The End of Activities

This week is the final week of our extracurriculars since we are only in Goesan for 10 more days. Then we will travel to Seoul for a few days. When we return to Goesan from Seoul we only have one day before we depart for our homestays! On Monday we had our final Taekwondo class. This class was very special because we were able to spar for the first time! We practiced our footwork before our Master let us loose on each other. I was scheduled to spar with my friend Kristin. Each pair fought one two minute set, which was remarkably tiring. Actual taekwondo matches are three rounds of three minutes each. In order to score you must have a clean hit with enough power to make a loud sound. Therefore, many matches, including mine, were scoreless. When the matches are a tie the more aggressive participant is awarded the win. In my match Kristin and I were pretty equal so we actually tied. At the end of class we presented our master with a photo of everyone and a card we all signed. He was very happy. Gift-giving is a huge part of the Korean culture and I will have to get used to giving my host family and co-teachers gifts on almost a weekly basis. They do not have to be grand gifts- it is more about the gesture. 

Kristin is in blue and I am in red.

Today was the last day of Glee Club and we had a pizza party! The pizza isn't great here but it's a nice reminder of home. We also had broccoli for dinner so it was a pretty great day for food! While eating pizza and chatting we watched MAD TV skits and then a spoof on a Korean drama. I  didn't really understand the Korean spoof but I am currently watching a Korean drama with my friend Amber. She has watched a lot of them and recommended a good one called Coffee Prince. I'm hoping it will help me with my Korean also.

Today all of the ETAs also got access to the Town and City Guide, which has a lot of information on our placements from past ETAs. I was able to learn a lot more about Hwacheon. For, example I found out my town actually only has 8,000 people and the downtown consists of two streets. There is one Western Bar in the town and they apparently love the ETAs and allow you to DJ. There are also three coffee shops with friendly owners who like foreigners. The area sounds beautiful though. There is a nice bike path along the river and there is an island in the middle of the river that you can zipline to. You then can picnic, rent bikes, rent kayaks or explore the numerous running trails. We also are lucky enough to have a two pensions, a hotel and a love motel. The guide made me pretty excited for my upcoming year!