Way-gook-in' it up in Korea!: Hello Spring!

This last weekend was a 3 day weekend for me. For some reason, unknown to me as well as my co-teacher, we didn't have school on Monday. So, Saturday morning I set out for Jeong-up, in the province north of mine. Jeong-up is my host father's home town, so unfortunately he set it up so that I should go visit his mom's restaurant there ---- that serves blow fish. (This is where I spent the first part of Chuseok). He asked me if I would like to go there, and I said "maybe". Then the next morning at breakfast, he asked exactly when in the weekend I'd be going. IDK? lol.

Anyway, Saturday morning I got up early and surprised my host family by doing so, and headed out before any of them to catch the 7:30 bus to Gwangju, where I met up with Anne and then we just barely made the 8:55 bus up to Jeong-up. We both got to the bus terminal about 5 minutes before the bus left, rushed to get our tickets, and hopped on the bus. We didnt' even realize it when we pulled into the Jeong-up bus terminal -- this town is about the same size as Gwangyang, but feels smaller. We took a taxi to Shelby's apartment, met her host "mother" who is very young and saw her apartment. After dropping off our bags and drinking tea with her host mother, we headed back to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Seonunsan (mountain) for a nice easy hike. Well, when we got there, there were tons of Koreans there to check out the camelias (?) (red flowers on trees) at the Buddhist temple there. It really was a beautiful day, and I took off my fleece jacket for most of the hike. There were lots of women selling fresh bokbunja juice (Korean berry -- mix between rasp/black berries)-- it was really delicious fresh, especially because this region is known for it. We were "adopted" by a Korean man along the hike (this is usual in Korea. They think we can't find our way alone, so they guide us along... sometimes taking us where we didn't plan to go) and found our way to a giant carving of Buddha in a stone wall. It was pretty cool! Towards the peak, there was a huge cave that the path went through, so we ate our kimbap picnic there. Several Koreans came over to ask us who we were, where we were from, and remark that OH MY! They are eating kimbap! Maybe they aren't aliens afterall! :-) After the hike we devoured the rest of the zucchini bread loaf that I brought (yeah, doesn't take 3 girls long!) and caught a city bus back to Jeongup (took over an hour!). We walked around the town a bit and checked out the festival site. As is the norm here, there were tents set up along the river for the festival -- selling random crap, having carnival-like games, and all kinds of food. After checking out the sites, smells, and sounds, we met up with Shelby's host family for dinner at a Dakgalbi restaurant -- delicious, but so filling! Then we headed back to the festival to check out what we thought was supposed to be a dance competition, but turned out to be old drunk people singing on stage. It was really quite a site to see the old drunk men hitting on the woman MC. Unfortunately the cherry blossoms aren't very open, but that's ok!

While we were hiking my host dad called me to ask when we would go visit the restaurant, and I told him Sunday for lunch, since Saturday night we were eating with Shelby's host family. Well, I guess he didn't know, but the restaurant is closed on Sundays. We were really dreading going, because we just wanted to eat the festival food, meeting with our extended Korean families is always awkward and a hassle, and Anne doesn't eat seafood. Well, luckily he called back and told me that we couldn't go Sunday, and while he was apologizing to me profusely on the phone, I was high-fiving the other girls and giving them the thumbs up that we didn't have to go! :-D

After the singing contest, we headed back to our love motel for a bucket of ice cream, drinking alcoholic bokbunja, and watching the movie 40 Year Old Virgin. It was an amazing combination, but we all fell asleep about halfway through the movie. The next morning we were denied purchasing fruit from a (crappy) old lady fruit vendor. (We still don't understand why she refused to sell to us. She took our money, gave us the fruit, and was handing us back the change, then changed her mind and gave us the money back and took the fruit. Seriously!?) So we headed to a bakery instead, and then made our way back to the festival site for Sshi-rum, or Korean wrestling. It was pretty fun to watch. BUT, of course, the announcer kept trying to get us to go out and wrestle in the sand pit. First off, we are foreigners. Secondly, there were no other girls. And thirdly, we were wearing street clothes, not sports clothes we wanted to get all sandy and dirty. We successfully refused their repeated attempts at guilt tripping us into participating in the "even-tuh". BUT, we did get a free lunch voucher out of attending the event! We got free bibimbap for lunch, and decided to try some of the pork from the whole-roasting pigs we saw. It was really delicious pork loin, but a bit expensive. After lunch, we walked along the half open cherry blossom trees back to Shelby's apartment to finish watching the movie and eat the fruit her host mom gave us. Then Anne and I headed back to the bus terminal to catch a bus back to Gwangju.

