Korean Halloween

Good evening to you all - it's Monday morning here, and I absolutely cannot beliveve it's already November 1st.

As I summed it up to my co-teacher, last week "every day Halloween." I taught a little bit about Halloween to every class last week, concluding with making each student pretend knock on my door and say trick or treat to get candy. (I asked them if they knew the three magic words to get candy on Halloween, and the majority of them guessed "give candy please!") Though most Koreans are aware of Halloween, they don't celebrate it or go trick or treating, so I taught a bit about the history and some key vocabulary terms (jack-o-lantern, haunted house, etc.) On Friday I busted out my awesome witch's hat that I picked up in Seoul to add to the festivities, but the students ended up wearing it more than I did during class. It was a fun week, but tiring as usual, so Friday night I enjoyed a relaxing evening 'coffee shop hopping' downtown - I ended up going to three different coffee shops to read my book (I just finished Born to Run - I recommend it) and write in my journal, simply because I was having so much fun and I wanted to try out some new coffee shops. The weather was brisk, and I went to some of the quieter streets (aka the non bar streets) in between my coffee shops and enjoyed walking around, window shopping, and having the majority of the sidewalk to myself.

Saturday morning I hit the gym, then around lunchtime, Halloween costume in tow, I headed downtown with my friend, where we split a delicious plate of pasta for lunch, and then headed to the orphanage for volunteering. It was one of the most fun orphanage sessions I had been to - one of the volunteers had organized a Halloween paper craft to make our own jack-o-lanterns, so we all had fun helping the girls make theirs (my table, however, ended up playing table dodgeball with our jack-o-lanterns...) I haven't written about the orphanage yet, have I? I'll have to post something soon. It's been a fun Saturday afternoon activity for me, and I am really enjoying getting to know the girls and the other volunteers.

After the orphanage I headed for the bus terminal, where I caught the next bus to the town of Mokpo, where the foreigner Halloween festivities were going to take place. I was staying with some friends of mine who joined us on Jeju Island, as well as stayed with me in Gwangju a few weeks back. When I got in they directed me to their apartment, where we got ready in our Halloween attire. I had a bit of a slapshot costume, but the actual title was "Migliore hip hop street dancer." Migliore is the name of a department store in downtown Gwangju, and right outside of it there is a small stage, where there are street dance hip hop perfomances every Sunday night. The performers are mostly teenagers, and they and their crews take turns showing off their stuff. They are quite impressive dancers! The usual attire is a mixture of 'street clothes,' which I chose to represent with black Spandex leggings with gym shorts over them, tennies, a brightly colored t-shirt, and a track jacket, topped off with a backwards baseball cap. I decided to emphasize being comfortable this Halloween...making me a winner even though no one really knew what I was.

After getting ready our small group of four headed over to another friend's apartment where people were gathering before heading to the bar. Groups of people kept showing up, and I was amazed at some of the extremely creative costumes, such as "bad yearbook photo," "leaf-blower," and "Korean farmer."

Around 10 we headed to the bar, and walked into one of the most fun Halloween parties I had ever been to. The entire event

was actually a benefit for the Mokpo orphanage, and the volunteers pulled it off extremely well. The decorations were excellent, the venue was large enough to host all of us foreigners, and the fundraising was done by selling delicious baked goods, hosting a pumpkin carving contest, and entering the costume contest. (Note to all of you scheming entrepreneurs: if you're going to have a bake sale, have it at a bar. It was pretty much the best thing ever.) It was a fun night of dancing, chatting, looking ridiculous, and enjoying our foreign holiday. If we couldn't be at home for Halloween, we certainly brought Halloween to Korea. The winner of the costume contest was "K-Pop" - can you see her? (K-Pop stands for Korean pop music - lot of boy bands and girl bands - every single one of my middle schoolers knows the hit new K-Pop songs, along with their music video dances.)

The next morning my gracious hosts fed me breakfast, and then I was privileged enough to receive a guided tour around their part of Mokpo. It was a beautiful day out, so we went hiking for about an hour or two one of Mokpo's many peaks, and were rewarded at the summit by beautiful views. Mokpo is a coastal city on a peninsula in the West Sea, and it is surrounded by tiny islands, so everywhere you turned you would see city, then ocean, then islands (the islands were so close, however, that it didn't even seem like the ocean!) Because of it's location, Mokpo has been a key player in Korea's history; mostly by fending off foreign invaders. It was a great hike, followed by a walk through the 'old downtown,' which had a lot of cute little shops and restaurants.

We planned to go to the 'new downtown' area after lunch, but decided we would save it for another day, as I still had to get back to Gwangju, and we all had things we wanted to get done for the weekend. I'm sure I will be in Mokpo many more times, especially during the summer months when it is easy to hop on a ferry and head to some of the nearby islands for exploring. But, as always, the weekends have to come to an end. Back to Gwangju and a new week at school.

