Korean Temples!

A wonderful Korean 'Babbling Brook'...
The 'Heaven Hand' done right....in a place it should be done- in front of a Korean tenple!!
Sheena + Eva = SHEVA!
One of the many great mountain peaks that surrounded me.
Inside a buddist temple, the ceiling filled with prayers the walls filled with candles and many Buddhas all around! This one was special as it was a women's only monestary!

Annyong Hasesyo!

I went on a very refreshing adventure this past weekend to one of the many mountain sites around Daejeon. It is a very popular site, but at the same time the nature looks untouched and very green and lovely! I almost felt at home in the woods, with mountains surrounding me and Temples every kilometer! It made me really appreaciate where I am and how lucky I am to be on such an adventure to get to experience so much! During the week with all the teaching and training I don't really get a chance to stop and slow down and think about why I am here, but on the weekends visiting many places it always reminds me that I am in a very different, but very grand place! There is still so much for me to see and learn here!!

On days when I am homesick I think about what I would miss if I was NOT here, how different my life would be, and for the moment I would not want to be anywhere else in the world BUT here! I get to experienece and make a piece of history! I am literally a pioneer of ITF TaeKwon-Do here, and although sometimes the road gets tough I must keep going and venturing forth into the unknown! Besides, at the end of the day I still have a smile on my face-and that's all that really matters!

Lots of gratitude to all of you who keep reading my blog!

I will make sure to keep up all my adventures for you all!

Training in Korea...

This is some of the people in our late night adults class...we have a lot of fun while training- putting our blood sweat and tears into all that we do!
I am STILL the most flexible person I know! (Now I am the most flexible Korean I know!)
Some of the aftermath of training hard, many , many bruises and bumps and scratches and aches and pains.....

I really love training here in Korea! I train really hard and I am training with Dr. Kruk from Australia as well! I am getting a lot of training in while I am here and it is paying off! Already I have seen my timing in sparring greatly improve and even though I am covered in bruises and in pain from sore muscles I know in the end that it is all worth it! I like the training here because it is hard and challenging for me. But, similar to in Canada, everyone is still afraid of the long monstrous legs that are attached to me! They all yell "TOO LONG TOO LONG!!!" I just laugh! Even with a language barrier the classes are still a ton of fun for me! They are taught by Sean Yu, who is a 4th degree with ITF Korea and he makes us sweat and work hard! It is a joy just to say that I get to teach and train in the birthplace of TaeKwon-Do, actually where my building is located it is close to the location of where TaeKwon-Do was given its name!

Keep training hard everyone, and when I do come back to Canada I have a lot new bag of training tricks up my sleeve!!

ZOOLAND!

WELCOME TO ZOOLAND! Thumbs up and hands out...
A TIGER OH MY!
I AM VERY MUCH LIKE THE GIRAFFE! We have a lot in common, long legs, stunning good looks...
Doesn't Eva look so cute as a nami? (Butterfly) I just had to kick her...
Me and my best buddy the polar bear! ( you can only see his bear bum...but I swear he was there)

Time for a BIG update!

I finally have lots of pictures to share with you all!

Last Friday I went to Zooland! I got to see Lions and Tigers and Bears...oh my!

And of course I finally got to see my best Friend Mr. Polar Bear, it was very hot that day so I felt extremely sorry for him! We went on all the rides at zooland, including one that drops you from 20 stories in the air! It was a good adventure and we spent the whole day there just walking around going on a safari and meeting many animals! I was exhausted afterwards, all those rides and the hot sun sure wore me out fast! It was the very first time I had ever been to a zoo! I had never seen so many animals in one place from all over the world. Korea is quite the place I must say! Everyday there is something new to see or do and I really am enjoying it here! It feels like a working vacation some days, many things aren't very expensive so we get to go a ton of places! I will miss all the animals, I have not seen many animals here in Korea besides tiny-purse-sized dogs...
Have a great week everyone!
I will have a ton more pictures and updates to come!

NEW CLASSROOM!

Hello, and welcome to Songsaegnim Sheena's classroom!

(Songseagnim is teacher in Korean, in the Dojang I am a saebumnim which is instructor.)

These are pictures of my new classroom/office.

