As promised, in a much better mood now. I'm better prepared for my chilly office. I put winter tights on under my jeans, and super warm fuzzy socks on too. Thermal undershirt under my sweater which is under my winter coat. And I brought my sheepskin slippers (from Egli's Sheep Farm back home) and a big jar of Citron tea to school, I think I'm on mug number 4. Also, brought my MP3 player to school, so I've been chillin to some fantastic music: Fleet Foxes, the Weakerthans, Great Lake Swimmers, Sandi Thom, etc.
Now, imagine my shock and surprise when I scanned back through recent posts to the blog and discovered my last narrative entry, as far as the "life of Lisa" goes, left off at Halloween! Sorry guys!
The good news is, November wasn't nearly as busy as September and October.
The first weekend is probably the only one really worth blogging about - Amanda Ammon and I headed to Gyeongju (Korea's ancient Capital during the 3 kingdom's period)located north of Busan, to tour the ancient sites and do our first Buddhist temple stay. Gyeongju is one of those places in South Korea that I think every expat should go see. Once it was a royal city filled with Palaces and Shrines, now it is a small tourist town built around the remains. About the only things still intact are the enormous royal tombs that rise out of the ground like the small perfectly circular hills you would see in the background of a Mario Bros game on a Super Nintendo. We toured much of the sights on foot, beginning at the Gyeongju National Museum, then walking over to Anapji Pond. From there we walked past the first of the royal tombs (Daereungwon tombs), and the remains of Royal Palace - only stumps of stone left in the ground - Cheomseongdae Observatory (the oldest standing Astronomy tower in Asia) and onto the Royal Tomb park. One of the royal tombs has been opened to visitors as a sort of "walk in" museum, where visitors can see how the tomb was designed and how the body and artifacts would have been laid out! We learned that when a King died, his queen and many servants would also be sacrificed and buried with him, the intent being that they would continue to serve the King in the next life.
After pounding all that pavement, I felt relieved when we met up with our friends from Suncheon who would also join us for a temple stay at Golgulsa, a mountain-side temple outside the city. We were dropped off at a highway junction by a rural bus and walked about 20 minutes following signs. I didn't mind. Fall in Korea is spectacular and we were walking down a winding road than ran through a small industrial town settled in the valley of a mountain range. I loved feeling 'away' from the city. We huffed and puffed our way up the short by steep pathway to the temple office for check-in. We then learned that our accomodations were at the bottom of the hill we'd just climbed, and thus we'd be making that trek many times in the next 24 hours. According to the Buddhist tradition, we ate a vegetarian supper and finished everything on our plates (Buddhists try to not to waste anything, particularly food as it sustains our bodies). Golgulsa is a famous temple in Korea because its monks practice Sunmudo, a rare and ancient meditative martial art. Not designed for combat, Sunmudo requires the practitioner to have complete control over their mind and body in order to perform the difficult, almost dancelike moves. So though most of us came prepared to meditate, we were quite suprised to find ourselves sweating and straining through a Sunmudo training session. We had a short lesson in meditative technique and then were treated to a remarkable Sunmudo demonstration that had been put together for a group of Korean visitors to the temple (lucky us).
Soon after that it was time for bed - we had a 4 am wake up call to meet! We slept as most Koreans do, on a hot ondol floor with blankets to serve as mattress and cover. Our pre-dawn alarm clock was a junior monk tapping a wooden bell and chanting outside our building. (Punishment for sleeping in was 1080 bows to Buddha, and no one dared risk finding out how strictly this policy was enforced!) After doing some morning bows and a walking meditation, we met with the monks in the dining hall to participate in the Balwoo-gongyang for breakfast around 6 AM. The Balwoo-gongyang is a meditative meal practiced by Buddhists designed to focus the mind on the food that sustains us: where it came from, the earth it gained its nutrients from, the farmer who cared for and harvest the food to the cook who prepared the meal. Nothing is wasted. The dinnerware consists of a placemat, chopsticks, a spoon and four bowls - one of which is filled with hot water for washing the other three bowls with at the end, so that you begin and end the meal with 4 clean bowls. Done properly, nothing is wasted except maybe a half a cup of water. It was one of my favourite experiences at Golgulsa, not to mention a technique I can adapt the next time I go camping.
After breakfast was finished, I hiked up the side of the mountain to see the Maya Tathagata Buddha (a big Stone Buddha cut in relief into the side of the mountain)and take in a breaktaking view of the mountain valley and forest as the sun rose. I visited the cave shrine for a little bit of meditation. We had some free time in the morning in which you could go on a tour of some local sites, which I opted out of to take the most glorious nap this girl has ever taken. To finish up the stay we ate lunch and then participated in a special tea ceremony with a student monk (He was one of the few who could speak English) who answered our questions regarding Buddhism and the Buddhist lifestyle.
Before heading back into Gyeongju to catch a bus home, Amanda and I decided we wanted to take in one more historic site: Bolguksa Temple, a temple so big and beautiful they made into a UNESCO site. It was raining pretty heavily by the time we got there, so I bought a bright green poncho to try to protect my pack. Despite the rain, the temple and its grounds were stunning, particularly the pond outside which made the brilliant japanese maple trees nearby seem to glow. We were in a bit of a hurry, so as not to miss the last bus back to Suncheon, and in my haste I managed to forget my wallet inside the main Shrine hall, and naturally didn't notice until we were all the way at the bus stop. It was quite a jog to get all the way back up the hill and inside the grounds! Thankfully the ticket guys didn't make me pay again, and of course, this is Korea, my wallet had been put behind the counter for safekeeping, money and cards just as I had left them. I also bought a really pretty souvenir bell similar to the Emile bell we saw at the National Museum from a vendor who happily accepted my money and then stuffed the trinket in a box proclaiming "Made In China". Yeesh.
Here's the photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2273036&id=122614903&l=711a8a0481
I was low on cash and energy after all that had happened in the last 5 weeks, so the rest of the month was pretty low key. Lots of social events of course, but I stayed in Suncheon, and we did a few fun photo shoots with Amanda Gale's fancy new DSLR camera. Photoshoot #1 - Kate, Lindsey C and I dressed up as Marionettes (ala my design for my Halloween Costume); Amanda G dressed up as an Angel and Lindsey V dressed up as death. Photoshoot #2 - at the end of November I put up my Christmas tree and Amanda Gale patiently took about 600 pictures over two days until Mokah decided she was ready to sit pretty in front of the tree for my Christmas Photo Cards I sent out. But we did have a lot of fun with it and Amanda and Kate both got some holiday shots to send home out of it too!
Will try to quickly write up a summary of December and the New Year before I head off on Vacation - Tomorrow I'm flying to Kota Kinabalus Malaysia!!!
I'll leave you on this note: I discovered that of all things, the toilet seats in the teacher's bathroom are heated! I have seriously been considering bringing my laptop to school and setting up shop in the lavatory. :P
Showing posts with label temples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label temples. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
2nd Year in ROK Starts with a Bang!
Ok, ondol's on, cat is fed and cuddled, hot chocolate hot, music on. It's just you and me, Blog. Let's do this.
Well after that fantastic weekend on Jeju island, it was back to the old grindstone. Well not exactly. Midterm exams gave me another week of cancelled classes, thank you Korean public education system. Well actually, now that they have me monitoring exams during these periods, I prefer a regular week of classes. It goes by so much quicker, not to mention it's so much more enjoyable to interact with the students and see some of them making progress. I've really enjoyed this semester so far. I'm in groove with teaching, confident with my lesson planning and have a good repoire with all the students (spent the months of first semester getting the 1st Graders comfortable with me and speaking English in front of their classmates). I had a very successful lesson with my Gr.1's discussing the similarities between Thanksgiving Day in North America and Chuseok in South Korea. Another fun one was doing Fall Acrostic Poems with my Gr. 2's. My students constantly surprise me. (I did post a sampling of the stranger poems I recieved on Facebook and my Google Group, so I won't post them here, if you want me to email them to you let me know).
October was a very busy month for me outside of work. On Facebook, I have a new photo album for every weekend!
The 2nd weekend of October was a social one. My friend Janet, who had been in South Korea for over 3 years, decided rather abruptly that she was ready to return home to San Francisco, so Friday Night we threw her a surprise Party (Appropriately titled "Where in the World is Janet SanFrancisco?"). We played a hilarious game of Shu-ele-Phone and realy enjoyed eachother's company. (Side note: Shu-ele-phone is a group game hybrid of Sherades, Clue, and Telephone that I picked up camping with a bunch of LDS friends in University. The Waygook crowd over here has really taken a liking to it). The next night was Janet's non-surprise farewell night, which she had gone and planned herself. We had a great meal at Outback Steakhouse and then headed out for a last night of Noraebong.
Pics are mostly of me with a bunch of people you probably don't know, but here's the link anyways: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2269408&id=122614903&l=c44a08dfe8
The next weekend was jam-packed with fun! On Saturday, me and my partner in crime Amanda bussed to Busan (SK's 2nd largest city) to see the Busan International Fireworks Festival, held at the end of the Film Festival held the week before. We got there early enough in the day that we were able to take a cable car and then a short hike up to see the south gate of Geumjeongsanseong, the ancient fortress that overlooks the city. It was a beautiful site and made me sad that we didn't have enough time to hike along the wall of the fortress. But we knew we had to get down to the Beach well before the fireworks started if we were to see any of the show. As we left the subway to head for the beach, it became clear that everyone in the city was headed in the same direction. Police and men in Army fatigues were stationed everywhere directing masses. Arriving at the beach, I thought we would have to watch from the street. The beach, km's long, was packed. Somehow we managed to find a spot at the front, alittle too close to the water (Tide was coming in!). The show was 45 minutes long and amazing! I'd never seen anything like it in my life. We weren't in the ideal location for watching it, way off to the side like we were, but it was still spectacular. I will post the video's I took after I get this up. Getting back to the subway turned out to be way more difficult after the show. I've never been in a crowd like that before in my life! (Will post those videos too)
The next day, Amanda and I managed to find the energy for another hike. But first, I went downtown to buy a proper pair of hiking boots! We were planning to hike Jirisan, the 2nd highest peak in South Korea, the next weekend and I wasn't going to be caught without proper footwear this time! Boots aquired, we hopped on a local bus out to Songgwangsa. This temple is considered one of the three "Jewels" of Korean temples. In the gorgeous fall foliage, it was breaktaking. After looking around the temple we hit the trail for 3 hours. This turned out to be one of my favourite hikes of the year. Because we didn't hit the trails until 2pm, we didn't see too many hikers, and for the last hour of the hike we didn't see anyone else at all! It was a great opportunity to really enjoy nature. At the end of the hike we arrived at Seonnamsa, a smaller temple, but we had arrived at the perfect time. The monks had begun their evening drumming, which I'd never witnessed at a temple before. The sounds of the drums seems to go right inside your ribcage and bounce around. And in the classroom was a school of student monks being lectured by a head monk. A winding road lined with paper lanterns led us down to the busstop and as dusk deepend, the lanterns all came on and lit our path.
Now these are some pics you don't want to miss! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2269416&id=122614903&l=5cb8c8f136
The next weekend was one I had been dreading and looking forward to all month. We were going to hike a small part of the Jirisan mountain range, the trail upto Cheonwangbong which is the highest peak in the range and the 2nd highest peak in Korea (Hallasan on Jeju is #1). This time Amanda and I had some company, Suze and Lindsey were coming with us. We were up early (6:45) in order to get on the trail before 9:00am. The trail we were taking was estimated to run between 7-10 hours and we woul lose the light aroun 6:30, so we would be cutting it close as is. It was a tough hike, but hiking the weekend before and taking the stairs up to my apartment on floor 17 a couple of times during the week helped me a little bit. On top of that, the mountainside boasted such beautiful scenery, I was constantly distracted by it and not thinking too much about my aching muscles. I summitted at 4 hours 20 minutes. Lindsey and Amanda arrived first and picked out a great perch for us to eat lunch on. My canned tuna with cream cheese and crackers was fan-freaking-tastic. After lunch we head west along the ridge to Jaesakbong peak and then headed south back to the trail head. My energy was quite high for the whole hike, but I fell behind the girls because I just couldn't stop taking pictures!
Pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2270119&id=122614903&l=2c2560383c
Of course the following weekend was Halloween. I had felt totally uninspired as to what I should dress up as, and then a few days before Halloween my friends Jodie and Stephen helped me come up with the idea of being a marionnette who had freed herself from her master. Which turned alittle grisly at Stephen's suggestion that I should have severed hands attached to my strings. It was too awesome of an idea not to try it! Stephen even helped me find a craft store to get materials to construct the severed hands. Findind doll-like clothes was easy-peesy since looking like a doll seems to be what most girls are going for with fashion here. All week, I was showing the "Thriller" video to my students and that also really helped me get excited. On Friday, my supervisor from the previous year (Lee Myeong-Sook) gave me a halloween treat bag full of candy to wish me Happy Halloween. And so inspired by my co-worker, I ran out on my lunch and bought a ridiculous amount of Kic-Kers (Kit-Kat's) and delivered them to the teachers room with a big black and orange poster wishing them a Happy Halloween. That night, the Halloween party for the foreigner crowd in Suncheon was held at McCarthy's bar. We had a great time. On Saturday, the actual Halloween, I was happy to stay in with friends and play some games and watch a scary movie. It really was a great month. I can only hope the rest of the year will be half as good!
Check out my costume here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2271173&id=122614903&l=eacdec29d5
Well after that fantastic weekend on Jeju island, it was back to the old grindstone. Well not exactly. Midterm exams gave me another week of cancelled classes, thank you Korean public education system. Well actually, now that they have me monitoring exams during these periods, I prefer a regular week of classes. It goes by so much quicker, not to mention it's so much more enjoyable to interact with the students and see some of them making progress. I've really enjoyed this semester so far. I'm in groove with teaching, confident with my lesson planning and have a good repoire with all the students (spent the months of first semester getting the 1st Graders comfortable with me and speaking English in front of their classmates). I had a very successful lesson with my Gr.1's discussing the similarities between Thanksgiving Day in North America and Chuseok in South Korea. Another fun one was doing Fall Acrostic Poems with my Gr. 2's. My students constantly surprise me. (I did post a sampling of the stranger poems I recieved on Facebook and my Google Group, so I won't post them here, if you want me to email them to you let me know).
October was a very busy month for me outside of work. On Facebook, I have a new photo album for every weekend!
The 2nd weekend of October was a social one. My friend Janet, who had been in South Korea for over 3 years, decided rather abruptly that she was ready to return home to San Francisco, so Friday Night we threw her a surprise Party (Appropriately titled "Where in the World is Janet SanFrancisco?"). We played a hilarious game of Shu-ele-Phone and realy enjoyed eachother's company. (Side note: Shu-ele-phone is a group game hybrid of Sherades, Clue, and Telephone that I picked up camping with a bunch of LDS friends in University. The Waygook crowd over here has really taken a liking to it). The next night was Janet's non-surprise farewell night, which she had gone and planned herself. We had a great meal at Outback Steakhouse and then headed out for a last night of Noraebong. Pics are mostly of me with a bunch of people you probably don't know, but here's the link anyways: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2269408&id=122614903&l=c44a08dfe8
The next weekend was jam-packed with fun! On Saturday, me and my partner in crime Amanda bussed to Busan (SK's 2nd largest city) to see the Busan International Fireworks Festival, held at the end of the Film Festival held the week before. We got there early enough in the day that we were able to take a cable car and then a short hike up to see the south gate of Geumjeongsanseong, the ancient fortress that overlooks the city. It was a beautiful site and made me sad that we didn't have enough time to hike along the wall of the fortress. But we knew we had to get down to the Beach well before the fireworks started if we were to see any of the show. As we left the subway to head for the beach, it became clear that everyone in the city was headed in the same direction. Police and men in Army fatigues were stationed everywhere directing masses. Arriving at the beach, I thought we would have to watch from the street. The beach, km's long, was packed. Somehow we managed to find a spot at the front, alittle too close to the water (Tide was coming in!). The show was 45 minutes long and amazing! I'd never seen anything like it in my life. We weren't in the ideal location for watching it, way off to the side like we were, but it was still spectacular. I will post the video's I took after I get this up. Getting back to the subway turned out to be way more difficult after the show. I've never been in a crowd like that before in my life! (Will post those videos too)
The next day, Amanda and I managed to find the energy for another hike. But first, I went downtown to buy a proper pair of hiking boots! We were planning to hike Jirisan, the 2nd highest peak in South Korea, the next weekend and I wasn't going to be caught without proper footwear this time! Boots aquired, we hopped on a local bus out to Songgwangsa. This temple is considered one of the three "Jewels" of Korean temples. In the gorgeous fall foliage, it was breaktaking. After looking around the temple we hit the trail for 3 hours. This turned out to be one of my favourite hikes of the year. Because we didn't hit the trails until 2pm, we didn't see too many hikers, and for the last hour of the hike we didn't see anyone else at all! It was a great opportunity to really enjoy nature. At the end of the hike we arrived at Seonnamsa, a smaller temple, but we had arrived at the perfect time. The monks had begun their evening drumming, which I'd never witnessed at a temple before. The sounds of the drums seems to go right inside your ribcage and bounce around. And in the classroom was a school of student monks being lectured by a head monk. A winding road lined with paper lanterns led us down to the busstop and as dusk deepend, the lanterns all came on and lit our path. Now these are some pics you don't want to miss! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2269416&id=122614903&l=5cb8c8f136
The next weekend was one I had been dreading and looking forward to all month. We were going to hike a small part of the Jirisan mountain range, the trail upto Cheonwangbong which is the highest peak in the range and the 2nd highest peak in Korea (Hallasan on Jeju is #1). This time Amanda and I had some company, Suze and Lindsey were coming with us. We were up early (6:45) in order to get on the trail before 9:00am. The trail we were taking was estimated to run between 7-10 hours and we woul lose the light aroun 6:30, so we would be cutting it close as is. It was a tough hike, but hiking the weekend before and taking the stairs up to my apartment on floor 17 a couple of times during the week helped me a little bit. On top of that, the mountainside boasted such beautiful scenery, I was constantly distracted by it and not thinking too much about my aching muscles. I summitted at 4 hours 20 minutes. Lindsey and Amanda arrived first and picked out a great perch for us to eat lunch on. My canned tuna with cream cheese and crackers was fan-freaking-tastic. After lunch we head west along the ridge to Jaesakbong peak and then headed south back to the trail head. My energy was quite high for the whole hike, but I fell behind the girls because I just couldn't stop taking pictures! Pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2270119&id=122614903&l=2c2560383c
Of course the following weekend was Halloween. I had felt totally uninspired as to what I should dress up as, and then a few days before Halloween my friends Jodie and Stephen helped me come up with the idea of being a marionnette who had freed herself from her master. Which turned alittle grisly at Stephen's suggestion that I should have severed hands attached to my strings. It was too awesome of an idea not to try it! Stephen even helped me find a craft store to get materials to construct the severed hands. Findind doll-like clothes was easy-peesy since looking like a doll seems to be what most girls are going for with fashion here. All week, I was showing the "Thriller" video to my students and that also really helped me get excited. On Friday, my supervisor from the previous year (Lee Myeong-Sook) gave me a halloween treat bag full of candy to wish me Happy Halloween. And so inspired by my co-worker, I ran out on my lunch and bought a ridiculous amount of Kic-Kers (Kit-Kat's) and delivered them to the teachers room with a big black and orange poster wishing them a Happy Halloween. That night, the Halloween party for the foreigner crowd in Suncheon was held at McCarthy's bar. We had a great time. On Saturday, the actual Halloween, I was happy to stay in with friends and play some games and watch a scary movie. It really was a great month. I can only hope the rest of the year will be half as good!Check out my costume here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2271173&id=122614903&l=eacdec29d5
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Mountains, Movies, Myeongsashimni, and so Much More!
Breath, relax, let your mind wander away to the recent past...(trying to get caught up, here's a very brief summary of events in May and June and a bit of July.)
Thanks to May hosting Buddha's Birthday, Children's Day, Midterm Exams and the school Field trips, I had an astounding number of days off work. I used the "float" day in my contract to make room for a long-weekend trip to Seoul at the beginning of the month with a bunch of Suncheon friends, intending to take in Buddha's birthday parades and lantern celebrations. Unfortunately, we were there the weekend after all the really big stuff went down (oops) but we still had a great time shopping (English bookstores and Costco!), eating (thin crust pizza, Indian, Coldstone Creamery, Subway...*drools on keyboard*), touring Changdeokgung Palace, and catching the Nanta stage show (think "STOMP" in a kitchen). We even saw a parade, accidentally! And all of the lanterns from the previous weekend were strung up along the streets of Seoul, making for some beautiful late night strolls. Of course, some of the great highlights of the weekend came from just hanging out in our hotel rooms watching hilarious movies, including a very funny adaptation of a popular Korean folk tale about... well ask me if you really want to know.
