Mount Kinabalu

Laura and I climbed Mount Kinabulu over the past two days. It was incredible!!! We started hiking early on day 1 to beat the crowd going up. We were the first to leave and the first to arrive at Laban Rata, our accomidations for the night. It took us 4 hours(quicker than the average person, we were told). We had lunch and dinner at Laban Rata and shared accomidations with an English couple, the four of us slept in a room about the size of a phone booth. We set our alarms for 2:00am in the moring to set off for our summit push. It took us about 2 and a half hours to reach the summit (4300ish meters). We were at the summit at 4:50 am and had to wait almost an hour in zero degree weather with blistering winds for the sunset. Laura put every article of clothing she owned on and still was freezing. It was worth it though. It was amazing, one of the best experiences of our lives.

Adam and I are now currently in Singapore visiting my friend Leigh and her husband Kyle. (both in picture...) Singapore is a beautiful city. Very clean and very safe. The people are also very friendly. Yesterday Adam and I toured around Little India which was very neat. There are so many palaces to eat it is SO overwhelming. We also saw many mosks, which were very interesting as well. That evening we took Leigh and her husband otu for dinner to a restaurant in a place called the East Coast Park. It has been a fantastic visit, and we are off to Borneo next to hike Mount Kinabalu!!!

Gyeoung-ju

Last weekend was Adam and my last weekend in Korea. We decided to go to Gyeoung-ju, which is the historical capital of Korea. They say it is to Korea, what Kyoto is to Japan. The city is really neat. There were big mounds (well small hills actually) that were tombs of royality that used to rule the area. We stayed at a really neat hostel, and on the friday night we went to a place called Boman Lake that was a small resort like village. There we watched an open air Korean Performance that was really neat. On the saturday we decided to rent bikes for the day, and bike to a temple and to a huge Buddha. This was slightly a mistake as it was sunny and about 40 degrees out. We pushed sweatyness to a different level. We arrived at the temple (that was 18km away) so sweaty that we had to wait an hour to dry off before going in. The temple was neat. We then took a bus from the temple up the mountain to a place called the Grotto. This is a place where there is the biggest Buddha in Korea carved into the side of a mountain. It was SO big and SO neat to see however you cannot take pictures of it. After we dreaded the 18km bike ride back, however it wasn't too bad. The picture above is of the area where the Grotto is.

We went to another Korean concert that evening and then it was back to Seoul for one night, where we caught our flight to Singapore. The trip back to Seoul was awesome as we took a Bullet train that went 300km an hour!!!

DMZ

We went to the DMZ (the Demilitarized Zone) on a tour from Seoul. It was kind of surreal, with North Korean Guards staring at South Korean Guards and South Korea Guards staring at North Korean Guards. The tour was a little rushed, however we did get to go through one of the infiltration tunnels which was really cool. (sweet, delicious and handsome...a little camp korea inside joke) The tunnel was over 100 meters underground with no ventilation so the air was really thick. The final stop on the tour was at a train station that was built to be a gateway from South to North Korea, but no trains come or leave this train station. It is completely empty and super clean which made it really neat.

The Doosan Bears vs The Busan Giants

If you have ever seen the movie Mr. Baseball with Tom Seleck, with all the cheering and songs after every pitch and every out then exactly how the baseball game was. It was more fun watching the crowd, the band and the dancers then the game itself!! The game was really exciting too! They play baseball the way it should be played, a lot of bunting, stealing and moving runners around. It was a great night in Seoul.

This is me training for Australia!!! This was so cool, it is a standing wave. They shoot water up this plastic shape wave, you slide in on this boogie board and try to stay in it. You are only allowed to go up to your knees, but it was still preety wicked.

FUN!

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THE CRAZIEST WATERPARK!


Talk about CRAZY!! We finally had some fun here are camp korea, however I am not sure how safe it actually was!!! We went to an indoor "pool" with the kids, that really was the craziest water park I have ever seen. There were HUNDREDS of people there packed into many pools like sardines. Thankfully, the teachers were allowed to just do whatever they wanted......We had a blast. There were 4 indoor waterslides that were awesome. (see pic below)
They also had a standing wave that you could body board on. Adam will add a picture of that later. He was one of the few (and the first) to master the wave. I however got thrown off the wave 3 times and gave up. It was pretty tricky and i was slightly annoyed that he got it so easily. We ended up staying at the park for 4 hours. The kids had a blast too. If you look carefully you will notice everyone is wearing a bathing cap. A rule here in Korea that just makes the waterpark even more entertaining!

I I know that Adam and I have let on that we are not enjoying ourselves teaching, however I must admit that this past weekend has totally changed my outlook on the country of Korea. I have decided that the people in this country are the nicest I have ever met. People go completely out of their way to help you. In that respect, it has been amazing. We also got to go into the mountains this weekend and the countryside is beautiful.

This weekend Adam and I had a great time! We went to a town called Danyang. It was a small town about 2.5 hours away from here. We arrived late Saturday night (well, late to us, 7pm). We found a hotel and wandered the streets looking for a place to eat. In hindsite we realized we stayed in the wrong area of town. We were on the outskirts of the tourist part to restaurants were harder to come by. Long story short, we ended up eating at the hotel. The food was great. I had crab soup and adam had a traditional dish called bibmibop. Anyway, sunday was great. We woke up to rain, so that wasn't great however we went to the information centre and decided to go to a cave and then to a buddist temple. The woman at the tourist place was so nice! Anyway, first we went to a cave. Holy cow, Koreans take cheezy tourism to a new level. The cave was unlike anything I have ever seen. There was a steel walkway throughout it, and we were packed in like sardines! They even had areas where you could pay to get your picture taken!!! It was hilarious. After that experience we took a bus to a buddist temple. This was the highlight. It was beautful and unlike anything I have ever seen. The picture above is at the top of the hike the monks and nuns do to get to budda's burrial site. There were people praying and chanting everywhere. We looked a little out of place, but it was totally worth it. The temple was set in the middle of the mountains and was so beautful. Walking around was quite the workout though! Either uphill or downhill!! I will add more pictures when I can. It really was an amazing experience.

Here are a few pictures of the food we eat every day. The bottom on is the Korean "plate". That is what we eat off. The middle picture is kimchi on the left (spiced cabbage) and on the right is seaweed. It actually is better than it looks. Today we actually got a really good curry!

I thought this picture was appropriate. the blending of two cultures. Tai Kwan Do AND Baskin and Robbins!!!!! There is one in the town we are in that I frequent often.

So last weekend Adam and I went to a town about 30 minutes away from here. It is a little smaller than Seoul. It was called Deijon. (like the mustard...) We actually liked it better than Seoul. We walked around a lot and found a great Vietnamese restaurant for dinner saturday night!!!! We actually had a meal without rice..........

Sunday we had good intentions to go to a national park that was close by, but after wandering around for over an hour looking for the bus station, we gave up. We looked around the downtown for a while, and then decided to go to some temples close by. When we got organized for that, it started pouring rain, so that was out. We then decided to give up on the cultural experience and go to a movie. It took over an hour to find the theatre (keep in mind everything is in Korean) and when we actually found it, and actually was able to communicate with the ticket seller, we found out all the movies were sold out! SO, that plan was a bust too, however we did have a fantastic weekend.

This week has been a little better. My class is still full of duds so adam takes them in the afternoon which is great. They think it is funny when they ask to go to the bathroom to yell out DANGEROUS! PEE!!!!! Granted, it is funny as they are totally using the words wrong, but it is so ann0ying too. Oh well, I have 13 more sleeps here and then the travels begins!!!!

We are off to another town in the mountains (we hope) this weekend.