Conclusions

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Twice I tried to write a last blog post. A kind of conclusion of sorts. I'm not certain that anyone will ever know I wrote this last post, but I have to do it because I don't like leaving loose ends. Plus, I plan to print off this blog and if it doesn't have a conclusion, I'll go crazy.

When I say "I tried writing", I mean that I wrote them, but never posted them. Probably never will. Both were written when I was rather emotional and wasn't really thinking clearly about what I was writing.

The first one was a chronological order of events about my last week in Korea. A lot of it was hilarious - I'm pretty sure everything wrong that could've happened to me, happened. But a lot of it was also me being emotional about leaving.

The second post was once I was home for a couple weeks. I missed Korea and it felt like the entire year had been a dream. I didn't like that feeling that an entire year seemed like it never happened. It didn't make things any better that, while people were genuinely interested in what I did over the year, they didn't get as excited about it that I was in telling it. Simply because they weren't there. They don't know about Korea like I do. I don't blame them. I didn't know anything about it before I went either. At the time though, I just wanted to tell them that everyone should know this stuff so they should suck it up and listen to what I have to say. But I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't.

After being home for almost four months, I can honestly say, that I am no longer the emotional girl I was when I first came home. I talk to my Korean friends regularly and keep up to date with things going on there. I look fondly back on my time there.

That being said, I'm thinking about going back in April. But that's just it - Thinking. I have plans of what I want to do here. I just can't decide if I should put those on hold for another year, or start them now. The travel bug is still with me and always will be. But I'm waiting on my Father to show me my next steps. No matter where I go, I'll get emotional about leaving home and then leaving where ever I end up. That's who I am. That doesn't make things easier, but it helps me to understand myself and how I'll react to situations and allows me to better prepare myself for what's to come. I'm excited about 2011 and what it'll bring for me and won't worry a bit about it because I have a feeling that next year will be amazing - no matter what country, province, or city I am in. Because, like I mentioned, I know myself. I'll make it a good year whether I spend the year traveling or working at a store in Haldimand County. That's just who I am.

Rockin' Korea~^^

Dance Party IV:

I think I may have mentioned a time or two how Kris, Gab, and I like to throw what we call "Super Fun Rockin' Dance Parties". We rotate houses for each party. This last party, was our final party and held at Kristen's place. I am not going to go into detail why we decided to call it a Super Fun Rockin' Boys Suck Farewell Dance Party, but to sum it up, Kris and I were feeling a little resentful towards boys that day. You also might notice I accidentally put the "boys suck" before the "rockin" on the actual sign. That was my mistake. Whoops. Each boy that came in though wasn't too impressed that was on the sign. Meh. They're the ones that suck, not girls^^

The three coolest girls in all of Korea along with Heejae's foot... the coolest foot in all of Korea (by association only. His foot is in a picture with us, thus making it the coolest foot in Korea)

Making Gimbap and Bibimbap in Hwasun:

Laura and Amanda invited Kris and I to Laura's house one day after school (because wonderful summer classes means we are home just after noon!) to make gimbap. I was the only one who had made it previously, though Laura's neighbor makes it for her all the time so we figured that between us, we could figure out how to make some awesome gimbap!

The ingredients. Wonderful Lotte sells gimbap packages so you can buy all the stuff in one area instead of searching to find the stuff.

My first gimbap was so perfect. I even showed this picture to my students and they didn't believe me that I made that. They thought I bought it, took it out, put it in a bowl and took a picture of it! They still don't believe me no matter how many pictures I showed them of us making it. I may not be Korean, but I do know how to cook~

This was my second one. It didn't turn out quite as neat at the other one, but it tasted so much better! I think because I put extra chamchi (tuna) in it! Yum!

We were so full, but we still made bibimbap, which none of us had made before other than on school days where it was make your own bibimbap in the cafeteria. But we didn't cook our own stuff in those cases so I am not going to go into detail about what we almost forgot to cook.

Best bibimbap I've ever tasted. We are amazing cooks. Most because we loaded it with gochujang to make it spicy!

