nice that it was so modern.

We were supposed to meet on Friday morning at the train station and meet Annie, who was coming from Seoul, but when I arrived at 8:50 there was nobody from the group there. By 9:10 I was sick of waiting and called Ron to see if I had confused the meeting time, and I was a little dismayed to find out he had slept through his alarms. Harsha also wasn't there because he had heard from Annie that she was late coming in from Seoul, which left me the only one who was up and raring to go. Finally by 3:30 we all managed to meet up and get to the bus station only to find out that there were only two seats on the bus left, which meant that we had to take two different buses to get there.

The ride there was actually pretty fun though. We had a few games of categories, a deck of cards, and a few beer. It was when our bus was nearing the rest stop that I realized I've been in Korea far too long when we were debating whether the rest stop would sell beer or not and it took a few minutes for it to sink in that selling alcholic beverages at rest stops is probably not the best way to prevent drunk driving. No worries though, Ron had gin and whiskey in the luggage part of the bus which we were able to access during the stop.

By 9:30 or so we were in Namhae and it was a little too dark to fully appreciate it, but we managed to get our tent set up and meet the other 30 or so foreigners that were around the campfire. We stayed up for a few hours, had some bbq, and drank a little more. Someone had brought a funnel and somehow I got coerced into funneling a beer, which was my first time ever, but regardless I think at 26 I should be far past the age of funneling beer.

On Saturday Harsha, Ron and I headed into the town of Namhae to see if we could rent some scooters to explore the island. I had to gear myself up to think about getting behind the handle bars of a scooter but by the end I was pretty excited for it, unfortunately none of the shops in town would rent to us, despite the rumors that there was a rental shop around.

Later in the afternoon we got back to Namhae and enjoyed the weather. I almost went swimming but decided against it as the wind started to come up a little. By 5 or so Harsha, Annie, Ron and I broke out the cards again and started playing 7 card, which is a lot like euchre, unfortunately we had a bet that the first team to lose 7 games had to funnel another beer and Annie and I lost. I think that part of the day (the card game, not the funneling), was the best part of my weekend. It was so picturesque, sitting at a picnic table on a patio, on the ocean, with a group of people playing beach volleyball, another group at the bbq, and a few randoms scattered around sun bathing, it couldn't have been more perfect. After that, poker broke out among ten of us and that took the better part of the evening. I was doing pretty well until I got pushy with my chip stack and made a few bad calls and ended up just out of the money position. After that it was onto dice where I managed to make my money back from the card game. Another hour of campfire songs or so and it was time to head to bed.

Yesterday the weather held up despite grim forecasts and Annie and I walked around the bay and I think I even got a bit of colour on my arms. Around 2 we had packed up our things and were waiting for Chris to come pick us up because he happened to be in the area with his car. We had a touristy stop at a butterfly conservatory and after that we were headed back towards Daejeon. Was totally wiped by the time we got back to Daejeon and ten minutes into choosing a (horrible) movie, Conspiracy, I was asleep.

My next day off is at the end of July and that is a week long vacation, haven't decided what to do with it, seriously considering Singapore or Malaysia but nothing is concrete yet. Better start planning it soon though!

3 Day Weekend!

Just got back from Sex and the City, the movie. I thought it was pretty good, not a lot of substance as a movie, but felt like I just sat down and watched a full season, all condensed into two hours and twenty minutes. I would love to have experienced the movie inside a Korean's head. They already have so many skewed images of foreigners and about how lewd we are and how we all are lacking morals, I'm pretty sure that movie just drove the point home. I would like to learn Korean simply to read the reviews on it.

As for the rest of the weekend Ron and I are heading camping tomorrow to a place called Namhae. It was supposed to be a group of 4 of us going, but two backed out, so now we are going up to a party instead where there should be a sizable amount of foreigners. Not sure what we're getting ourselves into this time but we've got a tent so looks like we'll be sleeping on the beach under the few stars that are visible in the Korean sky.

Not much else to say but will have tales after the weekend is over, I'm sure.

Have a good weekend!

Poker

Had our poker final last night. I went into the game in third place and finished off the night in fourth, which won me $100. We pay $100 at the beginning of the tournament so really I just got my money back...but whatever, at least I made it into the money position.

Unfortunately the final table night also fell on the eve of open class, where the parents come in and watch a kindergarten class. I managed to get out of JRock around 3, but then was woken up by the winners around 6:30 this morning. In comparison to my three or so hours of sleep, Joe, the winner of the table, managed to get in a 25 minute power nap before heading to Poly this morning for open class. Both of us must have been on poker adrenaline because we both managed to make it through the day, and I think my open class went fairly well. I think I might like the mothers better than the students :0

We have another poker tournament on Saturday which is an all day thing and it's usually a pretty fun day, and at least I have my winnings from last night to cover my entry, and then some. If it sounds like all I'm doing lately is gambling, that's because it is. Somebody might need to schedule an intervention for when I get home, but try and do it AFTER the family trip to Vegas.

Next weekend is another 3 day weekend, and I'm not too sure what is happening for it yet but I'm sure we'll be getting out of Daejeon for it. I should go to Busan and visit Tom because he's been to Daejeon a lot since he's been back and I've yet to go, but we'll see. He and I might go to China for the July vacation and visit Richard, who's teaching there now, as it will probably be the last time the three of us will ever have the opportunity to hang out together. Who knows though, between the earthquake and the Olympics I might rather spend my time on a hot beach in Malaysia or something.

Anyhow not much else to say, hope everyone is doing well!

