Moving to Seoul

It's hard to believe I've already been in Korea for a year already! 

Tomorrow, I finish my contract at CDI in Daejeon.  I've enjoyed it here this year and made some great friends. Monday, I'll be starting a position at Uchon Elementary in northeastern central Seoul.

Uchon is a private immersion school, so I'll be a 3rd grade homeroom teacher, teaching various academic subjects in English.  I've met several of the teachers from the school and they all seem to really enjoy working there.

I made a run up to Seoul yesterday to get access to my apartment.  While it's not as large as the one I've had here in Daejeon, it's nice and I think I'll be happy there. 

I'll be losing the balcony and the loft I have in my current apartment, but I think it's a pretty good trade since I'll be gaining 10-12 weeks of paid vacation each year.  One of my reasons for coming to Korea was to have the opportunity to travel and see different countries in this part of the world.  With the new position, I'll have plenty of opportunity to do that and I'm already planning a trip to Thailand in January.

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Busan

After almost a year here, I finally made it to Busan.  For anyone who may not know, Busan is on the southern coast of Korea and is known as THE beach town.

Since this was the last weekend of "high season", it was really packed.

I had a lot of fun, although after the first day relaxing out in the sun (in other words, getting sunburned) it was best to spend the rest of the weekend doing different tours including spending some time out on boats seeing some of the really beautiful islands off the coast.

These islands are called Oryuk-do, literally "Five Six Island" because one of the islands has a low point that is hidden when the tide comes in.  So, depending on the tide, you either see 5 or 6 islands.

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