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Published: October 16th 2012
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Dinner on the beach!
Getting ready to have a fresh seafood dinner on the beach with Patrick, Ashley, and Kyle. So the first week of school I basically followed all the teachers around and shadowed their classrooms to see what it was like and got used to my little cubicle with the extrmeley slow computer. The next week I was to do a presentation about who I am, my family, and what I like to do in my spare time. So in between shadowing and making my powerpoint I mostly just sat around in which they call, 'deskwarming'. Nothing really exciting in the first week except a bunch of screaming kids running down the hall saying, "You're handosme!" which is flattering at first and then you realize a couple days later with ALL the kids saying it is that that is pretty much the only word they know. I started Taekwondo on Monday and Thursday nights which is a lot of fun! We have a good group of people and a great instructor who speaks English and is very patient. It's not too bad of a price either. About 80,000won a month which is a little less than $10 dollars a class.
The weekend we heard word that there was a dubstep dance party called Sunset Beatz on an island
just west of Incheon in an area called yongyudo. So a group of us decided to head out there for the night and get a cheap pension (basically a hotel room with no beds). A small group of us went out early to relax and spend some time on the beach since it was still pretty hot. It took us quite a while to get there since trying to read the signs and figure out directions are pretty hard. But we finally got there very ill prepared and ended up shopping for some pretty ugly swimming shorts and a "towel" that was a little thicker than a bounty paper towel which was weird to say the least. The beach was pretty cool. We were the only foreigners there and kept getting stared at since we were in swimming shorts and bikinis and the Koreans were decked out in long pants, long shirts, suits, sun hats, and umbrellas to cover their skin. I think they are afraid to get dark or freckles from what we've heard. Anyway, it was one of the weirdest beach experiences I have every had. After relaxing for a bit we decided to head down the beach
What we ate
This is the meal that we ordered. Clams, Mussels, mini conch to a restaurant on the beach that served freshly caught seafood. Thankfully we ran into a guy, Chai, who spoke English and helped us out with ordering food or else we may have ended up some living squid or who knows what else. So we sat there on a picnic table overlooking the beach grilling fresh oyesters, clams, mussels while drinking Cass and Soju as the sun set over the water and dipped into the sea. It was pretty mesmorizing to have a front row seat to that. Pretty amazing and I'll post some pics of that.
We then headed in the direction that we thought this beach party was only to find out that we were heading in the wrong direction but got a ride from another foreigner that we had talked to on the beach and he dropped us off right at the party. We walk down to the beach and put our stuff down and start talking to people and kicking the soccer ball around and running down to the water. After about 20-30 minutes of being at the beach party, the DJ comes on and makes an announcement:" Ok guys, do you see those rocks
View from Seoul Tower
This is the view from the top of the tower overlooking the city right there on the left side of the beach...? Don't cross over them or you will be shot! The South Korean army is standing on the hill where the rocks are and will shoot if you cross over there." Sure enough, you look up and can see some silhouettes of people on the hill with an occasional flare from a cigarette. Apparently the SK government thinks that if North Korea would attack they would come in from that direction and try to land so there were guards with machine guns posted up there 24/7. Pretty freaky to be hanging out next to a place you could get shot...No one got shot and we had a great time that weekend!
The next week I started to do my presentation to my classes about myself and what I enjoy in my free time. I thought it would be a pretty easy, relaxing week which it was but I never thought I would be SO tired of doing the exact same presentation over and over and over again. It was good practice since my co teachers, Yumi, Whemi, and Michelle said I talked too fast, not loud enough, and the kids had
no idea what I was saying. After 19 45 minute classes, I was glad to have that be over with! I'm getting more familiar with the layout of school and what I need to be doing with the lesson plans and the classes. Still working on speaking slower and louder which I'm sure will come with more practice and constant reminder.
We ended up going into Seoul for the day on Saturday and planned on staying the night and explore the next day as well. A bunch of friends met up north at Gyeyang station to meet Adam and Isabelle and then rode the subway into the city to one of the shopping districts, Myeongdong. It's a huge street with a bunch of high end shops and street vendors everywhere with some selling counterfeit clothes and sunglasses and bags. I have never seen so many counterfeit clothing companies in my entire life. I have literally seen 6 different "The North Face" company logos and spinoffs. I'll have to go around sometime and write down some of the crazy brand names I've seen. The one that really sticks out is called "The Red Face" which has basically the same logo
Sunset on the beach
Another view of the sunset and the restaurant we ate at as TNF. We dropped a couple friends off to shop and rest of us took the Namsam cable car to the top of the mountain and went up to Seoul Tower which is a huge tower in the middle of Seoul that overlooks the city. There is a sweet 360 degree view from the top where you can see the whole city and how it is tucked into these mountains in all directions. Skyscrapers everywhere. Apparently 10,000,000 people live in Seoul alone and during rush hour in the subway, it is a sea of slow moving people.
Once we came down from Seoul Tower we met up with our friends and set off for the hostel to get showered and cleaned up for the night. Our hostel is in Hongdae which is a pretty cool area of Seoul. A lot of bars and clubs there. We met up with some of Adam's friends that were in for the weekend who worked on Jeju island (which is supposed to be gorgeous!) and headed over to a Canadian bar in Itaewon which is basically the foreigner district of Seoul. The next day we just walked around to explore the city and
checked out the Gyeongbokgung Palace in the heart of Seoul. Overall another great weekend exploring with friends.
Next weekend we have Chuseok which is the Korean Thanksgiving so we have an extra 3 days of school off for that and we signed up to head down to Busan at the southern end of Korea for 4 nights, 5 days. I'll tell ya more about that in the next post!! Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. I'm finally get caught up with all my schoolwork and have internet at my apartment, finally!
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