With that, I have to get some lesson plans into gear here, so I will let you go. I hope you all enjoyed a fun Halloween weekend, and now I wish you all a Happy November! Take care, shoot me an e-mail if you feel like procrastinating on something this week :) Bye!

School Festival

Hello all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! My weekend turned out much differently than expected, but in a good way.

First of all, I ended up not going to 'history town,' because when I went up to the counter to buy my ticket, I was informed that the morning bus tickets were all sold out. Considering it is a 3 hour bus ride, I decided not to take the afternoon bus, as that would give me less than 24 hours to sightsee. I was disappointed, but as my mother said, the city has been there for over 1000 years; it'll probably still hang on for a few more months or so until I get to visit. How is it that moms always know everything?

So, I decided to view my new homebound weekend as a blessing in disguise, as I had plenty of things I wanted to get done around my apartment. I also figured that now I would have more time to read up on the history and learn more about the place before I visit. So, undeterred by my sudden change of plans, I began enjoying my weekend at home right there in the bus terminal before heading back to my apartment to do some cleaning and some errands. I ended up getting quite a bit of cleaning, organizing, and reading done, and then I met some friends downtown for dinner, viewing a photography exhibition by one of the area teachers, followed by some drinks (yes Will, you and your group get an honorable mention as a nice unexpected surprise for being in town) My Sunday was spent sleeping in, baking cookies for my teachers and book club ladies, (I am the proud new owner of an oven in my apartment as of last Wednesday) getting together with one of my friends, stocking up on Halloween candy for the kids this week, and then doing some more organizing around here. It ended up to be an enjoyable and productive weekend. However, you probably don't want to read about how I spent my weekend at home. Lucky for you, I have tons to tell you about how I spent my past Friday at school during our school festival instead. Here we go:

The school festival celebrates the end of the school year, as Korea's school year actually begins in March. The festival comprised of 'sports day' in the morning (comparable to our track and field days) and performances in the afternoon (very similar to our school talent shows.) Of course, this meant no teaching for me, so I showed up on Friday in jeans and my tennies, ready to enjoy a day of fun.

At 9:00 AM the opening ceremony began, with a speech from the principal (sorry, I have no idea what she said,) the student captain address to the principal and to the students, the singing of the Korean national anthem, and finally ended with a student wide stretching session. Each grade was divided in half to collectively form the schoolwide blue and the white teams, and each event contributed to the team scores. The events included: 100m dash, 4 x 100m relay, the 3 legged race, (teachers participated in this one - my third grader and I were sadly beaten by the science teacher and one of her students, but we were good sports about it ) soccer, kickball, baseball, ssireum, (a traditional Korean wrestling sport) badminton, a sport similar to hackeysack, a sport similar to dodgeball, team jump rope, and tug of war. After everybody watched the track races, each grade and gender split off into their respective sports, so many of them were going on simultaneously. When one group was finished, they would swap events.

It was a beautiful sunny day out, the mountains provided a gorgeous backdrop, and I can't tell you how much fun I had wandering around the school grounds, watching the kids I have gotten to know over the past two months enjoying themselves. I was amazed at some of their athletic talents, and it was so neat to see them outside of the English classroom. In between events I would sit under the shaded benches and chat with the teachers (well, the English speaking ones) or students who were waiting for the next event. My favorite event to watch was soccer (mostly because I understood the rules) but they were all fun. When the kids weren't participating in an event, they became devoted team cheerers, usually by yelling and banging on drums and cowbells with sticks (you can imagine how much they enjoyed that.)

After a delicious lunch of bibimbap (a spicy rice/veggie dish - one of my favorite Korean foods) it was time for the afternoon session to begin. Prior to the performances, I walked through the school hallway and enjoyed looking at all of the student artwork and finished projects on display - I was amazed at their talent.

The performances took place in the school gym, where there were chairs set up for parents, refreshments, and a decorated stage. Each homeroom class was responsible for a number, and then I believe it was open to any other students who wished to participate. There were about twenty acts in all, with a variety of songs, dances, skits, and ensembles. Most of the students went all out for their costumes on some of the pieces, ranging from traditional Korean dress to James Bond attire (complete with toy guns.) I don't think I stopped smiling the whole afternoon - it was so much fun to watch them perform. The best part was seeing some of the shy kids or lower level English kids perform, as I got a chance to see them in a different light. When one of the quiet kids busted out a breakdance in the middle of his class performance I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped open at that. They were incredibly entertaining, and I think the best part was just to see how much fun they were having. I wish I could show you all of the pictures, but here are some of my favorites: (the video is of one of the first grade (again, equivalent to seventh grade) class performance - how cute is that?)

