Typhoon Bolaven

We survived Typhoon Bolaven! The typhoon hit the coast of South Korea yesterday and moved inland during the afternoon. We heard that several people were killed due to the high winds.  Fortunately it didn't effect us much and we went to school as usual, many other English teachers had the day off, it is the law apparently if there is a typhoon or hurricane but our Hagwon didn't seem to care! Whilst looking out from our apartment window at the storm we did see this ...

Some poor persons office destoryed :(

Busan

Sorry! I have been a useless blogger recently. Straight after we got back from Bali we had lots of grading and test preperation for our students final exams, then we set off on a much shorter trip to Busan for the weekend. Busan is a city on the south coast well known for it beaches and seafood. We arrived on Saturday afternoon after one of the best bus journeys I have ever had, spacious reclining seats and even enough leg room for Jack! As soon as we arrived we joined some friends on the popular Haeundae beach, it was a very luckily it was a hot day (pre-typhoon!) so we hired a ring and floated around in the water for the afternoon catching some waves!  We sampled some of the Busan night life that evening and we even managed to check out another beach before heading back to Seoul Sunday afternoon. A whistle stop tour of Busan! Not sure if we will make it back before we leave, only 3 months left ......

No shortage of shade here, the sun isn't popular!

Sky scrapers and sea

Beautiful Bali

Lunch overlooking Mount Batur,
 difficult to tell from the picture
but the view was fantastic!

We spent our one week holiday in Bali and it was a good choice too! It has a perfect mixture of culture, amazing scenery, great food and beautiful beaches which made for a great holiday. Some of my favourite moments included joining in with the locals and bathing in holy springs, venturing inland to have lunch overlooking a volcano, swimming with sea turtles on the Gili Islands and watching the surfers at the Uluwata beach. Instead of writing an essay I think pictures will give you a better idea!

Relaxing at the beach on the Gili Islands

Holy baths at Pura Tirtha Empul

Sunset on the Gili T

Surfers at Uluwatu beach

White wedding

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while, been in Bali! More on that next time. Before we went we were lucky enough to be invited to an ex-coworkers wedding. It was a very different experience from a traditional British wedding for several reasons. Firstly, Korean weddings tend to be held in wedding halls which are like large function rooms as opposed to churches. Secondly, the ceremony and the reception are held together in the same room, the entire wedding lasting around 3 hours in total. Thirdly, the food is nearly always served in a buffet style instead of a formal dinner. Finally, the bride gets to wear two dresses! Oh I also forget there is hardly any drinking which is very unlike any British wedding I have ever been too. Altogether, we had a lovely time at ou first Korean wedding, the bride looked lovely, the food was delicious and the new couple seemed very happy :)

The wedding hall

The happy couple