Once we got to her host family's apartment, we went to E-Mart to buy supplies to make chocolate chip cookies and cereal for dinner. The cereal was sooooo good for dinner, because 1. I never get to eat cereal, and 2. I never just get to eat cereal if that is what I want for dinner! Anyway, we watched the movie Spy Games and made a few cookies and ate quite a bit of cookie dough. Monday morning after breakfast we headed out to hike a small hill near her house. It was beautiful weather and the cherry blossoms were nice and open in Gwangju. We ate jajjang noodles, which Anne had been craving all weekend!, and had patbingsu for dessert. Then I hopped on an early bus back to Suncheon. When I got back home I packed up my Korean books and headed over to the river for some walking and then I sat and studied along the river. It would have been perfect if it wasn't so windy, but I couldn't go inside in the beautiful warm weather we were having. And, the cherry blossom trees were in their peak! It was a really pleasant afternoon.

Tuesday morning after doing some yoga and eating breakfast, I headed out for another walk along the cherry blossoms. (Hey, I gotta enjoy these while they last!) And, luckily, I ran into the ajumma (old woman) aerobics class I have been wanting to find out about. Basically, it's a free aerobics class, mainly attended by old women, held outside along the river. Well, I had no idea that they also met in the mornings! Anyway, I asked what time class was, and they told me 10am, and I also asked if there was a night class, and it turns out it's at 7pm. I'm going to try it out tomorrow night, I think! Should be fun and hillarious, if nothing else. I mean, the instructor today was wearing a red spandex bell-bottom one-piece exercise suit. What more could you ask for?

Tuesdays I have no class in the mornings, so I go to school after lunch. On my walk to school, I ran into one of the first grade classes coming back from a walk with their art teacher -- to see the beautiful surroundings and inspire their work. Well, a few of the boys ran over to me and then talked with me the rest of the way to school -- super cute! I love when students are nice to me.

My first class, however, was SUPER SHITTY today. The students wouldn't listen, not a single one of them did the homework I assigned last week, and to top it off, my co-teacher was sleeping sprawled out in the chair towards the back of the room. I really wish the teachers would not come to my class if they do nothing besides sleep or sit in the back and read. Really, there is no point in them being there. And, I guess students' don't do their homework unless they are constantly prodded and reminded about it. I told them that they are babies because at 17 they are not responsible enough to do their homework. And it's not really expected of them, that's the problem. In the Korean school system, students have NO responsibility for their education. Everything is forced upon them. This drives me nuts! My next class, which is usually my favorite class, was just ok. One of the students told me he got in a fight with a girl last weekend because she said "F%&# you!" to him. He said his friend punched her! Oh my -- I told him, you should never hit a girl! And then their textbook today focused on "Why study English?" and I was impressed with some of the answers students gave. One said that it is important because America is such a powerful country and is very important all over the world. And since America uses English, he must learn it to be able to communicate. (I was impressed he could communicate this to me). Another student said so he could communicate with ME! And others said so they could make friends or travel. My last class, a group of 2nd graders, was actually REALLY FUN today! They are usually just so-so. We finished up the US vs American HS worksheet we had been working on the past couple of weeks. They actually got pretty into it and we even had fun while we were doing it. One student grabbed his boob and squeezed his nipple while he was trying to explain the word "milk" -- pretty funny. It was exhausting, though, to get through the whole worksheet.

Before Korean class, I decided to eat kimbap in the restaurant and study there instead of in the classroom. I'm glad I did, because I met another foreigner named Jules. She has been in Korea for 2 years, and her contract is done in 2 weeks. She is originally from NY and in August will be starting a new job as a teacher in the UAE... crazy! She was really interesting to talk to and we talked for about a 1/2 hour. She couldn't believe that I lived with a host family and implied she would not be able to survive with one! hah!

Class was pretty normal tonight, except that about 7 or so immigrant women from the Philippines showed up, so that was really interesting. They are all so beautiful, and their fashion seems similar to Mexican-American women's fashion, which really stands out here in Korea! But they all seem very nice and I hope I can get to know them a little better. One woman brought her daughter (around 2 years old?) and she was a good distraction for me throughout my slow (as always) class -- I was playing peek-a-boo with her! Super cute! I hope she comes every week! I'm halfway through the first Korean book now, and hoping to catch up the the intermediate class in the 2nd book.

Jeung-up: