Seong Dong Chaddon Hakkyo

Classes

I realized that I keep posting about my weekend travels, but not showing anything about my schools here. I love my classes (almost always) and have been having a lot of fun figuring out new ways to keep them interested in speaking in class. This week I was teaching them about Halloween so we made monster masks, learned about haunted houses, and watched videos of Halloween songs on youtube... I even showed my 4th graders at English Town a scary story online, not sure they really understood it though. Mostly the kids just like learning about monsters and getting to trick-or-treat at the end of class. On normal weeks I try to think of games and activities that will go along with whatever they're learning in their other English classes. So far the hits have been chain stories, making up and drawing their own superheroes, and vocabulary battleship :)
This week was strange because my classes kept being moved around for some standardized testing that the teachers had forgotten they had to do- they have a LOT of standardized testing here... I think this is my third set or so in the two months I've been here. And today a number of the schools in our town are closed because of fears of H1N1- including mine. Hopefully I'll have classes back by Monday.

Chang Deok Gung Palace

Second trip to Seoul

Last weekend was my second trip to Seoul since arriving here in Korea. Dan and I caught an early bus up and met Tom and Bernard at Seoul Station early afternoon. There was a protest going on at the station that day- looked pretty peaceful to me, but they had police units out in full riot gear just in case :) The "police" looked about 18 years old, so we're thinking that they might have been military... all the boys here do a few years in the military after high school. We decided to head straight over to where the palaces are and took a tour of the second palace (there are 5 in Seoul) Chang Deok Gung palace. It was gorgeous! The largest remaining of all the palaces, it took about an hour to do the walking tour through the grounds. I love the old architectural styles here in Korea and all the lovely statues and painted details. It's the height of fall here as well, so the leaves changing in all the garden areas made it even more beautiful. I'll post a few pictures here, but there are lots more on my facebook page for anyone who wants to see. After the palace tour, we walked through Insadong, a popular neighborhood for tourists in Seoul that is full of cafes and little shopping areas as well as a number of galleries for local artists. We stopped into a couple of the galleries on our walk, sampled some traditional candy that they make from strings made of glutinous rice and honey with sugared nuts inside, and actually ate some of the boiled silkworm larvae that they sell in street carts throughout Korea. Yeah... can't say that the silkworms were my favorite, we definitely didn't finish what we were given, but really they weren't quite as bad as I was expecting either. After the silkworms we decided to stop at a little Indian cafe nearby where I had hot chai, the guys tried some fruit lassis and teas and we all shared one of the hookah pipes with cherry flavored tobacco. It was really quite good, had a very refreshing fruity flavor and made for a nice relaxing afternoon people watching from the cafe windows. Then we met up with Matt, one of Bernard's friends, and headed over to the Hongdae area near Hongik University where we had reservations at a guest house to stay for the night. Being near the university, Hongdae is famous for it's clubs and nightlife, but we actually had a pretty mellow evening having dinner at a nice little restaurant and then going to a couple of the quieter bars. It was Bernard's birthday this weekend which is why we'd all come to Seoul together. We got back to the guest house by midnight or so as we were all tired from our day of hiking around the city and had a good night in our tiny room full of bunk beds :) Sunday morning we had breakfast at the 3-story Dunkin Donuts there in Hongdae, then spent the rest of the morning shopping for warm clothes for the coming months. We ended up in Myeongdong, another shopping district, where we finally found some warm sweaters and shoes that would fit us (sizes here being awfully small) and had lunch at a nice little Vietnamese restaurant before heading back to our towns to get some sleep before our weeks classes started again. A very nice weekend and I was very very glad to have some warmer clothes this week. Looking forward to the packages from Mom with more sweaters and blankets!!! :D

Fireworks Festival in Pusan

Busy October!

It's been a couple weeks now since the conference at Gyeongju. The conference itself was quite nice... similar topics to what we discussed at orientation but it was new for our Korean co-teachers and teachers that have been here a little longer so it was nice to practice lesson planning and such all together. I think the highlight for most of us was really just being together again and having the chance to go out for the night with a large group of people who all understood what you were saying :) We headed back to Sangju right after the conference which was good since we were all so tired, but I wish I could have seen more of the Gyeongju area. The Silla Dynasty had their palace there and there are many cultural and historical sites in the area as a result. Perhaps I'll take a weekend and go back to see the temples and palace and all when I get a chance again. Back in Sangju we were all ready for a good night's sleep, but Dan and I decided to leave Saturday morning to head down to Pusan for their annual fireworks festival. We were able to get tickets on the KTX, but sadly for the slow portion of the track so I am still awaiting my first voyage on a bullet train here. It was around 3 when we arrived in Pusan, and we were able to meet up with some other friends that we'd met at orientation. Took a "30 minute" walk (in the Gilligan's Island sense... it actually took somewhere in the vicinity of 2 hours) to a park atop a mountain near one of their universities where we were able to find a seat to watch the fireworks display out over the ocean. Stopped along the way for sodas and chicken skewers from a street cart that were very good and arrived at our seats only about half an hour or so before the show began. Beautiful fireworks. I'll post some pics when I can, but my favorites were the ones that made shapes in the air... all colors of geometrical designs, pink hearts, and flowers :) After fireworks we were all starving, so we went to one of the restaurants where you can cook for yourself at the table and grilled thick cut bacon that you eat wrapped in lettuce with marinated onions, grilled cloves of garlic, and spicy chili paste. One of my favorite meals here in Korea! Then off for a couple long hours of Noryeabang (Korean karaoke) in which I sang a lot but managed to avoid ever once touching the microphone! (and so, a success in noryeabang terms!) Then headed to a bar for a "couple" drinks. I have learned now to distrust temporal estimations from our friends in Pusan! Our couple drinks turned into many hours of sitting in a bar (and dancing, watching movies, playing fooseball, and talking a lot) because it turns out that the subways stop running at midnight and it is cheaper here to drink all night (literally) in the bar than to take a taxi across the very large and spread out city to get home. Thus we stayed at the bar until 5:30 the next morning when the subways began running again at which point Dan and I decided to head back to our hometown instead of sleeping on someone's floor as we had originally planned. So, a whirlwind tour of Pusan I have to say- and a 24 hour voyage without sleep, showers, or even changing clothes while hiking around the city carrying large heavy backpacks! But a very fun weekend nonetheless. I don't have many pictures of the bar or karaoke because I was too tired to take them at that point, but I will post pictures of dinner and the fireworks when I can. Looking forward to another trip & maybe actually seeing their famous beaches next time! :D

pictures of Sangju

there are more pictures posted on facebook for anyone interested :)