This weekend I was invited back to Jeju Island by KOCIS (Korean Culture and Information Service) for an all expense paid trip with a group of bloggers from TheKoreaBlog. Originally they had offered me a plane ticket home to Toronto for October as the most active blogger, but I said I cant take time off school and I had just been in July so could they reimburse me for that instead. The two other winners had also already left korea.Alternatively, they came up with ...

Our school is having a week long art festival. This began with an official ribbon cutting ceremony which I was asked to participate in. The entrance to the gymnasium had a balloon archway and a multicoloured ribbon held across. The principal, visiting officials, and other teachers all held a section of the ribbon with a pair of scissors. We were also asked to wear white gloves. On a count of three we each cut our section of the ribbon.The art display is actually ...

Since starting my quiet little blog for friends just over a year ago I'm surprised by how its grown and reached audiences I wouldnt have ever imagined. This weeks 20,000+ milestone co-incides with two events; my free trip to Jeju Island as one of the most active bloggers on TheKoreaBlog, and a featured article in the school newspaper on my blog.Some of the blog stats are surprising. Since joining TheKoreaBlog in March 2011 my page hits more than doubled. This hit...

Korea hosts an annual televised song festival where top name singers from around asia perform. This is the 8th year since 2004 and the venue changes each year to a different Korean city. As part of the 'Visit Daegu 2011' promotion, and follow up to the sucessful Daegu IAAF Games in August, the city of Daegu will also host this years song festival in the World Cup Stadium.I dont really follow K-Pop so cant comment on how good the performers are, but participants w...

Now that the big afternoon events were done we had time to wander around. First we looked around the royal palace which I had been to before. There were traditional buildings with manniquins in the buildings showing scenes from royal life. Then I wanted to do a different part of the wall from what I had done last time.I walked back to the south gate entrance for start of the wall. From here there is a very long and steep rock staircase as the wall climbs the side...