Here are some Sports Day pictures:
One of the basketballs ended up in the river. The students were devastated. And I had a helluva time watching them throw pebbles at it and try to get it to come closer to shore!
Some 3rd grade students bowing to their teachers and the principal during the opening ceremony!
Tug 'o War!Check out the rest of the pics from Sports Day:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023440&id=62600128&l=7099cb3f1a
Friday my classes were better than usual, then during lunch time I had to interview 14 students for some sort of English competition. That was a marathon. And pretty shocking too -- these are some of the "best" students for English in our school. Some of them did quite well, but some couldn't even answer the questions at all, and these were simple questions. Now, this could be for several reasons:
1. They are just good at English tests, not actually speaking.
2. They aren't good at English at all (but then why would they have been chosen as a possible candidate for this competition?)
3. They probably didn't want to do well, because the teachers were forcing them to do this competition, and they knew it would be a lot of work. *I think this one is the most likely.
After the interviews I sprinted home, which actually took a LONG TIME because May 1 is Labor Day here in Korea, so many businesses were closed, and I think many schools had sports day, so the students were finished early. Then I headed back to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Gwangju to meet up with Anne. We found a hanji store (traditional Korean paper) and I bought a few sheets, since the stuff my teacher is trying to get me to use is pretty ugly. Then we went to a restaurant and got chicken and french fries for dinner to go along with our Fruit Soju (my new favorite alcholic drink!). Then we went back to her place, watched the new Grey's Anatomy, and crashed early.
Saturday I was up at 6:45 and out the door by 7:15 to head to the bus terminal and catch my 8:30am bus to Sokcho. The bus ride was supposed to be 6 hours, but since it was Buddha's birthday, it turned into 8 hours because of the horrible traffic that always results from Korean national holidays. It wasn't too bad though -- I spent the time reading and dozing off and listening to the 450 Grey's Anatomy songs I just downloaded! :-P The other 3 girls I was meeting up with were all coming from Seoul, and they all had horrible traffic also, so they ended up getting in about an hour later than me. We headed to Osaek and checked into our nice motel before getting some extremely fatty samgyepsal for dinner. Then it was early to bed because we planned to get up early Sunday morning for our epic hike to the peak of Seoraksan (this is the hardest mountain to climb in all of S Korea, and the mtn I tried to climb with Stephanie last November, but only made it halfway up before turning around due to freezing rain and snow).
Sunday we woke up to an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day! I was shocked because I had read that it was supposed to rain in the weather forecast. We got dressed and headed towards the trailhead. But when we got there, we noticed a sign saying the trail was closed from March until mid May due to forest fire season. There weren't any forest fires that day, and it had even rained the day before, but we still couldn't go. And actually all the paths to the peak were closed. :-( But, we ended up doing a 6km hike that was gorgeous and had quite a bit of ups and downs, so it was still quite a work out. And then we had to hitch hike back to our hotel! :-P A young and very kind Korean family stopped and picked us up and we spoke English with their 5th grade daughter, and her English was really good! We went to try out the oncheong (or hot spring) in our hotel, since Osaek is known for their hot springs. Well, it was pretty sketchy to say the least! We didn't spend too long there, and we were the only ones there! :-S We went to read by the river for a bit, had some makoli (Korean rice alcohol?) and Korean style pancakes, then headed back to our hotel to just veg out and eat a convenience store picnic lunch!
Scenes from our hike:
Check out the rest of the pics from Seoraksan:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023442&id=62600128&l=979bd31d6c
Monday morning I hopped on a bus back down to Gwangju, and it only took 6 hours this time, then back over to Suncheon. My host family was really surprised to see me, even though I told them I'd be coming home a day earlier than planned.
Tuesday was Children's Day, so it was the last of my 4 day weekend. At 11am my host dad told me that we'd be heading out for some sort of adventure at 11:30 (way to let me know in advance, eh?). We headed to a bamboo place near Gwangju. Actually we headed to 2 places, and got lunch, and walked around a market, and watched some remote control car races. It was quite the day. Highlights included watching my brothers try to catch fish in baskets, watching another little boy pee in the water where they were catching fish, having a mom literally drag her child up towards me so he could talk to a foreigner (to which I just turned and walked away), and seeing a toddler openly playing with himself in a restaurant while his parents idly sat by watching. FABULOUS! :-D It was a looooooooooong day. We left at 11:30am and didn't get back until 7:30pm.
This is some sort of root that you chew on to quench your thirst, and children used to eat it when there was not enough food to go around.
1 comment:
That photo of you on top of the rock has to be one of my all time photos EVER! :-)
Post a Comment