The day ended with a last minute (at least, they told me about it at the last minute) teacher dinner at a raw seafood restaurant. Yes, I said raw seafood. Some of it was cooked, but most of it was au natural - we started off the night with a plate of snails, (those were boiled, don't worry) mussel soup, and raw eel as an appetizer, followed by raw fish slices (like sashimi), some other fish dishes, seasoned jellyfish, and some vegetable dishes.

Are you ready for the highlight of the meal? Nothing prepared me for what came next: a plate of fresh, raw octopus tentacles - still wiggling. It's considered a delicacy over here to have them that fresh and, well, alive. Again, I am usually pretty adventurous when it comes to food, but even I had to take about five minutes to muster up the courage to take a bite - I let them settle down a bit on the plate first. I picked the smallest one, dipped it in some sort of soy sauce, and took the plunge. Honestly, it really wasn't that bad - I've definitely had worse. I didn't try it again though, once was enough. I ended up eating about an aquarium's worth of seafood that night, for after the octopus there were still more dishes to come, including more fish, shrimp, crab, and finally, fish soup. Good thing I really like seafood.

Despite some of the culinary challenges at dinner, as I reflected upon the day later that evening, I realized how much I enjoyed spending the day with the kids. I now understand why some people say teaching is one of the most rewarding jobs one can ever have - I feel so lucky just being able to play a small role in these kids' lives. In just two short months I feel incredibly attached to the kids, and I look forward to every class to see what they are going to surprise me with next. I've learned that teaching is about so much more than lesson plans and lectures and worksheets - it is about being a role model and setting a good example, shining some light into their day that they otherwise may not have, and most importantly, providing them with support and encouragement. I realized that my time spent with the kids has been the best part of my experience here in Korea, and I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of their lives.

With that, I am back at my desk now, bright and early on Monday morning, ready to begin my last week of teaching in October. I can hardly believe it's Halloween this weekend - I am well armed with candy, a pumpkin trick or treat bowl, and my witch's hat, which I will unveil on Friday. I'm looking forward to a good week - I hope you all are as well. 

5 ways you know you are an English teacher in Korea

Hi there,

 I am going out of town this weekend to historic Gyeongju, a city near the east coast that was the capital of Korea during the medieval era, before it moved to Seoul. It is supposed to be a beautiful city full of temples and monuments, and I am planning on leaving Saturday morning, reading books the entire bus ride, then exploring on my own and staying in a well-known backpacker hostel for the night. It will be a nice, much needed getaway on my own.

I just wanted to comment on my week here a little bit, as some of the things I used to find hilarious are becoming more everyday for me. I wanted to preserve their humor by sharing them with you. Without further ado, here are the top five ways you will know you are a native English teacher in Korea.

1. You get stared at. All the time.

2. You bow about eight million times a day in the school, to any teachers or students you pass in the hallway. The students will stop midrun to bow to you, so you have to have quick reflexes and bow back (not lower than they did, however, because you have a higher position of authority than they do) before they take off running again. You get used to it.

3. You wear sandals and socks at school. I know I keep mentioning this but it's just so funny to me. I am sporting a newly purchased pair of bright blue sandals (they look like the Adidas striped ones, not with thong straps but with open toes so that you can wear them comfortably with socks.) The Korean female teachers have fancy heeled slip on sandals (always heels) but I comfortably flip flop my way around the school - as I am in no need of extra height - especially amused if I have a nice outfit on that clashes with my bright blue sandals.

4. You brush your teeth at school. The teacher's bathroom has a special cupboard next to the sink to hold your own personal toothbrush and toothpaste - the kids just use the sinks that line the hallway. There is always a nice minty fresh aroma floating around just after lunch when everyone is taking care of their oral hygiene.

5. You bravely face - with all eyes watching you and your chopsticks skills...the school cafeteria. Nearly every lunch here would send chills through the spines of some people I know who are either picky eaters, hate seafood, and get grossed out easily. Allow me to share some of the things these people (you know who you are) might be shocked at: A. eating fish and having to pick out all of the bones with your chopsticks - I am working on mastering removing the spines and therefore the rib bones with my chopsticks before I dig in. B. eating shellfish soup...with the shells still in the soup. With a combination of your chopsticks and spoon you have to hold the shell down while you remove the meat from the shells. C. picking the meat off the bones in your soup, again with extremely skillful chopsticks/spoon coordination. D. eating squid in your soup, your vegetable dish, and occasionally as the main dish - lots of exercise for the jaw. E. eating lots and lots of tofu. And finally - just in case you haven't thrown up yet - F. eating eel soup...the eels are blended in the food processor and mixed in with the soup broth. Welcome to the Korean school cafeteria.

Luckily, I am a fairly adventerous eater, and actually do enjoy seafood, so I can honestly say there hasn't been a meal that I haven't been brave enough to eat, and usually I end up liking it. (I've learned to ask about the food after I finish it, however, just in case...the eel soup really threw me for a loop when I questioned it before trying it.) There is always rice and some sort of vegetable and fruit accompaniment, however, so that saves me from the possibility of starvation. Needless to say, eating in the school cafeteria is quite the adventure!

I hope that's been an educational insight for you about my life as a teacher here in South Korea. Again, every day is a new adventure, and though some things were incredibly strange to me at first, I am getting used to most of them, and am enjoying myself here more than ever. Today is our school festival, where the students display artwork and projects, put on performances, and compete in sports throughout the day. I'm excited to watch and see my students' talents that I don't get to see in the English classroom. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Seoul

Hello! It's bright and early Monday morning - I feel like the weekend ended way too soon. But it was great - my first of many trips to Seoul, the capital city of South Korea.

Sara and I left on Friday evening after school from the Gwangju train station. We splurged a bit and took the KTX express train, as we did not want to drop in on our hosts any later than we had to. The only available train to Seoul left at 7:40 PM, however, so we got into the city around 10:45 and after a series of roundabout subway transfers we made it to our final destination around 11:45. Our final destination was the International Lutheran Church, le

d by Pastor Steve Kosberg. Their house is directly behind and above the church building, as you can see on the right. The Kosbergs are from Mankato, my hometown, and though I didn't know Pastor Steve personally while I was in Mankato, (he was at a different Lutheran church in town than the one I attended, then when my mom and brother switched to his church I was out of state for college) I had been to a Christmas service of his and knew his name. When some of my Mankato friends found out I was headed to South Korea, I was told many times that I should try to get into contact with him, as he had moved to Seoul a little over a year ago to become the head of the ILC. Long story short, my mom got his phone number and then his e-mail address from a connection of hers in Rochester, and when I arrived in Korea two months ago I sent him an e-mail saying I'd love to get together sometime. His reply? He said "Sure, we'd love to have you come visit! In fact, we won't take no for an answer. Oh, and we have an extra guest room so bring a friend. So when are you coming?" His kindness and generosity was overwhelming, and when Sara and I arrived late Friday night he met us at the subway station, walked us to his house, and said that the only rule he and Mary had is for us to make ourselves at home. Done.

Their home reminded us of a cozy lakeside cabin with two stories, a full living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. It was well furnished and felt like it could have been anywhere in the midwest. The house and church had been built in the 1960s or 1970s, I believe, for the nearby American military base. If you are curious to learn more about the church and its history, the link is http://www.ilcseoul.net/.

Our bed was incredibly comfortable, and we were excited at the thought of being able to sleep in a bit on Saturday morning. Our plan for the weekend was simply to get an introduction to Seoul, since we knew we would be back more than once during our time here in Korea. We didn't really have a main objective, other than seeking out the elusive Caribou Coffee we had heard about during our Jeju vacation. Why there were four Caribou Coffee shops in Korea I have no idea, but we were thrilled about them.

However, due to our newly acquired internal teacher clocks, we popped awake around 8 AM, got ourselves ready, and enjoyed a hearty breakfast of peanut butter toast, oatmeal, bananas, and yogurt, all provided by Steve and Mary. To top it off, it was accompanied by classic Folgers drip coffee from a REAL coffeemaker - we were in heaven. We had a leisurely morning chatting with and getting to know Mary, (we hadn't met her the night before) who gave us some recommendations on things to do for the day. On our list was a flea market, a possible short mountain hike, and Itaewon, the famed 'foreigner district' of Seoul.

Around 10 we set off on bus 402 - Mary was kind enough to lead us to the market and show us the ropes. She led us there, orientated us a bit, gave us some more directions to make sure we were lost-proof (map, phone numbers, church card in Korean so that we could show a taxi driver if need be, etc) and then sent us off to explore the market. We had fun wandering the stalls, filled with street food vendors, clothes, shoes, anything you can imagine. We had some fun at the Halloween booth, and picked up some props for the kids next week, as our city doesn't really carry any Halloween merchandise. Korea doesn't celebrate Halloween, but most of the students are aware of it due to the large influx of English teachers, so we figured we could make it fun with some candy and costumes.