Double 00's

What a weekend! At the coaxing of yours truly there was a group of about 8 of us that went up to the casino on Saturday. Andrew, Mikey, and I went up early to do some shopping before going to the casino. Andrew had gotten a bracelet from Tiffany's, as a gift, that he wanted to exchange and there's only one in Korea so we hit up the swanky department store in hopes of exchanging it for something fantastic. Unfortunately it had been purchased in Japan and it couldn't be exchanged. Now I'd never been in a Tiffany's before that and it's never been anything that has struck me as anything to get excited about, but WOW, the jewelry was amazing, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I tried to get Mikey to propose to me right then and there. I think I actually amazed the two of them cause it's probably the girliest I'd ever acted around them.

After that we set about to do some shopping but it wasn't much fun cause I wanted to look at clothes and I didn't want to do it with the two of them waiting around on me. So at about 3:30 we agreed it was time to go to the casino. I went straight to the roulette table and started playing number 9, the number that drove me crazy the last time that I was there. Finally it hit which let me get off my obsession for it, but I'd spent so much time playing that it pretty much just evened me out again. For awhile I was up a few hundred dollars but as the night went on I went up and down and up and down. A few hours later Ron, Tony, and Daniel showed up and we continued to play roulette and take advantage of the free drinks. The casino also serves free food so we went and replenished on some dim sum and club sandwiches.

Before we knew it, it was around 9 o'clock in the morning and we were all broke and exhausted. We headed back to the train station and passed out on the train. Fortunately Andrew and Tony woke up in time for our stop otherwise we would have been in Busan when we woke up. It was close to noon by the time I got to sleep, and other than waking up for a couple of hours to shower and eat I slept the day and night away.

Teacher's Day!

So today was Teacher's Day, and ever since I arrived at Poly people have been talking up this day saying how much the parents spoil us. The haul was alright, I suppose, it's crazy to think what some parents will spend on us, especially when they are already paying hundreds of dollars to the school each month. A few people got hundred dollar gift certificates, and that would have been nice but I wasn't one of the lucky ones. I got a lot of tea, some chocolates, Clinique and Hera make-up, vitamins, flowers and a 14k gold anklet. The anklet's nice, but in typical Diana fashion, I will be returning it tomorrow for something I actually like...hopefully cash :)

This weekend we are escaping Daejeon once again and heading up to the casino in Seoul. I can't wait, the only thing I really want to play is roulette. The poker tables seem like they might stress me out a bit, (even if I'm in first place in the poker league right now!), and I may try out blackjack for awhile, but roulette is still the most fun.

Other than that not too much is new around here. I bought myself a new pair of rollerblades last week and I've been out a few times on them. There is a great trail just down from my apartment, but the bugs have started to get bad here and they are 100 times worse down by the river. Also, the trail is paved with astro turf so it's like blading through mud, which I suppose is giving me a great workout. Gonna try and go in the mornings and see if that can help with the bugs a little bit. With Heidi gone now, I'm not so motivated to go to the gym before work but being outside is a little appealing right now before it gets too humid.

Three Day Weekend!

Just finished off another long weekend and it was packed full of fun and games.

Friday night was Heidi's last night in Korea so we finished work and then headed over to Andrew's place for some food and drinks. Her original plan was to come out to the bar with us and then go home and grab her stuff around 4 am, but in the end she opted to say good-bye to us all at Andrew's and she headed off around one. It was a sad good-bye for all of us but I'll have a chance to catch up with her one day back in Canada I'm sure. After that we headed out to the bar and danced the rest of the night away. Ron's friend Daniel had just arrived for a visit from New Zealand so everyone was in full party mood.

On Saturday a few of us headed out on a short motorcycle ride and grabbed some lunch at a little place outside of Daejeon. I headed back to my place to grab a shower and a change of clothes and then headed back out to celebrate Chris's birthday. Spent most of the night drinking and playing cards at Chris and Ron's and then finally headed out to JRock for a few hours at the end of the night. Walked home as the sun was coming up for the second night in a row.

Chris had planned a motorbike excursion for his birthday as well, so on Sunday we all geared up and headed out of Daejeon to a REALLY rural area for some camping. Being that we had been up all night we didn't actually make it out of Daejeon until close to 5, so by the time we arrived and got settled it was time to eat some dinner and start back into the drinks around a bonfire.

This morning we got up and went to an ATV place for some four-wheeling and paint balling. I think that was the first time I had been on an ATV since flipping one back when I was twelve and I was a little weary at first but after a few minutes I felt fairly confident that I wasn't going to end up with a four wheeler on top of me. After ATVing we played some paint ball for an hour or so and then it was time to head back to Daejeon, which was good because I was still wearing my outfit from Saturday night and I was extremely dirty from the camping, atv dust, paint ball, and just not showering in general. I think showering might have been the highlight of my day today despite all the other fun things.

Now it's nine at night and I've got to gear up for another week at work, but it should be pretty good because there are two days of level tests, which means I get to sit around playing on my computer while the kids write their tests, and then Thursday is Teacher's Day, and apparently the parents at our school make a pretty big deal about it.

Alright outta things to say for now, hope everyone had a good weekend and a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!

Parting of the Seas

I've been back from the weekend for a whole ten minutes and I'm already posting...this deserves a round of applause.

Had a fantastic weekend, it actually feels like I've been gone for five days as opposed to three; which is a change from how the weekends usually fly by.

We headed outta Daejeon on Friday night in a group of twelve and managed to annoy and be repeatedly shushed by the stewards of the KTX train. Arrived in Mokpo close to one am, found a hotel, dropped all our stuff and headed out for some noraebang.