Summer Classes:

For my summer classes I spent a week helping my co-teacher with her classes which basically consisted of me doing next to nothing. I didn't complain. The next two weeks I taught a week of grade three and a week of grade two. Friday was my last day and my students tried to have a surprise party that wasn't really a surprise because they talked about it in front of me. In Korean, but I understand enough to know what they are saying. Plus, they asked me questions in English about snacks I liked, if I ate breakfast etc. Nonetheless, on the way to school in the pouring rain on Friday, I get a text message saying "Teacher, where are you?" from one of my favourite students, Lee Jung Hyun. I told him I was still on the bus. He said "We are waiting for you teacher". I laughed because even though my bus was late, it was still 15 minutes until class time started. I told him I would be there soon. Then as I'm walking to the school, I see the window to the classroom open, despite the rain, and the students were watching me (and trying not to make it obvious). Then I get a text saying, "Come slowly teacher". So I was purposely late for class and when I did show up, they still were in the adjoining room with the door locked. Two students were in the class so we played scrabble while the others did who knows what.

This is the adjoining room they wouldn't let me in. They are taunting me.

Jung Hyun and Chan Woo (Billy). These kids are hilarious. They make teaching worth it.

Some of my favourite girls! Haylee, the girl beside me, spells her name "Hayee". I don't have the heart to tell her she is spelling it wrong^^

Most of the grade two summer class kids. Not all were there the last day. And minus the girl who didn't want to be in the picture and so took the picture.

The surprise? We made gimbap together (third time for me! I love it!) and had bulgoggi from one of the students parents. Bulgoggi is my favourite Korean food. Then the VP came in and was like, oh, gimbap, I was going to buy you pizza! The students wanted pizza too so we got pizza delivery. I am surprised they could eat all that!

Then, the part I was actually surprised about, they made me a poster that said goodbye Tara and had personal notes from them on it. They also wrote goodbye Tara on balloons and posed for this picture.

Dutch Lunch:

I promised Heejae and Sam on several occasions that I would make them Dutch food. I have fed Heejae several times already, but nothing specific to what I eat in Canada because he gives me ten minute warnings that he's coming over and he's hungry. Typical guy. Anyway, last week, I realized I was leaving soon and just randomly decided to text Heejae and ask him and Eunhye to come on Saturday for a meal. They said yes, so I texted the rest of my close friends and enlisted Kris to help cook since she is amazing and our Dutch Lunch was in the works.

The ice cream cake I made. Since it was a Dutch meal, we had to have dessert, and teach them a Dutch word.
Our meal. Fruit Jello (in this case, peaches), tuna macaroni salad, Nasi, Dutch soup (don't ask me the Dutch name for it. It's too long to remember), watermelon, and banana pudding stuff (not really Dutch, but it's a dessert type thing so it counts). Oh wait, and not in the picture are onion soup mix baked potatoes. Mom, I am sorry to say, Kris makes them better than you do. She doesn't burn them^^

Haewon (Michelle, our pianist in worship band) and Joel.

Heejae and Eunhye. They loved the Jello for some reason.

Some of the people there. Sadly, some had to cancel and Sam got sick and couldn't be there which was too bad since he was the second main reason I wanted to do this lunch.

Chingus!
Kyle, our awesome worship band singer. I dressed him up in my things. We were fascinated by Haewon's phone which you take a picture of yourself and change what you look like. So I took out my things and dressed him up how we made him look in the picture. Not matching, I know, but it's all I had~

Papbingsu, KIA, and TARA:

Honestly speaking, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but Korean's love it. Our worship team went for some after practice Saturday.

Joel and I went to the KIA Tigers game Sunday after church. We won 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth, two out, walk off homer! can't get any better than that.

And here is Tara Cafe. I didn't believe Kyle (Chang Hyun) when he said there was a Tara Cafe near his house. He took a picture and sent it to me. Now I wish I had time to go!

Samhanji:

On our very last biking workout last week (we biked to Hwasun!), Sam invited me to go with his family to this movie set where they filmed six different dramas set in traditional ancient Korea. It was called Samhanji and was in Naju, about an hour or so from Gwangju. I have also wanted to meet Sam's family for a long time and we had talked about it before, it just never happened. I guess the threat of leaving Korea soon gets us all to make things happen quickly. Kris joined us as well, and we were off to spend our first official day finished teaching, with Sam and his family!