It is small and cosy, I don't keep the kids in their seats very much because we are always playing games and I encourage them to speak English and use sentences. Some of them are very shy so I tell them to whipser their English sentences to me. It has been fun so far and the kids have seemed to really warmed up to me in the last few weeks!

Right now I am covered in bruises and I am sore all over! I have been training with a great coach from Australia named Zibby Kruk, he trains me to the bone and is always trying to make me perfect-if it is not perfect it won't do. So I look and feel like I am training hard! Sean Yu, the 4th degree of ITF Korea also teaches me classes at night time from 9-10:30pm and he also works me hard...in Korean! I am loving doing TaeKwon-Do here, the Dojangs all look like a high class palace and there is a lot of Dojangs and tons of different martail arts! I can have my choice of things to do here that is for sure! I can do yoga, or sword fighting or archery or I can learn to write in Korean cursive writing! Nothing here looks like back home, there is always something to see or do and I am always wide-eyed and in awe of things here. I appreciate their respect for each other, and how kids really respect their peers and teachers.

I will be having another fun filled weekend coming up, I will be sure to get lots of pictures!

One of these days I also have to take pictures of my kindergarden class.... imagine 3-5 year olds trying to learn English and TaeKwon-Do-its a crazy class but somehow I can handle them for 45 mins everyday!

HAPPY CHUSOK!

(The tenants of TaeKwon-Do)

It was Chusok here this past weekend!

I was very pleased to get a 4 days holiday!

But what is Chusok? It is a Korean version of Thanksgiving! You eat special rice cakes with sesame seed and pumpkin filling! You give thanks to your ancestors for the good harvest and clean their graves and have a big feast in which you honour the deceased. We honoured General Choi Hung Hi and had a a huge lunch and dinner in his honour. I was a good holiday, but 4 days makes it very hard to want to come back into work. I did not feel like it was a proper Thanksgiving, I had no turkey or mashed potatoes or gravy or carrots, rice and seaweed just doesn't really say Happy Thanksgiving to me, but I still ate a ton of food and got really really full!

Everyone here wore traditional clothing called a Hanbok and went out to their traditional country homes with their families! I stayed in the city and was shocked at how empty it was! All the lights of the signs were turned off and there was no noise at night, no cars to be seen anywhere and very few people out on the streets. It was very eerie after being here a month and seeing non-stop flow of cars and people and crazy lights everywhere, a big change for me, but it was nice to have everyone slow down for a few days.

I have been enjoying it a lot here, the leaves are changing just a little, I still say everyday that I am melting because the heat here is unbelievable for fall-time weather. It is 30 degrees here still everyday and maybe drops down to 15 at night. I miss Canadian fall, but hopefully it will cool down and then I will go climb some mountains and get some beautiful pictures!
I will be sure to post some more pictures soon!
Happy belated Chusok everyone!

Grand Master Choi in Korea!

After 34 years Grand Master Choi finally got to come back to his home in South Korea!

I was honoured to see him as he made Taekwon-Do history in making some of the first steps to help bring ITF TaeKwon-Do back to South Korea! He came to our school to see where we teach and told me and Eva that he was very proud of us!

It was a very good day to finally see Grand Master Choi back in his home!

He will be back soon, in a few months time!

TaeKwon everyone!

Funny stories from the far east...

HELLO from Korea!

This week for my update I decided I should share some of my cute and funny stories with you of some of my adventures so far!

I will start with my most recent one, while I was in Japan I visited a spa. This was no ordinary spa, it was called spa world and was 8 floors of hot tubs and baths and mud masks and massages and salt scrubs and all kinds of crazy things...8 FLOORS!!! It was truly a wonderful experience and part of the reason I will always love Japan. (They are crazy about spas and shopping...tons of malls as well!) While at the spa I grabbed a big towel before I went in...when I went to take a shower one of the managers saw I had a big towel and told me I could not have it (the use small towels in Asia...imagine drying off with a tea towel!) just then one of the older women started freaking out! I did not know what was going on but they told me I had to leave immediately! I was very upset and had no idea what I had done wrong, when she turned to me and said NO TATTOOS! (for those of you that don't know I have two tattoos, on my neck and on my back). Tattoos represent gang members in Japan so they were going to kick me out! Next thing I knew the woman brought me to the front desk....then she said "shhhhhh" while she put at least 10 band-aids on my back, she said, "our secret!". I was so happy that I could still go to the spa...but I had to hold my band-aids in place the whole time! (I also had to rip them off afterwards...that was not so much fun!)