Saturday we went to the ferry terminal and got some information about where we should head for a nice beach, to enjoy the 3o degree weather. We boarded a ferry and headed towards an island that had a promising looking water amusement park. After an hour on the ferry we arrived at a very basic looking island. Upon exploring the island we discovered that the water park was lacking water and not opened for the season yet. The rest of the island was as good as deserted. We debated catching the last ferry out and heading back to Mokpo, but ended up getting two rooms at a small homestay and figured it would do for the night, being that we had an entire beach to ourselves and it was the perfect night for a bonfire. Ended up having a beachside game of poker with seashells for our chips and played until it was too dark to see the cards. Two of the restaurants that we had been considering were closed because it was after eight o'clock so we were left with the decision of extremely fatty pork bbq, or fish stew. A group of us opted for the fish stew and had a pretty decent meal. We bought the restaurant out of their entire beer supply and most of their soju and headed back down to the beach. Stayed up until about one, which was when the tide came in and put an end to our fire.

Sunday it did nothing but pour rain. So Heidi, Heather, and Chandrie headed back to Daejeon, and the rest of us decided to make our way to Jindo for some sea parting action. By the time we took an hour long cab ride to Jindo it was freezing cold, with thunder rumbling in the background. We decided to grab some food and wait the weather out. Just as we got to one of the food tents, a lady was grilling up an amazing looking chicken stir fry of sorts, called Dukbal, and Andrew, Ron and I decided that that was what we were having. When it arrived at our table we eagerly started eating because we were starving. In my opinion the chicken looked kind of fatty and there seemed to be lots of skin on it, which is often the way in Korea. All three of us were a little questionable about it because it wasn't tasting too much like chicken. Then Ron remembered that 'bal' in Korean means feet. We were eating chicken feet. Yes, there are pictures. The second dish we were eating was just as questionable and I'm willing to bet my life on the fact that it wasn't chicken, but I'm not sure I want to know what else it might have been; as I've never eaten crunchy meat before. As you can imagine, there were a lot of leftovers on the two plates.

After our so-called meal, we braved the rain outside and could see the sea beginning to part but decided it was far too cold and we would return the next day. Took a taxi into the city of Jindo and found another hotel to crash in for the night. By this time it was down to Jeremy, Ron, Christine and I, but others who had been travelling on their motorcycles called to say they were coming in to meet us. They arrived around 7, we went out, ate some dinner, and then we sat around and had few drinks til the early morning.

Today the weather was beautiful again and we headed back to the Parting of the Seas, but we had to catch our train back to Daejeon so we couldn't stay late enough for the tide, but it was a beautiful day for walking around and I've got a nice sunburn from the wind today which will hopefully brown up tomorrow.

So even though we didn't really experience what we went to see it was a great time, lots of friends, drinking, and beaches, and lots of pictures, which I will put up shortly.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Holy Moses!

Three day weekend coming up! Woohoo! There's a festival in Mokpo which is on the south coast of Korea and a group of us are heading there for it. The festival is called Moses' Miracle because for one hour during the tides at five o'clock the sea parts on both sides for forty metres across and two miles long. Now, I don't know much about religion, but I'm pretty sure that afterwards, I'll be able to walk on water. If you are at all interested in what I'm saying you should check out this website: http://www.xn--910bo7b3wjkpc57r59cjzs.org/news/news/newsView.asp?serial_no=20080319019

After that we'll probably hit up the town and see what trouble we can find. The weather is supposed to be in the thirties this weekend so it will be good to hang out on the beach and get a tan, but there's also a DJ fest happening in Seoul and some people are tossing around the idea of heading there on Sunday, which I think would be fun, if we can make a stop at the casino.

Road Trip

As usual, I'm a little late on weekend reports but sometimes it just takes that long to recover! Or laziness...verdict is still out.

So this weekend I went on a motorcycle trip with a group of about ten. The weather was amazing and it was the perfect day to get a bit of a tan on my arms. We left Daejeon around one in the afternoon and due to getting lost, misreadings of maps, and other mishaps we didn't arrive at our destination until almost ten at night. I had been riding on Ron's bike, but he was having some problem with his back tire and fender, so after about three hours I had to join Biatta in her car and just follow along with the motorcycles, which was not nearly as fun as being on the bike, although as the night progressed on, I have to admit, it was a lot warmer in the car. We checked into the first hotel we found and went to get something to eat. Despite doing well on the cleanse I had decided when agreeing to go on the trip that if I was going I would give up the cleanse, cause nobody wants to be friends with the weird girl drinking lemon juice around the bonfire. So after almost five full days of not eating the first thing I had was a beer, and then we had some Korean barbecue as well.

After dinner we wandered around the beachside down in search of something to do. We found a Korean carnival and had some fun on the bumper cars and then The Viking ride, which I'm pretty sure would not pass safety tests in any country other than Korea. After that we headed over to the beach with some fireworks and sat around with some beers, while we watched Trey and Dan build a bonfire with used fireworks and random plywood that they found who knows where. We stayed out on the beach until around 4 in the morning, which was about the time we ran out of things to burn and headed towards the hotel. On the way we past a noraebang and the guys decided that it was time for singing session. The girls nixed that idea and we left them to their own devices.

Sunday's weather wasn't quite as nice, but we grabbed some lunch and then headed back to Daejeon. The ride back only took a few hours being that we knew where we were going. So we arrived back in Daejeon early evening and sat around watching a movie for a few hours.

It was definetly a good change from the routine weekends we normally have and hopefully as the weather gets nicer there will be a few more excursions like it!

Chef Boyer D

So for those of you not on Facebook, you might have missed my announcement this weekend... although I kind of suspect mom has probably spread this halfway across Ontario by now, but I have just been accepted to Stratford Chef School.

I feel I've gotten all I can out of my (numerous) communications degrees and it's time to choose a new field...hahahaha...seriously they might come in handy one day....

But it was something I'd been contemplating for quite a while and after emailing the school a few times in the fall I decided I might as well apply, even just to see if I would get in. Saturday morning I got my acceptance, so as of October 26th I'll be a student again!

This also means I'll probably stay in Korea a few months longer to stay gainfully employed as long as possible before become a poor little student again. So no Canadian summer for this girl, but a Thanksgiving dinner for sure.

ANyhow just got back from an awesome weekend and have lots to say about it but right now I'm heading to bed and will hold off until tomorrow! Good Night!

One for the Books

Just finishing off day two of the cleanse. Already sick of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne, plus the cayenne makes me sneeze! Definetly was bitter with my kids today from it, but then again, they probably deserved it.

Had a pretty "interesting" weekend. We had a small feast at Heidi's for Chandrie's birthday with some yummy Costco sushi, crab and spinach dip, cheesy nachos, and a peanut butter chocolate ice cream cake to finish it off. After the food we headed downtown for some flavored hookah (which the bar was out of), and then off to JRock for some dancing and shenanigans. Shenanigans were out of control, let me tell you. I've debated writing this for the past few days cause I don't want mom flying over to Korea in a panic, but I decided to go in favor of some entertaining writing and will deal with the aftermath later. (if i call home again ;P)

Anyhow, the bar was packed and there were quite a few unfamiliar faces around for the early part of the night (early being one in the morning), and somebody went up behind me and put his hand up my skirt. Very angrily, I turned around and promptly dumped his beer on him. He didn't respond too kindly to that and he pushed me onto a table, breaking a few glasses and drawing lots of attention. Andrew, my coworker, happened to be right there and ended up hitting the guy, and Chris, the owner quickly had the guy thrown out, but it was a crazy couple of moments. Things went smoothly for the next few hours until somebody found out that the guy who had started it all was Russian and was waiting for Andrew outside with a few of his friends. Needless to say, I was upset and worried, and there were lots of foreigners around the bar saying they had Andrew's back. Fortunatley by the time they left after five there was nobody waiting outside. I swear mom, bars aren't normally like that here!

The next day was beautiful so I ended up going on a motorcycle ride to a nearby mountain in Daejeon and that was lots of fun. Afterwards I went back to Chris and Ron's place (where the eighties party was the week before) to collect some dishes I had left there; among the dishes was a pretty blue stone plate that I bought while in Bali at Christmas. So Chris, Ron and I were walking down the street and I (very embarassingly) tripped over my own two feet, crashing to the ground, breaking the blue plate, skinning two wrists and a knee, as well as bruising the other knee. I'm pretty sure it was one of the most embarrassing things I've done in quite a while. And now I need to go back to Bali to replace the plate, anyone wanna come?

By the time I got home on Sunday night, I was in need of a good rest, couldn't walk, and was almost welcoming the normalcy of a Monday morning. Okay not quite, I was tempted to call in sick, but whatever, my kids are terrors, you can't blame me for that.

So definetly one of the most interesting weekends in quite awhile, this weekend coming is sure to be less interesting being that I can't drink or eat. Booo.....

Meh

Had a busy week and haven't had much to say, so I've been slacking lately. The eighties party was a lot of fun, and we looked ridiculous. The pictures are on Facebook, if you're so inclined.

The weather is great here, no coats when the sun is out, jean jackets when it's not...suckers...

It's Chandrie's birthday weekend now so we will be back out for more festivities, as is the norm around here most weekends. Other than that nothing is really planned and I'm just looking forward to some downtime and vegging out.

Heidi and I are starting the Master Cleanse again next week so might have to eat some bad foods this weekend so that I don't miss them next week. Hoping to make it ten days this time, but I'll be happy with seven.

Anyhow just got home from work, and I'm tired, and I've got dishes in the sink, so I'm off for now. Have a nice weekend.

Just like 1985

Almost the weekend again! Now that the nicer weather is here the time is starting to speed up again. Which is good cause weekdays are a waste of my time.

This weekend there is a huge eighties party happening to celebrate the birthdays of three foreigners. It should be a really good time. Messy, but good. We are going to a house party late in the afternoon on Saturday to see our friends' new house and start the festivities. Then we are moving on to Brickhouse, then on to JRock (providing we're still standing).

Fortunately Korea is the perfect place to buy eighties wardrobe; neon tights are all over the place and other hideous clothing. I promise to take lots of pictures and to post them, even if I say that about everything, this time I actually will post them.

Anyhow Tuesday night was poker and I stayed out FAR too late which left me with only a few small hours for sleeping so right now I'm off to try and even out the depravation. Good night!

Shenanigans

For the first time in months I actually went out on a Friday night last night. Normally we're tired from getting up early and working long days so we end up doing dinner and a movie or something equally low key, but last night was Mike's birthday so we headed out to Miller Time for some birthday drinks. It was pretty fun, we had a nice size group and we were in a different hang out than normal. We got a little rowdy at points throughout the night; trying to throw popcorn into each other's beers, and then a fight with the cake which involved me attempting to smush it in Mike's face. I have pictures and they're funny. I'll post some at some point this weekend, along with my obnoxious kindergartens.

Today there is a Brickhouse poker tournament so that will take up the better part of my day. Five of the players are from Poly school so hopefully one of us takes home some money. It's funny if you were ever to step into our office at school on a lunch break there are two things I can guarantee: the conversation is going to be about poker with people shooting insults back and forth, and at least two teachers will be playing Scrabble on Facebook. Yesterday, Jason walked into our office and five of us were playing.

Tomorrow is the race. Big deal, I'm not going. :( I can't do it, I've tried all week and I don't want to run my first run and have an awful time. I could run the 5km faster when I first started back in January. So boo to running. Actually Heather, Heidi, and I have all been working at it, and now this week Heather and Heidi have also been pretty sick so they aren't sure about it either. Talk about bad timing....

Anyhow time to do some cleaning around here and enjoy a cup of Timmies coffee (thanks, Grandma!). Have a nice weekend!

Happy Easter!

Happy Belated Easter! I hope the Easter Bunny was good to everyone; he doesn't exist in Korea, and most people didn't know it was even Easter yesterday when I took chocolate peanut butter eggs in to work for everyone. We had plans to have an Easter dinner on Sunday with mashed potatoes and stuffing and Costco chickens, but we also had plans to go out and drink on Saturday night so Sunday's plans were squashed by the aftermath of Saturday night.

I'm almost back to good health now. My chest only hurts if I inhale too deeply or have a big yawn, but stairs are much easier, and I'm not winded after getting up to the fourth floor of my apartment. Last week I went back to the gym and my performance wasn't pretty. Today I was almost lifting my normal weights. I still can't run very far but it's getting easier. Unfortunately this weekend coming is the big run we've been training for and after having dropped down from 13km to 5km, I still don't think I'm gonna be able to do it which is frustrating and has hindered my motivation a little.

In other news, everyone in my apartment is now or has been sick in the past week, and I think people might be holding me somewhat responsible :S

Other than that not too much is new around here, spring has sprung and it's great to be outside again, especially before the humid season sets in, in a few months time.

Hope everyone enjoyed their nice long weekend while I was trying to tolerate my kindergartens.

Eugh Work...

You know your loathing of work is at an all time high when you are secretly wishing you still had pneumonia just so you wouldn't have to go to work.

My new kindergarten class is driving me nuts. If I ever have kids they are definetly getting shipped off somewhere when they turn seven. I do not like seven year olds. They whine all the time, "Teacher...Sam is bothering me." The urge to retort back that they are bothering me is overwhelming sometimes.

I think I could handle the five year olds a lot better, too, because they were cute. My new kids are not cute and that makes their whining even more unbearable. The fighting, the crying, the nose picking, I don't want to deal with it.

Kids like this are the reason I don't want any. Ever. If my kids turned out that way I'm pretty sure I would stop loving them.

And if you can believe it, this is after two weeks, when they've actually grown on me a little. You should have heard me a week ago... We've got a field trip on Friday, maybe I'll take some pictures of them not being cute and you can see for yourself....

Casino!

Well, yesterday was the dreaded Poly conference that happens twice a year. We had to be on the bus at school, on a Saturday, at 6:45 am, in order to go to Seoul for the most useless conference in the history of all conferences. What a waste of my Saturday.

Despite there being many St. Patrick's parties happening in Daejeon, Mikey and I decided that we might as well take advantage of being in Seoul and headed over to Walker Hill Casino for some gambling fun. Then we also met up with some Daejeon friends, Jeremy and Christine who happened to be in Seoul. The plan was to sit down at a Texas Hold'em table and show off our poker skills, but upon getting there I felt a little intimidated and thought that maybe my poker skills aren't quite as good as Facebook Poker has allowed me to think they are.

Instead, I sat down at a roulette table and left it all up to luck. I played for a while on fifty dollars but eventually the numbers let me down and I threw down another fifty. I started to have a hunch about the number 21 and played it for several turns. Finally down to three chips I put them all on 21 and it came up, winning me close to three hundred! Despite the fact that others at the table were throwing thousands down per hand and I was just a small fish I think I was the happiest person at the table after that!

The casino was pretty nice actually, it was in the basement of the Sheraton Hotel, which was one of the nicest hotel lobbies I've ever been in. There were no bells and whistles going off like at home, so it wasn't quite as exciting, but they have free drinks and ice cream (ice cream, at a casino??) so it was nice to be able to take advantage of the freebies. The funny thing about casinos in Korea is that Koreans aren't allowed in them so it was like multi-cultural night in Korea with a lot of Japanese and Chinese people, and as the night got later, lots of Americans, who were probably from the army base.

Unfortunately, caught up in our gambling bliss the last train to Daejeon left at around ten o'clock and we were not on it. So we ended up staying at the casino ALL night until the first train left this morning at 5:30. I ended up leaving a hundred and seventy up; it would have been way more but I had a hunch about the number 9 and played it for a good hour and a half and it never came up so that dwindled my winnings a little.

At five thirty this morning, the four of us trudged sleepily onto the train and set our alarms to ensure we didn't miss the Daejeon stop. By seven I was in my apartment and ready for some sleep. Now it's 3:00, the weekend is almost over, and I have the poker finals at JRock to go to where I am sitting in second place!

Overall, the Poly conference was a huge waste of time, but the rest of the weekend has been full of gambling fun! Hurray!

Sicko

Nothing to write about because today was the fifth consecutive day that I've spent in my bed. Doctor confirmed yesterday that I have pneumonia and I got two needles in my "hip" (as they like to say,when really they mean butt) and lots of little pills. Had to go back today for the same treatment and I'm actually feeling a little more normal. Can almost take a deep breath and can walk from one end of my apartment to the other without breaking into a coughing fit; however, stairs nearly kill me. But I did eat real food for the first time today since Monday and it tasted soooo good. Hopefully in a day or two I will be as good as new, and I don't ever, ever want to be this sick again. In fact, I refuse to be.

Blah

Well thanks to this "wonderful" cold/bronchitis/deathly illness that I have, here are the things that I didn't get to do this weekend:

I didn't get to play in the poker tournament on Saturday for Joe's birthday. I didn't get to get all dressed up for the Pimp's and Ho's party on Saturday night. I didn't get to leave the bar at 6 in the morning with my friends. And I didn't get to go to the gym and run my 10km. Actually, I can't even walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like my chest is going to explode. So three cheers for crappy weekends. Hip hip *&$* Hip hip *#$) Hip hip #$&.....

I did, however, get to spend almost 48 hours in bed this weekend. I started to watch Juno and fell asleep through it. I started to watch Dirty Dancing and fell asleep through it, and I started to watch Across the Universe (twice) and fell asleep through it (twice).

