V.O.S!!?!?!

This has truly been an eventful week.
It's been great having Val's cousins here for the food delicacies, as my previous blog talked about.
Another crazy thing that happened this week occurred on Thursday afternoon at school.
I was just getting back from my lunch when massive SCREAMS and stampeding began.
My co-teacher told me a Korean pop group, V.O.S (voice of soul) came here as a surprise for one of the classes. They had to go on the PA system and tell the school that VOS had made a mistake with the address and were supposed to be at another school. A collective groan was heard through the whole school.

However, they had managed to trick all the girls with that announcement somehow. They hid VOS in a room in my hallway (which is basically deserted of students).
I really had no idea what was going on - were they here, not here. Chaos and excitement. I wanted to meet them!
My co-teacher was not impressed with this disruption and was rather grumpy. She said they weren't that great of a band. At this point, I didn't care what she thought. After I told her I wanted to see them, she said I should just stay in the office because she didn't know what was happening. Then she left for her class.



I was certainly not staying in my office. I walked out and right across the hall were the Korean boy band VOS in the backroom of our theatre/auditorium room. They were fixing their hair and getting ready to make their appearance! haha
I was surprised and just said, "HI!" Then promptly went back to the office to get my camera.



The whole event was put on for only one grade 9 class. THeir teacher had written a letter and won the contest for the band to come to our school! It was a little disappointing as they only sang very small bits of a song. They also only hung out with the one class. None of the other students saw the group. I thought they'd at least sing one song in the gym for the whole school, but I guess this would have caused complete mayhem.

After they left the aud in a hurry for their vans, hundreds of girls started screaming and stampeding again and just left their classes and ran to these vans trying to jump on, touch the singers, take pictures etc. It was INSANITY!!
So hilarious, if not for my worry that one of the girls would get run over or killed by the rush to meet the pop stars.

SO, needless to say, not much studying went on for the rest of the day! I felt like a teenager with them, trying to take pictures and swooning over the fact that I was meeting famous Korean singers.
This whole time was recorded for TV and will be airing this Thursday, so hopefully i will be able to watch it! I think I may even make an appearance as the camera sometimes went to me for a reaction! haha
I'll let you know if it appears on the internet too! :)

This one's for Uncle J

SO, this week I've been so busy being a food tourist in Korea.
Val has 2 cousins down and while they've both travelled to Seoul and found their own experiences during the day, at night we've been busy with them trying different Korean delicacies that we haven't had the nerve to try yet!
That's why I'm dedicating this blog to Uncle John, someone who will appreciate the fact that I'm embracing the food that is distinct to this culture.

Basically, I ate dog. Disclaimer:This blog may not be for all readers, especially for those with a love for dogs.



Here's Katy acting out the dogs last moments.

For those of you that are grossed out, don't read or look at the pictures.
Otherwise, I'll tell you what it tasted like. For me, I thought the dog tasted like roast beef, but a bit stringier. At one point I had a 'thread' of dog meat stuck in my teeth. It was also a little fatty I found.
Koreans don't eat dog regularly. It's a delicacy and they mostly have dog in a kind of stew/soup thing. This is also how we ate it.




I also had the opportunity to try duck on pumpkin earlier in the week with some other teachers.


The final food adventure was last night. We went out for Octopus!!
We saw the ladies take it out of the tank and right into our pot. They squirmed in front of us at the table until slowly the burner (like a propane cooker that is on each table, a normal way of eating here in Korea)worked it's power and the tenticles moved slower and slower and then moved no more.
It was so crazy!!

BC journey!

Hi everyone!! I'm back safe and sound from my whirlwind trip to BC.
I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Young Life Staff Conference in Princeton, BC.


First, My mom flew out to Vancouver from Toronto to meet me off the plane from Korea and we spent a day together going to the Metropolis Mall in Burnaby!! It was HUGE! We shopped till I dropped for sure. It was kinda overwhelming for one afternoon. Despite getting woke up at 6:10am by the guy next to us having a crazy medical crisis, we had a good time together.(There were police and paramedics and the guy couldn't unlock the deadbolt so they started trying to bust down the metal hotel door...talk about scary!)


We left the hotel Saturday and then drove up to Rockridge, The Young Life camp of Canada. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Vancouver. This place is like a second home for me now and I feel so privileged to have been invited to attend the conference as potential staff of this wonderful organization. Along the way we stopped to visit Ashley Loewen(Ymker), a good friend from high school who's now teaching at the Abbosford Christian Middle School in BC. Oma and Opa called while we were here too! It was so nice to here their voices!

We got to Rockridge, the YL camp, around 4pm. The new lake dedication was happening right then, so it was really exciting to be there. Before they dammed the lake and brought the water closer to the camp, it was a 15 min walk away! Now the water comes right up to the camp lodges. It's so beautiful. I'm so glad mom got to see a bit of the camp where we take teenagers every summer. It's really an incredible place.

Here's a view from the 'cabin' where I stayed.
After that though we had some terrible news that cast a dark shadow on the rest of the week. Julian Dabbagh, a great young man and Young Life area director, was killed in a single-vehicle car accident as him and his family were on their way to the conference. I was thankful that the whole community was together during this sad time, but it was still really difficult to process.
The Dabbagh family is still in need of all our prayers. Kathy (the wife and mother) is experiencing a lot of pain and hurt over the whole ordeal. She is also pregnant and due in October/November, but health wise the doctors say her and the baby are fine. Everett (2) is fine and really is a joy to the rest of the family through this time. Ella (4) is still in the hospital and had to have surgery for her intestinal tract, but everything was fine. She has now developed a fever though and doctors are being overly cautious and careful with everything surrounding Ella's condition. The visitation and funeral for Julian are Saturday and Sunday. When Kathy had the opportunity to tell Ella about Julian's death on Tuesday Ella said, "but mommy if daddy's in heaven, who's going to tell all the kids about Jesus?"

