Way-gook-in' it up in Korea!: Surprise hiking with the teachers!

So today our school had shortened classes in the morning and no afternoon classes to celebrate the SAT being done. No complaints here!! I was told Wednesday that Friday there would be a gathering and we'd go to Suncheon Bay for a boat ride (I did this my first week with my host family -- so the pictures may look familiar). Well, today I find out we are making the climb up to the observation deck again. It's not a big hike, but I would have worn different clothes and brought my hiking shoes.

Well, after lunch today I went with my co-teacher Mr. Kim to a flower field --- it reminded me of the poppy scene from the Wizard of Oz. I guess Suncheon city prides itself on being environmental, so the city planted this huge field of various kinds of chrysanthemums (sp?). Well, it was HUGE! And gorgeous and smelled amazing. After trotting around here and posing in various pictures, we headed off to the Bay area. Here we met up with many more teachers and were bombarded with all sorts of snack foods -- beer, almonds, chocolate, and mountains of clementines (seriously, I had 4 forced upon me). After lots of confusion and doing about 100 head counts, we got in line to take the little boats out into the bay (again, I had already done this with my host fam). This time it was close to sunset and was gorgeous! The bay looks way different now in the Fall than it did last Summer. Everything was so green in August, and now it is brown, but it still looks beautiful. Then I hiked up to the observation deck with about 5 other teachers. I guess most of the teachers skipped the hike up since we were late getting on the boats. This meant that those of us who did the hike were late to dinner! Oh well, the hike was totally worth it and gorgeous. And it seemed much easier than the first time I did it (granted, it's a short and easy hike, after all). For dinner we had a choice of duck soup or fish soup. Of course I was given both to try. I was pretty stuffed from the ddeok (rice cakes) we had at school today, the 4 clementines, almonds, etc. I did eat some, though, but not enough to satisfy the other teachers. Mrs. Song whisked me away around 6pm, and I didn't complain because I was feeling pretty pooped and my legs were tired from hiking two days in a row.

I came home and changed into sweats, ate a Snickers and watched the latest Grey's episode. What a night! I could go to bed RIGHT NOW (it's 8:30) but I'm staying up to talk to my mom tonight and I should probably do some grad school app work... ugh.

I guess tomorrow afternoon we're heading off to spend the night at my host mom's mom's house. Should be interesting, as usual!

Enjoy the pics below!

Hiking Jirisan with Anne yesterday: