New picture walk

Quite some time ago, when I first moved to South Korea, I put up a picture walk going from my house to the subway station. I like picture walks because it shows the little things that i see along my way... as if you were walking along with me.

Here's a new picture walk, from my house to bring Ryan a forgoten cell phone while he was writing at his favorite cafe.




Here's the front step to my house. Yes, house! I am so pleased to be out of apartements again. We rent a little one story 2 bedroom villa. Here you can see the tiny little garden I built here with random bricks from the neighborhood. I have osteospermum, columbine, pineapple sage, campanula, basil, one pink tulip, and some sprouting lettuce and spinach.


After turning to the right, (you can still see a little of my garden!), you are faced with a steep, crumbly hill. This slope has made nervous many koreans in high heels durring summer, and even myself have to hold onto the wall durring winter. It's really quite steep. It didn't help when a construction company dumped a big pile of sand at the top of it, and now the whole slope is made more slippery by sand everywhere.

You can still see the side of my house in this picture (on the left). Once reaching the top of the hill, you can look down and see the convenience store that is so close to us. This street is also quite run-down and steep, cars rarely drive here, all we get is the occasional motorcycle really (which you can see parked beside my house). I guess when you live on a mountain, steep hills is what you get.

Following the curve of the street you saw previously, you reach my bus stop! This bus takes me up the mountain when I don't feel like walking it. Busses here are really cheap. While there are no monthly bus passes, you load up a money card and it only costs 60 cents per trip.

This is the construction site along the way down the mountain. I have no idea what they're building but whatever it is has a basement, and is quite large. A small apartement building maybe? My area is highly residential, as many foreigners live around here.

Keeping on going down the street. Note the lack of sidewalks... but the cars are usually pretty careful as it is a residential neighborhood and lots of people walk around here. The PB is a Paris Bagette, a large chain here in korea with acceptable french bread.

Here's a small family run grocery store, and a hardward store beside it. The hardware store is closed since it's sunday.

And we've arrived at the cafe to find ryan!

Here's your cell phone, Ryan!

Noraebang fun

Noraebangs are Korea's version of kareoke. Now, back in Canada, I loved kareoke. I did not love sitting and listening to a bunch of strangers sing, but i did love it when my turn/my friends' turn came up. I find it to be extreemly fun, and at about 15$ an hour it's not horribly priced either.


Now imagine... it's only you and your friends that sing, no strangers involved! No drinks sold there (at most, but some exceptions), but you can bring in your own alcohol if that's what you need from one of a plethora of convenience stores (as long as you're discrete, and yes they sell cold alcohol in the convenience stores here).

Not that i usually need 'liquid refreshents'. I see kareoke like i see dancing.... if you will only do it when you're drunk, maybe you shouldn't do it at all? Trust me, we'll thank you for it lol.


Luckily i have a man who feels much like I do. We go singing for the enjoyment of it. Last weekend, we were checking out the arcade while waiting for it to be time to go to our movie (we saw Clash of the Titans and enjoyed it for the silly epic fun it was). Lo and behold, they had tiny individual soundproof (we hope? sorry to others if they weren't haha) noraebang booths. We imediately jumped in for some impromptu fun.

Here's Ryan rocking out.



We only sang one song (it was about movie time) but we made it a good one....

Spring in Seoul

Wow.... practically had to blow the dust off the keys and claw away the spiderwebs before posting this entry here. It's really been a while since i last posted here. Well, here's my update about what things have been like here. I don't want a long rambling post, and most of you already know this stuff if we are close... so i'll keep it short.

-finished my old contract at my previous job. Ended well, but was ready to move on to bigger things.

-started my new job, working at a private elementary school. I love it.

- moved into the central foreigner area here in Seoul rather than the south area. House rather than apartement. It's great, we love it.

-CATS! Meet our kittens, Necro and Thulu.

So, winter is finaly over here in Seoul. I went rollerblading the weekend before last. The air was warm, and even if it was cloudy it felt so good to be out again. I hadn't been rollerblading in over a year, and god, it felt good. I stopped and rested a bit beside the Han river, and saw sailboats. Thought of you, Dad. Maybe we'll go sailing when you come visit? I don't know if you can rent them.

The cherry tree is in my neighborhood, near the busstop. The river picture is a view of part of downtown Seoul and the Han river.

New Years Resolutions

I guess it's that time of year. I've made a couple New Years resolutions.... well more like goals... to keep in mind through the year.

1. To continue to grow as a teacher.

I have a new job starting in march, as previously mentioned, and i look forward to working with real teachers. Some collaborating, curriculum planning together... it's a good thing. I look forward to this oppertunity. Maybe i'll even get some professional development, and learn more about the koeran view of teaching? That would be fabulous. Either way, i hope to continue to become a better teacher.

2. To continue working with my art

When ryan told me i needed to have more specific resolutions, i determined that i wanted to enter a minimum of two online contests with my work (prob my jewelry). I have a bunch of differnt sites i frequent that have regular contests, so the logistics shouldn't be too hard. Only problem with the 'viewer voting' contests is that it often turns into a contest where the winner is the one who's blog gets the most views, as they send over their viewers who vote for them. Either way, the important thing isn't to win, it's just to enter.

3. To improve my trombone playing.

Specifically, i want to improvise publicly once this year on my trombone. I have a meet-up group i play with, and prob will find something through this group.

In closing, here are pictures of me playing and one of some people in my group. I took the pics of the meet-up site, and they were kindly taken by the meet-up leader.