Taking in Some Local Sights

This weekend I had a lot of fun staying local. On Saturday the other ETA teacher, Amy, and I rode the bus to Chuncheon to meet our co-teacher, her family and her brother-in-law. We were then driven twenty minutes to Gangcheon to go hiking. In Gangcheon there is a very famous waterfall called Gugok Falls. The hiking trail near the falls also continues up the mountain to Munbae Village. Munbae Village is a small, rural village on the top of the mountain that is only accessible by hiking (although residents can drive because they are mainly elderly). The village was absolutely gorgeous! There was a huge lake at the top of the mountain and then several farms and restaurants. The village was pretty crowded since it was such a beautiful day but we were able to get a table at one of the restaurants. We then enjoyed a delicious chicken stew and lots of jeon.

My coteacher and I at the top of the mountain.

It was really fun going with SuJin’s young daughters as well. They hardly sat with us at all during lunch because they were so excited to run around and play in the sun. Also, outside each of the restaurants there were several large groups of old people playing a game which I believe is called sepak takraw. The game is a fusion between soccer and volleyball and is very popular in Asia. Many of the restaurants also served the food outside so people could eat while watching the games.

SuJin's daughters and me

After lunch we walked around the village a bit more and then walked back down the mountain. The way up was really steep which was challenging for SuJin’s daughters but the way down was worse for them. The youngest one almost cried several times because she was so scared of falling. It was pretty cute. When we got to the bottom the girls were too exhausted so just Amy and I ran up to see Gugok Falls before we all headed home.

On Sunday, a friend from out of town was visiting so we headed to Nami Island. The Island is famous because a very popular Korean drama called Winter Sonata was filmed there. The island was very beautiful and had lots of little shops selling handmade gifts. There even strangely enough were two ostriches that were in a pen for people to look at. We had a really great day.

On Monday, two more friends came up to Hwacheon since many of the middle and high school teachers have off for midterm exams. After school, the other three Hwacheon ETAs and I showed our guests around town and then ate a delicious dinner. After dinner we walked to the soccer stadium across my apartment building. Now that the weather is warmer the Women’s Professional Soccer League has games every Monday and Wednesday. The games are really funny to go to because the crowd is almost exclusively soldiers. The soldiers from all the nearby bases are literally bused in to watch the games and then leave in two straight lines.

Only a small portion of the soldiers flocking to see the players after the game

Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs!!!

This past Thursday every grade in my school went on a different full-day field trip. My co-teacher and I went on the 5th grade trip to the Bug Museum in Wonju, a city about 2 hours away. Before the trip I was a little apprehensive about how much fun the students would have at a Bug Museum but once I arrived I realized the place wasn’t really a museum per se.

When we arrived all of the students were rounded up in a big room where they would watch a movie about insects and then make insect necklaces. The teachers were then shown an adjoining room with a kitchen, tv, couch, blankets and more where we were able to relax all day. It was very different than field trips in the states since teachers basically just hang out during the trip. All of the teachers and I then broke into the snacks that parents had packed for us. Apparently, when classes go on field trips it’s generally accepted that parents will make kimbap and send it to school for the teachers. Therefore, we easily had over 400 pieces of kimbap, tons of fruit, summer rolls and more. It was a delicious snack. Afterwards, the teachers were escorted to a restaurant on the premises for lunch while the students ate their packed lunches in the big room. It was pretty funny to see the differences between the teachers and students day.

Our feast that was prepared by the parents

After lunch I wanted to spend more time with the kids so I hung out with them as they made homemade ice cream after lunch. I also touched the huge beetles and ‘caterpillars’ that they were able to play with. It was a lot of fun and the kids absolutely LOVED playing with the bugs. We then went on a tour of the premises and saw goats, bunnies, an iguana, lots of turtles and then lots of bug specimens. The ‘museum’ was pretty eclectic. The students each got their own giant ‘caterpillar’ to take home as well, which was extremely exciting for them. I’m not quite sure how their parents will feel about the bugs though. They were pretty gross.

My students with their homemade ice cream

We ended up getting back to Hwacheon around five and it was an awesome day. I love interacting with my kids outside of the classroom and was impressed by how many of them wanted to speak English with me. My students were also really generous and gave me many ‘presents’ which were mainly their food. Some students would even come up to me, tell me they had a present for me and then stick a fork full of food in my mouth without any warning.This was actually how I ended up eating a ball of dough with squid in the middle of it...

Hiking with My Co-teachers

Last Wednesday my school had an open house of sorts where parents could come and watch their students in class and provide feedback to the teachers. This day was very important to many of the teachers and they worked very hard to put together a really, really strong lesson plan. The school then wanted to reward the teachers for their efforts so all after school classes were cancelled allowing the teachers to go on a school-organized hiking trip!

All of the teachers left school around 2:00 and we drove about 30 minutes to a famous hiking trail in Hwacheon. At the top of the trail was a natural spring and the Koreans believe drinking the water is very good for your health. The direct translation for the spring is actually ‘medicine water’. We were very fortunate to have a beautiful day- it was mid sixties and sunny! The trail was beautiful although it was pretty short. We reached the spring in about 30 minutes. I arrived at the spring in the first group with the younger male teachers and after waiting a little bit for the other teachers we decided to hike a little further on a neighboring mountain.

