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Published: July 14th 2008
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Where to begin, My last blog I talked about the waterpark, and then left a cliff hanger for what happened on the weekend. Well I'm going to try and clear all that up, and anything that I left out that happened even before the waterpark. So hopefully this doesn't come to jumbled....
Our school that we work for is having a hard time opening the doors, they seem to be waiting on government certificates about the building they built, and need to do the finishing work on the inside, right now it looks like the school is about 3/4's done. We were supposed to start teaching July 14th, or at least get some of the kids in and do introductions. We had a meeting with the owners two days ago and they told us that the opening day would not be until August 25th, and that we are getting a two week vacation at the end of July if we want it or not. Now it may seem like great news to hear that you are still going to be paid full salary and that you get a two week vacation from, well, a few month vacation, but it comes with
a little guilt and hope. I feel bad taking this money, even though we haven't really been working...(1-3 hours a day sitting in a room talking about activities and lesson plans), but at the same time I need the money to afford to live, and it is hard to save money when there is nothing to do but spend it, because you have so much time off. I hope that they will be able to open the school when they say they will because they are such nice people and I know this is costing them a lot of dough to keep us employed and pay our utilities and rent, along with taking us to waterparks and palaces. So we play the waiting game and do all we can to prepare for school year.
I said that they took us to palaces, and I did not mention that before. Last week, we all went to a palace in Seoul, Changdeokgung Palace. This is the best preserved palace in all of Korea, and it was amazing. It's not just one building, but a series of small and large buildings spread out over a few square miles. It was very peaceful and
not too crowded, one really nice place. It was a pretty hot a humid day too, so walking in between huge trees and sitting by tranquil ponds was a nice break from the sun. After leaving the palace, we walked to a sort of "saturday market" kind of street. There were vendors selling goods that were hand made either by them, or at least someone they knew. This place also had the best restaurants I have seen in Seoul. Little alleyways with little nooks and crannys that smelled as good as they looked. We chose one that was nestled in a little between a couple apple trees and had Bu-bim-bop(noun). Which is rice, lettuce, beans( black beans, or red), chili sauce, spices and an egg, then you mix the ingredients and eat away.
I told you earlier that the people we work for are nice, well every time they takes us out as a group (which is a lot), they always buy our lunch or dinner, and entrance into whatever were seeing. They do look out for us quite a bit.
So after lunch we headed down the street looking at shops and following a man made river that goes
through the heart of Seoul, I'm told it is some what like the river walk in San Antonio.
That takes us past the waterpark and into the weekend. Justin and I were looking to get out of Seoul for a while. Going from Portland which has 500,000 people to Seoul of 10.5 million people can be a little over welming, and going to an island about 3 hours away sounded like a good idea. The night before we were told of nice island called duk-jek-do ( I know I just butchered that name) by a few locals we met in a bar. So the next morning Justin and I set off on the subway for the port in Incheon about an hour and half away. Halfway there we met a dude about our age and got to talking with him. We ended up going to his house for lunch. His brother and him fixed us up some home made bu-bim-bop and local wine, which was really good. They were really friendly and just kept asking us questions and being great hosts (his brother gave us a few banana's to take on our journey). After lunch we said goodbye to Hwang,
and his brother and boarded a bus that went straight to the port. Only it took a little longer than the subway. We'll we finally made it to the port at 1:45 pm and found that the last boat left for duk-jek-do at 1:00pm. We weren't going to give up on the weekend though, and boarded another boat leaving for an island called Muui-do, which was supposedly just as nice, but first we had to go to this other island and change ships, which happened to be on the other side of the island that we were arriving at. Well it just so happened that Justin and I fell asleep on the bus between ports and were woken up by an older local and told that it was our stop. With out questioning this man we jumped off the bus to find our selves at the airport, while the bus drove off leaving us in a cloud of its exhaust. So we milled around a bit and ate a few of the banana's that hwang gave us until we ran into "white folks" (name givin to any foreigner that was not asian). They happened to be going to the same
island and we got to talkin. They were a couple that had met here and were going to meet a few friends that were already on the island, so we decided that 4 "white folks" heads were better that 2, and joined forces. After boarding the wrong bus and taking us into the center of town and back to the airport, to wait again for the right bus, we found that they were staying in bungalows right on the beach for $20 a night, and invited us to join their party. We accepted, without hesitation or asking the other for their opinion. For one it would be nice to meet new cool people, and two we had no idea where we were going to stay when we got there....until now. So this is how we got to meet a group of about 10 teachers that have been here from 10 months to 3 years. We drank beer...LOTS, BBQ'd hotdogs, walked to another island at low tide and made fajitas...and drank more beer. We left the next day with a new group of friends and sense that we were catching our stride.
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saamanta
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Sounds fun! Those are always the best kind of adventures... when you plan something and then you end up meeting other people and having something unexpected happen. glad youre having fun! tell Justin hi!