Vacations

When I thought about coming to teach in South Korea over three years ago I thought about how nice it would be to travel on my vacations. I had several friends who had taught here and they had all gone to Thailand for their Christmas vacation, etc. I thought I would be able to do the same. Well, the fact of the matter is that if you work at a "Hogwon" [private language school] often you don't get more than three consecutive days off for a holiday. It is true that some schools close down for a week in the summer and a week at Christmas time giving the teachers that work there time to travel but from my experience this seems to be the exception - not the norm.

I hope very much that if I come back for another year to teach in Korea that I can get a job in a university or a public school. That way I would get about five weeks of vacation time in the summer to travel.

So far, I have seen most of Korea even traveling to the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] for the Lunar New Year in February 2004 and I've been to Fukuoka, Japan at least three times on over-night Visa runs. But as for traveling and getting to see a lot of Asia I have not really gotten to do so. With one exception. In February 2005 for the Lunar New Year's holiday I got to take a tour of Beijing, China. I went with Kangsan Travel [an English Travel Agency here in Busan - I have a link to them on the sidebar of this blog].

Right now I am trying desperately to get plane tickets for Chulsok 추석 [the Korean Thanksgiving holiday]. It is based on the Lunar Calendar so the date changes each year. This year it is from Thursday, October 5th to and including Sunday, October 8th. Moreover, Tuesday, October 3rd is a legal holiday 개천절 [Kae Chun Chul] what we call Foundation day in English and I managed with much begging to get my boss to give me Wednesday, October 4th off. What that means is I have from Monday night at 10 pm until the following Monday afternoon at 2:00 pm off on holiday - almost a whole week. It is almost unheard of to get that much time off in Korea and especially from a private language school. I am so excited I can't stand it!

However, despite what I thought - that it was a time when every Korean went home to see their families - it seems that in actuality every Korean has already booked airline tickets out of the country. I some how managed to get two tickets booked for October 3rd to Taipei, Taiwan but so far I can't get any tickets back to Korea. I am on the cancellation list and I pop by the travel agency everyday to see if seats have become available but so far there are still no tickets. I could come back on Tuesday, October 10th no problem but there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY EITHER MYSELF OF MY FRIEND CAN GET ANYMORE TIME OFF WORK!!!

Everyone keeps telling me I should have booked my tickets months ago. Maybe I'll find out when Lunar New Year is in 2007 and book my tickets now. At least that way I might finally make it to Thailand. I'm not kidding - I'm considering it - quite seriously. It seems that there are no extra flights put on for holidays - making travel at any holiday time a nightmare. Well, I've learned my lesson. As the Boy Scouts say "Be prepared". Come next holiday - I intend to be.

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Here are some pictures from my first real vacation in Korea. I went to the DMZ and did the 3rd tunnel tour in February of 2004. It was amazing to see.

This is looking out the window and looking over North Korea. This was taken from the Dora-san Observatory.

This is the Dora-san Observatory where you can look over towards North Korea.


This was taken inside the 3rd tunnel. This was a tunnel that was discovered in 1978 and was only 44 kms and less than one hours drive from Seoul. It is said to have been capable of moving a full divison per hour and was designed by North Korea for the purpose of making a surprise attack on Seoul. Scary!

This fence marks the boundary of the DMZ or should I say No-Man's Land - between North and South Korea.

Every Lunar New Year South Koreans hold a rally where they show their support for the reunification of North and South Korea and their desire to see their relatives who live in North Korea.

Here is a watch tower that is located in the DMZ. It is so stark looking that I wanted to use Black and White Film [I didn't have a digital camera at this point so I had to scan this photos into my computer] to emphasis that aspect of the scene.

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Stay tuned for up-dates on my potential trip to Taipei.