Happy Chuseok!!

The Chuseok holiday is upon us here in Korea, where for 3 days it will near impossible to get anything done. Chuseok or Hangawi is the major harvest festival which celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. This year it falls on Wednesday, September 22. Over the past couple weeks the people of south Korea have been planning for this holiday by purchasing gift packs like the one below which we received from the shipyard that D works at

These gift packs can be filled with anything from fresh fruit to SPAM to oils (olive/ grape seed) to beauty products to alcohol, and they are not cheap! We saw one at the local grocery store that had 6 asian pears and it cost about $110!! Shoppers have been going nuts buying these packs as they are about to head out to visit their family members around Korea. Traditionally Koreans return to their hometowns to pay respects to the spirits of one's ancestors by visiting and cleaning their tombs. They also offer food, drink and crops to their ancestors. We have been warned to stay away from the roadways this week as they are going to be jammed with travelers. D and I purchased extra groceries this week as there will be 3 days where everything will be closed down. D will have Wednesday off so we are planning on climbing Munsu mountain which is located in Ulsan, it will give us a great view of Ulsan so hopefully we will be able to take some great pictures.

This past weekend we participated in a festival for foreigners that was put on by the city hall. The festival was held in Ulsan grand park which is an 11 acre park located in the city. The festival was a lot of fun and included tents dedicated to the culture and crafts of Korea. There were tea ceremonies, traditional marriage wear photo zone, calligraphy corner, rice cake making, weaving, pottery making, as well as traditional games. They also had several performances of traditional music and dance, and a fashion show of traditional costumes. Here are a couple pictures from the event:
-This is the tea ceremony

-D and I in traditional wedding clothes

-Here I am making the rice cakes, which is soft sticky rice. You have to mash it with a hammer in order to kneed it.


D and I are also busy planning our Tokyo trip. We leave next Wednesday and will be there for about 5 days. I am looking forward to seeing my Uncle Kyle and Aunt Yoshiko as well as seeing some great sights and of course shopping!

I hope everyone has a great week.
Love,
J

September means back to school!

I used to get so nervous as a child/ teenager with the thought of summer coming to a close and September on the horizon and of course that meant school would be starting. Well I have that similar feeling this year and I am almost in my 28th year! I have decided to go back to school here in Ulsan to keep myself occupied on a new level. While I have enjoyed the past three months of sleeping in, sitting by the pool, going for coffee, and traveling I need more to keep my mind busy!

I have enrolled in the University of Calgary's continuing education certificate for Professional Management with a specialization in Strategic Management. I am excited to dive into my studies as the subject matter has become of a big interest for me prior to me leaving for Korea due to an amazing mentor in Calgary (you know who you are). Before I can start my actual classes I must take a "Learning to Lean Online" course, it is all about how to use the tools the university offers for online learners. I can communicate with my fellow students through email (obviously), discussion boards, and we can even meet in an online meeting room and talk to each other in real time. My plan is to take one course this semester, "Human Behavior in Organizations" and then I will take a couple next semester. It will be strange not to be in a class room environment but I am looking forward to the challenge. If you have any tips please send them my way!

The second schooling I am taking is a Korean Language and Culture class. I started this class today and I wasn't even sure if I would be able to make it there due to the tropical storm passing over Ulsan. I braved the wind (felt like 120km) and the rain and went to the Global Centre downtown. There were 15 other students, mostly english teachers and me. Since this was a free class offered by the City Hall's new Global Centre the news crews were there filming the class and taking pictures for the news paper. The classroom was over crowded with these film crews and they made our teacher very nervous! The class was great but a little overwhelming as we moved along very quickly and our teacher breezed through how to speak and write Hangeul. I came home later and practiced so that next week I will be on top of everything.

So that is the update, I am getting learned here in Korea! I learned something a while back that if you want to make something stick that you are just learning you should teach someone else so maybe I will send you all some of what I am learning. For those of you coming to visit I will give Korean lessons via Skype :)

Miss you all.

Love,

J

p.s.: I wanted to share an experience I had in Seoul recently. Patti and I went to Dr. Fish. This is a foot treatment where you put your feet into a bath filled with little grey fish. The fish are Garra rufa and they eat the dead skin off your feet! It was very tickelish and we were screeching the whole time. If you can find a salon in your area that does this sort of treatment I highly recommend it

'Nam Holiday

So my trip to Vietnam...where do I begin? The whole trip I was thinking about how I could write a blog entry about the 2 weeks we spent in Vietnam. As an over arching statement the trip was unforgettable. I had the pleasure of traveling with some of my family and it truly felt like a coming of age trip as it will most likely be the last that I do as a "kid" with my family. I was very lucky that they agreed to take me along in exchange for sharing a room with Kieran for the whole trip, which was actually more tolerable than I expected. The trip was planned through an amazing travel agent and Patti. I had seen some versions of itinerary but when we left on August 19 I had little idea of everything that we were going to do. It was hard to not be in control of everything but it was also nice to just go with the flow and be told where to be and when! Patti did such an amazing job making sure that everything ran smoothly and that we were all fed and watered as often as we needed.