The next weekend was time for me to pay the price of signing up for the "Fun Run" category of the "King of the Mountain" race, held at Mt Wolchulsan to raise money for the Yeosu orphanage. However, some important details about the course were not included in the event announcement, like "your average Korean mountain hike will feel like a walk in the park compared to this", "make sure you bring 6 litres of water because you'll sweat at least twice that much out" and "if you are not in excellent physical condition you will regret this race for the rest of your life". Look up "contradictory statement", "misnomer", "self-flagellation" or "oxymoron" in the dictionary and you will find "Mt Wolchulsan Fun Run" as a definition. The mountain is a mere 809m tall and we spent the first 3 hours of the hike climbing straight up it. The kindly Korean government did install railings, ladders and stair cases en route so that we weren't scaling the rocks themselves but that hike was the most difficult thing I have ever done physically. It is the first time I have seen KOREANS sweating and panting while hiking a mountain (they're human after all!). At the summit, I gratefully received a hearty round of applause from those who had already arrived. I'd never felt like I deserved applause more in my life. However, now we had a much longer trail to travel that would take us down the other side of the mountain to the finish line. And while the descent had a much less vertical angle to it, it also had less railings and staircases to help you out. Once in a while there was a rope anchored to help you down a large boulder and more than once I used the old butt-scoot to get down in places where I didn't trust my ruined legs to support me if I jumped down. My hike companions, Amanda and Jennifer, were real troopers. Being in better shape than me, they were very patient: they never complained about waiting for me or how many minutes I was adding to our final run time. And against all odds, and the desire to lie down in the brush and die, we finished the hike six and a half hours after we began. Last team to finish, but there was some satisfaction in the fact that not all teams who start the climb completed it. In all seriousness, it was an incredible day and the view from the top was amazing. It's a beautiful place for a hike. FYI - there was an actual "race" category, and the jerk who won it ran up and over that mountain in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The nerve!
At the end of the month, we packed up some gear and headed to Myeongsashimni Beach on the island of Wando. It was a really fun weekend. A large group of foreigners from around the area were there and we all enjoyed being away from our students for a few days. We camped on the beach, played games, cooked samgypsal and tin foil dinners, and had a big bonfire on the beach. Unfortunately, camping so close to the water had the downside of it becoming excessively chilly at night. We wound up shivering the night away in our sleeping bags wearing whatever layers we could find in our packs! Luckily, the next day gave us beautiful weather and plenty of time to nap in the sun.
The first weekend in June was another wonderful getaway, this time to Sangbulsa temple in a small mountain range near Gwangju. Lower on the mountain from where this temple sits, a mountain stream has carved away at the rock for centuries and created a beautiful swimming hole. We gathered there for a swim and a picnic with a few foreigners. The water was fresh, clear and cold. The temple was charming, quiet, and just full of beautiful paintings, new marble statues and wooden carvings. We did get caught in the rain on the way back down the mountain, and had a bit of an adventure finding cabs way out there, but we did make it home eventually.
The next weekend found me on the road again, this time to Gwangju to go to my first pro/semi-pro (?) Korean baseball game. We bought thundersticks on the way in for 1000KRW and a few in a group even in invested in cardboard sun visors when faced with the setting sun. It was a really enjoyable game, even thought the game itself was a little dull. In South Korea, sports are extremely competitive (like the school system) and baseball has become what I've heard referred to as a "pitchers game", meaning if you enjoy the technique of pitching, you'll it. But otherwise it's pretty much a whole lot of strikes and the occasional walk. What was entertaining though, was the enthusiasm of the Gwangju crowd, who regular broke out into song and synchronized thunderstick dance moves. Also entertaining, matching couples and, even better, matching families; pre-schoolers jazz dancing before the game started and an old lady in our section who refused to give up enthusiastically leading cheers even when it was clear that our team was going to get thoroughly beaten. That's quite alright, there's plenty of other reason's to go to Gwangju (a large city 1 hr away from Suncheon by bus). Reason #2: Ethnic Bar - a really cool basement cafe that is almost entirely lit by large pillar candles, is draped floor to ceiling with beautiful iridescent fabrics that must originate from India and Thailand, features a small pond for lack of a better word) in the centre of it all with candles in it, and it's only furniture are low tables and large pillows lining the floors and walls. We went there for drinks and snacks (birgin pina colada juseyo!) and then headed out to Noraebang (of course) before calling it a night and heading back to the Windmill hotel. Reason #3 Great Food - Gwangju is host to the underground grocer (a tiny shop that stocks granola bars, sour cream, Dr Pepper and sharp cheddar!), a delicious authentic Indian food restaurant, and in the bus station alone: Burger King, TGIFridays and Cold Stone Creamery! I really enjoy Korean food, but sometimes you really want a taste of back home. Gwangju delivers the goods.
The NEXT weekend in June (still with me?) was my good friend Kate's birthday bash at String bar in Gwangyang. The theme for the party was "Anything Bought at a Korean Street Market", which we decided to go all out for. We headed into Yo-young-dong shopping district and picked out only the finest Korean attire that Won can buy: Ajumma pants, crazy Konglish tshirts, and sparkly Ajumma visors. String is a great little bar that is dominated by foreigners. So much so that the sweet Korean couple that runs the place let the regulars "work" behind the bar when it gets busy and happily give over control of the dance music. We had a great time celebrating and of course, topped of the night with a good long round of Noraebong.
Pics from all of these events can be found on my facebook page, or by clicking here
Now I do believe the next weekend I stayed at home and relaxed with my cat, she was probably feeling a bit neglected after all that. The first weekend in July though, Amanda A and I were on a bus from Daegu to Cheorwon, in Gangwon-do on weekend tour package from Adventure Korea. On Saturday we enjoyed rafting on the Hantan river, bungee-jumping (no, I didn't *hangs head in shame*) and a midnight tour of the war memorial situated near Odaemi village where we homestayed with a Korean family. This village area was one of the fiercest battle points during the Korean war and today most of its residents and farmers are paid handsomely to live on the land so close to the DeMilitarized Zone (DMZ), only 6 kilometers away, and keep it populated thus protecting it from any North Korean attempts to infiltrate undetected. On the Sunday, we toured the 2nd infiltration tunnel (a tunnel blasted 3.5 kms long by the North to invade ROK), Unification observatory (which overlooks the Iron Triangle Battlefield and was the headquarters and front line of the North Korean Army, through observation goggles you could their outposts), Wolcheongri Station (which shows the remains of the last train that used to run to border, which was bombed out) and the Labor Party Building (a three-story building constructed in 1946 and used as The House of the Labor Party, many people who were here during the anticommunist movement were later tortured and killed, the remains of the building are eerily pockmarked by bullet holes).
The next couple of weeks saw my school semester come to a close on July 14th and then I had a week to relax before getting on plane back to Canada for my home leave! (Well technically a plane to Tokyo, which then sent me to Canada...). I'm going to take a rest here. But I'll do my best to shortly get a summary of my trip home and how things have been since returning to Suncheon posted. Thanks for reading!
Thanks to May hosting Buddha's Birthday, Children's Day, Midterm Exams and the school Field trips, I had an astounding number of days off work. I used the "float" day in my contract to make room for a long-weekend trip to Seoul at the beginning of the month with a bunch of Suncheon friends, intending to take in Buddha's birthday parades and lantern celebrations. Unfortunately, we were there the weekend after all the really big stuff went down (oops) but we still had a great time shopping (English bookstores and Costco!), eating (thin crust pizza, Indian, Coldstone Creamery, Subway...*drools on keyboard*), touring Changdeokgung Palace, and catching the Nanta stage show (think "STOMP" in a kitchen). We even saw a parade, accidentally! And all of the lanterns from the previous weekend were strung up along the streets of Seoul, making for some beautiful late night strolls. Of course, some of the great highlights of the weekend came from just hanging out in our hotel rooms watching hilarious movies, including a very funny adaptation of a popular Korean folk tale about... well ask me if you really want to know.
The next weekend was time for me to pay the price of signing up for the "Fun Run" category of the "King of the Mountain" race, held at Mt Wolchulsan to raise money for the Yeosu orphanage. However, some important details about the course were not included in the event announcement, like "your average Korean mountain hike will feel like a walk in the park compared to this", "make sure you bring 6 litres of water because you'll sweat at least twice that much out" and "if you are not in excellent physical condition you will regret this race for the rest of your life". Look up "contradictory statement", "misnomer", "self-flagellation" or "oxymoron" in the dictionary and you will find "Mt Wolchulsan Fun Run" as a definition. The mountain is a mere 809m tall and we spent the first 3 hours of the hike climbing straight up it. The kindly Korean government did install railings, ladders and stair cases en route so that we weren't scaling the rocks themselves but that hike was the most difficult thing I have ever done physically. It is the first time I have seen KOREANS sweating and panting while hiking a mountain (they're human after all!). At the summit, I gratefully received a hearty round of applause from those who had already arrived. I'd never felt like I deserved applause more in my life. However, now we had a much longer trail to travel that would take us down the other side of the mountain to the finish line. And while the descent had a much less vertical angle to it, it also had less railings and staircases to help you out. Once in a while there was a rope anchored to help you down a large boulder and more than once I used the old butt-scoot to get down in places where I didn't trust my ruined legs to support me if I jumped down. My hike companions, Amanda and Jennifer, were real troopers. Being in better shape than me, they were very patient: they never complained about waiting for me or how many minutes I was adding to our final run time. And against all odds, and the desire to lie down in the brush and die, we finished the hike six and a half hours after we began. Last team to finish, but there was some satisfaction in the fact that not all teams who start the climb completed it. In all seriousness, it was an incredible day and the view from the top was amazing. It's a beautiful place for a hike. FYI - there was an actual "race" category, and the jerk who won it ran up and over that mountain in 2 hours and 15 minutes. The nerve!
