Visiting Suncheon

On Friday I spent a long seven hours on a bus to make my way to Suncheon, a city in the very south of Korea. I had yet to visit either of the South-Western provinces and therefore figured it was worth a go despite the long bus ride. One of my ETA friends Ben lives in Suncheon and gladly welcomed me. On Friday, after I arrived, we went to visit his all boys high school. Even though it was 8 o'clock on a Friday all of the students were at school. Most high schools have required self-study hours on the weekends. Additionally, nearly all of his students board in order to maximize their time spent studying. I was able to meet most of the first and second year students but was unable to say hello to the third year students because they needed to focus on studying. It was really fun to meet all of Ben's students since they are so different from my elementary school students. The dynamics of an all-boys high school are very unique as well. After I finished my grand tour of the school Ben and I met his co-teacher and four of his students for a late dinner. The four students who came to dinner with us had participated in YDAC (Youth Diplomacy and Activism Conference) earlier in the day. YDAC is a conference sponsored by the US Embassy at which high school students debate various current events issues.  The conference is only for ETA's schools and is conducted entirely in English. Therefore, it is extremely difficult. After participating in this exhausting competition all day Ben's students returned to school and wrote an essay for an English essay competition. Needless to say, the students were very deserving of a special meal out to reward their hard work. It was the first time the students ate at a restaurant in months because they eat every single meal, including weekends, on campus. I am consistently in awe of how hard Korean students work.

Dinner with Ben's students

After dinner, Ben and I went back to the bus terminal and met two of Ben's Korean friends who were visiting from Busan. The four of us then went to a HOF near Ben's house and had some beers. Since you always have to order food with your beer at Korean bars we ordered deep fried chicken intestines. It was both mine and Ben's first time eating chicken intestines and although I can't say I'll eat them again they weren't too bad. They were just a bit too chewy for my liking.

The next day the four of us went to the Suncheon World Garden Expo. The Expo was huge and included a man-made lake constructed to look like the city of Suncheon complete with islands, that represent the mountains in the city. Additionally, there were representative gardens from various countries all over the world. Unfortunately, the American garden wasn't very impressive. It was created to look like a backyard and therefore was mainly shrubs rather than flowers. The four of us all really enjoyed the Expo despite the incredible heat. We were all completely drained by the time we finished exploring the Expo. It took us about 5 hours to see everything!

The four of us at the Expo

Ben and I on the dream bridge.
Each of the tiles are a Korean students
drawing of their dream.

Of course Ben and I were filmed for a television ad.

 

Me and the fish sculptures.

In order to recharge, I took a long nap Saturday afternoon before meeting Ben's host family around dinnertime. It was really nice meeting Ben's family because they are extremely different from my own. Ben has three siblings in elementary school and they are just full of energy. The three of them could not sit still the entire two hours I was there. It was fun to be surrounded by so much energy given my quiet, study-filled home stay. Ben's host mother was an extremely gracious host and even gave me a neat leather bracelet she had made.

On Sunday, I spent the morning with Ben and another Fulbright friend who came to Suncheon late Saturday night. The three of us visited beautiful Suncheon Lake and had a late brunch at a restaurant overlooking the water. Suncheon had so many gorgeous natural spaces since it is the ecological capital of Korea. I was incredibly impressed with how much green I could consistently see since most Korean cities have strict divides between natural and artificial spaces. I had to leave early Sunday afternoon to make the trip back to Hwacheon but I was really glad I accomplished so much in the little time I was in Suncheon.