And for anybody who thinks I'm being a little melodramatic over all of this I have two things to say to you: 1) I almost NEVER complain about being sick (hangovers don't count) and 2) Come here and let me breathe my germs all over you and see how much you like it.

I'm Sick :(

Wishlist:

3 cans of gingerale
Big box of tissues
A back rub
Chicken Noodle Soup

Can somebody fly to Korea to take care of me? :( Please....

Goodbye Five Year Olds

End of the school year this week in Korea, so as of next week I get a new kindergarten class. Unfortunately I will no longer be teaching the five years, but instead will have to suffer the seven year olds. Heather and I had both asked to have the five year olds again, not particularly because we love them so much, but their schooling is way more fun and easier than that of the seven year olds. Anyhow for whatever reason Jason gave neither of us the five year olds, and instead gave them to two teachers who don't want them. So I guess as long as everybody is miserable on the Poly front than the directors are happy.

My afternoon classes are seemingly better this semester and I will be teaching a lot of high level grammar classes which is what I asked for, plus I get a spare, although one of my grammar classes is such a high level I think I might have to use the spare for prep, rather than Facebook shenanigans.

Yesterday was the kindergarten graduation and they went all out for it: caps, gowns, and rented a huge auditorium. It was quite the event, and pretty boring, which is exactly why I skipped all of my graduations. I got some nice presents though, vitamins, perfume, candy bouquet and make up, plus we finished our morning an hour early because of it, so it was a pretty sweet deal.

The rest of this week is fun and games time as all the class work is finished and each class will be devoted to snack party and movie time so that's a nice change of pace for a few days.

Korean Dentists

Was pretty sure I was never gonna venture down the road of Korean dentistry. As beautiful as my students look with all their shiny gold and silver caps on their teeth, I prefer to leave the caring of my teeth to Dr. Kindree and my friend, Listerine.

But as some of you, who have known me since I was a little kid, might know, my parents genetically gifted me with absolutely horrible teeth that took years of braces to somewhat correct. After that, I had bonding added onto my teeth to fill in the awful middle gap in my mouth.

Thursday night I was sipping a drink through a straw and felt something get stuck in my teeth. To my horror, it was one of the bonds, and it had fallen off, leaving me with a small gap in the middle of my mouth, and made one of my front teeth smaller than the one right beside it. I will admit, I had a mild freak out, and tried to figure out a way I could manage to fly home and get it fixed over the weekend. After calming down a bit, and admitting to myself that the gap wasn't that noticeable, I decided that Korean dentists must have a little bit of a clue when it comes to that kind of stuff. So today Heidi took me to the dentist she's gone to for crowning and whatnot, and he was perfectly capable and spoke really good English. I must have seemed pretty aprehensive because he asked me if I was nervous and I said yes, and nervously laughed and that made him laugh, too.

The worst part about dentists here is that they are WAY more technologically advanced so there was a computer monitor right above the patient chair, and they take a little, teeny, tiny camera and show you all the happenings of what's going on with your teeth and inside your mouth. If I wanted to look inside people's mouths I would have become a dentist myself.

Anyhow, not only did he fix the gap, but he did it way better than it was done before, and now I can smile again :)

Flip Cup

Never. Drinking. Again. (hahaha, yeah right....) After having dinner with Richard, Ashley, and Martin last night I met back up with Heather, Chandrie, and Heidi and we headed over to Brickhouse where there was going to be a flip cup tournament.

Flip cup is a drinking game/relay race. Each team has four people, and each person has a plastic cup. Everybody on the team gets their cup filled with beer, and the first person has to drink their beer as fast as they can and then put the cup on the edge of the table and flip it over. Once you flip your cup over, the next person in line goes, and the first team to get all their beer finished and their cups flipped wins. We did not win. We tied for last place. Fortunately we only had to drink a few ounces of beer each time we played, otherwise it would have been really messy, because every team had to play each other for the best two out of three and there were six teams. Our team name was The Mother Flippers...we're crafty with words like that.

Mix that beer in with the wine from dinner, the malibus that Heidi bought for us and various other drinks throughout the night and I was one hurting girl when I woke up this morning, errr, I mean afternoon.

But it was worth it because it was a lot of fun, it reminded me of the games we used to play during the summers in Dorset. Yep, that's right, I'm 26 and still playing the same games I played as a teenager. I'm so mature.

Was supposed to play poker this afternoon but instead I'm laying in my bed, drinking Powerade, and feeling a little shell shocked.

babble

Made it through the week without anymore catastrophies. I'm glad to read by your comments that you were all SO sympathetic to me. The flu bug is going around here like wildfire, and strangely enough, so far I've been immune to it, despite everyone around me having caught it. Hopefully it stays that way.

Didn't get up to much of anything last night, for a brief moment over dinner we got all geared up for going out, but then by the time we were finished dinner we decided to have a quiet night. The long work days and getting up early for the gym, makes it really easy to stay in on Friday nights, which gets a little boring, but at the same time it's nice to be up early on Saturdays, without a hangover.

This weekend is Richard's last weekend in Korea, so a few of us from last year are gathering for a dinner and a send off, so it should be a fun night out. There is also a FlipCup tournament happening at Brickhouse, which is some sort of drinking game, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to convince Richard that we should go there, being that it is his least favorite place.

Still keeping up with the running during the week, but I think we've pretty much accepted the fact that the half marathon is not happening. I don't know the date of the run yet, but most likely we will be doing a 10km, which is good because I know that I can run the whole thing now, I just need to work on getting a bit speedier, which is what I'm off to do now.

Hope you have a good weekend, by the sounds of it you will be shovelling a lot of snow!! :P

Gross

It started out as a normal morning at work; me lamenting about my job and how much I detest children. This morning I even ventured as far as to say that little kids are gross, due to their fingers being up their noses, and in their mouths and wherever else. Everyone else around me just kind of laughed it off as one of those typical Diana comments.