At the end of the month, we packed up some gear and headed to Myeongsashimni Beach on the island of Wando. It was a really fun weekend. A large group of foreigners from around the area were there and we all enjoyed being away from our students for a few days. We camped on the beach, played games, cooked samgypsal and tin foil dinners, and had a big bonfire on the beach. Unfortunately, camping so close to the water had the downside of it becoming excessively chilly at night. We wound up shivering the night away in our sleeping bags wearing whatever layers we could find in our packs! Luckily, the next day gave us beautiful weather and plenty of time to nap in the sun.
The first weekend in June was another wonderful getaway, this time to Sangbulsa temple in a small mountain range near Gwangju. Lower on the mountain from where this temple sits, a mountain stream has carved away at the rock for centuries and created a beautiful swimming hole. We gathered there for a swim and a picnic with a few foreigners. The water was fresh, clear and cold. The temple was charming, quiet, and just full of beautiful paintings, new marble statues and wooden carvings. We did get caught in the rain on the way back down the mountain, and had a bit of an adventure finding cabs way out there, but we did make it home eventually.
The next weekend found me on the road again, this time to Gwangju to go to my first pro/semi-pro (?) Korean baseball game. We bought thundersticks on the way in for 1000KRW and a few in a group even in invested in cardboard sun visors when faced with the setting sun. It was a really enjoyable game, even thought the game itself was a little dull. In South Korea, sports are extremely competitive (like the school system) and baseball has become what I've heard referred to as a "pitchers game", meaning if you enjoy the technique of pitching, you'll it. But otherwise it's pretty much a whole lot of strikes and the occasional walk. What was entertaining though, was the enthusiasm of the Gwangju crowd, who regular broke out into song and synchronized thunderstick dance moves. Also entertaining, matching couples and, even better, matching families; pre-schoolers jazz dancing before the game started and an old lady in our section who refused to give up enthusiastically leading cheers even when it was clear that our team was going to get thoroughly beaten. That's quite alright, there's plenty of other reason's to go to Gwangju (a large city 1 hr away from Suncheon by bus). Reason #2: Ethnic Bar - a really cool basement cafe that is almost entirely lit by large pillar candles, is draped floor to ceiling with beautiful iridescent fabrics that must originate from India and Thailand, features a small pond for lack of a better word) in the centre of it all with candles in it, and it's only furniture are low tables and large pillows lining the floors and walls. We went there for drinks and snacks (birgin pina colada juseyo!) and then headed out to Noraebang (of course) before calling it a night and heading back to the Windmill hotel. Reason #3 Great Food - Gwangju is host to the underground grocer (a tiny shop that stocks granola bars, sour cream, Dr Pepper and sharp cheddar!), a delicious authentic Indian food restaurant, and in the bus station alone: Burger King, TGIFridays and Cold Stone Creamery! I really enjoy Korean food, but sometimes you really want a taste of back home. Gwangju delivers the goods.
The NEXT weekend in June (still with me?) was my good friend Kate's birthday bash at String bar in Gwangyang. The theme for the party was "Anything Bought at a Korean Street Market", which we decided to go all out for. We headed into Yo-young-dong shopping district and picked out only the finest Korean attire that Won can buy: Ajumma pants, crazy Konglish tshirts, and sparkly Ajumma visors. String is a great little bar that is dominated by foreigners. So much so that the sweet Korean couple that runs the place let the regulars "work" behind the bar when it gets busy and happily give over control of the dance music. We had a great time celebrating and of course, topped of the night with a good long round of Noraebong.
Pics from all of these events can be found on my facebook page, or by clicking here
Now I do believe the next weekend I stayed at home and relaxed with my cat, she was probably feeling a bit neglected after all that. The first weekend in July though, Amanda A and I were on a bus from Daegu to Cheorwon, in Gangwon-do on weekend tour package from Adventure Korea. On Saturday we enjoyed rafting on the Hantan river, bungee-jumping (no, I didn't *hangs head in shame*) and a midnight tour of the war memorial situated near Odaemi village where we homestayed with a Korean family. This village area was one of the fiercest battle points during the Korean war and today most of its residents and farmers are paid handsomely to live on the land so close to the DeMilitarized Zone (DMZ), only 6 kilometers away, and keep it populated thus protecting it from any North Korean attempts to infiltrate undetected. On the Sunday, we toured the 2nd infiltration tunnel (a tunnel blasted 3.5 kms long by the North to invade ROK), Unification observatory (which overlooks the Iron Triangle Battlefield and was the headquarters and front line of the North Korean Army, through observation goggles you could their outposts), Wolcheongri Station (which shows the remains of the last train that used to run to border, which was bombed out) and the Labor Party Building (a three-story building constructed in 1946 and used as The House of the Labor Party, many people who were here during the anticommunist movement were later tortured and killed, the remains of the building are eerily pockmarked by bullet holes).
The next couple of weeks saw my school semester come to a close on July 14th and then I had a week to relax before getting on plane back to Canada for my home leave! (Well technically a plane to Tokyo, which then sent me to Canada...). I'm going to take a rest here. But I'll do my best to shortly get a summary of my trip home and how things have been since returning to Suncheon posted. Thanks for reading!
Monday, March 23, 2009
SE Asia Chapter 3: The Road to Bangkok
Ok, so where did I leave you? Ah yes, the phenomenal week Amanda and I spent at Elephant Nature Park. I should mention that there was one casualty that week: my digital camera. I wish I could say it was lost when we ran to escape a stampeding elephant or was swept away by the river while we were dissembling rafts. But no, there wasn't even a breeze when my clumsy fingers fumbled it and it fell onto the sharp edge of large rock between my feet. So the rest of pictures of the trip belong to my friends Amanda and Ali.
We left the park feeling bittersweet and headed back into Chiang Mai on Sunday evening. We shared a room with a friend from England at Top North Guest house in the old city. We found the Sunday Market more lively than usual as the annual Flower Festival was being celebrated at Tha Pae Gate with a stage full with dancers and a chubby vocalist and substanstial live band all saturated painfully bright colors. We met the other volunteers we'd worked with over the last week at the Rooftop bar (whose decorating scheme had an unmistakable rastafarian influence) across from the market. On monday, Amanda and I headed into the centre of the old city looking for the temples we'd been diverted from seeing with Beer the last time we tried. First we stopped at a post office to ship from things back to Korea and lightened my backpack considerably. We found Ratchadamnoen Rd peppered with temples and shrines (and chickens and dogs and scrap metal sculptures Aliens and Predators!) but Wat Chedi Luang was the big one we were looking for and it didn't disappoint. It's an impressive structure on its own, but we were told by a friendly local that current commotion at the temple that day was due to a prominent Monk's death the previous week. His body was being kept at the temple for buddhist followers to come and pay their respects. Also on the grounds was a tree garden with Buddhist proverbs painted on sign posts. It was a great afternoon of sightseeing and some last minute shopping (Chiang Mai had the BEST markets of our entire trip!), but soon it was time to catch the 6:00PM sleeper train to Lopburi. Lopburi was the first leg of our trip south to Bangkok to meet up with Ali, Susan and Jennifer who'd left ENP on the third day and gone south to enjoy some time on Thailands famous beaches.
We kept entertained during the first few hours playing a make shift game of cribbage, while 3 of the train crew members watched us intently trying to discover the rules of our game. As night fell the crew made up the bunks. Amanda and I headed to bed, as we were scheduled to arrive in Lopburi at 4AM. I had no luck at sleeping though. The rattling and rocking of the train, the passenger snoring in the bunk beneath me, and the blinding light that defeated my curtain kept me tossing and turning until our train arrived in Lopburi at 5:30AM. The sun was not up when we left the station, which sits across the street from some beautiful ruins. A sign near the ruins pointed to a tourist information centre. We got some plastic wrapped breakfast from the 7-11 and, though it was a long shot, decided to see if the tourist building had some kind of map so that we could find our way to Phra Pramg Sam Yod. We didn't have much luck, but we did find a quiet spot to eat our pre-packaged pastries and watch some seniors practice thai-chi in bright pink exercise clothes. As we listened the drone of "hummmm-heeeee...." Amanda spotted something that looked promising: a monkey on a roof top. After a somewhat arbitrary deduction about what direction the city centre might be in, we headed down a main street. We didn't walk further than two blocks before we saw a monkey running along a telephone wire. And then two on a post, and then several more along the windowsills of a hotel's 3rd floor. Soon monkeys were everywhere and we knew we were headed in the right direction. When Phra Prang Sam Yod appeared before us, it was clear that my "lonely planet" had understated. It wasn't merely a "gang" of monkeys, there were hundreds of them! We were the only tourists onsite at 7:00 AM and the friendly gateman gave us a stick to whack away ambitious monkeys. It was a great morning. We were throughly climbed over and investigated by the youngsters. My notepad, M&M's and hand lotion were looted by one monkey who happily took my notepad to the top of the ruin and ripped it to pieces, letting the pages rain down on the other monkeys below, who made it their morning snack.
Across the street we found a temple complex where more monkeys were bouncing on vendor umbrellas like trampolines and picking their way through piles of fruit delivered by the locals. The monkeys are feed by the people and generally left undisturbed because they are considered lucky. I was running low on cash and my Mastercard hadn't been working, so after we'd taken a few hundred pictures with the monkeys, we headed further into the city to find a bank. We hopped aboard a brightly colored bus blaring loud music and hopped off again at a busy looking intersection. We found some goodies at a bakery and then found an internet cafe and was informed that my korean bank card was completely useless outside of Korea. Wonderful. The new mission for the morning was to call Mastercard to find out why I couldn't access those funds. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than expected. Convenience stores everywhere sold plenty of international cards, but none of the cards matched to correct brand of payphones on the streets. I was duped. And becoming very frustrated. By noon, Amanda and I were ready to move on to the quiet city of Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand and home to some fantastic ruins. I was sure I had enough funds to get to Bangkok and if there was anywhere where I could get connected to Mastercard, it would be there.
Getting off the train a tuk-tuk driver offered to take us to a cheap guest house near the cities priniciple ruins. We felt alittle weary, but we had not made plans ahead of time, and there was no harm in looking at a room. Luck was in our favour. "One Coffee Love" Guesthouse had paid drivers to fish for tourists because there were brand new and so would not be in any listings. The rooms were clean and bright, and directly across the street from Wat Mahathat. We spent the evening at the night market and ate dinner at an italian restaurant. I was feeling guilty about eating pizza in SE Asia, but Amanda reminded me we were on vacation from Korea, not Canada, afterall.