So it was an emotional time with the Young Life community. I did have a chance to talk with Dave and I feel led to become a part of this ministry. I will be starting October first and I am going to be in the Waterloo area. I'm scared and excited and feel very blessed and humbled to be undertaking this kind of work with mentoring teenagers. Their mission statement is, "We are a Christian organization, loving teens in their world and encouraging them to know Jesus Christ." I'm excited to be a part of the YL team in the fall and see what God has planned for me in this new adventure. YIKES! HAHA



Here's the Ontario Young Life team. I got to hang out here with great friends and play with Kaden, my friends Marla and Brent's little boy. What a joy he is!



IT was sad to say goodbye to everyone and to Canada. I enjoyed some Timmy's though for sure!!!
I also had a stopover in Tokyo for about an hour, so I took a few pictures and I even got to go to a little oragami museum in the airport by my gate. So cool!!

English Festival

The student I'm posing with is named Seri! She's probably one of my favourite students. She tries so hard and is really shy too. She always makes me laugh though. English Festival is over! Last week was so much fun listening to students' speeches, skits and pop songs. I hated being a judge because they were all pretty good. They take it very seriously too. So in the end I didn't want to hurt any of their feelings. But there had to be winners. I think that these kind of competitions are great for the students confidence and enjoyment of English speaking. I wish we did it more often. Along with all the participants were some big fans! Other students were cheering and some even made signs to support their friends.

Island vacation

What a weekend!
I had so much fun with my great friends. It makes me sad to realize how fast these last couple months are going to go with these girls. We took an adventure tour that started late Thursday night. We all got on a pretty uncomfortable coach bus and drove through the night to arrive at the south of Korea to board a ferry for almost 2 hours and arrive at Geumondo Island where we would be staying for about 2 days.
We also had the great pleasure of going on a boat 'cruise' of the Baekdo (which means hundred) islands...a lot less than the 1000 islands, but the views were incredible. This water was so bright and tourqoise (sp?).




The rock formations/islands were also so unique. The pictures hardly do it justice, but I hope you enjoy. The island is big for fishing, but it's definitely not a very rich island and I think this is the first time so many foreigners have come to their island (there were 85 of us!)



There was supposed to be a beach for us all weekend, but the tide kept the water at the rocks for most of the day. There was only a beach after about 2:30-3:00pm. And then it was really wet and lots of HUGE creepy water bugs. But the view of the beach and the water were still stunning.

After some pretty small meals and a lot of fishy delicacies later...word came that there was a pizza place!! I'm sure that place has never seen business like they did in the last 24hours we were there.

Saturday night we also had the opportunity to go fishing. We bought some bait and rented rods and went out to the dock. We fished for quite a long time with no action. Hardly a hint of a nibble. It was a little disappointing, but fishing is fun to just relax and be peaceful too. I was watching my bobber, when WHAT!? it went under...I felt a tug...and again...and voila! I had a fish!! I was screaming and so excited!! It was HUGE!! Ok, it wasn't, it was a baby and we threw it back in. haha Our friend Andrew was there to help me get the hook out and throw the fish back.
BUT I was still so excited and so was everyone else to know there were fish out there!



We kept fishing for awhile longer. Sonja got a little bored and gave the rod back to me to try again. I was just about to pack it in when WHAT?! Another fish!! It was hilarious. This time I wanted to actually hold the fish, who was the same size pretty much as the first one. It's possible that it may have been the same stupid fish, but we're not sure!! Shoulda made a mark on him or something the first time!
I released the second one too. I think I may have found my calling!!
No one else caught any fish there that night! I felt a little bad.


Sunday we headed home and stopped by a Korean folk village where they had many different activities for us to do! It was a great weekend and I'll take the memories of late night card games, sketchy beaches and great friends!!

Shana's complaining again....

So this weekend marked the 9th month mark that we've been in Korea! It's so crazy really...I'm starting to really look forward to coming home, but I also realize it will be a huge change and I will miss a lot of things in Korea.


This weekend, I went shopping. Big time. I bought a new camera (it's been hard not having one that works properly these last couple weeks!) It's really nice. I also went a little crazy and bought a bunch of souvenirs/gifts for family and friends. I also bought my ticket to come home from Korea in September, the official date is Saturday, September 6th. I fly into Toronto at 2:35 with Shana, and then we go our seperate ways - she goes to Fredricton and I go to Ottawa at 6:12pm. So a little bit of a layover time in TO. Very exciting.

I don't think I've mentioned this in my blog yet, but I'm sure many of you know. I'm going to go to BC for about a week on June 13th. I was given the opportunity to attend a Young Life staff conference and consider joining the staff in Ontario in the fall. I'm SO excited to see my friends there and also my mom, who is flying out to Vancouver to spend a couple days with me before the conference starts.
It's gonna be a whirlwind of a week, that's for sure. I can't wait though.

This week at school is English festival week. Today was an essay writing contest. Students volunteered to compete in writing 2 essays on topics that only the teachers knew. Very brave! So I had to watch them for about 45 minutes as they wrote to make sure they didn't cheat by using a dictionary or talking to each other.
As I watched them, I happened to look out the window. I saw 3 women trying to learn how to ride a bike and helping each other. It was so funny! It was hard not to laugh out loud and distract the girls who were writing away!

Tomorrow is speech and small skit day, so stay tuned for some pictures from that!