Gyeryongsan, Halloween & Busan

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Hello everyone!!

So two weekends ago, Jonathan’s co-teachers invited Jonathan and I to go on a hike in a national park close by. Of course we agreed as we both love hiking. I was immediately made fun of by Jonathan for not wearing proper running shoes. I only brought my KEDs to Korea, so I didn’t really have much of a choice. I found out further in the trip that he was unfortunately right as my KEDs don’t have the best grip, which is needed when climbing down rocks. So we set off for what was a four-hour hike; two hours up and two hours down. I was quite amazed by a) how many people had hiking gear - almost everyone I saw was wearing something North Face, and at least one in three had a store bought hiking stick; and b) the amount of people who had the same bright idea as us to go hiking on a Saturday morning. There had to have been about a million people there that day. Nonetheless it was absolutely stunning and a superb workout.

The top of the mountain was about 800 meters. My legs were pretty shaky once I reached the top and realized how high I was. The view was awesome. I just can’t get enough of those scenic picks, what can I say? After I had reached the top I was ready to stop hiking to bad I had another 2 hours to go. Plus for some reason my knees hurt more going down, probably the KEDs. Once we reached the bottom we saw a Buddhist temple. It was very beautiful. The mountain was quite stunning in the fall, but I really can’t wait to get back there in the spring when the flowers are in full bloom and the river returns.

On the following Monday, Jonathan had to teach an open class. He had told me this the week before. I did not envy him. Then on the Friday before the Monday, one of my co teachers said that I had to go. I personally thought that was a little awkward. I asked why and she said that every foreign teacher in Buyeo had to go with their co-teachers along with the superintendent. At this point I felt kind of bad for Jonathan so I wrote him an email saying that, and telling him that I am coming to your open class along with all of the other foreigners. I think his reply was “oh yeah, cool.” It turns out that I do envy; I envy his awesome easygoing attitude. I would have definitely been somewhat scared. His class went off with out a hitch and we all got dinner afterwards. It was fun to see him in action too.

I was at my favourite school for Halloween, thankfully, and the teachers went all out. I felt very lucky to have celebrated one of my favourite holidays with my favourite kids here. The teachers had started preparing earlier that week by doing orange paper Mache balloons. They were dry on Halloween morning so we cut out the top and attached green string and they looked exactly like little pumpkin trick or treat bags. We had two parties one in the morning with the grade 1’s, 2’s and 3’s and the other party in the afternoon with the grade 4’s, 5’s and 6’s. They bought face paint and I showed them thriller by Michael Jackson. We played monster jeopardy and ate candy. It was a lot of fun. I am very lucky that my co teachers at that school are so amazing!

So on Friday night we went to Busan for Halloween. The KTX was sold out of economy tickets so we paid the extra $10.00 and rode first class. I felt pretty cool. We had to take the bus to get to the KTX so it took a total of 4 hours to get there, not including the wait time for the KTX. Once we got into Busan we could smell the ocean air. We took the subway to meet the friend we were staying with. She was my roommate from the orientation week and a very awesome lady. Koreans don’t celebrate Halloween, some do, but most don’t; however, every foreigner living in Korea does, or at least that’s what it felt like. I am sure many people thought we were all crazy but, wow, was I impressed by the costumes. Some of the best ones I have seen yet. Some costume highlights were: I saw the KFC Colonel, Rainbow bright, some guy actually wearing a couch, Cruella Devil and some girl wearing a pumpkin on her head.

The next day we were in rough shape, luckily we made it up with just enough time to catch McDonald's breakfast. Boy, do I ever love McDonald’s breakfast, so much that I got it on Saturday and Sunday. We were quite productive for a couple of people in our shape. We first made our way to the Jagalchi Fish market. What an interesting place. We watched an octopus get its head ripped off in front of us, with just a woman’s hands. There wasn’t much blood but a whole lot of ink. It was really cool to see the action of it all: right behind the market you can see all the ships coming in to deliver the goods, so you know everything was super fresh. After the market we made our way to Busan tower, which is essentially like the CN tower but obviously much shorter. The view was really nice…so…I got more scenic pics! I also saw a very beautiful wallet that I was debating back and forth in my head about getting. It was about the equivalent of $30.00. I thought maybe this was too much for a wallet and that I could bargain a better price somewhere else because I couldn’t bargain in this store. Then I thought, well you do look at a wallet everyday. I ended up leaving the tower with no wallet. We then went to the bottom area where there were many small streets filled with market stuff and small stores. I was in heaven. I looked at many a market stalls but I could not find my wallet or a better one anywhere. Then I turned to Nat and Jonathan and said, “would you guys hate me if went back and got the wallet.” Nat said “no! I love this kind of crazy stuff.” She is truly amazing. I could see Jonathan wasn’t too happy but was being a very good sport. We went back up and I am glad we did because the view at night was completely worth it. That night we were pretty tired so we walked down to the beach by Nat’s house; we got some food and I took a couple pics of the long bridge. Then we just watched a scary movie and fell right to sleep. The next morning Jonathan and I went back to the market we were at the night before to kill time before our train left. And of course I found the exact same wallet with great ease in a place very close to where we were the night before. I am glad I restrained from asking what the price was. That’s what I get though.

This week has been pretty tiring. I am still not a fan of those evil little grad 6’s. I think this must be karma for not being the best kid myself in grade 6. My co-teacher has been given the overwhelming job of creating two new English rooms. She has to do all the budgeting, designing, logistics and pretty much everything involved with creating these rooms. She is super stressed, which kind of isn’t fun for me considering I can’t help, and I think talking with me can stress her out even more because she doubts her English. I really feel for her. This week she left me alone with a grade 6 class. This was definitely one of my more difficult moments I have had here. I have asked her to try and not do that again; if it was another grade, fine, if I could speak Korean, fine, but the grade 6’s will eat me alive, seriously.

Yesterday afternoon all the teachers from my school went to Gyeryongsan National park for an outing. There is one in the fall and one in the spring. We went on a hike and had dinner together, which was nice. I found out one of my favourite teachers from my school is pregnant and she gives birth in June. I hope I get to see her new born!

Well I think that’s it. I am counting down the weeks till winter vacation, where I will have to teach winter camp but at least the grade 6’s won’t be around and of course our vacation. We booked a couple of ticket this week for Thailand in January, so we are pretty excited about that! Woot, woot!!

I hope all is well on the other side and please keep up the emails!!!

Cheers!

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Photos

Gyeryongsan
From right to left: Mi wa, Jonathan and Kim Yun Suk