Friday after classes I headed home and relaxed for a bit, did some studying, watched I Am Legend, and just chillaxed all night. It was really nice. :-)
Saturday afternoon I met up with one of my co-teachers, Mr. Im, after he was finished with school and we went hiking on Baekun Mountain, about 15 minutes outside of Gwangyang. He has been asking me to go hiking with him all year, and I have always been busy, so finally I made time. I was dreading our hike, to be honest, because I figured he would try to force awkward conversation the whole time (and he told me the hike takes him 2.5 hours, so he expected it to take me 3....bwaha -- it took us 2 hours and 10 mins. I showed him!). Anyway, the weather was beautiful, a little on the hot side, but still a nice day. Mr. Im and I had some good conversation, but he didn't force it, so most of the time we were actually hiking we weren't talking (good thing too, because I was panting :-P ).
Pics of Baekunsan:
After the hike I caught a bus to Gwangju where I met up with Anne and Jenn for MR. PIZZA!!! Yum! (Where they couldn't give us the pepperoni pizza without the pepperoni, and they didn't make cheese pizza anymore. Oh, Asia....) And Patbingsu! (Although not nearly as good as Chuncheon's, of course). Anne and I had an early night to bed, because Saturday we got up at 5:40am to go hiking at Wolchulsan. Wolchulsan is a provincial park that Anne and I decided we wanted to go hike, ever since we saw a picture in my guidebook of a suspended bridge that crosses a perilous drop off of steep rocks -- SICK! Anyway, we hoped on the bus for about 1.5 hours and then took a taxi to the mountain. Well, Jenn had been here before and taken a bus most of the way up the mountain to another bridge (but she thought it was the one in my guidebook). Anyway, the driver told us it was a 6 hour hike up and down to the top from there. We said, no, we wanted to go to the other place.... so after much confusing discussion, he took us to "the other place" which ended up not being right either. But, it turned out ok. We started off on what looked like just a trail through the woods, with not much elevation, but soon the trail really started inclining. It took about 1.5 hours to reach the peak, which was through a field of "Eulalia" -- we kept trying to guess what Eulalia was (that was the English translation on the signs), and it turned out to be some kind of flower. Anyway, we again had a gorgeous view from this peak, even though we were nowhere near the bridge we had intended to visit. Wolchulsan is a very rocky mountain so it looked pretty beautiful. After taking it all in for a minute, we headed back down the mountain and got on the bus back to Gwangju. Next stop was the 2nd Annual International Festival, held by the University where Jenn and Anne take Korean classes. They had quite the spread of international foods -- Sri Lanken, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Vietnamese, Phillipinio, etc. My favorite was the booth marked "Western Countries" that was servign chili and tortillas.....hahaha. I ended up getting some delicious Sri Lanken noodles, a delicious Chinese dumpling, and a fried banana that I thought was a spring roll, but was delicious nonetheless. We finished up the afternoon by trying out the new Cold Stone that just opened up in the bus terminal before I caught the bus back to Suncheon.
Pics of the Wolchulsan hike:
What do you think of the last rule?
I really like this picture. :-)
My pathetic attempt at an extension, WAAAH! I need ballet class so bad! So outta shape.
This week at school I am doing "speaking test practice" with my students. The next 2 weeks I will be giving them speaking tests. The subject of their presentation is that everyone brings a picture, and partners up, and then this week they are supposed to explain the picture to their partner and then next week they will present to me about their partner's picture, answering the 5 basic questions. Well, I told some of the classes 2 weeks ago, and all of the classes last week, that they NEED NEED NEED their picture this week so they can practice with their partner. Well, of course less than half the students had pictures this week. I AM SO FRUSTRATED AT THE KOREAN ED SYSTEM FOR TAKING AWAY ALL RESPONSIBILITY FROM THE STUDENTS!!!!!! They literally don't know how to do homework. Anyway, all those students are basically going to fail their speaking tests, and I don't give a damn. I will be giving raw percentage grades this year instead of curving the grades like I did last year. Serves them right.
So I was a little frustrated at school today....
After school I had planned on going to the Hanji Shop to work on some projects, but the teacher never showed up, and I waited on her for a half hour. So I don't know what the deal was with that.... but I got myself an ice cream cone for the bus ride home to make up for it. This afternoon I watched some news and did quite a bit of studying. I've been studying almost everyday for about 1-2 hours to review math and econ for next year. At first it was pretty hard to get my brain to focus after taking such a long hiatus. But every day it gets easier to focus on the material and easier to study for a longer period of time. And it's making me excited for grad school.... I must be SM or something, because I know it's going to kick my ass! :-P
On a random note....
Jun-ho has started wearing his school uniform to middle school and I can tell it has really gone to his head. I have noticed the gradual transformation all year that I've lived here, but Jun-ho has been changing into the "I'm-a-cool-middle-school-student and you're just a stupid-elementary-school-student" attitude towards his younger brother Jun-eun. Unfortunately (in my opinion), Jun-ho is acting more and more like his father everyday. He is treating his mother like a servant, and he calls Jun-eun "idiot" every 5 seconds (why wouldn't he do this when he hears his father do it all the time) and speaks very rudely to Jun-eun. He also gets home late with no regard to dinner time (and of course his mom doesn't scold him because she has no backbone). I just find it sad that Jun-ho is becoming the typical rude male Korean. I still have hope for Jun-eun turning out to be a nice, sweet guy who pursues his own interests instead of wanting to become a doctor/dentist/other-high-paying-job like all Korean male students aspire to. It is sad, though, watching Jun-ho digress to being so rude towards his mother and younger brother, especially since it is all because he is imitating his father's (bad) example.
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