Another funny story:

The other day I was teaching the English class and I was doing some bad acting! I grabbed my back and groaned to represent backache....instead one of the kids yelled out "GRANDMA!!". Then when I grabbed my stomach and groaned (again more bad acting) to represent stomach ache one of the kids yelled out "Paegupa?" Which means 'hungry' in Korean! Then last but not least I sneezed to represent a cold and one of the kids yelled out "bless you"! So needless to say that class I laughed a lot!

But wait, here is one more!

On one of my first trips out to the country side I was wide-eyed and so amazed at the greenery and farm fields and tons of mountains! I had just learned to read and was reading baby books so I could learn a lot of words (I am still reading baby books!). I suddenly pointed and shouted out OKSUSU!! Which is corn in Korean! Everyone in the car laughed because they said I was like a baby...yelling out the name of vegtables as we drove by-so one of my first Korean words was corn! I got a pat on the back for learning the word corn! My next words that I learned, again like a baby, was paegupa, which means hungry, paebula, which means full, kaja, which means let's go! Soon I hope to move up and maybe get to the toddler stage in Korean!

Though a lot of funny and crazy stuff happens here, I would not have it any other way!

I will be sure to update you all again soon...

until then take care!

SHEENA IN JAPAN....a short side adventure!

This guy is saying "WELCOME TO JAPAN SHEENA!", or at least that's what I think he is saying!

This is a crazy market we literally stumbled upon and it went on for ever and there was even a mall that also went on forever. They were above ground tunnels... There was so many people!

This is a girl that we walked into in the mall...she called herself the Japanese Flower Girl!

I went into a small Temple in the middle of the city! It had incense and places to pray and gongs! Again, something me and Eva stumbled upon!

An Osaka sunset....

Hello everyone! Welcome to Sheena In Japan, a short side adventure! I was lucky enough to get to go to Japan for 24 hours! It was the most amazing place and I did not want to leave! It has millions of people, yet it is so clean, organized and beautiful in its own way! Every building is different, no two things look alike! All the signs can give you a seizure if you look at them too long! It is bright, modern and refreshing! The people could not speak any English, but yet could still understand us and tried so hard to accommodate us whenever they could!The people are all very unique as well...unique may not be the word I am looking for,the men had the craziest hairstyles I have ever seen anywhere!! The Japanese women all wore their clothes differently-no one looked the same at all! Very individual and pretty cool if you ask me!The lights of the city at night were breathtakingly beautiful! I really, really liked Japan! It was upsetting that I could only stay for such a short time! (I did what's called a "Visa Run", and got my Korean work Visa in Japan and it took only 1 hour!) I was in Osaka only a day and a night and I decided that I love Japan and I want to go back again and again!

I will be sure to update you all on my next adventure!

INSAM FESTIVAL!

KOREAN GINSING FESTIVAL!

Making rice flour by hand...the old fashioned way!

Cally with our hand picked (dug) ginsing.

Mr. Ginsing...ginsing's name in Korean in Insam which means human being because they look a lot like the human body!

Hard work! I had to dig with a sharp tong thing...I almost got my own toe!

Ginsing is huge in Korea! Everywhere you look something is made of ginsing, candy, chocolate, drinks, tea...so many things! Every farm or country house has ginsing and they all say it is great for your health! There is a legend to the ginsing....It says long ago there was a man who prayed for his mother's recovery from an illness on mount Jinak. While he was praying a mountain God came to this man the God told him to pick a plant with three red berries on top, boil the root of this plant and give it to his mother. He did as the God said and his mother made a speedy recovery. So now ginsing is thought to have healing powers and they eat it everyday! It tastes not bad to eat, but the tea is very strong and so is the jelly, so many westerners do not like it...I did however LOVE ginsing chocolate!

I had a great Korean experience! And had a lot of fun...people always want to shake my hand they call out at me and tell me I am so pretty! Everytime I meet someone they all say you are so beautiful...everywhere I go!! I am getting a very big ego here in Korea!

Take Care everyone!!