Walking and Hiking Tours of Busan

Hi guys, After months of searching, Carol and I finally found jobs at Etonhouse International and Pre-school in  Singapore .  Here are the links, if you are interested (see below).  Carol will be a kindergarten teacher, while I will be a class teacher.  I don't know which grade, yet (this is not ESL, but a normal primary homeroom teaching post).  We really wanted to stay in Ottawa, more than you'll ever know, but money is important.  It is really hard for me to work in Canada without a Bachelor of Education.  This degree is a requirement for getting certification in Canadian provinces and territories.   The plan is to either earn a double major bachelor in geography and religion or  BA Edu. via distance learning (online) while we are in  Singapore . The latter choice would be difficult, as most of the course are not offered online and requires a practicum component, but I am still searching.  If I go for ...

What's new with you guys?? On  Thursday , we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by having coffee at The Dharmawangsa Hotel, for 5 star prices, dining, ambiance, and 0 star service.    http://www.the-dharmawangsa.com/ .  As a result of the service, we decided to go to Ham Ji Bak Executive Korean restaurant instead for a dinner of sam gup sal (Pork Bacon) and dawayne Jang Gee Gay (Miso bean paste soup) and side dishes. http://www.urbanesia.com/profile/ham-ji-bak/photo/ On  Friday , we went to the Taiwanese Embassy, so I could apply for a visa, which was a bit of a drama, but rewarded ourselves with  Sizzler's salad bar for lunch (I also skipped breakfast in preparation for this!!).  They have a painting of a white Michael Jordan with brown hair there.  Then Carol went to her student's mom's (SM) house to watch another SM play the violin.  This SM is famous in Italy, whose concerts generally require people to pay ov...

We had a good time in the 1st half of our trip to Bali with Deb, Sung-Sook, Diane, and her son, Didier.  We were cleansed and blessed by a spiritual leader at a Hindu Temple Ceremony.  They also gave us holy water from the 108 different Hindu Temples in Bali, to spread/sprinkle on our guesthouse, when we have our opening ceremony there later in early 2011.  We had good food at some of Bali's more famous eateries, such as Ku De Ta, Hu 'U, Zanzibar, Made's Cafe (pronounced Ma-Day), Blue Canyon Coffee (where we had coffee with Rod), Italian, Japanese, just to name a few. Diane is a wealth of information on Bali, so we just followed her.  We also met Sam and Andrea on their motorbike on the way back to their villa from surfing.  Our villa in Seminyak had four bedrooms, each one costing 40$, with daily breakfast, including fresh daily baked German bread.  We walked on the beach for a couple of hours, and we ate seafood on the beach in Jimbaran and spent part o...

MANADO / BUNAKEN ISLAND, IN NORTH SULAWESI We had high hopes for this place, the tropical island report we had been looking forward to.  Spending the last week of our vacation in a very classy place, drinking cocktails on the beach, blah blah blah.  Well, let me tell you that Bunaken is BLAH!!  For starters, there is no electricity on the island from 5AM to 6PM, so most places do not install AC in the rooms.  If you are not a diver, you need to pay about 20 Euros more per person, and even when we said we were divers, the rates for low end mid-range was U.S.$25 per person.  We stayed for one night at this place run by an Italian diver instructor, whose Indonesia girlfriend was a cheap person.   She found us a massage lady for 12.50$.  We had already found one for $7.50 (who is actually just a walking tee-shirt seller), so she told that lady to never come back onto their property.  We had to go to the beach at a hotel next door for our massag...

MAKASSAR, SULAWESI The airport here rocks man.  It's full on 21st century,.a big deal for anything / anywhere in Indonesia! We spent two nights here after a direct flight from Kupang.  Stayed at a crap hotel near the airport our first night, and then found a back backers to drop our stuff of at and nap until the night bus to Tana-Toraja.  Carol slept, so I checked out Fort Rotterdam, built by the Dutch. There are a lot of Chinese people in Makassar, so you see lots of those Malay / 'Spore style restaurants around town.  One dish that is famous in Makassar is beef inerd soup.  The broth is good, the soup cooked in cauldrons and the place was packing in the people!!  The place was right behind a Chinese temple.  The bus station had a very funny guy working as the toilet collection guy, asking me questions about have to work out.  Little kids kept running over to me to give me a high five and shake my hand.  Carol said: ...

PART 2.  KUPANG, WEST TIMOR We checked into a 6.50$ a night place with breaky included.  It wasn't the Ritz, but it suited out needs and saved us $.  Our mission on day 1 was to apply for an East Timorese Visa at the consulate.  Normally it takes 10 working days to apply for the visa online, so we thought we could get it quicker in person, and with 20$ passed to a man in an office, turns out you can get it in three days.  Later that day, Carol took a nap, so I went out for some exploring.  Turns out Kupang is Tainan 1998 on steroids.  In the words of Borat: "IT'S NICE!!".  All the Angkots (Indo Jeepenys) are full of paint jobs and music, unlike the boring ones in Jakarta.  I took one to the sea, where they had set up about 35 corn BBQ stalls (talk about killing the competition aspect??!!).  Then I walked back through an expensive night market where I found Lovona's Tourist Information Center and Bar.  There was a somewhat lethargic ...