Then fifteen minutes into my first class, Mimi throws up all over the desk, her crayons and her book. Gross. My point exactly.

Now in Canada, and anywhere else where common sense seems to be in supply, if a child is sick you send them home, you don't let them go back to class and contaminate the rest of the children, but this is Korea. So the Korean teachers cleaned Mimi and the room up and class went on as usual.

Lunch time came around and nobody thought anything was wrong with giving her rice and curry and oranges for lunch. And then hey, she's feeling better, so let's let her go to gym class and bounce around all over the place, that's gotta be good for her.

Five minutes before kindergarten ended for the day, the kids are getting lined up, I'm zipping up coats and making sure shoes are on the right feet, when Mimi, whose all bundled up decided to give a second performance of this morning. But this time, one of the other students, June, must have thought that it looked like a fun thing to do, and he proceeded to vomit on the floor as well.

My Wednesday was great... hope yours goes just as well!

Back From Seoul

Seoul was a good time, wasn't the tropical paradise we were dreaming of when we thought about Lunar New Years, but it was still a little escape from reality for a night.

We headed up yesterday morning and headed towards Lotte World Hotel in hopes of a room. Heather had come down with the stomach flu so she didn't join us so it was just Heidi, Chandrie and I. We managed to get a room at a really good rate considering we were staying at one of the best hotels in Korea. Due to the fact that everything was closed because of the holiday we spent a lazy afternoon lounging in our hotel, going swimming and using the sauna facilities.

For dinner we headed to Sizzler (don't laugh, it's good here). Heidi and I ate dinner, while Chandrie looked at our food queasily and determined that she, too, was not feeling so hot. So after dinner Chandrie headed back to the hotel while Heidi and I went to Lotte World, which is the biggest indoor amusement park in the world (take that Edmonton Mall), and as well it had outdoor attractions as well. Went on the dropzone ride a few times, a really great roller coaster and a few other fun rides. During one of our waits in lines we befriended a girl from China and her father, but then one of the ride attendents came around and asked her father how old he was and he said 58, so they told him he was too old to ride and made him get out of line (can you believe that???) . So we continued to talk to the girl, who spoke really good English, and Heidi started telling the girl, as a joke, that I was really scared of rides and cried when we went on rides, and the girl believed her, and I know what you are thinking, come on, it's funny when I do stuff like that.... So the girl kept telling me not to be scared and not to worry, meanwhile Heidi was having a great time with it all.

We stayed at the park until close and then headed back to the hotel. In the morning Heather felt better and came up to join us. We spent most of the day shopping and eating and riding around on the subway. Both her and Chandrie felt kind of rough but they were troopers. We think they may have gotten food poisoning from some oysters that they ate on Tuesday night; and maybe I jinxed them but when I heard that they had eaten oysters the day before I said, "I would never eat oysters in Korea...they would probably give you food poisoning." Oops....

Anyhow it's Saturday which means the holiday is almost over and that makes me grumpy cause I don't want to go back to work. In fact, I don't want to work in general, ever. So if anyone knows the winning numbers for the next lottery, or an easy get rich quick scheme, please let know :)

Tuesday is the new Friday

Hooray for five days off! Happy Lunar New Years!

Starting the vacation off with a little poker action tonight. Tomorrow is going to be a day of lounging around, and getting bus or train tickets sorted for going to Seoul. Still haven't booked a hotel for Thursday, so we could be sleeping on the streets for all I know.

Got a few presents for the holidays; a box of 70 rice cakes that were filled with red bean paste and weighed a ton. Same box I got back at Chuseok that just sat on the floor of my apartment until they were moldy, so I decided to regift them and shared them with all my students today. Got a dozen Dunkin Donuts that I pawned off on some of the other teachers. And then I got two pair of socks as well. (Koreans give weird gifts).

As of next week I'll have been back in Korea for six months, crazy eh? On the count down to home ;) Maybe....

Weekend!

That felt like a really, really long week.

First off, guess who's in first place in the poker tournament? This guy girl! That's right, I rock. Until Tuesday anyhow, when I'm sure I'll be booted out of top spot.

Had a nice quiet night last night. Went to TGIF's for a cheeseburger, which was delicious, then we went to Emart, where I bought Nintendo DS (cause apparently I'm a little kid again) then Heidi, Chandrie and Heather all came back here and we watched a movie.

Think we are laying low all weekend, going to attempt a 10km run in a few hours and then we will probably watch movies and hang around. There's a going away party tonight for a girl who's been here a few years, might make it out to that, we'll see though; it's always somebody's going away party/birthday party/coming back party around here. I'm not spending tomorrow hungover and in bed like I did last weekend so a quiet night sounds good to me right now.

Next week is Lunar New Years, and due to the fact that everybody and their mother seems to be travelling the only thing we are going to do is head to Seoul and tour around. Think we are going to try and stay at the Westin and take advantage of the luxuries of a nice hotel, but we haven't booked it yet so it might be full already.

Anyhow that's all I've got to say for now, have a nice weekend!

Update

Been awol again lately, I'm not trying to make excuses but I'm NEVER home, NEVER...that's why I don't call people either :P Sorry... I didn't come to Asia to socialize with you guys!

Weekend was good, went out both Friday and Saturday night, mind you we only stayed at the party we went to on Friday night for about ten minutes and then we went back to Heather's to watch Juno, which we all fell asleep about half an hour into.

Saturday night was Brickhouse's second anniversary party, and as you may know I love Brickhouse. They were giving VIP stickers to regulars so I got one of those and got to drink for free for an hour. Then they did awards and guess which award I got??? Come on, guess! It's got nothing to do with poker.... Okay you're never gonna guess, you might not even believe me when I tell you, but I got the "Kindest Person" award. That's right, I'm kind! It made my night to say the least....

