Personal post; please skip if you're not interested in the mundane details of my life.

I tell ya, teaching English in Korea does have one perk: Korea is mighty close to lots of other great travel destinations. For less than 400 bucks, I've booked a round trip flight to Beijing and 6 nights at a well-reviewed hostel that is right downtown near the Forbidden City. That's breakfast included!

See, I've got some serious travel plans stewing up for January/February/March, and it's time now to get in a bit of practice going it alone. But then, it's not really "alone," is it? My girlfriend said to me as I made the plan "...but you'll be all alone in China for a week!", to which I replied "Well, there are 1.3 billion people there."

Oh god, I just quoted myself. Apologies. Never again.

Anyway, that's happening on the 15th. For the rest of my August vacation I have planned this: one week of relaxing and working on my Korean (Rosetta Stone is such a stellar program, I actually feel bad for downloading it illegally), followed by a few days camping with the girlfriend at the edge of Jirisan National Park, followed by us parting ways and me hiking across the park. Reservations for the park shelters have been made, and I'm really looking forward to this 3-day hike to Korea's highest mainland peak. Then it's home on the 14th to do the laundry and pack for Beijing! After Beijing, I'll settle back in and go to work a week early to play piano for a few hours each day, and of course study more Korean. I've got two piano concerts planned, one set (in my mind anyway) for the beginning of October and a second for the end of December. There is much work to be done, as I'll hopefully be recording one or both performances on DVD to use as auditions for music schools should I be away from Canada come audition time next year.


I do miss home. My sister is growing up so fast, and I'm here across the Pacific.

Comments

Jes said…
Awesome plans!! I hope you love Beijing - I really enjoyed my short trip there!

Hopefully I get to see your concerts - I awoke to an email from Tom this morning saying, "A realtor is coming to rent out your place so clean it." Nothing more. Am I being fired? Moving? Who knows? I leave in 1 hour for 2 weeks. I heart the company we work for!!

p.s. Sorry to make you read a comment. Hope I didn't waste too many IQ points. :-)
10:36 PM
Max said…
I'm looking forward to this trip too; your review/blog was an inspiration, along with cheap airfares. I sure hope you don't get fired... that email sure is an odd one, I've never had anything like it.

My guess is, maybe they hired a couple, so they want you and Anthony out so they can move you into a smaller place (which accomplishes getting the couple a new place and screwing you around at the same time). Or maybe they just want to move you into a smaller place to screw Anthony over. Seems like the BCM thing to do either way.

But hold on to this gig if you can. You get lots of vacation time in January and in February, and February is a total phone-in because the report cards get finished before the winter break.
6:16 PM
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