Advertisement
Rice Paddies
On our way south to Tongyeong I just realized today that I haven’t written a blog in a while. Since it’s rainy outside (but at least finally below 80 degrees), I figured I’d stay in and do one. I’ve recently passed my milestone of 4 ½ months abroad, which is the longest I’ve ever been away from the US. I think because I stay busy and I have plans to look forward to, it doesn’t seem like I’ve been here long. Sometimes it does suck to be away from home—missing graduations, not being able to talk to friends on the same time zone, and not seeing people in person (plus familiar food that would be difficult to make here). I also miss summertime in Western PA—bonfires with good beer; Pirates games; camping; Twin Lakes arts fest; and open areas of grass.
But things are still going well here. The Daegu Office of Education offered a TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course to teachers like me. The course is split over summer and winter vacation. It will end up being free, but I’ll get way fewer vacation days due to it. It’s a really good opportunity because if I have this certification, I'll be
Ferry
Some friends chilling on the floor of the ferry with no shoes on and posing with the peace sign--the Korean way more likely to be hired if I want to teach anywhere other than Korea in the future. However, when I take it, I have to swear that I’ll re-sign to teach here for another year. For me, it makes the decision to stay a lot easier. Staying another year with my TESOL would bump my pay up 2 notches on the scale as well, as giving me a bonus.
The only real gripe I have had lately is the weather. They said it would be hot, but it’s not only hot, but really humid. I do have A/C, but I try not to use it very much. It’s incredible that I’m way warmer here than I was in The Gambia, but I was there during the dry season/“winter”. I’ve really felt unmotivated and slept a lot lately, and I think it’s due to not sleeping well from the heat. Also it’s gross to go outside to run errands, let alone to go for a walk etc. It’s now monsoon season, which apparently means it will rain 3-4 days in a row, and then clear up and then rain more. But theoretically the rain will make it cooler?
Anyway,
because I have the TESOL course I’m not going on any big trips this summer. It’s for the best because of those darn student loans anyhow. I’ve had some good trips in the last month already.
We had a 3-day weekend in June and we went to the south, to a city west of Busan called Tongyeong. From there, we took a ferry to an island called Bijin (Bijin-do). We camped on the beach. It was probably the best trip I’ve had so far here. We had barely been on the island for 24 hours that we felt like locals/castaways who had lived there for years. It was just such a relaxing stay. We had few provisions but we made do, and supplemented our meals by buying Ramyeon (Korean Ramen) and beer from one of the two small stores on the island. Without a fridge, we used the ocean to cool our beverages. We tied the 3 plastic bottles of beer and a glass bottle of soju (like vodka) to a rock. We only lost the soju. Such is island life. We hoped it ended up somewhere on a beach in North Korea. On our way back to civilization,
we toured Tongyeong, where I decided I would like to live.
I also went to Herb Hillz with my very English friend Nicki. Herb Hillz is kind of an amusement park themed around herbs. Does that sound cool or what? It ended up being kind of like Idlewild, but without the rides. You had to pay additional money for the rides they did have, so we didn’t stay long. Eventually we’ll probably return to do their ropes course, which is supposed to be good.
I’ve also had 2 volunteering experiences recently. The first was a carnival for kids who live in an orphanage in a small city nearby named Gimcheon. I went there with Nicki too. We were in charge of a game where kids have to throw ping-pong balls into bottles. There were other games like that, then activities like egg-dyeing, face-painting, and the ever-popular bobbing for apples. We met a lot of cool people there and it was fun to hang with cute kids all day.
Yesterday, I went to volunteer at an animal shelter. It’s only 2 subway stops up from me. Lately, I’ve really missed having pets, so I thought it would be
good to see dogs and cats. The main event was a dog walk. But, it was so hot that we didn’t end up going very far. It’s always depressing to go to animal shelters and see all the animals you can’t adopt. Most of the dogs were really small, but they were in small cages, like a pet store. None of them had toys or anything to chew on either. I’ve never been an advocate of euthanizing healthy animals, but going there made me really question if it is worth it to keep animals alive to be trapped in cages 99% of their lives, who get minimal human interaction, who don’t get to play . . . okay enough with my rant. The cat shelter was better in that it was like Pet Connection—there were big rooms and the cats could interact.
As far as school life goes, I’ve just finished another week and a half of deskwarming. The students got to study for final exams, and then they took them. Now they have 2 weeks where they have to go to school, but during which they aren’t expected to learn new material. For summer vacation my school will
not be in session for 4-5 weeks. I’ll have 4 days off for vacay, I’ll teach at an English summer camp at my school, and then at another school. The last two weeks, I’ll take the first part of my TESOL course. In the next few weeks, I'm going to the beach for a Mud Fest and to a 3-day music festival, so
Advertisement
Tot: 0.146s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 63; dbt: 0.0948s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb