Cherry blossoms came and cherry blossoms went!

The spring in Busan so far has been so nice. The trees quickly started to fill up with cherry blossoms in the beginning of April and they are almost all gone now! The weather is starting to warm up but the breeze is still here and still pretty strong! Work has been going well and in a week and a half we have our first break for Children's Day and Buddha's birthday. 

We visited the Busan Aquarium a few weekends ago. It was right on the beach and only a 5-10 minute walk to get there! The aquarium was three stories and full of the usual fish, sharks and sea horses. They also had jackass penguins and a small clawed otter family. The otters were so funny, following each other around in a line and then spending 20 minutes just rolling around and scratching! 

The next weekend we walked up Dalmaji Hill to look at all the cherry blossoms. We wish they didn't have to come and go so fast!  The pictures we took just don't do the view any justice. We found a trail that took us through the woods overlooking the ocean. At one point on the trail we found amphitheater and a kitten waiting for the show :). Walking home we stopped at a restaurant that has live music most nights... unfortunately not the night we went in. We both got a delicious seafood pasta, a cheese platter and a bottle of wine. 

Last weekend we went to Spa Land at the Shinsegae Department Store ( the worlds largest department store). We weren't quite sure what to expect but anything with the word spa in it couldn't be bad. It cost 14,000 for four hours and you could stay an extra two hours if you got any service/items worth more than 10,000. The first part of the spa you are given some pretty snazzy outfits to wear and then led to the locker rooms. Connected to the locker rooms are saunas, pools and bathing areas. There were a variety of different pools including sodium bicarbonate pool, sodium chloride pool and pools with varying temperatures. In the mens bathing area there was a bed pool and in the women's bathing area was an outdoor spring pool.  After cleaning up and relaxing a little we put on our robes and then met up in the lobby. Everything else in the spa was co-ed. There were a dozen different rooms, each with a different health benefit. The rooms included an ice room, a charcoal room, an ocher room, a roman steam room, meditation rooms, relaxation rooms with t.v.'s, a restaurant, a dvd room, a stretching room, a massage chair room and then a section for spa services. We both got a neck, shoulder and foot massage and then afterwards sat in the massage chairs for about 20 minutes. If you go on a weekday night (after 8pm) it only costs 7,000 won, so this past friday night we went again :).

Springing into Spring!

March is almost over and it seems that we spent the whole month fighting a cold! It looks and feels as though it's finally going away for good. Our weekends had been filled with tea, medicine, and sleep but this past Sunday we were finally able to explore this beautiful city!! We started at the Haedong Yungungsa Temple about a 20 minute taxi ride from our place. This temple is very unique because it is on the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous and definitely calming. We decided to walk into town to find a place to eat for dinner. We ended up in Songjeong, a beautiful beach city. We saw a path that led to a gazebo looking over the ocean and a coffee vending machine close by! The path went through a small forest that had a bunch of exercise equipment including a bench press, an air walker(maybe?) and the biggest hula hoop in the world. We got a little workout in and then started walking in search for dinner. We knew that we were somewhat near Dalmaji Hill which leads us home, so we stopped at a coffee shop for a bathroom break and directions to Dalmaji hill. After the long walk up the hill, and a stop at another gazebo along the way, we stopped and ate at a really good Vietnamese restaurant. After eating it was just a short walk down the other side of the hill on a wooden sidewalk lined with tons of cherry blossom trees. They will start blooming in a couple weeks and it is supposed to be very beautiful.

On friday Adam went out with the teachers from his school. They went to a restaurant where you BBQ Australian beef (really good) over hot coals on the table in front of you. After, they went out around Haeundae to several different bars and ate a lot of raw octopus. He had a lot of fun but drank a little too much soju, perhaps :).

So since our last update, Adam and I have finally started teaching consistently, with the exception of this week (haha). Adam's 6th graders have a field trip Thursday and Friday so he'll enjoy two full days of deskwarming! He was supposed to start after school classes with 3rd graders this week but it was pushed to next week (again). I started my teacher training course last week. This is a time where teachers who are interested in improving their English hang out with me for 40 minutes. We read three 'easy English' news articles and have a disscussion afterwards. There is word that around the second week teachers stop coming and soon it will be cancelled... so we'll see how it turns out!

Adam had another successful day of volleyball. He had a lot of fun and afterwards they drank beer and ate dried squid. It's funny to see a bunch of teachers in an elementary school gym drinking beer during work hours, something that would never fly back home. I on the other hand have ended up in the "no volleyball" English team apparently. Just when I started to get excited about playing!!