After the market we hopped back on the bus to head to City Hall area, but we ended up getting off a stop early at King Sejong Boulevard. King Sejong was an important king during the Joseon Dynasty, (1300 something until the Japanese takeover of 1910) responsible for many civil reforms as well as the head honcho of developing the written Korean alphabet, Hanguel. Due to his belief that education will help the country grow stronger, many illiterate peasants and civilians became literate after the introduction of Hanguel (prior to the alphabet all of their formal documents were written in Chinese); and the Korean drive for education has remained important ever since. Having a written langauge also helped unify Korea as a country when they faced adversity from the Chinese and Japanese. Needless to say, King Sejong is kind of a big deal in Korean history - no wonder he gets his own boulevard, performing arts center, and statue right smack dab in the middle of the city. Here we are with Sejong himself, with the Gyeongbokgung palace (also a big deal in Korean history) right behind him.

After our photo shoot with Sejong (maybe we can call him Sej for short?) we headed towards the palace. There is a distinctive difference between our conception of a palace and Korea's palaces. When we think palace we think of a huge, fancy, ornate building with tons of rooms and halls, but in Korea, a palace is actually more of a huge complex of smaller temple-style buildings, with a throne room temple, a banquet room temple, living quarter temples, etc, all spread out over the walled palace grounds. The picture on the left is of the temple style building dedicated to the banquet hall, and it is on 48 raised pillars in the middle of a pond (I apologize for the uneven photography - not our fault!) It was quite impressive, and it was really neat to see how the old palace (which was actually burned down by the Japanese in the 16th century, then rebuilt during the late 19th century) sits right in front of huge modern skyscrapers, (you can see the contrast in the picture on the right) alternating old and new Korea. The palace complex was purposely built with the Chinese feng shui principles of balance, with mountains surrounding three of its sides for protection, among other features of its planning. I could spit out a lot more history for you, but I'll spare you and suggest you check it out on Wikipedia instead. We spent a good hour or so walking around the enormous palace grounds, taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. We even caught the changing of the guards ceremony, which involved lots of guards dressed in brightly colored traditional Korean outfits, flags, some instruments, and drums (what more could you ask for in a ceremony?)

After the palace grounds we wandered around the Jogyesa temple, the most important temple and order in Korean Buddhism, then went to the main city center and Seoul Plaza - full of huge skyscrapers and impressive street views. After a late lunch we subwayed (yes I just made that a verb) over to Itaewon, the foreigner district. Due to the nearby American army base, Itaewon is basically a shopping street with signs in English that I could actually read, (huge shock!) tons of ethnic food restauraunts, and, as luck would have it, an international parade that we happened to stumble upon (pictured.) Our highlights of Itaewon were the foreign food grocery store (it was like Christmas to see familiar food items like oatmeal, Skippy peanut butter, and cake mix) and the new/used English bookstore called What the Book. Not as good as Barnes and Nobles, of course, but the next best thing. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering through stacks of English books! After our purchases, we treated ourselves to a drink at Gecko's Seoul (remember Gecko's on Jeju Island? We found the original Gecko's right on the main street of Itaewon. Win.) Then Mary came and met us where we were treated to a delicious Thai dinner. Mary wanted to meet us there so that she could return home and we could go out on the town after dinner if we felt like it, but Sara and I decided that between choosing to go out and explore the Seoul nightlife or spend the night relaxing in a comfy home, the home won, as it was such a luxury to us.

So, we all headed back to their little home and met Steve, who had been away all day at a church event, then spent a quiet night hanging out in their living room. We had fun exchanging Mankato stories (poor Sara had to settle for watching CNN while we chatted) and trying to figure out who we had in common. To all of my Peterson relatives, you'll be thrilled to find out that Steve spent some of his youth living in Deer Creek - I thought it was funny that he and his friends used to 'go to Henning for fun.' He didn't know any Petersons but he knew the name Amundson...I told him I'd spent nearly every summer of my life in Henning at one point or another, and perhaps my relatives had crossed paths with him at one point.

The next morning we slept in again, then repeated our Saturday morning of breakfast, coffee, and lounging. Steve had two services on Sundays, so we opted to go to the later service at 11:00. It was wonderful to hear an English church service again, and after the service we met some of the Korean congregation (fluent English speakers) and other expats living in Korea due to the military, teaching, or other jobs. After church it was time for Caribou! Sara and I treated Steve and Mary to thank them for their hospitality, and we all enjoyed our Caribou coffees
 and muffins, relishing in the fact that no matter where in the world you were, Caribou would always taste the same. You can take the Minnesotan out of Minnesota, but you can't take the affinity for Caribou Coffee out of the Minnesotan. After Caribou it was time for our departure, so Sara and I headed to the train station, where we caught the KTX back to Gwangju.

Funny enough, even though we were in one of the biggest cities in the world, we actually had a pretty relaxing weekend, which was exactly what we needed. We got a great introduction to Seoul and enjoyed spending time with our fantastic hosts and their 'comfy house.' We are looking forward to returning to Seoul sometime in the near future - Steve and Mary have already invited us up for Christmas. We felt so blessed to stay with them this past weekend, and now, thanks to a couple of e-mails and the willingness of Mankato family and friends to put me in touch with Steve, Sara and I know we always have a welcome place to stay in the heart of Seoul, where a few chocolate chip cookies and brewed coffee will always be waiting for us. And of course, to top of our 'home away from home,' there's always Caribou. Have a great week everyone!

Fall, Festivals, and Fun

Hola everyone,

I hope you are having a great end of your weekend! My past week was so busy it blurred right into the weekend, which turned out to be very busy but very fun. It seemed like there was a Gwangju magnet this weekend, as I ended up having six different people come visit and stay the night on my apartment floor between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. 

For me, the weekend started on Wednesday night, when I ventured downtown for my weekly book club meeting. As I got off my usual bus stop and walked closer, I realized that the main street of downtown was blocked off to traffic, and in its place were three different stages, a kid carnival, and tons of vendors lined up along the sides of the street. I realized that the annual city festival had begun the night before, not on Friday like I'd thought it would start. The festival was called the 7th annual 7080 Chungjang Recollection Festival. The '7080 movement' is the name for Korea's unofficial hippie movement, much like our 1960s and 1970s. The festival uses the name 7080, but it actually encompassed many more aspects of 'recollection,' as it featured many traditional dances alongside international and modern performances. One way they worked the theme into it was by having a street filled with food vendors who sold their food from little stands that were made to look like old fashioned streetcarts and wooden restaurants, lined with black and white pictures of what Gwangju's downtown used to look like. I have a really neat brochure that explains a lot more about the festival...but I'm afraid it's all in Korean, as is their website, so I don't have much more to offer you about the festival. Either way, it was a great excuse for a party and a fun time was had by all. There were tons of performances (dance teams, magicians, some game shows that we couldn't understand but they looked fun anyways, singers, traditional dancers, and comedians), tons of street vendors, and tons of people enjoying themselves.

So, to get back to my Wednesday night, it turned out I had come for the best performance night of the week, as there were some pretty big name K-Pop stars who had come down from Seoul to put on a show. They performed at the impressive outdoor concert stage that took up the entire width of the street. The street was packed when we met at our usual meeting point for book club (we are reading "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave, if any of you are wondering,) and by the time our meeting was over, the concert was going in full swing. I hung around for a while to watch, enjoying the fact that my height enabled me to have a great viewing point from the side of one of the streets. I'm afraid I didn't know any of the songs or artists, but they were fun to watch. One of the guys appeared to be a major heartthrob, based on my observation of all of the screaming girls (and guys?)

On Thursday night two of my friends from Mokpo (about an hour and a half away) had to be in Gwangju bright and early Friday morning to leave for a weekend camp, so they asked if they could come up on Thursday and stay the night. I picked them up at the bus station after school (after scrubbing my floor, as they would be staying the night on the floor mats and covers that came with my apartment,) and then we decided to head straight for downtown. They had heard of a fantastic Nepalese restaurant in Gwangju called First Nepal - very popular with foreigners - that they wanted to try out, so we enjoyed a delicious meal while catching up on our respective teaching jobs. After dinner we walked around to look at all the festivities before heading back for bed (I still had to go to work the next day even though it felt like a weekend.)

Friday at work passed by quickly - I taught three classes in the morning and then two in the afternoon. My students have their midterm exam on Tuesday, so my job was to make sure they had completed all of the dialogue practice covered in the preceding and current chapters. I ended up being more productive than I thought I would be on Friday and got ahead in my lesson planning - always a great feeling. Friday after school was a repeat of Thursday: I met two different friends who teach in Mokpo at the train station, from where we headed straight downtown to go eat at...guesses? First Nepal, of course. It seems to be a rite of passage for all southern South Korea foreign residents to eat at First Nepal when they are in Gwangju - I didn't complain. There were no major concerts or performances like Wednesday night, but the festival was still going full swing - a fun atmosphere. Even though we didn't have to wake up too early the next day, we ended up not staying out that late - it had been a long week for everyone.