I will give you a quick run down of our itinerary:
August 19 - August 25: Hoi An - Fly from Busan to Saigon then to DaNang, short van ride to Hoi An. We stayed at the Golden Sands Resort which was amazing! Hoi An is famous for their tailors and we decided to take advantage of that so we had lots of clothes made. I personally had 1 blazer, 2 dress shirts (for Dennis), a business dress, fall coat, 2 pairs of boots, 2 pairs of shoes, and a pair of sandals. The Gorman's had 3 suits made for Dad, Mike and Kieran for our wedding, Patti has 2 dresses made (don't ask her how they turned out...), and they had a nice business dress made for Allison
This is a shot of Kieran in his new duds! Looking like a rock star!
The weather was touch and go in Hoi An as we actually were hit by a typhoon so it was rainy but we did get some sunny days. The beach was amazing and the water was unbelievably warm which provided much body surfing for all of us (we have scratches to prove it!) Patti and I took a cooking class, dad and I did a bike tour, we went for many spa treatments, ate some delicious food, and went to an amazing festival to celebrate the full moon so all in all Hoi An was amazing

August 25 - Hoi An to Hue: From Hoi An we took a van to DaNang to catch the train into Hue. The train ride was amazingly beautiful as we rode over mountain passes and had an amazing view of the ocean.

In Hue after getting settled into our hotel, La Residence, which was one of the most amazing hotels I have ever stayed in (it was Art Deco style, which I love), we headed out for a walk/ explore.
August 26 Hue to Hanoi: The following day Patti and did a whirl wind tour of 2 tombs and one bagoda in Hue. Our taxi driver waited for us at each spot and got us home in time to get in the van to head to the airport so that we could fly to Hanoi

August 26 - Hanoi - After landing in Hanoi and the long van ride to the our hotel from the airport we washed up and headed out for dinner. We were all so exhausted that we crashed early.
August 27 - Hanoi: I decided to explore the city on my own this day. Hanoi is a the capital of Vietnam and is very big but where our hotel was situated it had many sights in walking distance. So after I had turned myself around after I discovered I was lost and about 30 blocks from where I wanted to be I was on my way to seeing the city. Since it was Friday all the museums were closed (guess I will have to go back) I was only able to see the outside of things but here is a list of things I saw that day:
1. HoLao Prison a.ka. Hanoi Hilton

2. Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

3. Presidential Palace
4. Oldest Bagoda in Hanoi

5. First University in Vietnam
6. Canadian Embassy
7. Army Museum - took pictures of the things outside while dodging a security guard trying to get my off the property.
I met up with the family in the late afternoon and we headed to the old town to see the water puppet show.

That night we boarded the over night train up the mountains in the north. Thank god for sleeping pills as we all slept through the night. The sleeper car was actually quite comfortable.

August 28 - Lao Cai/Sapa: We awoke on the train when we arrived in the town of Lao Cai. We took a 2 hour van ride up the mountain to go to a market that is held by the Flower H'Mong people. They had the most colourful costumes on and it takes up to a year to create one of these costumes. The men judge the women by how difficult the design is and the more difficult the better the woman!

After the market we went to a small village to see how these minority people live. There are 54 different minority groups that live in Vietnam. We got to tour around a small farm and met some of the local people, and even got to try some of their happy water, it burns...The kids there were very interested in us. I kept forgetting that we were so interested in them because they live so differently but I forgot that we looked mighty strange to them as well. Nothing like white giants coming into your house!

We got back in the van and had a long drive to Sapa which was our final destination for the day. Thankfully we are all readers so we were constantly reading our books when we weren't looking out the window in total amazement at the scenery and hoping the van stayed on the road and didn't roll down the cliff!

August 29 - Sapa: Today was the day that we went for a hike through the mountains and met some of the local minority groups, the red H'mong people and the black H'mong people. We had the opportunity to have a cup of Vietnamese coffee beside the river and had lunch at a local home stay. We hiked through rice patties and pet a very gentle buffalo. We all agreed this was a highlight of our trip

We got back on the train that night to head back to Hanoi for our last day in Vietnam.
August 30 - Hanoi/ Seoul: We arrived early in the morning at the train station in Hanoi. We didn't sleep as well on this train ride so it was straight to the hotel for an early morning nap! After we woke after a few hours of sleep we decided to hit the pavement and see some of Hanoi. It was very hot day and Kieran was a trooper for walking around. Patti and I decided to take a cyclo back to the hotel, which was great fun but a little scary with all the traffic on the street

Late that night we left Vietnam and headed back to Korea for a couple days in Seoul.

So that is our trip in a nutshell. We all had some great times, saw some amazing sights, ate amazing food, and had some amazing conversations! Kieran and I decided that we will always remember 'Nam and talk about till we both have gray in our hair.

If you want to see all of the pictures please go to our Picasa album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dennis.blackwell/100VietnamAugust2010#