Time to Recap: Photobooth, the Eastern Sea and Chuseok

Today is one of those days at school when I feel like I should be doing more/should have been doing more, but I'm not quite sure... what I mean is Korean's don't like to be very direct about things, so instead of saying "you will do this" they will often say "it would be nice if..." -- so today I usually teach four classes, but midterms are next week so many of the teachers want to power through their lessons or give the students time for self study. Although no one told me before hand, I had a sneaking suspecion that when I arrived at school today I would be told I wasn't teaching. Right away one coteacher said, "you will not teach," then my other teacher said, "you teach grade 2 but I'll teach grade 3." So I taught one class and offered to help with the other but my coteacher just told me I could go to the office. Then just now I was supposed to teach, I asked my coteacher before he went in if I should teach or if he wanted to... here is where I get confused and unsure if I did something right or wrong... He said, "whatever you want," and I said, "well what do you think is better?" And he said, "well I'd like to study with them, but I want you to decide," so I said, "if you think that's better than that's fine, I have a lesson but I can hold onto it," he then said, "okay good, thank you, I think that is good, I will see you next Thursday then" (in a week and a half, when midterms are over...) I offered to help but he just sent me on my way... So I guess that's what he wanted in the end? What if I'd insisted on teaching?!

Photobooth:
Two weeks ago on Wednesday one of my students insisted we hang out after school. I told her I was busy but she wouldn't take no for an answer. After I convinced her we could only hang out for about an hour, right after school, and only if we went somewhere close to school, that was fine. I wasn't sure (and am still not quite sure...) if this kind of thing is allowed or frowned upon, hanging out with students outside of school. The girl is super sweet and only 12 and was so excited! She told me this was the first time she was going to "play with a foreign friend" -- she was in elementry last year and still seems very young, which I think is why she kept saying we were going to "play" (hang out.) We walked to one of the local markets/downtown shopping areas and decided to get food at Lotteria, Korea's fast food resturant. We got Tornados (which are just like Blizzards or Twisters) mine had cookies, her's had pop rocks. I paid for her's. Another student saw us sitting and eating together and came and begged me to buy her something too. Oh boy. Next we went to a Photobooth and took silly pictures. Photobooth is really common here, and there were many mom's and daughters and small groups of friends taking pictures. Afterward you can decorate the picture with all kinds of clip art right on the machine. Then they print in duplicates, you can cut them up and they are stickers. Again I don't know if its considered okay to take photos with your students, but it was totally innocent and we were in public places the entire time. I found out later the student's sister goes to Sangji High School, Jason told me the next day that the girl came up to him, showed him two of the pictures and said "your girlfriend? Cute!" or something like that. So I guess it was okay. The entire time my student kept saying, "very excited" and told me "everyone looks at you because you are so beautiful" -- haha, like I said, flattery is in abundance here. It was a nice little hang out. I don't want to keep this up though because, as another teacher warned me, everyone will want to go out and get ice cream with me!

Chuseok:
Last week was Chuseok, a big holiday in the Korean calendar. This year it fell righ in the middle of the week and our school decided to take the entire week off because of it. Its a national holiday. Its a day to celebrate the Harvest, to visit the graves of your ancestors, get together with family, give gifts, eat lots of traditional foods (like rice cakes with honey.) Many people travel on Chuseok to be with family. (Read more on Chuseok here.) For us foreigners, it meant a huge vacation, nine whole days, and we'd only been working for three weeks! The break was nice of course, but definitely has gotten me out of the swing of things.

Eastern Sea:
For our Chuseok, Jason and I traveled to the Eastern Sea (or Sea of Japan for all you non-Korean's.) We originally were thinking of being really bold and going to Japan via ferry (sounds fun right?!) but decided we didn't have enough time, didn't want to make ourselves super exhasted and didn't really want to spend the money just yet. Our second plan was to visit the ocean town of Busan in the south of Korea. We were just looking into hotels and things to do when my coteacher Mr. Byeon invited us both the Eastern Sea with his family. This year they weren't doing the whole Chuseok thing, they weren't visiting family or going far away, they just decided to stay pretty close to Wonju and be together. Mr. Byeon has a wife and two boys, one is about 11 the other 14. He seemed like he really wanted Jason and I to join he and his family at the sea. He told us how the Gangwon-do Office of Education runs a seaside resort (hotel) that is only for Gangwon-do teachers. The resort is extremely cheap (rooms go from 10,000-30,000 won, so less than $30 at max) and provides a room with bathroom, full kitchen, bedroom and all the appliances and sheets you need. The more my coteacher talked to us about it, the more it became evident he wanted us to go. I don't think if I were here alone he would have invited me because he is a little conservative and old fashioned and I think he would have thought it improper to invite a girl, but because Jason is here and he could invite a couple, he was excited! We agreed and he made the necessary reservations for us. Due to "Korean standards of morality" we had to make a reservation for two rooms, even though we only used one. (When he told another coteacher about the trip, and today when he told the principal he made sure to say "hana room for Jason and hana room for Madeline." Hana means one in Korean so I figured that's what he said at least!) We tried to get some friends to fill the other room, but everyone was busy. (Maybe next time!)

