Wink trip - Part 2 - Yeosu World Expo 2012

After Hyang Temple, we went up the coast line to the world expo. The views along the coast were beautiful. I would love to just ride a bike along there. The journey was ruined by this girl going on and on about losing her phone.

With the expo 2012 mascots

We were told nothing about the expo by WINK. They had told us to go on the website, but for someone who has never been to a world expo, I was clueless on the website. We got an English leaflet from the Expo. This had a small bit of information about each expo. It had no times of parades and different festivals, so we only found stuff by accident.

 I can tell you now before you carry on reading, this blog is not a postive review of the Yeosu world expo. I was lucky as my friend can speak Korean but if I was alone I would of been lost. No-one speaks English... Only Korean and it is supposed to be a world expo. There was hardly any foreigners. I think this is due to the fact you have to go to the nearest city to the expo to get the transit bus. The nearest city has no direct trains from Seoul or Busan so you would have to take a bus which is confusing.

Adjummas queuing!! Shock! Horror!!

I am glad the hardly any foreigners went as I love Korea, but this expo gave a really bad impression of Korea.I have been here over a year but my day at the expo was my worse in Korea. The food was terrible. I had a soup which cost 12,000won but was just 5 noodles and a bit of mushroom. It tasted like water. Also, the adjummas were in full force. The pushed in queues. The pushed your backs so that they were practically on top of you. They were just plain rude. Me and my friend complained loudly at one point at this adjumma who was trying to push in. Her daughter told her she was being rude and she just said she didn't care. I have never been so angry or just plain fed up.

The expo itself was really nice if they had more information about each expo and they hired people who spoke different languages (WORLD EXPO!!).

Yeosu World Expo 2012

Another bit that got me angry was the tickets. There are a few main expos and you can only visit 2 before 6pm so you have to book tickets. We got 10-11pm for the aquarium. OMG! The queue was for miles at that time. They must of given away too many tickets. Stupid!!

The best bit was the robot expo. It was cool but we were tired at angry by this point so we just gave up. There was robot football and dancing robots (I will upload this on youtube at some point).

There was only 4 other good bits. The Chinese show, the comedy magic show, the Singapore expo and going with Sarah ^^ haha.

Aquarium

The worse bit was queuing up for a expo not knowing what it was. This was because there are no signs in English and the information in the leaflet is 2 sentences. After being pushed for over a hour by an adjumma in the queue we finally got in. The funny bit was when me and Sarah got in with the next group, but they stopped the adjumma as they had enough people. Being an adjumma, she tried to make a run for it across the barrier so they had to hold her back!! mwhahaha!!

There was also a "firework" display which had no fireworks but only laser beams. Crap!



Aquarium



There was a parade at one point by it was so disorganised that the people in the parade stopped half way through and were asking what they were supposed to be doing. The whole thing was embarrassing to watch to be honest.

I wouldn't go back to a world expo held in Korea but I would love to explore the Yeosu area more as it is so beautiful and so calm.

Scary giant puppet

Scary giant puppet

Chinese show

Comedy magic

Dancers

Yeosu World Expo 2012

Robots!!

Scary robot!

Robot football

Fell over!

K pop dancing robots

Robot

Just plain weird presentation.

Robot fish

Robot fish

WINK trip - Part 1 - Hyang Il am Temple

Walking up

Me and my friend decided to book a trip through WINK (When in Korea) on facebook. It was 105,000won for a trip to Hyang Il am Temple, Yeosu world expo 2012, Nagan folk village and the green tea fields. We also paid 15,000 extra to do the green tea experience.

We got on the bus Friday night as we were travelling overnight. I had a lunch box made for me full of all my favourite foods. This kept me and Sarah full. The bus left about 11.15pm and we had to be up at 4am for the temple, but the guy in charge wanted us to introduce ourselves. Seriously! Couldn't this wait until the morning. I just pretended to be asleep as no-one would remeber the names and countries of 47 other people by the next morning.

The journey there was uneventful, but the bus was bloody freezing. I was actually sick this week and I blame this. They turned the heating on when we arrived at the temple to full blast. Couldn't they have just kept it at a medium temp throughout the night. I really hate being cold, so that put me in a foul mood from the start.

We arrived at the temple at 4ish, but we didn't go up until a bit later. Luckly, I woke up and saw people leaving as they never told us it was time to go up.

On the way up we saw a cat and a dog.The cat sounded like the "Oh, long Johnson!" cat from South Park haha. The temple itself is up a mini hike. It was too dark to get any decent photos.

By the time we arrived at the top the sun was just rising but the weather was not clear. The temple itself is really unique. It has many passage ways and small tunnels. I think I would of enjoyed it more if I had stayed at a hotel near that location and woken up with a few hours sleep.

We were only there for a bit before we decided to go back to sleep on the bus.

Sunrise at Hyang Il am temple

Hyang Il am temple

Laterns

Korean fishing village

Picnic by the Han

Yeouinaru

Monday was a holiday for my school. The cooking club decided to have a picnic and we were so lucky, as the weather was fantastic! I made pepper tuna pasta and pancakes (not together). Sue brought some homemade apple juice. It was delicious but..... I got sunburnt. Stupid, I know! But I never realised how hot it was. Plus, we were only out there for under two hours.

It was great as not many people were off so Yeouinaru was quiet so we managed to get a good spot under a tree.

Next time, I see Sue she might of had her baby! How exciting!!! ^^

Picnic!