This was actually off limits, but Sam's son just climbed up there without us paying attention so we went too and got some pictures. No one was around except the signs that said there was surveillance. There were even ponies there! They were clearly not fed much though because they were eating the grass so fast from our hands.

Sam's son helped me win this game. I couldn't get them over for the life of me. I kept hitting the post, but his son put them all around for me! So I won^^

Why would you give a child that?! Good thing it was too heavy for him to do anything with it!

We all dressed up in this armor stuff and took action shots. Those pictures are all on Sam's camera though (the fancy one in the last picture!) so once I get my hands on those pictures, I'll post them. Maybe.

View from near the top turret. It was so beautiful!

Sam's son and me. He was seriously the cutest thing ever and definitely didn't clue in that we didn't really understand what he was saying. He is so well behaved. I hope my children end up like him. Though they will probably take after me so I guess that's out.

Today is Tuesday. I haven't started packing. Hyun Jin is coming in a bit to bake with me. My friend Hoon invited me to his and Haewon's jazz concert tonight. It'll be my fourth one in the past month or two and it's all been friends playing there. At the lunch party someone made the comment that I seem to like musicians since many of the people were musicians. It comes in handy though because I get to go to their concerts! Which means I most likely won't start packing today. Actually, I know I won't.

"Life is Backpacking. Travel Factor."

Jisan Valley Rock Festival

To be honest, I wasn't very excited about the rock festival. Kris and Gab have been excited about it since before the early bird tickets even became available. Me, I decided at the last second to come with them. I figured, the three of us anywhere would make anything fun. Not that I don't like rock music, I just didn't know any of the bands in the lineup so why spend $300 in one weekend for something I don't care too much about? About a month before the concert, Sam, my biking buddy, called me to tell me there were two more races I could compete in before I left Korea. Yep, the first one would be the weekend of the rock festival. I was devastated. The second one is the last weekend before I leave Korea. Since it would be a two day event, I didn't even consider joining because I want to spend my last two days in Korea with my friends. While I was sad for a while I wouldn't get to do anymore races before I left, I eventually got over it. Sorta. I'm biking to Damyang with Sam in about 40 minutes. It's 70km round trip I think. I don't remember. So it's not like I'm not biking anymore, I'm just not competing. Anyway, the point of all that rambling was that I went to the festival and had a super fun rockin' awesome time! Thanks to Kris, I was prepared for a few songs of one of the bands, Third Eye Blind, so I knew a bunch of their stuff. In the end, it was worth every penny. Even the three hours of sleep I got Sunday night after getting back to Gwangju at 4am and having to leave by 7:15am to teach the next morning. That was a rough morning, let me tell you!

Our bazillion wrist bands to get into the camping section, swimming pool, the festival, and a 19 above one.

Our camping site. On the ski hills of Jisan Valley ski resort where the festival was held. When we first arrived and were setting up our tent, a guy came over to interview Kris and me. He said he'd help us set up our tent if we'd give an interview, so we did. Not like the tent was hard to set up.

It was insanely hot and we spent a lot of time in the insanely expensive pool, but still went to some of the day concerts which were mostly Korean bands that aren't too well known.

This was one we went too. This chick was like the ideal Korean girl. She was so "cute" in her performance I almost wanted to tell her that she should get a life. Not like she would understand me. I was laughing though. They weren't very good at all. We left.

And here was my favourite band. Third Eye Blind. They put on a really good performance. It was a lot of fun.

Later that night, the biggest name of the show played, Muse. They put on an AMAZING show. I was seriously impressed. We couldn't stay for most of it because we had to catch the bus back to Gwangju in time to teach the next morning, but what we did see, I was impressed. I am not surprised they are so popular here in Korea. I can't gloat about it too much though because one of my students, Sangjun, is obsessed with Muse and when he found out I was going to see them, got really jealous. I feel a little bad because he wants to go so badly and it wouldn't make a difference in my life if I hadn't seen them and yet, I'm the one who saw them. I am positive that he'll see them one day though. He's the type of kid who'll go to great distances to succeed in life so I can see him managing to get tickets one day.