The natural spring

We then carved our own path up to a set up rocks that the Korean teachers called man rocks. I’m not quite sure how accurate that is though because the teachers had trouble translating the name. Getting to the rocks was a little bit difficult since it was really steep and slippery but after we made it up there we were all glad we made the trek.

Amy and I with some of our co-teachers at the 'man rock'

After we finished hiking all of the teachers drove to a nearby restaurant where we ate 삼계탕, which is a chicken stew/porridge. Basically they take a small chicken and stuff it with sticky rice, ginseng, a bean, and ginger and then boil it in a stew/porridge made with sesame. It cooks for a really long time until the chicken practically falls off the bone. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious! After the meal we all parted ways but it was a great afternoon and I’m so glad the school planned the trip!

Also, in case you missed it a photo of my really, really rural town was in the American news. Although, of course it's because of the soldiers! I guess that's what happens when you live 6 miles from the DMZ. And yes, this is pretty typical of what I see every morning walking to school.

Cooking in Korea

Since this fall I've been meeting every Tuesday afternoon with a few of my co-teachers. I always go to the special education room so I always meet with the special education teacher and her two assistants. The other teachers then sometimes vary but there's a pretty consistent group of us who always come. We generally just drink tea or coffee and talk. All of the teachers want to learn English but really it's more just socializing. Especially since we end up speaking mainly in Korean. Although I sometimes don't follow the conversation it's generally really fun and it's really nice to feel more connected to my coworkers at school.

Recently these meetings have turned into cooking lessons because my co-teachers know that I want to learn to make Korean food. So far we have made 잡채, which is a noodle side dish, and 김치전, which is kind of like a pancake with kimchi in it. Our kimchijeon also had veggies and seafood in it. It was extremely delicious. I was also pleased that both of the dishes were relatively easy to make and all of the ingredients would be readily available in America. I do wish I was able to do a little more of the cooking but my Korean co-teachers very much fit the stereotype of Korean women in the kitchen. Basically, no one else is allowed in but them. Therefore, my contribution to both dishes was mixing the ingredients. The younger teachers were a little more receptive to me helping but the two special education assistants are much older and very traditional.

Anyways, here are some pictures from my cooking adventures. And I forgot to mention the best part of all this is that it happens during the school day!

My co-teacher carefully monitoring me mix the ingredients

Our 잡채

My co-teachers making the  김치전

Jeju Island: The Hawaii of Korea

This past weekend I was able to travel all expenses paid to Jeju Island for a Fulbright Conference. Although Jeju is a volcanic island like Hawaii and is slightly warmer than the rest of Korea, comparing it to Hawaii may be a little bit of false advertising. That being said I did love Jeju and really enjoyed my time there. The island is famous for three things- wind, rocks and women. Luckily, on my tour of the island I saw all three! Fulbright was kind enough to organize a one-day tour of the island for everyone on Sunday, the one day we didn't have conference obligations.

On the tour we went to the island's biggest attractions. We first visited Jusanjolli, which is a cliff that overlooks beautiful volcanic rocks. The rocks here display columnar jointing and look like a series of hexagonal columns placed side by side. It was really beautiful and allowed me to nerd out a bit since I studied Volcanology for an entire semester. This was also the first time we were really exposed to Jeju's infamous wind. The wind was whipping so even though it was significantly warmer than Hwacheon, it didn't feel warmer at all!

Next, we drove to Songeup Folk Village. It was neat to walk around but at this point in my grant year I'm a little folk-villaged out. The stop did give me a chance to buy chocolate though. Jeju is really famous for its green tea, orange, cactus and halabong chocolate so I bought some for my co-teachers, family and friends. My co-teachers really appreciated the chocolate when I brought it to our Tuesday meeting. 

The other English teacher at my school

We then traversed Sunrise Peak after a delicious kimbap lunch. The peak overlooks Sangumburi Crater which you can see in the picture above. The hike was really nice after sitting on the bus for a while. One of the downsides of the tour was that it involved a lot of driving. The peak was also right next to Pyeoseon Beach where I was able to see the famous female divers. The women that Jeju is famous for are actually female free divers. They dive without any oxygen tanks and collect sea cucumbers, kelp, oysters, mussels, octopus and anything else that's edible and lives on the sea floor. I was even able to see one of them catch an octopus! It was really neat because many of the women are very old and yet they are an extremely important part of the island economy. 

The women divers

 Our second to last stop was Seopjikoji, which is a field of rapeseed flowers next to a beautiful cliff. There was also a lighthouse that we were able to walk to. The wind was still whipping, which made it very cold but the field of yellow flowers was beautiful and there were even horses roaming in it! Our last stop was Cheongjiyeon Waterfall. The waterfall finally afforded us some much needed shelter from the wind and I think we all were relieved to finally feel warm.