The next day we went bicycles for $1 and toured the major ruins of the city. There were moments that felt really transportative, like you could just imagine what the city had looked like 900 years earlier. We also took our bikes across the river that surrounds the city centre and saw some of the poorer side of town. We also stumbled across a temple being restored that housed a very large reclining buddha. It made us even more excited to head to Bangkok and see the world famous golden reclining buddha there. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and I had their speciality dish: Joon Zap. It's a delicious soup you make yourself. They bring you a bucket of hot coals and place a large bowl with broth on top, then bring you all the veggies and seasonings on the side along with your meat (I had pork). It was one of the best meals I had all month! We were alittle sad to leave Ayutthaya. We'd found our short time there to be very relaxing and beautiful. But we needed to be in Bangkok to meet the girls at New Joe Guesthouse by 6PM that day, so soon we were back on the train. Despite not having a place to sit, I really enjoyed our times on the train. As I watched the landscape go rolling by I felt exhilerated to be doing more than staying in one place for this trip. And there was still so much more ahead of us!
We arrived in Bangkok and with a girl from Germany we'd met on the train, we got a cab to Kho San Road, the tourist centre of Bangkok, where Suze, Jennifer and Ali were meeting us. Immediately the traffic, noise and concrete of the city engulfed us, and Ayutthaya felt far away. We managed to get a cab driver who would put the meter on for us after a few attempts (tourist scam #1) and arrived at Kho San Road only alittle late. Kho San Road feels abit like a circus and a lot like a pond, where you are the fish and there are alot of hooks in the water. It was overwhelming to wander the market. Tour guides, tuk-tuk drivers, bars, restaurants, guest house owners, masseurs and street vendors all call out to you for your business. The streets are so crowded with people you can't see more than a few feet in front of you. We had been warned, but by the end of the evening I felt claustrophobic. And I had a very difficult time keeping my composure when we came across a street begging baby elephant, fear in his eyes. I had no desire to stay in Bangkok any longer than we had to.
We had a rough plan and we stuck to it. The following day we were up early to see the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, where the golden reclining buddha is housed. At the entrance some very legitimate looking gentle tried to divert us and tell us we could go in that gate. Going to another gate a man invited us to take a boat tour instead and come back when the palace was open (Tourist Scam #2). We went back to the main gate and walked in, ignoring the conmen trying to convince us to turn around. The buildings were absolutely exquisite, take a look at the pictures on the link at the bottom. I can hardly begin to describe it. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Wat Pho was a short walk from the Royal Palace grounds and was equally breathtaking, even before we entered the main complex housing the reclining buddha. Jennifer had stayed back due to a stomach bug, and we had arranged to meet up with her at one of the largest malls in Bangkok. There I enjoyed some great shopping, including picking up two pairs of jeans that fit! (Finding pants for western women in Korea is a real plight, they just don't make pants for women with hips here!). We decided we would leave early the next day to make our journey to Cambodia, but there was one more thing we felt we needed to do before leaving Bangkok and that was of course: see a Ladyboy cabaret show! Thailand's drag queens are world famous, but I was surprised at just how openly accepted they were by the country itself. In the Thai language, there is actually a third gender included, so that women speak a certain way, men speak another and there is another set of words for the ladyboys to use. We were delivered to a fancy hotel for our show, and though there wasn't any actual singing (all lip-synched), I thoroughly enjoyed the campy show. We had a blast!
The end of the night was a real treat though. The alley in which you could find our guesthouse, was also the address of many massage parlours. I found one still open at quarter to midnight and went in for an hour long oil message. Faaaaantaaastic!
The pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2233529&id=122614903&l=d9a48d9761
I want to thank you guys for reading with these posts with so much patience, I know I'm very behind! Next Chapter: Cambodia. Coming soon, I promise!
We left the park feeling bittersweet and headed back into Chiang Mai on Sunday evening. We shared a room with a friend from England at Top North Guest house in the old city. We found the Sunday Market more lively than usual as the annual Flower Festival was being celebrated at Tha Pae Gate with a stage full with dancers and a chubby vocalist and substanstial live band all saturated painfully bright colors. We met the other volunteers we'd worked with over the last week at the Rooftop bar (whose decorating scheme had an unmistakable rastafarian influence) across from the market. On monday, Amanda and I headed into the centre of the old city looking for the temples we'd been diverted from seeing with Beer the last time we tried. First we stopped at a post office to ship from things back to Korea and lightened my backpack considerably. We found Ratchadamnoen Rd peppered with temples and shrines (and chickens and dogs and scrap metal sculptures Aliens and Predators!) but Wat Chedi Luang was the big one we were looking for and it didn't disappoint. It's an impressive structure on its own, but we were told by a friendly local that current commotion at the temple that day was due to a prominent Monk's death the previous week. His body was being kept at the temple for buddhist followers to come and pay their respects. Also on the grounds was a tree garden with Buddhist proverbs painted on sign posts. It was a great afternoon of sightseeing and some last minute shopping (Chiang Mai had the BEST markets of our entire trip!), but soon it was time to catch the 6:00PM sleeper train to Lopburi. Lopburi was the first leg of our trip south to Bangkok to meet up with Ali, Susan and Jennifer who'd left ENP on the third day and gone south to enjoy some time on Thailands famous beaches.
We kept entertained during the first few hours playing a make shift game of cribbage, while 3 of the train crew members watched us intently trying to discover the rules of our game. As night fell the crew made up the bunks. Amanda and I headed to bed, as we were scheduled to arrive in Lopburi at 4AM. I had no luck at sleeping though. The rattling and rocking of the train, the passenger snoring in the bunk beneath me, and the blinding light that defeated my curtain kept me tossing and turning until our train arrived in Lopburi at 5:30AM. The sun was not up when we left the station, which sits across the street from some beautiful ruins. A sign near the ruins pointed to a tourist information centre. We got some plastic wrapped breakfast from the 7-11 and, though it was a long shot, decided to see if the tourist building had some kind of map so that we could find our way to Phra Pramg Sam Yod. We didn't have much luck, but we did find a quiet spot to eat our pre-packaged pastries and watch some seniors practice thai-chi in bright pink exercise clothes. As we listened the drone of "hummmm-heeeee...." Amanda spotted something that looked promising: a monkey on a roof top. After a somewhat arbitrary deduction about what direction the city centre might be in, we headed down a main street. We didn't walk further than two blocks before we saw a monkey running along a telephone wire. And then two on a post, and then several more along the windowsills of a hotel's 3rd floor. Soon monkeys were everywhere and we knew we were headed in the right direction. When Phra Prang Sam Yod appeared before us, it was clear that my "lonely planet" had understated. It wasn't merely a "gang" of monkeys, there were hundreds of them! We were the only tourists onsite at 7:00 AM and the friendly gateman gave us a stick to whack away ambitious monkeys. It was a great morning. We were throughly climbed over and investigated by the youngsters. My notepad, M&M's and hand lotion were looted by one monkey who happily took my notepad to the top of the ruin and ripped it to pieces, letting the pages rain down on the other monkeys below, who made it their morning snack.
Across the street we found a temple complex where more monkeys were bouncing on vendor umbrellas like trampolines and picking their way through piles of fruit delivered by the locals. The monkeys are feed by the people and generally left undisturbed because they are considered lucky. I was running low on cash and my Mastercard hadn't been working, so after we'd taken a few hundred pictures with the monkeys, we headed further into the city to find a bank. We hopped aboard a brightly colored bus blaring loud music and hopped off again at a busy looking intersection. We found some goodies at a bakery and then found an internet cafe and was informed that my korean bank card was completely useless outside of Korea. Wonderful. The new mission for the morning was to call Mastercard to find out why I couldn't access those funds. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than expected. Convenience stores everywhere sold plenty of international cards, but none of the cards matched to correct brand of payphones on the streets. I was duped. And becoming very frustrated. By noon, Amanda and I were ready to move on to the quiet city of Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Thailand and home to some fantastic ruins. I was sure I had enough funds to get to Bangkok and if there was anywhere where I could get connected to Mastercard, it would be there.
Getting off the train a tuk-tuk driver offered to take us to a cheap guest house near the cities priniciple ruins. We felt alittle weary, but we had not made plans ahead of time, and there was no harm in looking at a room. Luck was in our favour. "One Coffee Love" Guesthouse had paid drivers to fish for tourists because there were brand new and so would not be in any listings. The rooms were clean and bright, and directly across the street from Wat Mahathat. We spent the evening at the night market and ate dinner at an italian restaurant. I was feeling guilty about eating pizza in SE Asia, but Amanda reminded me we were on vacation from Korea, not Canada, afterall.
The next day we went bicycles for $1 and toured the major ruins of the city. There were moments that felt really transportative, like you could just imagine what the city had looked like 900 years earlier. We also took our bikes across the river that surrounds the city centre and saw some of the poorer side of town. We also stumbled across a temple being restored that housed a very large reclining buddha. It made us even more excited to head to Bangkok and see the world famous golden reclining buddha there. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and I had their speciality dish: Joon Zap. It's a delicious soup you make yourself. They bring you a bucket of hot coals and place a large bowl with broth on top, then bring you all the veggies and seasonings on the side along with your meat (I had pork). It was one of the best meals I had all month! We were alittle sad to leave Ayutthaya. We'd found our short time there to be very relaxing and beautiful. But we needed to be in Bangkok to meet the girls at New Joe Guesthouse by 6PM that day, so soon we were back on the train. Despite not having a place to sit, I really enjoyed our times on the train. As I watched the landscape go rolling by I felt exhilerated to be doing more than staying in one place for this trip. And there was still so much more ahead of us!
We arrived in Bangkok and with a girl from Germany we'd met on the train, we got a cab to Kho San Road, the tourist centre of Bangkok, where Suze, Jennifer and Ali were meeting us. Immediately the traffic, noise and concrete of the city engulfed us, and Ayutthaya felt far away. We managed to get a cab driver who would put the meter on for us after a few attempts (tourist scam #1) and arrived at Kho San Road only alittle late. Kho San Road feels abit like a circus and a lot like a pond, where you are the fish and there are alot of hooks in the water. It was overwhelming to wander the market. Tour guides, tuk-tuk drivers, bars, restaurants, guest house owners, masseurs and street vendors all call out to you for your business. The streets are so crowded with people you can't see more than a few feet in front of you. We had been warned, but by the end of the evening I felt claustrophobic. And I had a very difficult time keeping my composure when we came across a street begging baby elephant, fear in his eyes. I had no desire to stay in Bangkok any longer than we had to.