So lucky to have met these two! Best friends a girl could ask for! ^^

Wine train, Korea.




Wine train Korea



Last Saturday, I went on the wine train with friends. We had to meet at 8.20 in order to board the train at 8.40. We got the train at Cheongnyangni station This was because it was Children's day so they changed the departure station because Seoul station was busy. The tour group was also a lot smaller than normal because of this. We were told there is normally over 300 people per trip but this time there was only over 100.



The whole train is covered in decorations. The two best carriages were the white wine and red wine car. We got the red wine carriage on the way there.

The whole carriage is decorated inside and outside by the wine company. It was really nice.

Red wine carriage



We went really slowly through Seoul towards Suwon. The train picked up people from Suwon and one more stop. We could not start drinking until everyone was one the train but we were already acting drunk :p.



Wine 1 (Paul's photo)



All the passengers were on the train by 10am, so the drinking began. First, we had a wine tasting session. There were 4 different wines to taste. I got tipsy after the first two wines and they only gave us a bit as it was for tasting. Paul and Clara went for the dry red wine, whilst me and Sarah went for the sweet red. The sweet red tasted like grape juice haha. Dangerous!!



The gang




Drunk grandmother

  

On the train there were loads of adjumma but one stood out. She was a little grandmother. When she first got on the train, she complained about her window being dirty and got free vouchers. But when the wine started pouring she loosened up. She was hugging this other waygook group and enjoyed the games. She was really funny and cute!! haha. I wish my gran was like that!!

Our snacks were some muffins, orange slices, crackers and plastic cheese etc. It wasn't too bad as I heard via other websites it was bad. But they kept re-filling the snacks :D

Snacks (Paul's photo)

There was also a MC on the train. At first we played games. The first game was two passengers playing rock, paper, scissors. We the played rock, paper, scissors against the person opposite us. Me and Clara beat Paul and Sarah! Yay!! Winners!! haha


Rock, paper, scissors. (Paul's picture)



Winners

But then the MC started singing. And it wasn't even good. I heard there is sometimes a karaoke on the train but we just had that guy singing ><!!

Singing MC (Paul's picture ^^)

We finally arrived at Yeongdong station and we took a coach to the winery. The whole area seemed to be wine country. Our lunch was a buffet and it was delicious!! Of course there was unlimited wine. We tried the white wine and it honestly was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. I ate kimchi just to take the taste away.

Lunch.

The winery.

We then went for a wine foot bath. It wasn't really a wine foot bath as that would burn your feet, but I suppose it sounds cooler than grape juice foot bath. But the foot bath was really really hot. About 38'c but it felt much much hotter!! They gave us grape juice to sip while bathing out feet.

Foot bath area (Paul's picture)

We all look a bit sweaty as it was really hot!!

feet!!

After this we went to have a tour of the winery. The tour was in Korean. So we just messed about. To be honest not even the Koreans were paying attention.

Cellar

wine tour

We had 20 minutes free time. We had all seen everyone start pictures with this wine bottle sign and we wanted a go, but we could not figure out how to get up. At the end, Paul gave Clara and Sarah a lift up.

Thinking about how to get up (Pauls' picture)

The end result (Paul's picture)



Ginseng museum

We then hopped back on the coach to the Ginseng museum. This is in Geumham. First they talked about Ginseng (I think - again this was in Korean). Then we went downstairs to make medicine parcels. Clara told us these parcels are suppose to take away bad smells. But I don't think they take away bad smells, as much as cover them with it's overpowering herb smell.

Making the medicine parcel (Paul's picture)

Our four finished parcels (Paul's photo)

 We then went to another room with loads of ginseng in jars. there was a sign saying that these were the sexiest ginseng in Korea.

Sexiest ginseng.

We then went to a room full of massage chairs etc. It was a strange thing to have on a tour but OMG, those chairs were AMAZING!! I want one! My mum had a massage seat one but it was nothing like these. But they still don't beat a real massage haha.

Massage chair.

 We had free time after to go around the town as it is famous for it's ginseng. We had fried ginseng as has Sarah says, "Everything taste better fried". haha

Fried ginseng

 Our last stop was a wine cellar that was used by the Japanese during the invasion of Korea. There were hundreds of bottles of wine in there but they said most were vinegar now.

Wine cellar

Vinegar wine

 On the way home, we had a choice of watching a movie or having another wine tasting session. Of course we choose the wine tasting. We had the ginseng carriage this time. It wasn't as nicely decorated but it didn't have the annoying MC. They gave us the full four bottles to drink haha! An american group started a dance party, which was fun and even some adjummas came in to join. It was weird stopping at Suwon station as everyone on the platform kept looking in the train and then doing a double take!

Dancing

Ginseng cart



 I would recommend this for a day out with friends. It cost 93,000 won. I got a co-worker to book it but I heard you can book it via information booths.

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=1075030







Classroom displays

Me and my co-teacher are preparing for our open class in a few weeks. Here are some of our new displays ^^



 This is a common word wall. These are all words we use nearly everyday ^^. My students can use the word to make sentences.

Plus, it brightens up my classroom.

This is the 'What does it mean?' display. This helps students with their writing. Me and my co-teachers will write symbols on their writing, telling them what they need to change. This wall helps them understand the symbols. For example, SP means they made a spelling mistake.

We made this so students can start thinking for themselves rather than the teachers giving the answers. They are more likely to remember for next time if they correct the mistake.