Biking on 선유도 (Seonyudo Island)

Last weekend Marie, Jessica, and I went on another biking trip. This time we went to Seonyudo Island, which is on the western coast of Korea in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do. The island is part of the Gogunsan-Yeoldo archipelago, which consists of over 20 islands. We were able to bike around 4 islands (Seonyudo, Munyeodo, Jangjado and Daejangdo) because they are all connected by bridges.



We arrived at the ferry port around 11am on Saturday and took about an hour and a half long ferry ride to Seonyudo. The ferry ride was quite windy, but otherwise very nice. The water was absolutely still and it was fun to be out on the water again. We arrived at the island where I quickly discovered that I had packed very poorly for the trip. Thinking the weather would be similar to the weekend before when we biked through the blossoms, I brought mainly t-shirts and capris. Unfortunately, the wind coming off the ocean was fairly chilly, so despite the shining sun on Saturday, it was still rather cold. We grabbed our bikes, dropped off our backpacks and set off to explore. We had about 5 hours of free time before dinner, so we decided we better get off to a quick start if we wanted to get to all the islands. It actually only took us about 2 hours to bike all the islands due to the fact that they were all teeny. There was only one road to follow on all the islands, which eventually hit a dead end, so we would turn around and came back the way we came. We spent some time walking the beach looking for shells and sea glass, but eventually the wind got the best of us and we went to our pension to sit on the heated floor for awhile before dinner.

Pensions are the common way to stay in Korea, us foreigners typically just refer to them as "Korean style." They basically are a motel, that consists of several rooms. Each room usually sleeps 2-6 people, although there are ones as big enough for 20 or so. The rooms have an ondol (heated floor) and come with mats, blankets, and pillows. So, you basically just throw a mat on the floor (which is about the size of a double bed and usually shared with another person), grab a pillow and a blanket and attempt to sleep. They actually aren't too bad every now and then, although if you forget about the floor heat the floor gets rather hot during the night.

After dinner we decided to just retreat back to our room - it was too cold to walk on the beach or sit and enjoy being on an island (which is what we would have preferred to do). We were staying in a room with 3 other people from a suburb of Seoul, so the 6 of us played some cards and talked about the difference in our jobs (always a popular topic among foreigners). The next morning we got up and headed out to the beach area to see what the Koreans refer to as the "Moses Miracle". There is a spot in the ocean where as the tide goes out a pathway appears leading out to a group of rocks and trees in the ocean. So, it appears as if the sea is parting, hence, the name. We had actually seen the area the day before and had wanted to go out to explore the rock area. We didn't realize that the tide was coming in when we were going out, so we got about 10 steps out, before we realized our feet were getting soaked. So we were pretty happy to discover the path was quite wide and that we would have plenty of time to climb on the rocks and check out the view. The picture on the left is the walkway closing up on Saturday, the picture on the right is when it was open on Sunday.

We also got to experience how the Koreans catch "tasty shellfish". I have no idea what these creatures are called in English, nor did anyone else, but the Korean name literally translates to 'tasty shellfish' (although they don't look anything like shellfish to me). Anyway, basically you scrap off a layer of sand, and then look for little holes. When you find the little holes you pour salt down them to draw the shellfish out. They pop through the sand (think of a skeleton hand popping through a grave) and then you can grab them and pull them out. The Koreans then cook them and eat them (although we did not partake in this activity). I think this rivaled the water bottle fishing pole from Cambodia as one of the oddest ways to catch a sea creature. In general the trip was fun, although, we all agreed it would have been more enjoyable had the weather been warmer so we could have participated in activities such as swimming and sitting on the beach.

Back in Seoul things have been pretty typical. My Bambi class is still sitting at 9 students, who impress me everyday with how much they have learned. It is truly amazing how much difference one year can make. I am able to do a lot more activities with my Bambis and joke around with them more than I could do with the Nemos, which makes the days fly by. In honor of the Korean equivalent to Arbor Day, we planted forget-me-nots in class a couple weeks ago. Justin was very excited about planting the seeds, and every day would run over to check the pots first thing in the morning. Despite me telling him that it would take about a week for them to sprout, he would still dejectedly tell me every morning that "it just dirt." The day the first plant sprouted, Justin grabbed my hand the minute I stepped in the classroom (before I could even set down my coffee, purse, or mug of oatmeal) and literally pulled me over to the plants exclaiming "No dirt! Plant! No dirt! Plant!" He continues to check daily for flowers and/or new leaves and is great at giving me updates.

My kids also started asking me what my Korean name is. For about 2 days, several times I day, I would remind them that I don't have a Korean name, just an English name. Finally, one of them came up with the brilliant idea to ask me what my Canada name is (I think because of the school name, since they all know I am from America). Well, of course it caught on like wildfire and now I am asked what my Canada name is about 10 times a day.


My BC classes have been much more hectic than the Bambi class. I have lost 3 kids in my MWF class (Janny, Arthur, and Henry), a new one joined (Lucy), another girl (Kelly) is taking a 2 week "vacation" because she is over-worked, and just this Monday another kid (Charles) came from a BC2 class to "test" out my class to see if it fits his ability better. In my T/Th class I have had one drop (Sally), and had a new boy start today (June). It is becoming quite difficult to keep track of how many copies of things I need to be making and what book pages I need to be copying for the new students who don't have books yet!


Today was science day with the kindergarten students. It was fairly similar to last year, we went to the gym where there was a bunch of stuff for the kids to experiment with set up. They also made a bouncy ball and coral reef with some of the Korean supervisors and got to go up to the roof and play with bubbles. In the classroom we made a rocket that you could shoot using a pop bottle, a boomerang, and a balloon helicopter. Of course, my Bambis don't have the lung capacity to blow up balloons, so I got to blow up a balloon about 20 times so they could each have a couple of turns. Overall the kids had a lot of fun and it was nice to take a break from the daily grind of phonics, math, vocabulary, and word work.
Hard to believe it is almost May already! Yesterday marked 14 months of not stepping on American soil for me, which is difficult even for me to wrap my head around! May is shaping up to be a pretty busy month here - we have gym day on May 2, a day off for Children's Day on May 5 (unfortunately, a Wednesday), a field trip to the fire station and conferences later in the month, and of course, our three day weekend trip to Busan on the 21!