Saturday was a day of great coordination and organization, which ended up going smoothly due to the use of our brand new domestic cell phones. First, my friend Sara was coming up from Janghueng in the morning, so she showed up near my house, dropped her stuff off, and then we went to the nearby coffee shop to properly caffienate and to meet Sokhom (my friend who teaches in a school near mine - we live about five minutes away from each other.) The five of us then jumped into a cab and headed across town to check out the annual GIC (Gwangju International Center) Food Festival. There were about 20 different countries represented, and we drooled all over (not literally, don't worry) as we scoped out our options, having to choose among Greek, Indonesian, North American (mac and cheese was one of the items on the menu there) Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Nepalese, Nigerian, Mexican, Turkish, Russian, and Vietnamese. I tried a Greek salad, a Nigerian lentil dish, a bite of Mexican taco, and an Indonesian vegetable salad with delicious peanut sauce. Yum. We sat in the sunshine and enjoyed the international singing and dancing for a bit until it was time to move on. Here's where our coordination came into play: we all took the subway from the Food Festival to the downtown Festival area before splitting off. Lisa and Chad (the couple from Mokpo) were planning to hike the nearby mountain in Gwangju, so I sent them on their way to find the correct bus to take them to the start point. Sara was planning to walk and shop around downtown for a bit, where she was going to meet up with our friend Jason, who was coming up from Mokpo that afternoon. Meanwhile, Sokhom and I headed to SungBin Girls Orphanage, where I have been doing volunteer work on Saturday afternoons. Sokhom decided to check it out and see if she would like doing it as well. We ended up having a ton of fun at the orphanage, (I will post a seperate entry one of these weeks about the volunteering) as it was mural painting day. The girls and volunteers all pitched in and got dirty as we painted one entire side of the playroom with bright cheery colors. The wall was based off of Dr. Seuss' book "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" and though we had to leave a little before it was completely finished, it ended up looking fantastic.

The final phase in our operation on Saturday was to all reconvene for dinner, so Sokhom and I met up with Sara and Jason after the orphanage, and about an hour later Lisa and Chad showed up. Sokhom had to leave to meet some other friends, but then we picked up two of Sara's friends from the area she teaches in, so by the time we made it to Quirinale, a delicious Western-style restaurant, we had a group of (how many people? Were you paying attention? Two plus two plus two minus one plus two) seven people, with plans to meet up with many more teachers later in the evening. Dinner was delicious, and afterwards we did a bit of bar hopping, as there are some really fun 'foreigner bars' in Gwangju. We also checked out more of the performances that were going on due to the festivals. We all made it back safe and sound, and hit the sack (well, they hit the floor) after a fun day and night of festivities.

The next morning we slept in and decided nothing sounded better than a big, hearty breakfast. We were in luck, as there is a restaurant in my city that serves all day English breakfast, mostly for all of the hung over foreigners. The restaurant is run by the same people who own the Underground Grocers, a small little grocery store that imports Western and foreign foods, such as Kraft Mac and Cheese, pasta and pasta sauce, real cheese, Western cereals, snacks, and baking supplies, among others. We headed back downtown to check out the breakfast, (they served real coffee out of a coffeepot, which is actually a luxury in Korea) and we all ended up choosing the Huevos Rancheros instead of the English breakfast. The Huevos pretty much made my day - one of the best Western meals I have had in Korea. I forgot how much I missed Mexican food! After breakfast we decided it was time to part, so we all trooped onto the correct bus to get to the city bus terminal, where we went our separate ways.

It was definitely a busy, but very fun, fast paced weekend - we (the five of us who stayed at my apartment) hadn't all seen each other since our Jeju trip, so it was fun to reunite and catch up on our Korea lives. Our next planned reunion is for Mokpo in three weeks. Next weekend Sara and I are headed to Seoul on Friday evening - it is coming up fast. I remember when we planned it, three weeks seemed like so far away. The month is flying by. 

Time to get started on my new work week - I hope you all had a great fall weekend and I hope your week gets off to a great start! Bye for now!

Field Trip

Good morning everyone! It's a rainy. cloudy Sunday morning here, and I have no plans for today. As I have had many near-wipeouts trying to walk around in the rain with my umbrella and Old Navy flip flops (why would I wear socks and shoes in the rain?) on certain slippery surfaces that always seem to attract my feet, I think I'm going to play it safe today and have a cozy day in my apartment`.

Anyway, for this week's post I wanted to write about the fun I had on Thursday when we took an all-school field trip. The trip was to Suncheon, a city about an hour away from Gwangju, to go to what my co-teacher called a 'job fair.' I thought this was pretty ambitious for middle schoolers to attend, but then I realized when I arrived that it was more of an expo for all of the vocational high schools in the region to show off their stuff - one was a cooking school, one was a technology school, an art school, etc.

So, around 9:00 that morning we all piled into four coach buses (fun fact: my bus was the fourth one, but many Korean have a superstition about the number four, much like we do about the number 13, so instead of riding on "Bus 4", I actually rode on "Bus F.") Makes sense, right? Our hour long trip was filled with beautiful scenery - the same rolling green mountains (the Koreans call them mountains, but compared to the Rockies 'mountains' doesn't really cut it. I think they are best compared to the Appalachians - green, low, and rounded.) But mountain sounds cooler and more impressive, so we'll just say they are mountains since the Koreans say they are mountains. Enough on that.