If you want to see videos taken of a couple songs, check out facebook.

Summer School:

So last week I started teaching summer school. Mostly I just helped out with Mrs. Jung's classes for the week. Got the day off Wednesday when she called in the morning. The conversation went something like this. "Tara, it's raining out today. You will have to walk to school in the rain. How about you take today off. I will tell the vice principal you are a little sick. But tomorrow I am not at school so you are teaching all my classes. Ok! bye Tara!" So that's how I ended up teaching the whole next day. Oh well.

This week I have my own classes which is basically whatever students decide to show up. We play Apples to Apples, some random WORD game, and Dutch Blitz. How is Dutch Blitz an English game? Well, I told the students that for every Korean word they spoke during the game, I'd deduct points. It worked really well. And was quite hilarious. One boy even answered his phone in English and spoke the whole conversation to his friend in English. I am not sure if his friend understood, but nonetheless, they took me seriously and only spoke in English.

Last week I was walking from one building to another when one of my students and a student teacher walk out of the school. The teacher has the student by the scruff of the neck. The student goes "Hi, Tara!" with a rather sheepish look on his face for having been caught getting in trouble. This made the student teacher laugh, but keep dragging the kid along.

Later the same day, I went for lunch with some of the other teachers and students and left my stuff in the office. My VP thought I had gone home and locked the door. I came back and nearly had a heart attack since EVERYTHING of mine was in there. After a few phone calls from my friends Hyun Jin who is teaching at the school for a few weeks, we figured out the key was above the window. Go figure. That's where they keep the keys to half the rooms in the school. Why any different for the teachers office? Needless to say, we missed our bus and had to wait 35 minutes for the next one.

Speaking of my VP. He likes to think I need to eat more snacks. All the summer school students get a snack after second period and they give them to me too. It's usually some kind of bean paste bun, pound cake, or biscuit. This comes with milk. Then, after classes, I go back to the teachers room to find another on my desk. Then before I leave, my VP brings three more over to take home. Usually I try to sneakily put them back when he's not looking, but for some reason, he notices when there's no snack on my desk and brings them all over. Today, I got no less than two extra buns and four milks. My fridge is now full of these bun things and milk containers. I don't like this kind of milk so I usually just bake with it, but I can't keep up with my VP!

Hot. Hot. Hot.

Did I mention Korea is deathly hot in summer time? Well, thanks to Gab and Kris when they came to my aparte one time and complained it was hot in there (I thought it was fine), they made me clean my fan and put it out. Thus, I realized how much nicer it was with the fan on. So I used it, all the time. Then, a couple of my students came to visit me last week and they were so hot that I turned on the A/C. Thus, I then realized how wonderful the A/C is. Now it's on all the time. I blame my energy wasting on my friends.

I have to pack. I keep thinking about it. I'll go to my bedroom with the intent of cleaning and organizing for packing. Take one look around, groan, and leave. I've done this for a week and half now. I only have two weeks or so left to pack. It's so much more difficult when you know you have to pack EVERYTHING. When you leave home, you can leave stuff behind. Here, I have to do something with it. It's such an effort.

My TV remote battery died a month ago. Good thing I hardly ever watch TV. I'll leave it for the new guy to buy new batteries.

New Korean Words:

I learned a new phrase in Korean. "You're crazy!" ("Neon mi jyeott eo") except the literal translation in Korean means "crazy" and not in the sense that we use it. So when I texted it to my friends... you can imagine the response I got!

Yesterday Heejae taught me another one. It's basically equivalent to babo the term we use for stupid/foolish (foolish and fool have a much stronger connotation in Korean than it does in English. Thus when I student calls another student a fool, it's seriously business), but it's stronger to say and has more meaning. "meong cheong a". I also texted that to some friends. They weren't impressed. I blame Heejae for all of the bad Korean phrases I have learned. Joel told me I should stop learning Korean after I sent that text message^^

A couple students came to visit me last week. It was so cute. They got lost trying to find my house so I had to go rescue them. The security guard of another housing complex saw me and through my limited Korean we managed to find the girls and get them to my place. I bought them ice cream for their efforts which made my corner store owner friends really happy to finally be able to ask my students about me since we couldn't really communicate much before.

