Finally Some Pics To Show You!!!!!

This pic was taken at the "Coffee Bean" at Samsung Plaza. Dave and I frequent the place quite a lot and it has an outdoor patio that is covered, where the smokers can drink coffee and have a smoke. Kind of something that goes hand in hand with smoking, usually.

It used to drive me nuts when I was in Canada and you would go to Tim Hortons and couldn't smoke anywhere inside. I know that I don't smoke now, but it just seems fair that there should be a place for the smokers to go and a place for the non smokers to go. Don't you think?

I think the pendulum has swung to much the other way for all the non smokers now and maybe before the smokers had all the balance, but now the balance is completely with all the non smokers. Enough of that anyway.

Dave and I and quite a few other friends go there and have a coffee either before we go to the bar, or just to hangout sometimes.

Coffee is not cheap at those places, by the way. A cup of just regular "Americano" as they call it, costs anywhere between 5 to 6 dollars!!!!!! We are used to paying that, but I bet when I go back to Canada, the coffee will seem dirt cheap.

The next pic is of the 'life saving" air conditioner that is in my apartment. This little unit cooled my apartment all summer and gave me some lovely cool night's sleeps. It doesn't look very big, I know, but it blows the arse of the place when it is cooling it down. It can range from about 25 degrees to 18 degrees. You can set it on the remote and 18 degrees feels like a fridge. Believe me!!!!


The two stuffed toys are kind of a momento of a school or chain that I taught at in Ulsan. The chain was called G'n'B, which meant, G for girls and B for boys. It was not much of a school but the two stuffed toys were given to me by one of the school. I guess B is for Bobby and G is for Ginny. Notice the girl is pink and the boy is blue. Just a reminder of some of the kids, whom I liked very much at those places. The job itself sucked, but some of the kids were great.

The last day that I was there, I went with one of the schools on a Friday morning to the local amusement park and it was a nice way to say goodbye and hang out with some of the kids. Although it was January, it was still nice weather as we were wrapped up. We went on the big rollercoaster and lots of other rides. I bought some of the kids some lunch and snacks and we had a good time. We took a coach there and back and it was cool when I got off the coach as I didn't have to say any of the long, uncomfortable goodbyes. So that is the story about my two stuffed toys on top of the air conditioner.




This pic here is inside of the apartment. I wanted to show this pic because it has the water machine in it as well as the rice cooker and toaster oven on the same rack. The water machine is a great thing to have here instead of buying bottles all the time and I use it to boil when I cook some veggies and stuff also. Last night I boiled up some broccoli, carrots, garlic and bean sprouts. I mixed them with a bit of sauce and actually had a nice big bowl of fresh boiled veggies..... yummy......

This pic is of the flag that I got as a momento, back in December 2005 when I went to see Liverpool in the World Club Championships. It never got put out onto the street until December 18th, the day of the final, but the competition lasted as you can see from the 11th until the 18th. That was a funny story watching all the flags being robbed in Yokohama, Japan. They were posted as one yellow flag, one blue flag. Pretty soon the whole block that we were standing on watching, was bare and all the flags were going home to other countries..... hehe.
It is a pretty cool momento, I think!


When you walk out of my apartment, up the street and onto the main road, this is what you see across from you. Everything in Bundang is up above eye-level. You have to walk around and look up, or you miss everything. You can see how many different stores and shops are advertised, even if you can't understand the Korean. These are called "officetels'' in Korea and are very popular in Bundang and Seoul. It allows everything to be in the same building and saves a lot of space to be taken up for shops and the like.


This is the main entrance to the subway station. I go through this entrance at least two dozen times a week. It is right on the corner of the main street and is only about a one minute walk from my apartment. Migum Station is the name of the subway stop and I live in Migum. In Korean when I want to go home from somewhere in a cab, I just say to them, "Migumyok, ka jusayo." That literally means Migum Station please take me!


When you come out of my apartment building this is the small street that runs between one set of buildings and my apartment and the other buildings. You can see there are a tons of shops and bars and cafes and stuff. It has also two variety stores either end of the building that are open 24 hours. I use this entrance most of the time. My building is the one that is blue and white, but I live on the other side of where this is facing. I have a wonderful view; a parking lot........


Well I hope this gives you a little idea of what it looks like, where I am. Now that I can post some pics, I will try and show some more areas where I travel to and commute between.

The new semester has started and I have 14-15 kids in almost every class. It is actually insane as trying to get that many students to each have a turn at speaking English as well as making sure they are understanding, is insane. Wayne, the head teacher at my school ,was saying that they originally wanted to have 18 and he had to talk them out of it.

I guess they are rolling in the dough now!!!!! It is just not fair to the students and as an ESL graduate and teacher, I think it is a shame to have classes that big.

The most a class should be is about 10 or 12 tops. Even that is big. I know that it is a business, but let's not forget Avalon has in excess of 7000 students now.

I think now at our school, we are looking at around 700 students plus now. I will write more about it in the next few weeks to come and let you know how things are going.

Until then, keep your eyes peeled on yourman64's crazy blog.