March already....

Well, I've been slacking on blogging these past few months. No excuse. But here I am now. Making the most of my Tuesday morning :). Currently I'm training for my first 10k. I realize when I run I feel like I'm going at a snails pace, but I suppose it's a better pace than none. It's been good for me though...not as nice as the fresh country air, but it'll have to do.

Anyways, I'm currently in my second semester of working with CDI. I have some upper levels students which is a nice break from the little ones. Interesting students that work way to hard! Yesterday I had a student tell me he didn't get to finish all his online homework because he was in the hospital getting is gallbaldder taken out. But his mom was kind enough to bring him his CDI homework while he was recovering at the hospital....wow.

The weather has been warming up slowly but surely. Just when I decide to pull out the spring jacket it decides to be blustery. I also purchased a tripod so I've been trying to pull it out around town a little at night...but my fingers tend to become numb.

We took this picture downtown Seoul. Just messing with shutter speed and f/stop settings...Needs improvement. Practice practice practice... :)

This traffic picture is taken close to the apartment.

This past weekend we also went with some friends to a B-Boy battle (Breakdancing). Very cool. Amazing things people can do with their body. Supposedly Korea has a pretty good reputation for quality B-Boyz. Talent. It's nice to see some variety of people in Korea as well...


Anyways, for Enda's birthday/Valentines Day, we headed downtown for some ice-skating and dinner with friends and then took off to see Nanta! (Cooking/drumming/comedy/non-verbal performance). He was pulled up on stage, dressed in some whacky costume, ate some soup and was 'hypnotized'. Good stuff. They always find the foreigners in the crowd. At least I get to blend in a little :)

Well, I guess nothing else major has been happening around Korea. The relations with N. Korea are getting worse..but no surprise there I suppose. Some airlines have had to change their flight route as to not fly over N. Korea....oi. Time continues to tick away. Life continues to pass all too quickly. God has been good. Even through turmoil and joys..He is my constant.

Blessings-

Lunar New Years... ;)

Well this month has been a hectic, but good month. Beginning with work: It's frustrating at times. Seems like it is being run more with money in mind rather than the betterment of the students English.

Anyways, for the Lunar New Years I had Monday off (even though it is celebrated over Monday and Tuesday), so it was nice to have a small class size on Tuesday. I definitely would prefer to teach 5 students rather than 18 but what do you do. The intensive month is finished though so I am free on Wednesdays again...ahhh... Next term though I will most likely be working 6 days a week rather than 4. For our Lunar New Years present from our manager we all received 2 bottles of red wine. Unfortunately I'm not a huge wine girl but whatev I suppose. Enda received some instant coffee and coffee beans...unfortunately we don't have a coffee maker. It really wasn't our holiday for receiving useful gifts. Oh well.


Anyways, on the way to Church this past weekend, we passed a Mc Donalds, and seeing that they don't have drive thru's here, they deliver! I had no idea this existed...maybe I've been in a bubble though. Anyways, I thought it was class. Thinking about getting one...hmm...



Anyways, on to the weekends. Nothing too crazy has been happening. We went with some friends to watch Incheon vs. Seoul in a basketball game. Good times. The cheerleaders did YMCA as one of their cheers. Class. Anyways, it was a good time.Then headed to On The Border which is just as expensive (if not more) in Korea as it is in the States. For some reason I was hoping it would be cheaper....disappointment. But amazing food as usual.... :)

This past weekend Enda and I went Ice skating. His first time...I just assumed everyone ice skated on frozen fields in the country when they were young (thanks dad) but ah, not so in Ireland...Anyways, it was fun to teach him how to skate. I didn't realize how hard it is to teach someone to skate. My instructions were something like this: "Push off of one foot and glide and continue altering feet.." Not extremely helpful...

So this upcoming week I will finally be starting Taekwondo! Ahh...finally...I'll be in bits I'm sure, but it will be good. The weeks continue to fly by as usual. The weekends don't seem to exist. Anyways, that's about all for now. Nothing too crazy :)

January events...

Well after bringing in 2009 we began our Intensive classes. No rest for the students. School. Computer games. School. Kimchi. Study. School. Sleep. oi.