Another feature of our hour long bus ride was: K-Pop. The bus driver had some handy K-Pop music video filled DVDs, which did the trick of entertaining middle schoolers for the entire ride, and I'm sure won the bus driver some popularity points. On the way there, we watched the girl K-Pop bands, on the way back we watched the boy K-Pop bands. I'll let you guess which ride had more screamers. I'm kind of a pop song person myself, so I actually enjoyed watching them and learning about who was in what band. Some of the songs I had heard on the radio (or cell phone ringtones) so it was good to put a song with a face, if you will.

We arrived in sunny Suncheon around 10, and then we had two hours to wander around, look at the different displays, and participate in some of the hands-on activities the high schoolers had for everyone. The teachers and students wanted me to try everything, so as to immerse me in the full job-fair-slash-vo-tech-school experience I guess, so I diligently got to work sponge painting my own umbrella at the art school booth, decorating a mini-cake at the bakery school booth (which I got to take home afterwards), mixing together essential oils to make my own perfume (at the perfume school booth?), and finally relaxing and enjoying a non-alcoholic cocktail with the other teachers at the bartending school booth. I was amazed at some of the displays the schools put on, and I can see it being a good idea for middle schoolers to attend and start thinking about their interests. I teach in the southernmost province, which is still pretty rural for Korea standards, and for many students a vocational school is more of a likely option than college, as it is a competitive and grueling process to get to, and because in Korea the three grades of standard public high school is actually not mandatory to attend. Most students do move on to some sort of high school, however, but the option to not continue is still there.

After a couple of hours of participation, it was time for lunch. When I was first told about the field trip, I was just told that it was a 'school picnic,' and sure enough, it lived up to its name. The kids had all brought their lunches from home, but the teachers

had a good, old fashioned picnic on a tarp on the parking lot with food that had been ordered in. We removed our shoes outside of the tarp, sat down cross legged, and enjoyed our feast. We had quite the assortment - vegetables, seafood (yes, that thing at the bottom of the box in the picture is a whole fish, waiting for my chopsticks to tear it apart), rice, soup, and dried seaweed. Better than it sounds, people. When we were finished eating we waited for the bus drivers to finish, and I enjoyed watching the students feed the teachers some of their leftovers. They are very communal eaters in South Korea, as evidenced by the rate kids were picking up some of their food and popping it in their teacher's mouths with their chopsticks. I was fed kimchi kimbap (kim-seaweed, bap-rice) by one of my girls, which looks like a sushi roll, but is actually kimchi and vegetables in the middle surrounded by rice, which is then wrapped in seaweed. Once again, better than it sounds. To top it off, it was a bright sunny beautiful fall day, perfect weather for a picnic. I enjoyed chatting (well, half-chatting) with my students outside of the classroom as well. They were shy at taking pictures for me (see the girl on the far right turning her head?) so I didn't take too many posed shots.

After our picnic, we piled back onto our buses (Bus 1,2,3, and F, remember) and headed to a little village about a half hour away called Koksong. The area we went to is in a beautiful river valley, and the park is called the Koksong Train Village. Apparently the railroad along the river used to be a very necessary and important means of transportation (when the Japanese invaded in the early 1900s they came up the river, which ends in the South Sea, and then took over the rail lines to continue their invasion.) The park is now a preserved folk village, with traditional style Korean homes, little gardens around the train tracks, flower fields, and a fountain. We had about an hour to wander around the park, so the kids took off for the fountain while the teachers and I (I suppose I am a teach

er, as well, aren't I?) walked around, enjoying the scenery and taking pictures. The picture on the left is of the secretary, me, and my younger co-teacher, and the lovely ladies in the picture on the right are (L-R) me, my co-teacher, the secretary, the math teacher, the vice principal, and the (oops, I thought I knew, but I forgot what she teaches) teacher.

The fountain that you see is one that spits up from the ground - all of sudden it would stop and look like a flat place to walk - a feature which some of my more rambunctious students decided to start a game with, to see who could run across the fountain square before the fountain started back up without getting sprayed. Needless to say, this resulted in some very wet middle schoolers. There was a radio playing K-Pop somewhere, so the wet middle schoolers turned into dancing wet middle schoolers - it was quite the show. The sun was shining, K-Pop was blaring, and everyone was having a great time - wouldn't you?

We topped off the end of the field trip with a train ride on one of the old railways - it is only used for touristic purposes now, but we got some great views of the river valley. It was the perfect end to a fun day - Korean school field trips get

an A. That's all for today - I have to get back to my to do list - I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend and a great week!