It has been quite sometime since my last blog post. That is because it has been a busy time!
Two weeks ago I found myself in Seoul with Jason and two other friends. I had been told by a friend, a past EPIK teacher and fellow UCI alum, to contact her friend who lives in Seoul and is working for an English language Korean entertainment magazine. A few emails later she asked if I could write an exhibit review for their November issue! I jumped at the chance and two days later, was in Seoul checking out the exhibit. The museum and the exhibit focus on contemporary art, which is always confusing to "make sense" of, but it is situated in the beautifully maintained Olympic Park in Seoul. Seoul hosted the 1988 summer Olympics and the park still displays the olympic torch, flame and all, plus all the flags of the world, plus beautiful lakes and stadiums. LA could learn a thing or two... The park also contains over 200 sculptures!
The last few weeks have been busy in terms of work -- I teach Tuesday and Thursday night special "genius" classes, plus full days at school. I think one of the best times students can have to talk with me is during breaks and lunch, so I always allow them to come chat (and sometimes ditch other classes!) which is always lots of fun, we talk about music, watch music videos online, chat about life... it just leaves me with no breaks! I also discovered the owner of the school keeps a dog on campus! Right out the window of my English Room I can see this big fluffy white dog. Someone feeds him and takes care of him everyday and he has a little pen. From what the students can tell me, he was orphaned and someone took him in and now he lives at school. He is maybe three years old. He's super sweet and mellow. There are also two stray cats that live at school, one brown and one calico, they look about 6 months. I always see the girls trying to catch them, or they are feeding them, or they have caught them and wrapped them up in a blanket and carry them around like babies. The cats don't like to be caught but when you do, they are nice. Set them down and they are quick to run away though! Mrs. Kim told me the cats and the dog are on good terms. I petted the dog yesterday, and one cat, and the students thought I was crazy! It is unusual to be so bold with animals here, especially big dogs and cats (little dogs are okay.)
Last Thursday and Friday all the native English teachers also had to go to a special training on "co teaching" in the classroom. Technically in every class we teach we are supposed to share the stage 50/50 with our Korean counterparts. HAHA. This NEVER happens, two of my coteachers don't show up to class, one just had me read from the book, and the last two are good, they help me control the students and give instructions. But none of them co-plan or co-teach with me. The training was two days in the coastal town of Yang Yang. The facility we used was very beautiful, literally right on the oceon! They also fed us three meals and paid for our hotel room. It was a good opportunity to meet EPIK teachers from Wonju and close by. There are so many of us! I had no idea! Many people stay for more than one year because the pay and benefits are so nice, but it also seemed like most people were jaded with the system. We have to fit into the Korean system and cannot try to change it, which is frustrating, especially when you see the obvious problems with it. But I am a guest, not Korean. Our coteachers also went with us on this trip. We asked mine, Mr. Byeon, if he was going to start coplanning with me, he smiled and said "no." Jason and Scott's coteachers feel asleep during the lectures. The ideal is nice, but it will never happen.
The beach was a beautiful setting though and the night ended with various parties in various hotel rooms. Beer is cheap and so are fireworks. Scott, Jason and I strolled on the beach for awhile and watched people shooting off their fireworks. They bought them from the Family Mart (like AMPM, Seven Eleven, etc.) We also struck up a conversation with some Korean English teachers who were standing around watching too. Scott went on a date with one last weekend!! They were super nice and Scott asked them all sorts of questions about Korean culture, which they were ready to answer. They were elementry teachers so it was nice for us to hear about a different type of system than middle or high school. I was Scott's "wing man" -- he asked if we should talk to them and wanted me to come with him, I was hesitant but then thought, why am I hesitating?, yes let's talk to them! I'm glad we did!
The next day the training ended early. I was with my main coteacher Mr. Byeon and thought we would shortly be heading back to Wonju. Jason was headed to Chunchun with his coteacher to see an art exhibit (or so he thought...) I was excited because the school festival was Friday and I was sad to miss it. I thought I might be able to see it after all! I also mentioned that I was interested in seeing Naksan temple, a famous temple in Yang Yang. Mr. Byeon said "oh you want to go there?!" so we did. I thought it would be a quick trip. It ended up being this huge temple complex right on the oceon cliff. It was gorgeous and the weather was perfect, filled with autum breezes and bright sun. We saw many other EPIK teachers visiting as well, plus many older Koreans and Buddhist monks praying. The complex included many shrines and statues. The site is thousands of years old but actually the temple burned down a few years ago and has been compleatly rebuilt. No matter, it is still beautiful and that is what happens with wood. All the huge pine trees burned down as well. Only three survived so of course now they are considered holy. On top of the peak was the largest statue of all, about 10 stories tall, and from there you could see up the coast to Sokcho and down the coast to Yang Yang. I remarked at some huge rock formations in the mountain distance and my coteacher said that was probably Seoraksan Mountain, the most famous mountain in all of Korea! I told him we were planning to hike that and I was glad to now know where it is located.