Aside from the sight-seeing I spent a lot of time learning from my fellow ETAs. Most of the workshops of the conference were led by other teachers and I was really impressed by the quality of the workshops. It reminded me just how talented the Fulbright community in Korea truly is. One of the talks was actually on Korean Students Speak, which is a Tumblr site one of the second year ETAs created last year. Since Korean schools don't really offer many outlets for creativity or self-expression Jenny created an English lesson that allowed her students to share any message they wanted with the world. The lesson was then repeated in numerous ETA's classrooms all over the country and the Tumblr gained popularity. It was even written about on Buzz Feed this week, although I also encourage you to check out the Tumblr itself.

At the conference we also had a chance to hear from the numerous Fulbright Junior Researchers. Their talks were really great and the topics ranged from North Korean Defector issues to Korea's Suicide epidemic to Korean food's ability to combat obesity. I was very impressed by the research and it was also really nice to be intellectually challenged and engaged. I've been missing the constant intellectual stimulation that college provides.

The conference in Jeju did a great job restoring my excitement about teaching and living in Korea. After nearly 9 months here it's sometimes hard to feel the same satisfaction that came so easily when I first started my journey in Korea. Yet, the conference made me excited to try new strategies in my classroom and inspired me to make the most of my last few months on the peninsula. I can only hope this surge in energy carries me through to July...

Reconnecting with Friends and Family

This weekend I spent a lot of my time catching up with friends. On Friday night I had a delicious dinner with the Kyeong family. They are the family I lived with in Chuncheon in February. It was really nice reconnecting with them. I also really liked hearing about how my friends from my spinning class are doing and how some of the mother’s friends are doing. During February I saw some of my unni’s friends everyday and I’ve really missed their presence these past few weeks. The family also took me to my favorite 닭갈비 restaurant, which was really nice of them.

On Saturday I headed to Seoul to meet up with some Fulbright friends. There was a big K-Pop concert on Saturday night and a lot of my friends were in Seoul for the concert. I have yet to catch the K-Pop bug and therefore wasn’t going to the concert but it was great to be able to meet friends for lunch. Six of us went to Vatos for lunch, which is a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant in Itaewon (the foreigner district). The restaurant was started by a few ex-pats and is extremely popular. The menu has your typical Mexican offerings and then some Korean-Mexican items like Kimchi Carnita Fries. We tried the fries and they were delicious! Some of the tacos and burritos also have kalbi beef or other Korean add-ins. All in all it was a great meal and I loved seeing my friends for the first time since Thanksgiving.

On Saturday night when many of my friends headed to the concert I went to my friend Rachel’s Aunt and Uncle’s house in Gangnam. Her aunt and uncle invited the two of us to sleep over. The sleepover at their house was a lot of fun. We first went to a sushi buffet that was humorously named Muscus. Apparently, Koreans don’t realize how awkwardly similar the name Muscus is to the word mucus. The buffet was delicious and we all left stuffed to the brim. When we arrived home her uncle insisted that we drink with him because he bought special beer for us. He bought a really dark German lager and then a lighter Belgian beer. Korean beer is pretty terrible, which he admitted openly, so it was nice to have some good beer and he really enjoyed treating us to foreign beer.

The next morning was Easter and Rachel’s aunt prepared delicious omelettes for the four of us. She was incredibly proud of her omelettes, which was good because she struggled a little more making us coffee. Koreans don’t really drink coffee like Americans or Europeans.Rather, most of them drink canned coffee which is basically a cup of sugar with a slight coffee flavoring. It’s like the bottled Starbucks Frappuccino drinks we have in the states. Therefore, although Rachel’s aunt has a coffee maker she never really uses it. She knew we both liked coffee though and tried her best. Unfortunately, something went wrong and the coffee maker ended up spilling the grinds and water all over her counter. We helped her clean it up but I also couldn’t help but giggle a little bit because making coffee is such an easy endeavor for most Americans.

Unfortunately, Rachel's uncle was too shy to be photographed with us. 

After breakfast Rachel and her aunt went to church and her uncle and I set out on a run. Her uncle was so excited to run with me. Apparently he hadn’t run in a few years because of a knee injury but he was excited at the chance to run with me. He actually was so excited to run with me he left the house without me and I had to meet him downstairs to start our run. He took me on a really scenic route to the Han River and it was really enjoyable except that both of us were in a little pain after the buffet. It’s never really a good idea to run the morning after an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet... We ended our run a little early, after 40 minutes, and decided to walk through Olympic Park for a while. He then showed me all the Olympic stadiums while we walked up and over numerous hills, that were actually ancient tombs. It was really neat. I was also just impressed at our ability to communicate and converse for the two hours given my limited Korean and his lack of English. It’s always encouraging seeing how much people can share and communicate despite language limitations.

All in all my weekend was wonderful, and I’m looking forward to my coming weekend in Jeju. On Friday I will fly to Jeju Island, “the Hawaii of South Korea”,  for a conference with all the other Fulbright ETAs. It will be a wonderful weekend of catching up with friends, sight-seeing and improving my teaching.