We had a rough plan and we stuck to it. The following day we were up early to see the Royal Palace and Wat Pho, where the golden reclining buddha is housed. At the entrance some very legitimate looking gentle tried to divert us and tell us we could go in that gate. Going to another gate a man invited us to take a boat tour instead and come back when the palace was open (Tourist Scam #2). We went back to the main gate and walked in, ignoring the conmen trying to convince us to turn around. The buildings were absolutely exquisite, take a look at the pictures on the link at the bottom. I can hardly begin to describe it. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Wat Pho was a short walk from the Royal Palace grounds and was equally breathtaking, even before we entered the main complex housing the reclining buddha. Jennifer had stayed back due to a stomach bug, and we had arranged to meet up with her at one of the largest malls in Bangkok. There I enjoyed some great shopping, including picking up two pairs of jeans that fit! (Finding pants for western women in Korea is a real plight, they just don't make pants for women with hips here!). We decided we would leave early the next day to make our journey to Cambodia, but there was one more thing we felt we needed to do before leaving Bangkok and that was of course: see a Ladyboy cabaret show! Thailand's drag queens are world famous, but I was surprised at just how openly accepted they were by the country itself. In the Thai language, there is actually a third gender included, so that women speak a certain way, men speak another and there is another set of words for the ladyboys to use. We were delivered to a fancy hotel for our show, and though there wasn't any actual singing (all lip-synched), I thoroughly enjoyed the campy show. We had a blast!
The end of the night was a real treat though. The alley in which you could find our guesthouse, was also the address of many massage parlours. I found one still open at quarter to midnight and went in for an hour long oil message. Faaaaantaaastic!
The pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2233529&id=122614903&l=d9a48d9761
I want to thank you guys for reading with these posts with so much patience, I know I'm very behind! Next Chapter: Cambodia. Coming soon, I promise!
Friday, March 13, 2009
South Asia: Chapter one
"Alright, Lisa. Smarten up. It's halfway through frikkin March and you STILL have not written anything about your travels through South East Asia in February on your blog. Your family and friends have been very patient with you so far, but I'm pretty sure they will get their virtual torches and pitchforks out soon if you don't get off your lazy butt and starting writing!"
My conscience may have a point.
There are many perks to living and working in South Korea: free rent, tasty foods (most of the time...), a great expat community and mountain ranges far as the eye can see. And if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a contract with the public school system, the greatest perk is undoubtably the five weeks of vacation time written into your contract. If your school is nice (like mine) you'll get more vacation than this, but you aren't technically supposed to leave the country except for vacation time as indicated in your contract. Four of the five weeks in the contract are allocated to Febuary while schools are on their winter "break" (which includes January for the lucky folks). Myself and four other Canuck gals working in SK decided this opportunity to travel was not to be wasted. We found ourselves planning to spend our 26 days in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in a whirlwind cross-country adventure sure to be the trip of a lifetime.
My travelmates were Amanda, Jennifer, and Ali who all live in Suncheon with me, and our friend Susan, who is working in Wando. Of the five of us, I was the least travelled. I had never been anywhere besides Canada and few of the northern states of the USA. I hadn't even seen the ocean! Well, technically I guess I saw it when I was in NYC, but I don't feel like Manhattan harbour really counts. So I did a whole lot of prep, like picking up a copy of Lonely Planet's "South East Asia on a Shoestring" two days before departure and sewing shut a large whole in my $30 backpack at 3 AM the night before departure.
Side note: My cat Mokah was looked after by my good friends Stephen and Jodie while I was away. While I was very grateful to them for this, Mokah was less gracious, and after about a week of destruction and noise in their apartment, she was moved back to my place where Jodie and Stephen visited her frequently. Our seperation and reunion were much more emotional for me than I had expected them to be. Strange the way your heart becomes attached. The poor schmoe's out there who have tried to date me know well that I can be a cold-hearted wench when I should be filled with affection. My friends and parents can vouch for the fact that I often keep people, including those I love most, at arms length when my emotions are running high. And for some reason, this crazy little furball has got my heart. I cried like a baby when I got home to her.
Korean Air Flight KE667 was right on time and delivered us to the Chiang Mai airport in northern Thailand at 12:30 AM on February 1st. Our taxi successfully dropped us off at the hostel we were booked into, but when we arrived we found the office locked and no employees to be found. We soon discovered that the hostel thought we were arriving at 1PM on Sunday, not 1AM. We were SOL in the middle of the night in Chiang Mai city with no map in a part of town low on hotels and taxis. Ali had kept her eyes open on the drive from the airport (thankfully) and remembered seeing an upscale hotel down the alley from where we'd been dropped off. We gratefully crashed there for our first night in Thailand at $12 each.
Eating my continental breakfast of fresh fruit and toast on the patio the next morning and staring at the hotel's beautiful gardens, it hits me: I'm in Thailand. Not thinking about it, not talking about it. I'm here. We found ourselves falling quickly in love with Thailand during our first day in Chiang Mai. The heat, the vegetation, the friendly people (who speak English without fear or hesistation!) and the food, oh my goodness the food! After getting Suze, Ali and Jennifer booked in for their overnight at Elephant Nature Park (Amanda and I had already booked our 1 week stay), we hired a guy named Beer to show us around a few of the local Temples. All five us piled into his tiny toyota sedan (Amanda and Jennifer shared the front bucket seat) and sped up a winding moutain road for 30 minutes to see Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai's most famous Temple which overlooks the city from the north. The steps leading to the temple were lined with vendors selling souvenirs, jewellry, fresh fruit, and anything else that might fetch a price. The main stairway had railings made of dragon scales. We paid a donation of 30 baht (approx $1 CDN) to enter the temple. I let the pictures do the talking:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2230910&id=122614903&l=4bba8
We removed our shoes and were given scarves to cover bare shoulder and low necklines. Beer was indespensible as he explained the offerings of insense, flowers and money and prayers made by the local Thai people, and showed us how to participate in a monk's blessing and show respect inside the temple rooms. After the monk blessed us with holy water, a white string was tied around our wrists, the threads has been blessed to give us protection and good luck and we are instructed not to take it off for three days. There were bells everwhere (rung for good luck) as well as dogs sleeping throughout the complex who were cared for by the monks. Children played music and danced for donations to their schools. The scenic lookout reveals a smoggy Chiang Mai and some beautiful mountainside vegetation. On the way back to the city, Beer tells us that the other temple we want to see inside the old city is closed today for the Sunday Market, and just as our guidebooks predicted, instead takes us to a silk factory. We are given a demonstration of how silk is traditionally made from start to finish and then have to walk through the large store to exit. It was cool to see, but we knew the real reason we were there was that Beer would collect a comission for taking us there, becuase the owners are hoping we'll spend our money in the overpriced shop. He also tried to detour us to a tailor shop but we tell him we're tired (which we are) and are ready to head back to our hotel. Once we get back to hotel Suze, Amanda and I decide we want to check out the Sunday Market inside the old city, and we make plans to meet Ali and Jennifer for dinner at Riverside restaurant.
Chiang Mai's old city is surrounded by a moat and some ruins of the old walls and gates still remain, the most famous of which is Thai Pae gate, which is also the entrance to the popular Sunday market. It was a blur of colours, sounds and lights. It was the best shopping we found the entire time we were in Thailand and I quickly found myself snapping up jewelry, bags and clothing, unable to avoid being sucked in by the price. I also found myself enjoying bartering with vendors. We were also bumped into by a pretty convincing pick-pocket who took a nasty spill into us from behind, and after we helped him up, he hobbled along with his cane and then did the same thing to a wealthy white couple about 60 feet ahead of us. Thankfully we didn't keep anything worth snatching in our pockets.
We hopped in a tuk-tuk, a 3-wheeled motorized vehicle with a bench seat in the back, and headed to Riverside to meet the girls for dinner on a boat. It was delicious food and lovely view of the riverside night life. Our hotel was nicely situated within the city's night market district, so we did some more shopping before calling it a night. Jennifer and I also enjoyed 1/2 hour foot massages for about 3 bucks each. We went to sleep excited to head to Elephant Nature Park the next morning.
To be continued....
My conscience may have a point.
There are many perks to living and working in South Korea: free rent, tasty foods (most of the time...), a great expat community and mountain ranges far as the eye can see. And if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a contract with the public school system, the greatest perk is undoubtably the five weeks of vacation time written into your contract. If your school is nice (like mine) you'll get more vacation than this, but you aren't technically supposed to leave the country except for vacation time as indicated in your contract. Four of the five weeks in the contract are allocated to Febuary while schools are on their winter "break" (which includes January for the lucky folks). Myself and four other Canuck gals working in SK decided this opportunity to travel was not to be wasted. We found ourselves planning to spend our 26 days in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in a whirlwind cross-country adventure sure to be the trip of a lifetime.
My travelmates were Amanda, Jennifer, and Ali who all live in Suncheon with me, and our friend Susan, who is working in Wando. Of the five of us, I was the least travelled. I had never been anywhere besides Canada and few of the northern states of the USA. I hadn't even seen the ocean! Well, technically I guess I saw it when I was in NYC, but I don't feel like Manhattan harbour really counts. So I did a whole lot of prep, like picking up a copy of Lonely Planet's "South East Asia on a Shoestring" two days before departure and sewing shut a large whole in my $30 backpack at 3 AM the night before departure.
Side note: My cat Mokah was looked after by my good friends Stephen and Jodie while I was away. While I was very grateful to them for this, Mokah was less gracious, and after about a week of destruction and noise in their apartment, she was moved back to my place where Jodie and Stephen visited her frequently. Our seperation and reunion were much more emotional for me than I had expected them to be. Strange the way your heart becomes attached. The poor schmoe's out there who have tried to date me know well that I can be a cold-hearted wench when I should be filled with affection. My friends and parents can vouch for the fact that I often keep people, including those I love most, at arms length when my emotions are running high. And for some reason, this crazy little furball has got my heart. I cried like a baby when I got home to her.