Anyways, for adventures in January...not too many to take note of. Enda and I did some hiking in Bukhansan National Park which was nice. Good to be out and in Nature again. The view was rather depressing though. Pollution. Fog. But regardless it was a good day. Enjoyed some Kimbap at the top of one of the summits. The signs for trails aren't laid out the best, so we ended up exiting the mountain in the backyard of some apartments. Hey whatever works I suppose :)

This past weekend we decided to take a snowboarding trip. Enda's first time! :) Yay! It was a lot of fun. Some bruises and aches, but well worth it.. A familiar position for both Enda and myself for most of the day...A couple hours though was plenty of time on the slopes for us though.

And to top of January thus far, one of the teachers at my school did a runner and headed back to the States so I spent all yesterday moving furniture from one apartment to another...finally getting settled...

Well that's all about it for now. Will write more in the near future....

Holidays in Korea

There's truly is no place like home for the Holidays. Korean Hagwons (and maybe Korean's in general) like to make their teachers work every day possible. That includes Christmas as well as New Years Eve. Thankfully though, the bus drivers wanted to have Christmas night at home with their family (or with soju) therefore our boss moved our regular evening classes to the morning. You can see where the teachers end up in the heirarchy. Hmm.. Anyways, amazingly enough I did have a good share of students show up. I have to say though on behalf of my boss, she did order in a turkey dinner, stuffing, bread, and pumpkin pie for dessert from the Army base.
For Christmas Enda and I went to a Thai restaurant in Hongdae with some friends. Not the home made potatoes and bread that I'm used to, but it works. Following that, we stopped off at Paris Baguette and picked up a couple Christmas cakes and Christmas hats. (No pictures with me now, but I'll get them hopefully soon). Finally we headed to a friends' place and hung out for the night. Good times. Good people.

For New years Eve Enda and I took off to VIPS. An all you can eat place.. ahhh...sooo good....mmm.. then we headed to City Hall for the countdown and made our way to a concert. See picture below...Enda with the desserts.

The picture below is of a Korean couple wearing...that's right, green cow hats on their head. Supposedly this is the cool thing to do. Enda and I didn't get that memo of which I'm rather thankful.


Enda and I also made a journey to the Horse Racecourse this past weekend! Good times. After we figured out how to read the scores and buy our cards we went crazy! You can actually bet 100 won if you want (that's like .10 cents) Amazing. Anyways, I always start off good and end off bad. You would think that I would learn from it, but no. I don't. The Koreans are also very quiet when it comes to horseracing. The place has 5 floors but each floor is dead quiet with hundreds of Koreans walking around placing their bets. Only when the horses are coming around turn 4 do the Koreans start to make some ruckus. Even then it seemed unified. The picture below is of Koreans squatting. That's how they roll. No chairs, just your own legs... :) Where's the heater? (Above picture)


Sleeping on the subway. I just liked this picture so added it to the bunch. :)

Finally.........so many months later...

Okay, so I'm feeling re-inspired to start up my blog after months of pushing it aside. So here it goes. After the summer adventure of backpacking around Central and South America Enda and I headed back to the United States of America...ahh... Between then and now we spent some time in Michigan, attended some weddings and spent some time in Kerry, Ireland. One of my dear friends was married this summer:

and Enda's sister was married as well. My first Irish wedding! My first sing-along experience...it's very nice. :) All the parents/aunts/uncles/grandparents go into an room and sing irish tunes acapella or with a soft guitar in the background. Very soothing actually.
Anyways, I then headed to Seoul, Korea where I am now. I'm teaching in Seodaemun close to some great universities and a city with a good night scene. So far it is going well. Weird to be back, but good. As soon as I got off the plane the smells and spitting brought back a flood of memories.
So now I am currently living in a small apartment...hoping to be moving again in a couple weeks. So far I've been trying to get motivated to do some running and climbing. Need to re-adjust first I suppose and get the basics under control before undertaking too much and overcommiting myself.
I went to a Craft's Fair in the COEX mall last weekend and tried to work with my computer (which you can view here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lpoortenga/ )
Anyways, other than that, nothing too new is happening. I've met some great people here and hope to meet many more throughout this year journey. Enda will be flying in tomorrow and joining me on this adventure.

Alright. That's my short and sweet Post for now...hopefully I'll be more regular with this all...

