Oh Yea!

So it's official... Dawna, Alex and I are heading to Tokyo in Feburary for five days... for the Lunar Near Year. We're pumped for that. And what's also cool is that Dawna and I are looking into a very, very likely trip to the Philippines in July for about a week.

Traveling is the new coolest thing.

- Gilad

The Last Week Or So

Here are a couple random pictures/captions taken over the last few days.


My desk at work. Books, water, puppies, schedule, a Canadian flag, and a picture of my good friend, Matt. He sent me a care package earlier this month and gave me this ridiculous picture. He told me to take it out whenever I partied but if I did that, i'd probably lose it.


One of my cutest kids, Cara. She's 6, I believe.


Not the biggest fan of this kid. He's 7 and in a different class. I call him the Korean Eric Cartman... except he's not funny... ever.


If living with Dave W for two years taught me anything, it was how to make an awesome batch of Nachos.


Clean shaven Gilad.


Clean shaven Alex.


Yumi, Alex and Amy at Jazz... the local pub where all the foreigners flock to.


Krishna being like yowaddup


Dawna with her new and improved haircut... and puppies... and Christmas presents.


The puppies being puppies.
edit: Didn't realize how awful I looked in this picture until after I put it on the blog. Oh well.


The ridiculously large care package my mom, stepdad and sister sent me.


Gilad, with new sweater and awesome care package.


The contents of the box and Dawna doing what she does best... destroying the Doritos.


Thanks, family!


Deva recently got spayed... she's been doped up on medication for a few days now. Here she is relaxing/sleeping/ignoring Lincoln.


Ah, she's awake.


Deva the spayed puppy being taken care of by Lincoln the provider.


Deva the mermaid.


Happy Holidays, everyone! We're off to Busan tomorrow to ring in the New Year... we'll have lots of pictures and videos to show everyone. We miss all our friends and family...

- Gilad (and speaking on behalf of Dawna)

Great Raptors Memories

Considering the Toronto Raptors are currently on a three-game losing streak, I decided to look up some exciting memories from last season to cheer me up. Not sure if these would be as great without Chuck Swirsky (the announcer) going apeshit both times.

Anyway, without further adieu,


The Raptors are getting demolished... down by 22. In Dallas. They're not going to win this game. In any case, the Raptors have the NBA record for most consecutive games with at least a three-pointer. With 17.6 seconds left to go in this blowout, Darrick Martin decides the fate of the record.


When this game was on TV last year, I was the only one home. I went apeshit. I literally jumped off the couch, threw something at the wall (in excitement), ran outside and "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'D" at the top of my lungs. I didn't stop there though... I ran into the street and continued to cheer by myself. It was awesome.

Note: As of December 17th, 2007, The Raptors still hold the NBA record for most consecutive games with a three-point shot at 720 straight games.

- Gilad

Dog Food

Our puppies eat nutritious food and we want to show it to you.


The front.


The back.

- Gilad

Who's a puppy?

We're obsessed with the puppies so for the time being, so all you're getting is puppy pictures. Deal with it, haha...


The three animals getting cozy...


We leave them alone in the apartment everyday for 9 hours. They're usually well behaved as nothing too bad is ever destroyed. Anyway, we come home and they get SUPER excited. About 20 minutes later, they're back to being lazy.


Deva, the Foxy Lady.


Lincoln watching/controlling the TV.


Out cold.


Sweeeeet.


No, Deva... that's not how you get the toy...


The wise fox.


Who's a puppy?


Tug of war! I don't know who struggled more here: Lincoln trying to get the toy from the bigger dog, or Dawna trying to operate the camera.

- Gilad

Deva the Puppy as Deva the Baby

So we just got some pictures from Annie (Deva's old, amazing foster parent haha) of Deva as a baby... at 2 months old (same as Lincoln's current age). She looks exactly like he did at the same age... so yea, check it out.


There she is on the left...




So cute!


Here's the mom...




Deva... now!




So yea, at first we never wanted to Lincoln to grow up because he's really cute now... BUT... now that we know Deva looked exactly like he did at the same age... we sort of assume he'll grow up to look exactly like her (but brown)... which could never be considered a bad thing... because she's so attractive!

- Gilad

Lincoln and Deva

As some of you may already know, we recently decided to adopt a puppy. There's a shelter in Daejon, South Korea which houses nearly 160 dogs/puppies. A lot of these dogs were found on the street, were abandoned by their families or were simply homeless. The government has been forced to close down the shelter down by February so all dogs/puppies that weren't adopted by then would be forced to be put down. There's more information here if you'd be interested in reading more about it.

Anyway, Dawna and I made the three hour trek to Daejon yesterday to meet a puppy we were interested in. Her name is Deva... she was born at the shelter and has been thrown around from the shelter... to the vet... to several foster families... all in hopes of finding her a permanent home. When we saw her picture on the internet, we fell in love with her. However, we had to pay a visit to the shelter (where the 160 dogs/puppies were) before we could visit Deva's foster family. At the shelter, we met this little brown puppy... and we fell in love with him. We thought that since we work long hours, it'd be better for Deva to not be alone. So we adopted the 2 month old puppy... named him Lincoln... met Deva (8 months old) two hours later, fell in love with her... and adopted her as well.

And we also found out that they're brother and sister... how random.

Here are the pictures of these awesome pups.


Little Lincoln saying goodbye to his mother and father at the shelter. He shares the same mom with Deva.


Lincoln sitting in the little puppy bag.


The 4-hour, tiring journey back home was finally over. Here I am with Deva... she's beautiful. Like a little fox.


Lincoln being tired.


Lincoln waking up...


Tired pup...