Korean Air Flight KE667 was right on time and delivered us to the Chiang Mai airport in northern Thailand at 12:30 AM on February 1st. Our taxi successfully dropped us off at the hostel we were booked into, but when we arrived we found the office locked and no employees to be found. We soon discovered that the hostel thought we were arriving at 1PM on Sunday, not 1AM. We were SOL in the middle of the night in Chiang Mai city with no map in a part of town low on hotels and taxis. Ali had kept her eyes open on the drive from the airport (thankfully) and remembered seeing an upscale hotel down the alley from where we'd been dropped off. We gratefully crashed there for our first night in Thailand at $12 each.
Eating my continental breakfast of fresh fruit and toast on the patio the next morning and staring at the hotel's beautiful gardens, it hits me: I'm in Thailand. Not thinking about it, not talking about it. I'm here. We found ourselves falling quickly in love with Thailand during our first day in Chiang Mai. The heat, the vegetation, the friendly people (who speak English without fear or hesistation!) and the food, oh my goodness the food! After getting Suze, Ali and Jennifer booked in for their overnight at Elephant Nature Park (Amanda and I had already booked our 1 week stay), we hired a guy named Beer to show us around a few of the local Temples. All five us piled into his tiny toyota sedan (Amanda and Jennifer shared the front bucket seat) and sped up a winding moutain road for 30 minutes to see Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai's most famous Temple which overlooks the city from the north. The steps leading to the temple were lined with vendors selling souvenirs, jewellry, fresh fruit, and anything else that might fetch a price. The main stairway had railings made of dragon scales. We paid a donation of 30 baht (approx $1 CDN) to enter the temple. I let the pictures do the talking:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2230910&id=122614903&l=4bba8
We removed our shoes and were given scarves to cover bare shoulder and low necklines. Beer was indespensible as he explained the offerings of insense, flowers and money and prayers made by the local Thai people, and showed us how to participate in a monk's blessing and show respect inside the temple rooms. After the monk blessed us with holy water, a white string was tied around our wrists, the threads has been blessed to give us protection and good luck and we are instructed not to take it off for three days. There were bells everwhere (rung for good luck) as well as dogs sleeping throughout the complex who were cared for by the monks. Children played music and danced for donations to their schools. The scenic lookout reveals a smoggy Chiang Mai and some beautiful mountainside vegetation. On the way back to the city, Beer tells us that the other temple we want to see inside the old city is closed today for the Sunday Market, and just as our guidebooks predicted, instead takes us to a silk factory. We are given a demonstration of how silk is traditionally made from start to finish and then have to walk through the large store to exit. It was cool to see, but we knew the real reason we were there was that Beer would collect a comission for taking us there, becuase the owners are hoping we'll spend our money in the overpriced shop. He also tried to detour us to a tailor shop but we tell him we're tired (which we are) and are ready to head back to our hotel. Once we get back to hotel Suze, Amanda and I decide we want to check out the Sunday Market inside the old city, and we make plans to meet Ali and Jennifer for dinner at Riverside restaurant.
Chiang Mai's old city is surrounded by a moat and some ruins of the old walls and gates still remain, the most famous of which is Thai Pae gate, which is also the entrance to the popular Sunday market. It was a blur of colours, sounds and lights. It was the best shopping we found the entire time we were in Thailand and I quickly found myself snapping up jewelry, bags and clothing, unable to avoid being sucked in by the price. I also found myself enjoying bartering with vendors. We were also bumped into by a pretty convincing pick-pocket who took a nasty spill into us from behind, and after we helped him up, he hobbled along with his cane and then did the same thing to a wealthy white couple about 60 feet ahead of us. Thankfully we didn't keep anything worth snatching in our pockets.
We hopped in a tuk-tuk, a 3-wheeled motorized vehicle with a bench seat in the back, and headed to Riverside to meet the girls for dinner on a boat. It was delicious food and lovely view of the riverside night life. Our hotel was nicely situated within the city's night market district, so we did some more shopping before calling it a night. Jennifer and I also enjoyed 1/2 hour foot massages for about 3 bucks each. We went to sleep excited to head to Elephant Nature Park the next morning.
To be continued....
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The First Month Zooms By: Originally published Nov 11/08
The First Month Zooms By!
Well you know, when I was thinking about how things would be in Korea I really thought I would have lots of time to write letters and especially keep a really up to date blog about all that I see and do, but time has just been flying. Sunday, November 2nd was my 1 month aniversary in Korea! I will try my best to get you caught up without boring you with too many details. Here are some highlights:
Week#2
At the end of my first week of work (but no actual classes) there was a National Holiday, I believe it was called Foundation Day or something to that effect and so our school took its staff and students to Kyangcheon Sa (temple). It was an hour and a half long bus ride (most of which I spent talking to my mom on my nifty new cell phone!) to the mountain. At the base of the mountain was alittle business street with restaurants, a hotel and the ever-pres
ent street vendors selling fruits, vegetables and chestnuts in enormous quantities. It took us about an hour to reach the temple site which was really beautiful to see. The monks were friendly about all the visitors and you could hear the prayer bells tolling throughout the rest of the hike. It was a nice hike (and I have learned a very easy hike comparatively!), we hiked up the mountain for approximately 3 hours before we were called down to meet the teachers for lunch at a lower spot on the mountain, which was frustrating for me because we had just crossed the "spine chilling suspension bridge" (I wish I'd taken a picture of that sign!) and I had a feeling a few more minutes of climbing would've have given us some really great views. But mealtime gets priority around here so we met the other teachers for a picnic lunch of Kimbap (think California rolls but with spam and cooked egg in it instead of crabmeat), fruit, kimchi, and dried squid. .Friday night I went out with a group of Foreigners for bowling and Noribong. Bowling apparently is the same everywhere but Noribong, the Korean version of Kareoke, is something you've gotta try! Instead of going to a large bar and having to wait 2 hours to sing 1 one song in front of a bunch of strangers, Noribongs are Kareoke clubs where you get a room just for your group of friends. There are usually comfortable couches, disco lights, a good sound system and plenty of famous english songs to choose from. And after your song, the 
computer gives you a score out of 100. You can imagine this was pretty much right up my alley! We sang and danced the night away! ('Hangin Tough' by NKOTB was the surprise smash hit of the night, hahaha) The next day (Saturday) I travelled by train with some foreigners I had met here to the city of Jinju for their annual Lantern Festival. Thle Festival commemorates a special battle where an outnumbered group of Korean Soldiers held their ground against the Japanese. The isolated troops were able to send important messages to others by floating lanterns on the river. So now every year hundreds of lanterns are lit up on and along the river, and for a couple of bucks you can float your own wish lantern down the river, carrying your hopes on to their destination whatever it may be. My favourite lantern was an animatronic Dragon that moved and breathed fire! It was a really great day. The market there was fantastic and there was a spectacular fireworks show at the end. If I can figure out how I will upload the video I took of it to the google group page. And like so many things in Korea, the day trip was incredibly cheap. The return ticket for the train cost about $10 and it was 1.5 hours each way! The next few days were huge for me to get through because they were my first days actually teaching at the High School and
I was very nervous. Korea is a very homogeneous country so foreigners, like myself get alot of notoriety here. It's not uncommon to walk down the street and have someone yell "Hello!" from a passing car. I had been prepared for this my first week in the school, when during class breaks I would find my desk surrounded by 10-15 students all saying hello and asking me how I like Korea. I had my lesson planned, I had my materials. I took a deep breath and walked into my first class. My students acted like a rock star had entered the room! Reasons: 1. They had been waiting almost a month for a new native speaking english teacher. 2. I'm a white girl with long hair (the last teacher was Korean-Canadian, and they have to keep their hair short while in the public school system) 3. Koreans are happy people who don't hesitate to clap/sing/skip down the street, so outbursts are not outside of social norms. I was amazed at how that energy from my students gave me confidence. And I'm thankful to my high school drama club for making me feel comfortable in front of 40 students. Talk about a sink or swim situation! Thankfully, I'm swimming, or at least treading water. I'm entering the school half way through the second semester of the school year, so there 
isn't any structure to my curriculum. I'm simply trying out different lesson techniques and filling the weeks until winter vacation (the new school year will start in March 2009). I have an amazing opportunity here in Korea, both for cultural experience but also my job is excellent. I work 9-5 monday to friday. I work at an all girls high school, which means: a) I don't have any boys to deal with (so no disciplinary worries so far), b) all the students have a basic understanding of English, even if they don't speak it well, and c) there are lots of exams so classes get cancelled on a regular basis. As of writing this note (my fourth week of Teaching) I have only had 1 full week of teaching without any classes being cancelled. This week is the Korean SAT exams so I have only one class on Wednesday and no classes on Thursday! On top of that we get all government holidays (there are 14 in the year I believe) and I have 5 weeks of holidays officially in my contract, but according to my teacher I get at least 3 more weeks of holiday in the winter break because my school won't be open. And it's especially sweet compared to what most other foreigners get teaching at Hogwans (private english schools) who often work six days a week, from 12-8 PM, and get one week of paid holiday in the year. Their income is higher, but I wouldn't trade this position for a few hundred thousand won. Plus (honestly, THIS is my favourite part...) my school has a teachers nap room! You sleep on the floor Korean-style, but the floor is heated so you sleep like a baby! (Anyone who has every worked with me has heard me say: "You know what this place needs? A nap room.")After school one day, my co-teachers took me to Suncheon Bay. Located south of the city, its an ecological reserve, protecting the reeds, muddy banks, birds and millions of crabs that live there. The city has constructed a remarkable raised walkway through the bay so that you can walk through the reeds a couple of feet above the muddy world of th crabs. The bay is surrounded by mountain peaks, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset of every colour in the spectrum in the west, and the full moon rising in the east. I will post pictures when I figure out how to get them off of my cell phone! Afterwards, my co-teachers took me to the Pizza Hut in Suncheon which was really considerate of them since western food is expensive and not too tasty to the Korean palate. Our pizza had sweet potato on it, hmmm tasty!
