Monday, November 21, 2005

The video you've all been waiting for........

Over the past 4 months we've been compiling material to make a video for friends and family. Don't worry, the video clip is only 6 minutes long. This video is really riveting. This is the stuff dreams are made of........

(give the video about one minute to load properly, depending on how fast your computer is....then press play)


Just copy and paste this link to your browser:

http://ia300817.eu.archive.org/2/items/
JamesEdwardGrahamLifeinSeoul/JJ_in_Korea_2_November.mp4

Sunday, November 13, 2005

The heart of Seoul is in the homes

Last tuesday night we had the pleasure of being invited to eat a traditional Korean meal in a Korean house. The venue was Flora's place-she is one of Lydia's adult students. We ate delecioius bulgolgi, kim chi, margaritas, korean pancakes and cake. We were also constantly entertained by the many many children in the house (there were at least 10 kids in the apartment at one point). A highlight was watching Sarah's (Lydia's ESL student who is also Flora's daughtor) sister doing many rigerous monologues of "Beauty and the Beast".







This past Saturday the art show put on by Jamie, Lydia, Nathan and myself was a big sucess. The event, held in our apartment, show cased the talents of blooming photographers, creative film makers, fantastic painters, and ingenious song writers

Here are some common bottles, mostly Soju (the Korean drink of choice) taken by Jamie.





Trees at Soreksan National Park in the East Coast--looks like they're trying to say something............(I think Jennica took this one)




There were 25 people who attended the art show.


Esther, Gina, June and Lydia.

June's title for her very special piece was "Cute Couples from Canada".


And there was plenty of food and wine to go around.............



Our friend and neighbor Dave (ask him to show you his new jacket!!!!!!!!!)









Can you believe it has been 6 months?!!! We love any reason to celebrate. For our anniversary we went to a nice Italian place and we explored the beautiful Chun-gae-chung stream in downtown Seoul.

Me, Jamie and some friends in Heywah at a Bulgolgi restaurant. Mmmmmm, meat is good.

Next we unexpectedly ran into Rachel and Brandon on the street and went with them to a palce nearby. This time of year is the best time to explore the outdoors because the leaves are beautiful and changing (also falling spontaneously).





Friday, November 04, 2005

The new me

Yesterday I took the plunge and got my haircut in a foreign country. Not too scary and I like the new look very much.


Thursday, November 03, 2005

Halloween at Herald

Pictures are coming..................The Skulsteds and the Grahams decided to make this Halloween a memorable one for the kids at herald language institute. We took the initiative of created a haunted house for all the kids at Herald. It's amazing what you can do with such limited resources. But the kids were spooked, we screamed our heads off, made the kids touch monster brains, guts, and eyeballs with the eery tones of halloween sounds and dreadful screaming. Most of the kids didn't even know what a haunted house was, so the whole concept blew them out of the water. More to come..........

The Whistler of Korea

These past 4 days have been heaven for 4 English teachers in South Korea. Because our school closed for the end of the term we had an extra 2 days added onto our weekend. So the Skulsteds and the Graham took this window of oppurtunity and went for it!


First off, although the bus ride to Sockcho was relatively cheap, it was pretty long--just about 6 hours on the ticker. But we had snacks, books, and most importantly, "People Magazines" IN ENGLISH!!!!! I don't who said they were trashy magazines but by the nend of the trip all 4 of us were engrossed in the articles and pictures, catching up on Brad Pitt, jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie updates.










Our first stop was Sokcho, the city on the beach, but we were somewhere closer to city than the sea once our bus unloaded. After searching for decent restarants that didn't just sell weird fish items, we realized that Jamie left his wallet on the bus. Normally this would be a fairly stressful situation. But imagine now that not one person in the bus termimal speaks English, (other than the Grahams and the Skulsteds). Through our phone interpreter, bilingual friend, June, we sorted everything and we got the wallet (and the money) back.

Next we tried to find a good motel that wouldn't set us back too much. The man in the first motel we entered promtly asked us how many hours we wanted the room for. I think he had the wrong idea. After another hour of searching, we found a motel that charged us for the night, and not per hour.

After a game of hearts and a good night sleep, we woke up and headed for the beach. We ate, we read, we played beach soccer and we dabbled in the cool waves. We then decided to head for the mountains next.


Picture by the Skulstads







There is is nothing that quite compares to driving through the country when you live in one of the busiest cities in the world. The vibrant colors of red, yellow and most importantly, orange, were a familiar scene, but we never took those moments for granted.




Seoroksan is the "Whistler" of Korea. This time of year at the mountains were particularly breathtaking because of the beautiful klaidescope of colors. The crowds had disapated once we arrived and the mountain belonged to us for the next two days. We had fun treking, riding the cable car, paying almost 7 dollars for canned peaches and ice cream, playing hearts and breathing in the clean and fresh mountain air. Oh, and eating kraft dinner with tuna and corn was sweet.