Busan Trip, Panda Playoffs

This weekend was the playoffs for our frisbee league and our team Pandamonium. We played hard through the season and placed 8th out of 18 teams. Not bad for a semi-rookie team with lots of new players and very few people who had played together before. Unfortunately for us, we lost our first game against a competitive team. This meant we were in Busan for a whole weekend, with nothing to do! JM and I decided to head to our hotel early and tour around the Haeundae Beach area.

Our first stop was the Busan Aquarium. There were lots of different underwater species to look at. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

HUGE spider crab!

Shark!

Shark and Turtle

This shark always had a school of fish around him. 

I think they knew that if they were in front of him, they would be lunch.

Attempting to get a picture with the manta ray

This dolphin did a flip over JM's head right as I took the picture. I think he was happy!

 

Sporting some sic head gear. Dolphins rule!

After the aquarium, we met up with some frisbee peeps for dinner .. at a Brazilian churrasco!  Unlimited meat, coupled with salads, roasted pineapple, and free drinks from our new Brazilian friends = a delicious evening. After dinner we tossed around a frisbee and had some late night 3 on 3, girls against boys.

Photo credits go to the fabulous Kelly for the next few pics.

 

Boys vs. Girls

The next day we went back to the fields to watch the semi-finals and final games of the season. If you are curious to see what the game looked like, you can check out the video HERE. It was a hard fought game, and the team that used their girls the most pulled through! Well done Gwangju!

We also had a mini photo shoot in a beautiful wheat field right near the frisbee park.

Sports Day at Bugil

One of my favourite days of the semester by far. Today all the students from the boys school and from the GLP competed in a sports day with their grade. Events included track, volleyball, basketball, soccer, tug of war, and ssireum, a traditional Korean wrestling sport. I loved watching my students compete - it was a great way to see their team spirit and also just them being teenagers! Not study robots. The best part? I got to play in a teacher vs. student soccer match! It's been ages since I've played any footie, but I put on my cleats and represented. I was the only foreigner and the only female playing! Really, I didn't do much. I think my students told me I touched the ball 3 times (it was only a 30 min game!). I've never been an aggressive soccer player; I'm much more keen to find myself in the right place at the right time. But the moment my students saw me run out, they started cheering and chanting my name. Made me feel loved! It was an all around awesome day.

The morning started out cloudy, but it cleared up fast!

Warming up is important kids!

Running to the stands

Ssireum - my students were good at it!

Photo Credits: Miz Bre - she took most of them. For some reason I spaced on taking pics!

Inexplicable World of Korea #7 - Cheese

We love cheese. We love cheese so much we are willing to pay outrageous Korean prices to have the delicious taste of imported cheese. We love cheese so much we bring it back with us from Canada, in small cooler bags, in hopes that it doesn't get confiscated so we can enjoy the old cheddar, dill havarti, or cranberry goat's cheese in the comfort of our own home.

Korean cheese is plastic. No joke. Think Kraft Singles, but worse. They have pineapple and other flavoured cheese slices. When it's placed under heat it actually melts the way plastic melts. This means that at the grocery store, all the decent cheese is imported. This also means that it is a big ticket item. So stores unleash a high level of security on such items. At least, this is what I found on my recent trip to E-mart.

Must be all those criminal foreigners ... stealing cheese.

This one is actually in a locked plastic box. I wonder if it melts the way Korean cheese does?
It retails for around $10.

Oh no! It might dye your cheese. Seriously, who wouldn't just cut around that?
This one retails for about $6.

The Yellow Dust Has Arrived!

Yellow dust is blowing over from China and covering my living room. I'm not impressed. It's crazy hard to clean off all my surfaces and plants!

Daecheon Beach for Buddha's Birthday

Buddha's birthday, which is a national holiday, happened to fall on a Friday this year, so we got a long weekend. And what better way to start a long weekend than on a beach!

One of the closest and/or most easily accessible beaches from Cheonan is Daecheon. It's a 1 hour train ride out to the west coast, then a 10 minute bus ride directly from the train station. We had never been before, so we decided to make a late morning trip and meet up with our friends Bre and Ross.

The beach was very nice. The sand was soft and clean. The water was still a bit too cold to go in, so I can't comment on its quality. One girl had a Polaroid camera and we took a few photos. It was nice to relax in the sun and have a weekend off. We have been doing a lot of traveling for frisbee lately. The past 3 weekends we've been out of town. So this was a great way to spend a holiday!

Lookin' fine!

I found a baby urchin

 Taking a nap under the beating sun! At least the weather was beautiful.

Sunset over the rice fields, near the Daecheon train station. A beautiful end to a lovely day!

Jackie Spinning Festival

Today Jean-Marc and I tried out something new .. something Christine has been pushing me to try since I arrived in Korea. We went to the Jackie Spinning Festival in Bucheon!

Jackie Spinning is a Korean twist on the traditional spinning class. Rather than just biking to the music, JS combines dance moves and upper body exercises while on the bike, sort of like cycle gymnastics. The experts actually compete in cycle gynmastics competitions and do some crazy moves on a bike. Like this:

And this:

We, of course, did not do anything like that, but rather struggled to keep up with the basic moves of the instructor who was on stage. Korea has some quirky features, and this sport is definitely one of them! You can even see a video of the festival (including cameos of us) HERE.

Great workout for sure!

(All photo credits go to Jackie Spinning)

Stretching before working out

All the bikes were outdoors - and it was a beautiful day!

Looking confused, trying to figure out what the instructor is doing

Getting the hang of things - having fun!

Waygooks!

All the festival participants

Hiking Songnisan

My students had another field trip day after their midterms this week and we, native English teachers, got the choice of which trip to join. Since it's less likely that I will make my way to the Korean countryside on my own, I opted to take a trip to another national park to go hiking. This time we did Songnisan, which is in the next province. The hike was not easy. We did the Cheonwangbong course, which according to the website is a grade B (relatively severe slope) and 14.2km. Now, I'm still suffering from plantar fasciitis (see previous post) and when I asked about the hike I was told it was easy. I tend to forget that Koreans are mountain goats and 'easy' for them would be super hard for me. But I did it! My students were cheering me on and there were times I really didn't think I would get to the top. The view was beautiful and there were so many wild flowers along the way. It was a satisfying day! I just hope I don't pay for it tomorrow ...

The scene at the start of the trail

You can see how high you are climbing

Panoramic of the top of Cheonwangbong peak. What a view!