He's looking pretty spaced out here...


The little thinker...


Cute!


The puppy family...


So cute I want to smoosh his face...


Tired pups using Dawna and the couch as beds...


Taken 5 seconds before this blog post...


So yea, this is very exciting. Deva, the older one, is very well-behaved. Very cuddly, hardly ever barks (only at Lincoln now... we don't think she likes him... yet). She's also fully house trained... fully vaccinated... and amazing. Lincoln has a lot of learning to do... but he'll get it soon.

We're excited to live with them for the next however many months in Korea... and the rest of their lives in Canada.

- Gilad

The Latest Music Trends in Korea

If you've walked down the streets of South Korea from October until now and haven't heard either of these two songs, you are either completely oblivious... or there is something seriously wrong with you.

These songs are extremely (and sometimes painfully) popular right now. Everyone from kindergarten kids to cab drivers are singing these songs.


"Wonder Girls - Tell Me"
What's to hate about this music video? Sweet acting and amazing dancing. Or not.


"Big Bang - Lies"
The opening lyrics... "I'm so sick of love songs." Ah, yes... so am I.

- Gilad


**I actually do like these songs**

2000 and Africa

Awesome... over 2000 hits on this blog and we now have viewers from Africa! That marks most of the major continents!

Gilad

Real Life

Ah, how redundant real life can be. One thing Dawna and I are struggling to adapt to is the grind of the 5-day, 1-9pm work week. We've always said that we don't work at a hard job. Sure, it is stressful at times. And yes, there are times where your kids are driving you so crazy that you feel like you're a few seconds away from losing your mind. There's also marking and writing tests all the time. Wait... this job is starting to sound difficult. Hah.. well it's not as bad. At the end of the day, we're not in charge of large amounts of money (i.e. my old bank job) or standing all day in front of a cash register while our back aches (i.e. Dawna's old job at Shoppers Drug Mart). We do get to see our kids grow and learn and all that other stuff. The problem is how redundant it all gets. We do teach different books to different kids... but it's all a variation of the same thing. There are times where you teach the exact same material to different classes about 300 times too. If there's one thing Dawna and I get very bored of... it's repetition. We both like seeing/experiencing new things... teaching new things... doing new things... but with a five-day work week and hardly any down time, it's extemely difficult to get out of this grinding loop. There are days where we both appreciate everything here for sure... in fact, most days we feel blessed to be here. But there are definately times when doing things like walking to the same place for our daily cab, having the same dinner every week, teaching the same material and doing the same thing over and over and over again is becoming quite... well... dull.

We both love being challenged. And we both love being able to help in some ways. Somewhere down the road, we want to travel to most of South America... meet people... see new things... help out where possible. We're also looking forward to getting to Africa one day and seeing what God has in store for us there. And who knows... maybe we each have enough gas in the tank for another Global trip. But in the meantime, before any of that happens, we have to accept that while we're here, we have minimal time to help in the way we like to help. Like I've said, it's great seeing little kids learning how to speak English, but our passions don't necessarily lie in that area.

I guess the key is seeing how we can challenge ourselves here in ways we want to be challenged. Now... to just get unused to this grind and the reality of an 8-hour/5-day-a-week work week life.

- Gilad

The Getaway

Last night, we went out to the bar and drank with this guy called Don, who is the center of this videogame.



Yea, he's the guy in the middle. Go here to see more.

I wish I was a videogame character. That'd be the coolest thing ever.

- Gilad

LIVE OCTOPUS!

So we finally went and ate live octopus. But did we all survive? There's only one way to find out. By playing the epic film.



- Gilad

The ECC Kindergarten Festival

Okay, so after a week-long absence from blogging, we're back. For the last few weeks, we've been assisting the Korean Kindergarten teachers in training our little kids to learn speeches. The kids have also been practicing dances, songs, plays and other things. The payoff? They had a huge festival this past Sunday which we attended.

There were speeches. There were dances. There were songs. And Tae Kwon Do. And costumes and lighting and plays! This was the real deal... we teach at a serious school.

So shuffle through the pictures and enjoy the videos... and keep in mind that all the kids you're seeing are from the ages of 4-6 and are barely able to converse in English.


A shot of some of the kindy's at our school. This isn't all of them... but mine and Dawna's are somewhere in there.


The festival being set up.


If it isn't Alex Dimita. Her and Amy waiting in anticipation!


We can barely contain our excitement.


Darren and Shannon taking in the events.


Hani, one of the native Korean kindergarten teachers.


Mrs. Lee, the director/principle of our school welcoming everyone to the festival.


My kids! Getting ready to do some dancing.


And the speeches are under way...


And so is the acting...


They were pretty good. All the acting was done in English.


And the Oscar goes to... the kid with the black hair.


My kids in the midst of another song/dance.


The kid... second from the left... Daniel. He was Abbi's (now Alex's) kindergarten student. He's four. He's plump. He's so cute it's stupid.


Yea, they got some crazy lighting.


Wow.


My Kindergarten's doing some song/dance.


Chris's Kindergarten's doing the whole "I LOVE YOU BABY" song/dance. You must watch this until they get to the chorus. It's awesome.


My kids doing the speech I've been helping them with. It's funny... i'm positive they have no idea what they're saying.


Abbi/Alex's kindergarten kids. Keep your eye on Daniel (the chubbier kid on the right). It gets pretty hilarious when he's done his speech.


The little ones doing their play/song/dance. Pretty cute...


They even put on the most intense music show I've ever seen (4 year olds do).


And oh yea... live octopus... this Saturday.. FOR SURE. I'll have plenty of pictures/videos up for everyone to see by Sunday.

- Gilad