After over two years teaching in South Korea David and I returned to the UK but after ten months we decided we missed South Korea and here we are once again... teaching, exploring and LOVING living in Changnyeong, Gyeongsang nam-do.

안녕하세요, 행복한 독서! Hello, happy reading!


Monday, January 23, 2012

Lunar New Year

* Lunar New Year, also called "Seol" or "Gujeong". The first day of the lunar Korean calendar. It is one of the most important of the traditional Korea holidays and is considered a more important holiday than the solar New Year's Day.


For Lunar New Year we got three days vacation. It was great to have an extra long weekend. We spent our time relaxing, exercising a little! practising Taekwondo, hiking, baking, shopping, sight seeing and exploring new surrounding area. 

One of the new places we discovered was Miryang. This town is about 35km over a mountain east of Changnyeong. This town has a population of around 120,000. Although the population is just a little more than Changnyeong it is a lot bigger. There are many more high street shops and restaurants. I like Changnyeong but sometimes I wish it would have more shops to mooch around in! Miryang has one of my favourite trinket shop, Daiso. It also has a few cool clothes shops and a Homeplus! As well have having more entertainment venues Miryang has interesting monuments. David and I went to a seven story temple, Yeongsan Jeong Sa. It was so beautiful. I think it is definitely one of my favourite temples in the whole of Korea! 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Great Gyeseong

The population of Changnyeong is just under 75,000 and the population of our tiny village, Gyeseong is around 2600. Although it is very small I really love it. 


Reason why I love living in Gyeseong....
  1. Friendly locals
  2. Rustic setting
  3. Beautiful scenery 
  4. Amazing apartments
  5. Nice School
  6. Cute doggies
  7. Seated Buddha
  8. Interesting surrounding towns
  9. Frequent bus service to surrounding cities
  10. The best bulgogi jungle restaurant  

Changnyeong English Village

Here are some photographs from School. Believe it or not, this is work. I love my job! 


 


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Winter Intensive Programme

From the 2nd January to the 13th January we had a Winter Intensive Programme at school. This is when we teach the same students for two weeks. It was a change from our usually schedule because we teach a completely different  syllabus. It was nice teaching the same students for two weeks. I enjoyed the change. 

Monday, January 2, 2012

Malaysia

We went to Malaysia for our Christmas holidays. It was wonderful to get away from freezing cold Korea and spend time in lovely hot Malaysia. Once again we had to write a report about our Christmas vacation for work, so I will attach that to this page!
Winter Vacation
Rebecca Rhone and David Moxon
Malaysia 2011

David and I arrived in Langkawi, Malaysia on Wednesday 21st December at 12.30pm. We were extremely excited about our trip. When we arrived at our hotel we unpacked, freshened up and then headed to Pantai Cenang beach. Here we spent the afternoon swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach. In the evening we ate dinner and had a stroll along the beach and watched the sun set. 


For the next couple of days David and I spent our time exploring Langkawi Island. We hired a scooter and we visited Pantai Kok beach, Telaga Tujuh waterfall, Telaga Harbour and the famous Sky Bridge. We also took a boat trip and went island hopping. Here we swam in a fresh water lagoon. Our time on the Island was incredible.

Our next destination was Penang Island. This journey took around two hours by boat from Langkawi. David and I arrived at our new hotel on Christmas Eve. We spent this day exploring the surrounding area. We went shopping in Batu Ferringhi, the local market.  

We spent the majority of Christmas Day on the beach. We woke up and ate breakfast then we went swimming in our hotel pool. After this we went to the beach and spent the remainder of the day swimming in the ocean, walking along the beach and sleeping under palm trees.

Our final day on Penang Island was spent sightseeing Georgetown. We visited many unique historical attractions. Kuan Yin Temple, Old George town district, Penang Khoo Khongsi Temple, Peranakan Mansion, St George’s Church and we also took a trip up Penang hill on a tram.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon and took a bus from the airport to our hotel. After freshening up we made plans to meet some of Becky’s family. They came to pick us up at our hotel and took us to the ‘Royal Lake Club’, which is the oldest club in all of Malaysia. We ate some delicious food and played some snooker. Becky’s aunt was kind enough to give us some tickets for the ‘Petronas Towers’ which were valid for the following morning. We went back to the hotel to get some rest.

The next day we woke up early in order to visit the Towers. Once in the towers we boarded an elevator that took us up the 86th floor. From here we had an amazing view of the whole city. We also had the opportunity to walk across the ‘Sky Bridge’. This was also an unusual but exhilarating experience. Once we were finished in the towers we went to visit the Chinatown area of the city. Our guide book recommended a walking tour route so we set about following the map and touring the area. The route was winding and took us down both small alleyways and major roads alike. We saw some unusual things before having a look around the central market so pick up some souvenirs. We went back to the hotel to use the swimming pool facilities and to freshen up for the evening. We began the evening by taking a taxi to a night market, we spent the evening going looking around all of the different stalls and trying all of the different types of food that were on offer. To round up the day, we went back to the hotel to enjoy the view from our room.     

Our final morning in Kuala Lumpur was spent packing our bags before heading the airport. We were sad to be leaving but we had had a great holiday and we were excited to be returning to Korea.                                                                                                                                     

Dog Cafe in Seoul

David and I went to Seoul for a couple of days before heading to Malaysia. It was fun to spent time pottering around Seoul, especially at Christmas. It was very cold but very pretty. I enjoyed shopping and eating! David and I also went to a dog cafe.  (* A dog cafe is just like a normal cafe but there are many dogs running around!) This was the best part of our time in Seoul. The doggies were sooooooooo cute!