My coteacher bought our bus tickets for us because he was worried they would sell out because of Chuseok and then drove us to the bus terminal on Friday night to show us where it was and how to buy tickets. To get a little off track, we discovered the area around the bus terminal is very happening! There were tons of bars and new buildings just waiting for stores to arrive. We ate dinner at "New York, New York" -- Jason was really excited to have a steak! We ordered two of the cheaper options which were pretty good. The salad had balsamic vinagerette on it and the steak was plain steak with sauce, it was nice to eat something non spicy, haha! We also found a billards place, shooting gallery, arcade... there was even a bar called "WA Ice Bar" WA=Western Alcohol! We were excited because we hadn't seen a bar with anything but beer and soju since we arrived. (We found out later our friend Scott lives next to the same bar, so we guess its a chain after all...) Jason pulled me inside and we had a quike drink. The place was really nice, it had a blue "ice" bar and was really pretty yet hip. The next night we went out for Sam Gip Sal, pork that you grill on your own bed of hot coals! It was really fun! We called it my birthday dinner since in August things were really busy and Jason didn't have a chance to take just me out. We didn't have soju, but we followed up with beer and fruit and then went back to WA Bar because I liked it so much.

Then came Monday, we got up early and made it to the bus terminal no problem. We started out the day right with Dunkin Doughnuts and coffee. Our bus was really plush and I was excited to see out the windows. We were headed to the town of Gangneeung, which is only about an 1 hour and 20 minutes away. One of my old friends/residents from UCI who is also an EPIK teacher is living in that town, he is doing his second year with the program. I didn't get to see much out the window though because of all the rain clouds, but between the mist I did glimpse some rolling green hills. Soon enough we were in town. We attempted to do some exploring but really just walked in a huge circle and ended up back at the bus terminal. LOL. Jason dragged me into H Mart, which turned out to be a huge electonic store. He was happy to buy a wireless internet router there. I was eying the toaster ovens but the smallest one was 80,000 won! (Real oven's were 500,000 won and up!) After poking around H Mart we caught a local bus to Jumunjin Beach, a smaller town 20 minutes north of Gangneung. We tried not to hit the locals with our giant backpack and learned first hand that some older Koreans do not value personal space... I was sitting and Jason was standing and an old lady managed to slide between us on the bus, she was so sly! I couldn't tell if she was trying to get me to move or if she just wanted a better spot to hold onto the rail! Either way, she made no gesture, asked no question, she just slid right between us! Akward.

The bus dropped us next to Jumunjin Harbor. We walked through it and saw all the super fresh fish! There were live octopus in tubs filled with water, fish big and small, bright red crabs... we were in a real harbor where fishing boats were pulled up the dock and workers were pulling buckets and barrols of fish right from them. Water was sloshing everywhere and people were decked out in rain boots, overalls and visors. I was super enthralled! As we were walking through a man stopped us and asked where we were from, told me I was cute and Jason must be the luckiest, mentioned he was 70 years old (no way, he looked 50!) and that he used to be a liasion officer between Korea and the US Navy; so that's why his English was so good! Foreigners, we're so easy to spot.

The beach resort was only a short taxi ride away but we decided to walk up the beach from the harbor to the resort instead. The resort was literally right on the beach so we knew we'd have to run into, plus we had maps. The walk up the coast was really pretty, we saw lots and lots of drying squid, it hung on cloths lines mingled with clean laundry. Jason spotted a cafe with Nescape logos in the window and we went in. The place offered comfortable couches to lounge on with beautiful ocean views. I ordered an latte and he a coffee. It was the best coffee we have had here! The woman who made it used a real machine, instead of just a pot or instant! It was such a good find!