Spent Sunday hungover and in bed for far longer than I would like to admit.

Heidi and I have also decided to start training for a half marathon...it started off as a 5km, and then we both do 5km at the gym in the morning anyhow and Heidi suggested on Saturday that we aim a little higher...okay, a lot higher... I'm a little skeptical at this point, but our goal isn't about speed or running the whole thing, so we figure as long as we complete it we will be proud of ourselves...and if it seems to be near impossible in the upcoming weeks we will drop down to a 10km....probably a wise decision if you ask me....

Tonight is poker, I am currently tied for second place in the tournament after winning last week so hopefully all goes well. Right now, I'm off to meet some coworkers for a birthday dinner. Hope all is well on the western front!!

No Contest

Just in case you were ever wondering who would win in a contest between Beth, Em and I for the best granddaughter award.

I'm Old. :(

Just sitting around having a lazy Sunday morning. Had a good birthday night on Friday. After work we all went home and had a rest and spent some time primping ourselves before heading out. Started the night off at Heidi's for some yummy chocolate cake and then headed off to Brickhouse. Being that it was my birthday people felt compelled to buy me drinks that were doubles and triples and we did shots of sambucca and jagermeister. Brickhouse was pretty empty so around one we headed over to JRock, which is another foreigner bar here, that I really didn't like last year but it's just reopened under a new owner and each time I've been there it's been pretty fun. The rest of the night is kind of a blur, due to the aforementioned beverages, but there was dancing and good friends and I managed to make it home just before four in the morning.

For some reason I woke up at eight in the morning yesterday and laid around in a vegetative state for the better part of the morning, then in the afternoon I went over to Richard's and him, Ashley and I watched the movie, Juno, and ate pizza. And not to be overly dramatic but I think Juno is the BEST movie EVER, and I've watched it three times this week. So everybody should go out and see it. Now.

Not much else is going on around here right now, Heidi and I are going for lunch soon and then off to do bit of shopping. We still haven't made any progress on making plans for Lunar New Years, everything is either booked solid or ridiculously expensive, so right now we think we might just head up to Seoul, rent a hotel for a few nights and pretend we live in the big city.

Oh, and the poker league also started back up last week so we're back in action every Tuesday night, the venue has switched from Brickhouse to JRock but for the most part it's the same old crowd. I didn't start out with a great finish last week but hopefully I'll get some better cards in the next few weeks.

Oh well, enough being lazy this morning, time to get moving. Have a nice weekend!

Courtesy of the Star:

If today is your birthday: You have a chance to stride out confidently this year. Mercury will bring clarity by lifting the mist from your vision. You will see where you've gone wrong, recall an old lost dream and find a way to get to where you really want to be. Happy birthday to Kevin Costner, 53.

Mission Accomplished...

9:40 pm Sunday night and I'm "so hungover..."

Had a fun night though so it was well worth the pain today!

The Week In Recap

This just in: Being a grown up and working for a living sucks. I wanna go back to Bali and lay on the beach.

Week at work started off fine, other than the usual grumblings one has after a week's vacation.

One of my co-workers decided she wanted to go on the master cleanse, which was the lemonade fast Heidi and I did a few months ago. In a show of support I decided to join her and begin it again; however, she didn't make it through the first night. I got half way through the second day and rationalized that I was only doing it to be supportive and since I had nobody to support I might as well enjoy a cup of coffee and some food. Have a massive supply of lemons in my fridge now...

Was supposed to go skiing today with a few friends but a 24-hour down pour yesterday ruined those plans and instead I've done next to nothing today, other than scrubbed my apartment and went to Costco, where all I managed to purchase was dish cloths and salmon.

Tonight the plan is to go out and get a little wreckless but so far we are coming up empty handed with people who are game for it. Regardless, Heather, Chandrie and I are heading out on the town shortly and I'm not coming home until I'm seeing double, or drinking doubles. It's been far too long since I've had a good "I'm so hungover," post.

Tomorrow I think I'm headed over to Richard's to watch some movies because he is done in two weeks and then everybody from last year that I hung out with will be gone. :(

Bali Revisited

I never should have left things unsaid about Bali cause even just a few days after the fact it's hard to separate different things that we did. After being back at work for three days it feels like I never even left.

But to just say a little bit more about it, it was absolutely beautiful and reminded me of why living somewhere tropical would be way better than living in Canada. For the most part the weather was good, which was great because all the forecast had shown in the weeks leading up to our visit was constant rain, but instead the rain would come in spells and then the sun would come out immediately after, so if anything it served as a nice cooling off some days.

The shopping was really good, everything was pretty much the same in each store, but it was cheap and there was always room to barter. I think my bartering skills have vastly improved since Thailand last year and most of the time I walked away feeling like I got a pretty good deal. On the other hand though, it feels so wrong to be bartering some poor lady down from five dollars to three dollars for a purse that would cost way more at home.

The food was always amazing, wherever we went. I don't really feel like Balinese food has its own distinct flavoring, but moreso that it borrows from Thai, Indian and Vietnamese. Either way almost every night we went out we had appetizers, meals, and drinks and our bills were almost always around the ten dollar mark. One night we polished off our meals with big cups of gelato that was fantastic!

Overall we were pretty low key and in our hotel by ten most nights and up at the crack of dawn each mornng, so that Beth and I could enjoy sipping our coffee on the porch of our hotel room before starting our days.

I actually have another vacaction next month so before even settling down from Bali it's time to start planning again. Haven't decided where yet, maybe Taiwan or the Philapines. It's Lunar New Years which is a popular travel time for Koreans, so I guess it will end up depending what is available and what is moderately cheap.