Biking up a mountain. Not just any mountain. A practice marathon course:

Tuesday we went to a noraebong with Sam and some of his friends. It was some good times singing that karaoke. I'm going to miss that most in Canada. North Americans are too scared of making a fool of themselves so it's no fun doing karaoke in Canada.

That night though was when Sam and I decided to bike to Damyang and bike up Hanjaegol, one of the hardest bike and marathon practice courses in this area. I almost died when Sam pointed to a mountain and said, "Remember that mountain. We're biking up it". The first bit was difficult until Sam gave me some techniques to get up. It was slow going, for me at least. Sam was enjoying sprinting ahead of me, stopping, taking pictures and then sprinting past me again. I made it up however. At the top we met some other bikers who bike with one of the most famous cyclists in Korea. They were shocked I didn't know the guys name. Um, yeah. I can't know EVERY famous Korean dude. I've only had a year to learn Korea's entire history! Needless to say, we decided (or, Sam decided) to bike with them back to Gwangju. The way up felt like it took 6 hours (really, 30-40 minutes with a break at a water spring in the middle) and the way down took literally 30 seconds. We flew down. I'd say we were pushing 80km an hour at one point. It was awesome! Then, at the bottom, these professionals decide to race. HA! Tara just biked the hardest mountain ever and now they want to race?! I didn't want to let Sam down though so I pushed myself beyond my limits. I should've told Sam earlier that I couldn't push myself further, but I didn't and after a little while I was about ready to cry in pain and exhaustion. Sam usually asks me every once in a while if I'm doing ok and I've never had to answer that I'm not ok. This time though, I nearly choked out a "no" which sounded like I was dying. As soon as I said that though, my lungs couldn't catch up with everything and I couldn't breathe anymore. It was seriously a scary moment for a bit. We stopped and I just couldn't take big enough breaths to keep up with my fast breathing. I don't panic easily though. If I had, I don't know what would've happened. I think I scared Sam though. We stopped a while and just walked with our bikes. After a bit we went home at a normal pace. Sam felt so bad, but I felt worse because I should've told him I couldn't push myself further. But, if you know me, I like to push myself physically further than I can go. I don't like quitting or giving up and I wanted to prove myself to Sam. All in all though, it was a great afternoon/evening and we're doing the same course next week hopefully. Just no sprint racing after we're finished the mountain~ Though Sam wants to have some of his club members come next time to race up the mountain so I guess I won't need the race after to kill me. The mountain will! Speaking of which, biking the mountain is the official entrance exam into Sam's club and I passed the test! Though I'm not sure I want to race his club members since they'll kick my butt.

The mountain looming in the distance.

Sam found out when he stole my camera that this was why I was lagging behind him at the beginning. It was rather embarrassing when he found out because there was a lot of pictures like this. Oops. If you miss a picture opportunity like this, it's just not cool.

The city in the background and me trying to climb the mountain. Why am I doing this next week again? I have no idea.

I managed to smile at times^^

At the halfway mark I immediately dumped my water bottle on my head and Sam dunked his in the water spring. It felt SO good. Looking at pictures though, it kinda looks like I was the only one sweating since I'm red. But that's my face for you. I can do any physical activity without getting really red. Along with my feet, it is one of the two things I would change about myself.

Al....most... the...re....

There's the top! About here Sam says "hey Tara! look!" I looked up so fast I almost crashed into the side rail. Sam laughed. pondering what I just accomplished. Biking the mountain is the entrance exam into Sam's biking club. I passed the test! Not like I had to since they love me and let me bike with them whenever I want. I guess that's the advantage of being the only girl, and foreigner at that, who has ever expressed interest in their club.^^

Us and our new biking friend. The Jangseong sign is in the background. If you remember, I work in Jangseong county. Never thought I'd bike all the way out there one day. It was worth every moment of it though and I'm go glad I did it! Bring on next week!