A short while later we made it tothe resort, checked in (with the help of my coteacher via phone, he and his family would meet us later) and gawked at our literally ocean front view. Jason and I were talking about how fortunate we were to be able to come to Korea, to stay in a place like this, to have such welcoming coteachers... we truely are.

Jason convinced me to play some tennis and then we checked out the beach. It was hot that day and the water was warm! We put our feet in and had a good time running around and taking pictures. Families were out and people were riding quads on the sand. Very soon after my coteacher arrived and we met his wife and sons. They were very nice but the sons were super shy. His wife made us a truely scrumptus dinner of sam gip sal (she just whipped it up!) complete with side dishes, rice, fruit and coffee. We talked and learned more about them. We decided that the next day we would meet and in the morning and do some sightseeing.

When we woke up Tuesday morning it was a bit cloudy, I think it had begun to rain during the night. At first Jason and I thought we would have been able to swim in the ocean (if we hadn't forgotten our suits!) but by 10am the weather had quickly changed to dark rain clouds. We met my coteacher and his wife (their sons did not want to sightsee with us, go fiture) and they drove us into town and back towards Gangneung to look around. My coteacher was so nice that he made sure to drive next to the beach the entire time instead of taking the faster highways so we could look out. We stopped at beautiful Gyeongpodae Pavilion, one of the eight scenic wonders of Gwandong lake. The Pavilion was really amazing, I love how traditional Korean structures are decorated with such bright colors! There were dragons painted on the pillars inside and you took your shoes off to walk around it. It was/is a spot to hang out and view the beautiful lake, and beyond that, the ocean. Although when we were there it was cloudy. We also learned that the woman on the 50000 won bill is considered the ideal mother and is the one girls should aspire to be like.

After that we headed down to the lake to see more of the eight wonders, but we stopped after only one site because of the rain. I'd like to go back because people were still out biking, walking and renting those little carts where everyone pedals that you find at the beach. Maybe next time! We -almost- stopped at the Gramaphone Museum, or we could have checked out the Edison Museum (bizzarre museums here we come!) but due to a communication mix up we headed to the beach instead! It was pouring by now and while Jason and I got out with our umbrellas and walked around the beautiful boardwalk, flanked by pine trees, bright flowers and smooth sand, my coteacher and his wife stayed in the car. Again, it looked like a great place to go in the sunshine! As we were climbing back in the car my coteacher jumped out, grabbed Jason and they ran over to a vendor's cart. He bought us ice cream, in the rain! Mmm good.

After that my coteacher decided it was too hard to sightsee in the rain so we headed to E-Mart to do some food (and clothes?) shopping. He told us to stock up on whatever we needed because everything would be closed the next day for Chuseok. We bought some long sleeves shirt, bread and cheese. We were thrilled to find the cheese! It was only 5000 won for 6 six slices! (I'm kidding, that is SUPER expensive for cheese!) For lunch my coteacher's wife made Japchae, a traditional Chuseok dish. It was super yummy!! She showed me how to make it and I took notes the entire time, so I'll have to try to reproduce it!

After we finished eating my coteacher dragged his super shy sons out of the second room and plopped them down in front of us. He claimed his elder son wants to study in America and told us "tell him about Disneyland, so he will want to go to the US!" Ummm... it was one of the most awkward situations... we four just sat there staring at each other. We tried to ask the sons questions but they either didn't understand or gave us one word answers. Finally after an agonizing 10 minutes (for all of us) Jason said "okay I think we better be going..." HAHA.

It was still early afternoon at this time but the storm was raging outside. Sheets of rain were coming down in diagonals. I decided we should go for a walk. We grapped our umbrellas and headed out. We walked down the beach, our umbrellas shielding our faces but our legs and torsos were left to the elements. We were getting soaked and people inside the shops and resturants on the beach, the few that were open, with the few customers (who arrived in cars) looking at us like we were crazy. We walked about 20 minutes and made it back to the caffe we had visted the day before. We were the only people in the place and they lady recongized us! She was kind of laughing and shaking her head but again made us a great cup of coffee! As night began to fall we made our way back to the resort, effectively soaking the other side of our bodies as we walked into the wind.

That night we just hung out and watched TV. We saw on the news that Seoul was flooded there was so much rain and Wonju got about 9 inches between Monday and Tuesday! The next morning we headed home and made it to Wonju by noon. The following days were spent scrubbing clean the last of my apartment, eating, sleeping and watching the X-Files.