After about an hour we got in the car and I thought finally we would head to Wonju and I could see the Sangji Festival! But then Mr. Byeon asked me if I wanted to see the opening of the trail for Seoraksan. I said yes of course. Mistake. But a pleasant one.
We drove down these beautiful, winding country roads, they were lined with trees all changing color for the fall; red, orange, yellow leaves blew in our path. As we neared the mountain we hit traffic. I thought we would soon turn around as we had come close enough. But no, we pushed on until we reached the incredibly crowded parking lot. We parked. I was confused, I thought we were just looking. Hundreds and hundreds of people were streaming out of the trail entrance, which turns out to also be a national park. The head of the trail is packed with temples, shrines and statues, plus nearly 50 different vendors selling food, coffee and souveniers. Everyone around us was dressed for hiking, in their stylish gear. I was definitely not dressed for hiking. I had on nice pants and my dress shoes. I thought we would be returning to Wonju and school, so I assumed I should dress nicely as usual. My coteacher was also wearing a tie and suit. But, that didn't stop him from buying us tickets to enter the national park. We quickly walked in the park, I marveled at the huge seated statute of Buddha just inside the main gate, as well as tried to take in the vendors and hundreds of people. We took some pictures and looked up at the huge Seoraksan mountain side. I noticed some cables for a chair life and pointed them out. I thought we would be done after this. Nope! My coteacher rushed inside a building that I realized was a cable car ride! He wanted to buy tickets for the cable car up the mountain. Unfortantely it was 2pm by this time and the car (there is one every 5 minutes that holds 50 people) was booked until 3:15. He was very sad but we relecutantly figured we'd better not. He said he just wanted to show me one thing though, before we left, some gigantic famous rocks on the mountain next to the stream. He didn't think it would take too long to get there. That's when our hike started. A quick visit turned into a mile long hike that took over an hour. It was on rough terrain too. Rocks, pebbles, stairs... I was not dressed for this! People kept staring at us!! Although I was tired and getting hungry, and had realizied I would not make the school festival, Mr. Byeon and I had a very good talk about many things. The scenery really was beautiful and I got to try some traditional Korean candy and eat roasted corn on the cob once we finished.
Another dynamic Korea day.
Around 6:30 we made it back to Wonju, after having to pull off the road at a rest stop, my coteacher was getting sleepy and needed a pick me up. He bought two ice creams and two iced coffees, one for me! He is always doing nice things like that.
Like I mentioned, at the training I had met many new foreigners. They told us some popular places to go out in Wonju. So Saturday night a group of us met up for dinner and drinks. We visited four bars, the first being "bubble" Pub, then WA (Western Alcohol) Bar, then noreabong (kareoke!!) complete with soju and beer... by then it was after 2am. We were trying to find one more place to go when this herd of foreigners appeared in the streets, we got swept up by the leader, an Irish guy who said "its my birthday! let's go!" So we followed them upstairs to the Ice Bar. There, they serve you beer in a mug made of ice! When you are finished, you throw the ice mug at a target, if you hit it, you win a free beer! The bar was empty when we got there but quickly filled with 40 or so drinking, smoking, laughing foreigners from the US, Canada, Ireland... The night ended with the three Irish people singing "Ratllin Bog" in honor of the guys birthday. Latest night for me in a long time, 5am.
The last big event was on Monday night when Jason and I were invited to a special dinner for "teachers of gifted students." Mr. Byeon asked to bring us so we could be included and meet everyone else, there were about 15 new Korean faces. Everyone was of course super nice. The resturant was also amazing, we had smoked duck! It was the BEST food I have had yet. It was a bit expensive, 35,000 won split between 2-4 people, but in true Korean style, the tab was paid by the elder, the office superintendent. The total had to be over 250,000 won with all the soju, soda and refills. Unlike previous experiences, it was completly acceptable at this dinner to not finish your soju, dump it out, or replace it with soda. Much more pleasant, but still fun! Also the first time I hadn't been the only girl!
Afterward Mr. Byeon said he wanted to show Jason and I a night view of Wonju from the mountainside. The mountainside is beutiful and covered with tons of small, chic resturants and coffee shops. We stopped at one and got gelato. (This was in exchange for Mr. Byeon preaching the gospel to us for over an hour. He is very enthusastic about Church and Jesus so we said we'd at least listen. He believes he is being told to preach to me, that he has a calling. Oh boy.) The view was beautiful.
The leaves are changing color and the air is getting cooler. Fall is here.
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