Now I have to finish baking for our Super Fun Rockin' Dance Party IV tonight. Our last party we will throw in Korea. It's a bittersweet thing. Should be a good time even though certain people *Sam* are ditching out on us this time!

I should also actually post this post this time. I keep adding to it and not actually posting it so it gets longer and longer. One more week of classes, a week of packing, last-time traveling around Korea, and hanging out with friends and I'll be homeward bound. I'll save the sentimental stuff for my last post though.

Boryeong Mud Festival!

Kris and I, along with every other waygook in Korea, search out Korean festivals like it's the most important thing we can do in our spare time in Korea. Which basically it is. Before I even came to Korea though, I knew about one festival. Mud Festival. And I wanted to go. Pronto. When I got to Korea, I found out I missed it by a month. Well, a year later, here we are at MUD FESTIVAL! We almost couldn't go because of the stupid stupid bus system and times they went there. Anyone realize it's foreigners who go to these things and we all teach until 5pm? We can't exactly take the last bus out at 2pm if we're TEACHING! oi. Anyway, we made it, for a few hours because we couldn't miss band practice later that evening. I recommend this festival to every single person who is in Korea in July. It is worth every penny. Well, it would be if we paid for it, but it's free.

Mud Festival actually happened the Saturday before China, but because China is awesome and I already posted the videos for mud festival (check facebook for them. As-sa! - hope you remember what that word means Mom. I will quiz you on your Korean later...) I figured China was more important to post first (and I simply forgot to talk about mud fest so I guess I really didn't think about posting China first...I did it and then realized I didn't post mud fest yet. My bad) Anyway, enough with the randomness. Here's mud fest. It was raining.

Part One: We are clean. In the pouring rain. Well, break in the rain here, but rain none the less. We got there early pearly because some friends of ours went last year and they ran out of mud... ran out! how's that even possible?!

Part Two: MUD PIT! Photographers were all over us in this thing. And everywhere really. Sure, they were all over a lot of people, but for some reason they like to focus on me and Kris. Maybe it's because we do stupid things. Like tackle each other with no mercy in the mud pit, practically drowning each other. Or maybe it's because we look attractive covered in mud.

Part Three: Go down the mud slide that actually had sand mixed in it and say ouch in pain the whole way down because the sand is rubbing against your skin and you were stupid enough to go down on your stomach so now your stomach is red underneath all that mud. But since you can't see the red, it doesn't matter. The pain will go away quickly. Then, take a picture before the rain washes the mud off you.

Part Four: Get painted with coloured mud, get an interview, go to another tent and have the photographers dictate a photo shoot for the next long while because they think you make for good pictures.

Part Five: Have a TK Awesome photo shoot chain. But I'll only post one here.

Part Six: Wash off in the huge ocean waves. Forget it's salt water, open your eyes underwater and lick your lips because you are just that stupid. Yell at yourself for forgetting it's the ocean and then proceed to wash off the mud. Find someone's bathing suit shorts in the ocean and look around for who the owner might be. I mean, it's got to be obvious whose they are right? Get the whistle blown at you for going too far into the dangerous water which I'm pretty sure they would never allow anyone to swim in under normal circumstances, but since it was mud fest and we had no other way to wash off, they just patrolled the beach with so many police and lifeguards that it would've been impossible for anyone to do anything stupid.

Part Seven: Tell the taxi driver "bus terminal" and have him take you to the one the next town over even when we POINTED to the one we wanted and he says "no bus terminal". Get to the other one and be told that we should've gone to the last one. Make a huge fuss about it because the taxi driver was stupid and just wanted more money, but get lucky because the bus wasn't full when it stopped at that station. Remain mad at the taxi driver until this day. If I ever see him again, I am getting my 10,000 Won back whether he likes it or not!

Part Eight: Show the video to everyone at band practice and then post it on the internet. As-sa!

Part Nine: Laugh at Mom because I guarantee she doesn't remember what as-sa means!