Back To Korea/Happy Christmas!

So hi everyone. I'm back to Korea now, as most of you should know. I found a job at a new school through a recruiting agency, and returned on December 6th. It's now December 29th, so it's been over three weeks since I've been here, and I haven't written a post. Sorry.

I've been having a nice time so far. I've collected both of my guitars, and may have a connection to get an electric guitar that was left by someone else. My school is pretty nice. There aren't so many classes yet because it's brand new, and there is a lot of material to teach with. I usually have to rush through my lessons because there is so much. But, the downside is that I spend so long each day preparing the material. I must spend Monday through Friday from 9am to 6pm at the school, mostly preparing flash cards. It's really a drag on most days.

But, for our short Christmas party last Friday, we prepared some Christmas hats for the kids. They also included beards for the boys. Enjoy:

The owner's twin son and daughter

a student who I stuck eyebrows to as well as the hat and beard

kind of a goofy kid

he's cute, but doesn't wear the beard right

my favorite student, Theresa

another goofy kid

Peter Pan. He was a student at my last school who switched to my new one. A nice surprise

Some of the girls

the girls again

me as a grandfather

Merry Christmas everyone!

UK Trip: York

One stop on our massive road trip through the UK was York. We stopped there on our way North to Scotland to check out the historic city. It doesn't seem terribly huge, but the locals there have their own distinct accent. The accent includes pronouncing the name of their city 'Yark', so I thought that was pretty funny.

We spent one night at a hostel, and had a good time shopping, wandering around looking at historic architecture, and visiting an art museum. I'll get to the pictures anyway...

Castle tops along the gate wall of the city

a really great red brick building. I'm not sure what the building was, but it said 'Barclays' on the side.

This one is getting a bit old and sags in the middle

a church through the trees

We stopped at a pub to try and get a roast beef dinner because supposedly roast beef dinners from York are famous. They were out so we had to get pork that night.

A church under the clouds

With the history of the city, they also offer ghost walking tours. I'm not sure what that has to do with a guy on stilts...

We stopped at the art museum, and had some tea afterwards. This is my attempt at an artistic photo.

We walked around the city on top of the gate that circles it. Along the way there were was a gate that Roger took a nice photo in front of.

One of the famous streets in York called the shambles. Most of the buildings have overhanging shelves that were similar to a feature in butcher shops where they got their name.

York was our last stop on the way to Edinburgh, which was my favorite part of the trip. Check back soon for blogging from Edinburgh!

UK Trip: Bristol and Stonehenge

I have a pretty short post today, just 6 pictures. We visited two places on the way back to Peterborough from Wales, Bristol and Stonehenge. Our plan was actually to get up pretty early and try to get a ride, but that didn't work out. They wanted something like $200 per person to ride, and then the weather ended up being normal England weather, so we just stopped by to see them. There ended up being a carnival there, so that was OK.

3 hot air balloons

At the carnival there were bumper cars (called Roger's so we got a picture of Roger in front). It was pretty slow, so the only three riders were me, Summer, and a small kid. It was pretty awesome.

Summer and some cotton candy

Our next stop was stonehenge. I think everyone will be pretty familiar with it because it's pretty famous, if not from the desktop screen included in Windows98. Once again, it was traditional English weather, so the pictures don't look too great. I like stonehenge with it's ties to astronomy and the mystery of who built it, but the setup is pretty stupid. You have to pay like $15 to walk close to it and listen to a guided tour. So in summary, you pretty much pay that much to walk around in one circle.

This is what you get

I like the green moss

The connector kind of looks like a boob

See you next time!

UK Trip: Bath, England and 3 Peaks, Wales

So this post is a bit out of order with the others chronologically. Roger, Summer, Marlene (Roger's Mother) and I took the trip out to Wales, as mentioned before. This post is about a stop that we made in Bath, England on the way to Wales, as well as one of the walking tours we took to Three Peaks in Wales.

Loyal readers will know that I have an obsession with signage:

Plumbing is important

Bath was a nice place to visit. On our trip we spent maybe 3 to 4 hours there, but we could have easily killed a day there. The city is filled with some great classic architecture. Some of the more ancient features date back to the days when the Romans controlled the land. This stuff isn't from then:

Typical Bath street

Everybody take photos

A decent church on the main square

We ended up taking a tour of the ancient Roman baths. That's right, Bath is called that because it actually contains baths. Pretty cool?

A view of one of the ancient baths. The pedestals along the edges used to support a roof in the Roman times.

This one isn't too exciting, I just love that it demands to be touched.

Of course, the tour included two actors portraying ancient Roman workers. Here, the man on the left has a puzzled look. I can't remember specifically, but we probably just mentioned something like a telephone.

"Ipod? Sheep are my entertainment."

A great view of the skyline of Bath from down in a bath

After the tour, we had to jet out of there because we were a little behind schedule. Maybe we shouldn't have stopped for tea so many times, but whatever. It's England.

Roger leads the way

As mentioned before, we made it out to Wales. We stayed in a more rural part of Wales, which offered mostly walking tours. We did probably half a dozen walking tours, but they were all great. One of the best was a tour we took to this place called Three Peaks, which also had a ruined castle on top of a hill. Unfortunately, the only way we saw to get up the hill was to scale up this steep, sandy slope. My shoes were filled with sand by the time I got to the top, but the castle was cool.

A ruined castle

More ruins

A view of the valley from on top of the hill. This is what I imagine England and Wales looked like a few hundred years ago.

Scottish thisle, I believe. Don't ask me what it's doing in Wales.

And finally...Three Peaks

My other blog

In case you don't know, I've started another blog to post my paintings. You can find it here.

UK Trip: Worm's Head

Hello again, faithful readers. Here is the second part of my posts about the trip I took to the UK this year. This time, it's all about the time we spent in Wales, nearby a little town called Rhossili. It's a beautiful little town, and they are trying to keep it that way because nobody can build anything there anymore.

Roger's mother, who grew up in Rhossili

A wild Welsh horse

This post focuses on a geographical feature called Worm's Head. It is an island off of the coast for most of the day, though for about a 4 hour period, the tide comes in and people are able to walk to it. Here's what it looks like:

Worm's Head, as an island

We made the walk out to Worm's Head, which was open from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at that time. Apparently it's a bit dangerous. I think the danger is only if you try to make it across when the tide it too high and you can get taken out to sea. For us it was just a walk across a bunch of rocks and then scaling up the hill.

Danger!

Rocks, and a view of the island

A seal that was near the island

A pretty cool natural bridge on Worm's head. We didn't make it that far.

This is when the tide was coming back in. The waves would reach higher and higher, filling in the space in the rocks.

Me

The view from higher up the coast as the tide was coming back in

A church in Rhossili

Most of the houses in the area had driveways installed with these cross bars. Apparently cars can traverse across, but animals cannot.

A giant beast dog we met. Its head is bigger than Summer's

Thanks for reading! I'll post again soon.