On to south america

Since I last wrote a lot has happened. I´ll try and make it short and sweet. :) We landed in Quito and overall it was a pretty nice city. We did however almost get robbed not once but twice all while in Quito. Oh the joy of travelling. Fortunately both times we caught them before they took anything. While in Ecuador we covered everything from visitng small animal markets (as pictured below) These guinea pigs however are not intended to be used as pets, but rather a $7 dinner) to floating down rivers in the Amazon to driving Dune buggies in Baños and most importantly.....watching male Humpback whales try and impress the ladies with their jumping and spraying!!! It can´t all be summed up in a blog entry but it´s been all amazing. We´ve been able to do some couchsurfing (staying at peoples´house for free) in some of the cities which has been great. Last week we checked out some pyramids and ruins in Trujillo. We also attempted surfing! First time for both Enda and myself. Nice waves, nice instructer, and beautiful sunset.


The picture below is dedicated to my brother Kyle. I´m going to bring one of these home for you. They are officially called....wait for it.... A Hairless Peruvian Dog (Creative, I know). This one is a mix breed therefore it has a mohawk on it´s head. Cute eh? This dog has higher body temperature than most therefore it is good for a snuggle before bed as well as people who suffer from arthritis.


One of the main highlights has been what we just finished this past week. We were in Huaraz, Peru this past week in the Andes. Ahhhh...the Andes. We did some mountain biking for a day which was gorgeous.

We ended up going on the Santa Cruz 4 day trek which was amazing. The group ended up being a little larger than we thought due to the bus strike, but the people in the group were amazing. It was good to be in the mountains with beautiful Southern Hemisphere Stars and donkeys to help along the way. A lot of Yanniv (Isreali card game) was played and a lot of good food was ate.

I´ll add pics to my flickr soon so check it out if you´re bored.

After the Trek we headed to the rocks for some climbing...ahhh...real rock face. It was our first time climbing outside. Amazing.... So much fun. Such a mental sport. And now.... well now we are in the great city of Lima. Just for a day and then we are off to Nazca-Ica area for some sandboarding and hopefully Paragliding. Good times. Time is flying by.

Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Costa Rica

So that is where we have been thus far. We arrived in Costa Rica and headed out to the Carribean side to see what that was about. Puerto Viejo. Good stuff. A lot of beaches. A lot of foreigners. A lot of sun. The bus rides were fine and had little trouble getting around. We stayed there for a couple weeks, then headed up to see my sista ;) Spent a couple weeks there. A lot a staring... a lot of "La China" calling..whatev. Arrived in her apartment complex but wait....oh yes...she didn´t tell me which apartment she lived in....oh man....But we figured it out in due time ;) Nice apartment. Nice roomates. Nice insects...

Anyways, Enda and I went on a fieldtrip with the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders for a couple days. We did a little Taekwondo workshop for the students which was fun. The heat was killing us though...oi. It was fun to see kate with her students both in and out of the classroom. Great teacher. Good fun.

Enda and I did some side trips while we were out there. We headed down to Masaya and did a night tour there. Had the experience of Bats flying at me as well as seeing magma and having my first volcano experience. Very cool. When looking at the magma there was a post we could hang on to so we wouldn´t fall into it. How sweet. It was an amazing experience. Sounds just like the ocean...amazing.

We also went to Mombacho and did some hiking on the craters out there. We were able to practice our spanish with our guide as we hiked the Puma trail...unfortunately we didnt´see any Puma´s or howling monkeys....sad day. (Later we did return to Mombacho and did a canopy tour between trees. Good times. We did some fun tricks while on the wire, oh and there we DID see howling monkeys! Lucky for us they didn´t throw poop at us....odd creatures...)

One of the highlights though was hiking Volcan concepcion. It is on an Ometepe Island and is an intense vertical hike. We went with a couple other people (as well as a guide) and started up it at 6 a.m. A couple days before there was a mini chemical erruption but we wouldn´t let that deter us from summitting...oh no... ;) We each had anywhere from 4 to 5 Liters of water each, which was needed. It took us about 8 and a half hours to hike up and down. we eventually all reached the top (after scrambling up hot and slippery rock) only wanting then to get down again due to the sulfur smell. Anyways, good times.

We also did some swimming/kayaking in a crater a couple days ago with Kate and some friends. Gorgeous area.

Now we are back in San Jose and are heading out to Quito in a couple days. If you want to check out pics, look at my flickr account! ;)