January '08

Holy Moly!! January went by so quickly and I can't believe I'm already writing up a summery! It was a crazy month of work and lots of play.

The first weekend of the month I worked a camp in Seoul for four loooong days. Each foreigner had a different class that we taught. I was lucky enough to land the "Making Rice Crispies" class. It ended up being a little more stressful then I would have expectied because of the 20 set of hands that were reaching towards moultin marshmellow. I should have learned the Korean for "don't touch."
They got their moneys worth out of us, having us serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to the 300 kids. Lunch ladies must have terribly strong backs.
When we weren't cooking or eating we were dancing.

By the second day I was better about sitting back and letting the kids just have a good time cooking.
Thankfully they took the job very seriously.

And after that, we danced some more. The Chicken Dance was a favorite.
It was a good camp for good money, but it was weird how similar it felt to all the church camps I had grown up doing. I kept expecting prayers and christian childrens songs. I can't imagine growing up and having memories of a Spanish camp. eek!

A few days later I was walking outside my apt. when I found this guy! Trevor named him cookie and we took him in for 24 hours. Washed and fed him. I wish we could have kept him longer....but we had a vacation to go on!
Trevor and I went to the Philippines while we were both on break with school.
We flew into Manilla and then took a small plane to the island of Boracay. This is the airport.
This is Trevor walking to the plane...

And this was our plane.
We were warmly greeted when we landed. Now just a short boat ride over and we're there.
As soon as we got to the hotel we were served up our "Welcome Drinks". You can see that my skin and hair weren't adjusting to the heat and humidity very well yet.
Boracay's famous White Beach. Google it.
And equally famous sunset.

Boracay is a really really small island with loads of hotels and activities for travellers. We were both surprised by the rural inside of the island.
It was a much poorer island then I would have expected as well. All hours of the day there were kids playing outside. This is a welcome change to the Korean way of life and how the kids are in school for 12 hours a day, but I couldn't help but wonder why these kids weren't in school durring daytime hours.
Even Trevor stayed in school...Scuba school that is. He got his Open Water licence while I laid out and read.
When he finished the course, we rented a scooter and explored the island ourselves.
Our first stop was Puka Beach. Famous for its Puka shells (you know, like the frat boy necklaces from middle school?)

Here are a few sights from our scooter trip:

A school
another random coke owned market. Coke seemed to dominate the whole island, what opprotunitist.
Hanging from the store window are samples you pay for. Tide, shampoo, tooth paste. Also very unlike Korea, where you must buy things in bulk, family style, packaging. Apparently the Philippinos live a little more day-to-day.
This guy startled us both.

We paid a few bucks and climbed a small moutian to see the whole island from the top. This little guy was up there.

You're looking at it. Thats almost the whole island behind me.
The next day Trevor and I went on a boat trip around the island.
He had told me that when he was scuba diving he saw these crazy blue starfish. The boat driver dived out and grabbed one from the ocean and brought it onboard. I dont know much about the ocean, but I'm pretty sure thats not allowed. Oh well, it was pretty.

At our first stop, we found a cave. I was scared for my feet in this moment.
By our next stop we had been on the trip for a few hours and trevor was feeling tuckered out. He took a nap while I walked around.
I made some friends.
And watched some of the older boys cliff jump.

These were what all the boats looked like, spiderish. After many long days of watching them from the beach, I came up with the idea that they are like this because they have to drive in such shallow water, so their balance should be established horizonally, not through a deep base.
Our last day we went to a private beach owned by our hotel. Here we snorkeled, kayaked, and laid out.
The icecream man came to us by boat.

All in all, it was a good trip. I wouldn't push anyone to go there more then Thailand, but it was good for the time we had.

Also in January, I applied to GSU and got my request for an interview from York Uni in Toronto. I found out I'll be home (for at least 6mo) before the end of February and the first week of March I'll go to Toronto for that interview. It's crazy times.