Week #3
ent street vendors selling fruits, vegetables and chestnuts in enormous quantities. It took us about an hour to reach the temple site which was really beautiful to see. The monks were friendly about all the visitors and you could hear the prayer bells tolling throughout the rest of the hike. It was a nice hike (and I have learned a very easy hike comparatively!), we hiked up the mountain for approximately 3 hours before we were called down to meet the teachers for lunch at a lower spot on the mountain, which was frustrating for me because we had just crossed the "spine chilling suspension bridge" (I wish I'd taken a picture of that sign!) and I had a feeling a few more minutes of climbing would've have given us some really great views. But mealtime gets priority around here so we met the other teachers for a picnic lunch of Kimbap (think California rolls but with spam and cooked egg in it instead of crabmeat), fruit, kimchi, and dried squid. .Friday night I went out with a group of Foreigners for bowling and Noribong. Bowling apparently is the same everywhere but Noribong, the Korean version of Kareoke, is something you've gotta try! Instead of going to a large bar and having to wait 2 hours to sing 1 one song in front of a bunch of strangers, Noribongs are Kareoke clubs where you get a room just for your group of friends. There are usually comfortable couches, disco lights, a good sound system and plenty of famous english songs to choose from. And after your song, the 
computer gives you a score out of 100. You can imagine this was pretty much right up my alley! We sang and danced the night away! ('Hangin Tough' by NKOTB was the surprise smash hit of the night, hahaha) The next day (Saturday) I travelled by train with some foreigners I had met here to the city of Jinju for their annual Lantern Festival. Thle Festival commemorates a special battle where an outnumbered group of Korean Soldiers held their ground against the Japanese. The isolated troops were able to send important messages to others by floating lanterns on the river. So now every year hundreds of lanterns are lit up on and along the river, and for a couple of bucks you can float your own wish lantern down the river, carrying your hopes on to their destination whatever it may be. My favourite lantern was an animatronic Dragon that moved and breathed fire! It was a really great day. The market there was fantastic and there was a spectacular fireworks show at the end. If I can figure out how I will upload the video I took of it to the google group page. And like so many things in Korea, the day trip was incredibly cheap. The return ticket for the train cost about $10 and it was 1.5 hours each way! The next few days were huge for me to get through because they were my first days actually teaching at the High School and
I was very nervous. Korea is a very homogeneous country so foreigners, like myself get alot of notoriety here. It's not uncommon to walk down the street and have someone yell "Hello!" from a passing car. I had been prepared for this my first week in the school, when during class breaks I would find my desk surrounded by 10-15 students all saying hello and asking me how I like Korea. I had my lesson planned, I had my materials. I took a deep breath and walked into my first class. My students acted like a rock star had entered the room! Reasons: 1. They had been waiting almost a month for a new native speaking english teacher. 2. I'm a white girl with long hair (the last teacher was Korean-Canadian, and they have to keep their hair short while in the public school system) 3. Koreans are happy people who don't hesitate to clap/sing/skip down the street, so outbursts are not outside of social norms. I was amazed at how that energy from my students gave me confidence. And I'm thankful to my high school drama club for making me feel comfortable in front of 40 students. Talk about a sink or swim situation! Thankfully, I'm swimming, or at least treading water. I'm entering the school half way through the second semester of the school year, so there 
isn't any structure to my curriculum. I'm simply trying out different lesson techniques and filling the weeks until winter vacation (the new school year will start in March 2009). I have an amazing opportunity here in Korea, both for cultural experience but also my job is excellent. I work 9-5 monday to friday. I work at an all girls high school, which means: a) I don't have any boys to deal with (so no disciplinary worries so far), b) all the students have a basic understanding of English, even if they don't speak it well, and c) there are lots of exams so classes get cancelled on a regular basis. As of writing this note (my fourth week of Teaching) I have only had 1 full week of teaching without any classes being cancelled. This week is the Korean SAT exams so I have only one class on Wednesday and no classes on Thursday! On top of that we get all government holidays (there are 14 in the year I believe) and I have 5 weeks of holidays officially in my contract, but according to my teacher I get at least 3 more weeks of holiday in the winter break because my school won't be open. And it's especially sweet compared to what most other foreigners get teaching at Hogwans (private english schools) who often work six days a week, from 12-8 PM, and get one week of paid holiday in the year. Their income is higher, but I wouldn't trade this position for a few hundred thousand won. Plus (honestly, THIS is my favourite part...) my school has a teachers nap room! You sleep on the floor Korean-style, but the floor is heated so you sleep like a baby! (Anyone who has every worked with me has heard me say: "You know what this place needs? A nap room.")After school one day, my co-teachers took me to Suncheon Bay. Located south of the city, its an ecological reserve, protecting the reeds, muddy banks, birds and millions of crabs that live there. The city has constructed a remarkable raised walkway through the bay so that you can walk through the reeds a couple of feet above the muddy world of th crabs. The bay is surrounded by mountain peaks, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset of every colour in the spectrum in the west, and the full moon rising in the east. I will post pictures when I figure out how to get them off of my cell phone! Afterwards, my co-teachers took me to the Pizza Hut in Suncheon which was really considerate of them since western food is expensive and not too tasty to the Korean palate. Our pizza had sweet potato on it, hmmm tasty!Week #3
After my first wee
k of teaching, our school had a 'mini-holiday' (Oct 21-20) where we didn't have classes on Monday and Tuesday, so my co-teachers invited me to hiking with them on the Monday. We drove to the port city of Yeosu where a boat took us to the island of Gamodo (sp?). The view on the boat ride was fantastic. Now "hiking" in Korea is really mountain climbind without needing ropes and pick axes because of the terrain. It is hard work and there is an entire industry here that sells "hiking" gear - special pants, shoes, jackets, sun visors, hiking sticks and gloves. Most of my co-teachers were fully decked out. We hiked up the first mountain in about 3 hours and then spent the rest of the day hiking along the peaks on the island. It was hard work, and on a bad ankle not always enjoyable
, but definitely worth the view. Korea is stunningly beautiful. The next day, Jodie took me to see a local doctor for acupuncture to help with tension in my shoulders. It was definitely an interesting experience! First the put this strange suction cup things up my spine (which left big hickeys, I looked like I'd been attached by an octopus afterwards) and a little blood letting, then the acupunture itself. And it was like they say it is, painless. The most shocking part came after. One hour of Acupuncture treatment cost me 6000W ($6)!
k of teaching, our school had a 'mini-holiday' (Oct 21-20) where we didn't have classes on Monday and Tuesday, so my co-teachers invited me to hiking with them on the Monday. We drove to the port city of Yeosu where a boat took us to the island of Gamodo (sp?). The view on the boat ride was fantastic. Now "hiking" in Korea is really mountain climbind without needing ropes and pick axes because of the terrain. It is hard work and there is an entire industry here that sells "hiking" gear - special pants, shoes, jackets, sun visors, hiking sticks and gloves. Most of my co-teachers were fully decked out. We hiked up the first mountain in about 3 hours and then spent the rest of the day hiking along the peaks on the island. It was hard work, and on a bad ankle not always enjoyable
, but definitely worth the view. Korea is stunningly beautiful. The next day, Jodie took me to see a local doctor for acupuncture to help with tension in my shoulders. It was definitely an interesting experience! First the put this strange suction cup things up my spine (which left big hickeys, I looked like I'd been attached by an octopus afterwards) and a little blood letting, then the acupunture itself. And it was like they say it is, painless. The most shocking part came after. One hour of Acupuncture treatment cost me 6000W ($6)!Week #4
At the end of the month I went to two Halloween parties, both of which were alot of fun.
The first was in Yeosu. Myself and four other Canadian gals did the Alice in Wonderland theme; I went as the Mad Hatter, and litterally cut and pasted my hat together. I still can't believe that it held together for both parties, the second of which was held by Dean and Mandy just two floors above me in Shidae apartments. I had alot of fun at this party and even dunked my entire head bobbing for apples (I was not coming up without that apple in my mouth darn it!). On November 2nd, I took a train to the Daejeon to pick up Mokah, my new kitty! I have wanted to adopt an animal for sometime but the transitory life of a University student isn't to a pet so I've waited. There are alot of foreigners here with pets because animals are not treated very humanely in Korea; they are seen as food or pests but rarely as companions. Once
I realized that I could get food and veterinary care for an animal here, I knew I wanted to get my first cat in Korea, to help me with homesickness and rescue an animal that really needs a home. I contacted several rescuers and let them know I was looking to adopt a cat, especially one that needed alittle extra care getting used to humans as I know how to work with them thanks to my Mom. Mokah had been rescued off the street as a kitten and had been kept in a cage at vet's for four months as she was scared of humans and would sometimes hiss at people that got too close. She didn't warm up to me right away, she was very frightened. But once I picked her up and talked to her for a few minutes, she started purring and I felt my heart melt. In one short week she has gone from being a frightened kitty who hid under the bed and behind the fridge, to the biggest suck you've ever met. We are getting along great and its so wonderful to see her adjust so quickly to life outside of a cage!
The first was in Yeosu. Myself and four other Canadian gals did the Alice in Wonderland theme; I went as the Mad Hatter, and litterally cut and pasted my hat together. I still can't believe that it held together for both parties, the second of which was held by Dean and Mandy just two floors above me in Shidae apartments. I had alot of fun at this party and even dunked my entire head bobbing for apples (I was not coming up without that apple in my mouth darn it!). On November 2nd, I took a train to the Daejeon to pick up Mokah, my new kitty! I have wanted to adopt an animal for sometime but the transitory life of a University student isn't to a pet so I've waited. There are alot of foreigners here with pets because animals are not treated very humanely in Korea; they are seen as food or pests but rarely as companions. Once
I realized that I could get food and veterinary care for an animal here, I knew I wanted to get my first cat in Korea, to help me with homesickness and rescue an animal that really needs a home. I contacted several rescuers and let them know I was looking to adopt a cat, especially one that needed alittle extra care getting used to humans as I know how to work with them thanks to my Mom. Mokah had been rescued off the street as a kitten and had been kept in a cage at vet's for four months as she was scared of humans and would sometimes hiss at people that got too close. She didn't warm up to me right away, she was very frightened. But once I picked her up and talked to her for a few minutes, she started purring and I felt my heart melt. In one short week she has gone from being a frightened kitty who hid under the bed and behind the fridge, to the biggest suck you've ever met. We are getting along great and its so wonderful to see her adjust so quickly to life outside of a cage!The month has been filled with lots of new experiences. I've got my apartment decorated, I've eaten alot of new things, I've hiked the mountain beside my apartment complex and I've learned enough basic Korean to get around the city just fine by taxi. There is so much to see, do and experience. I've been warned that I'm still in the 'honeymoon phase', but I am loving my time in Korea so far. I love you all very much. Thanks for your support. Miss you!
Lisa
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