5.18 Park take ONE:
Kristen and I have been spending some time at this beautiful park near the bus terminal in Gwangju. It's called the 5.18 park which stands for May 18 when Gwangju's university students and anyone else supporting them rose up in protest against the government and the army. Gwangju is the birth place of democracy in Korea and this park symbolizes that democracy.
The first time we came we met up with Hee Jae and Eun Hye, two of my friends (and also Hee Jae being my guitar teacher) here in Korea. We walked, talked, and Hee Jae took us to this lookout point in the centre of the park where we could see out over the whole city. It was a special place for him that he wanted us to see and I'm so thankful he did. It was beautiful!
Eun Hye, Hee Jae, and me at the bottom of the lookout. (photo credit: the awesome Kris!)
My camera doesn't take good pictures in the dark, this was the best I got, but it still gives you a pretty fantastic idea of what the view was. Astounding. Bibimbokki:
Kris and I invented a new Korean food that we like to call bibimbokki. It's a combination between bibimbap and ddeokbokki. We invented it during winter camps in January when we started getting sick of the same stuff over and over each day. It's delicious. Joel's Mom made me ddeokbokki one day so I invited Kris over after we bought some bibimbap and made ourselves a delicious dinner.
The ddeokbokki cooking. So spicy, so delicious, so fattening, but so worth it!Elections:
Elections in Korea SUCK! They spend every single day on the corner of the streets singing songs, waving, bowing, dancing, bowing some more, playing more loud music, annoying pedestrians and motorists alike while handing out cards to vote for them. I'd wake up at 6am to their loud music. It got worse as election day got closer and closer. However, elections are now thankfully over so not only do we not have to listen to their annoying songs, but the hype over North Korea bombing us (as says my students: "teacher teacher, North north north Korea....do you know??? teacher! they're going to send you back to Canada and then they're going to BOMB us! BOOM BOOM. Teacher! the ship, sink, bombs, BOOM, we die!") is also over.
Kris has a video of them doing their dances. This group wasn't all that into their dancing (probably because it was 8pm and they had been dancing since 6am...), but this is what they looked like. Each party had on different coloured shirts with matching umbrellas and raincoats to go with it. You haven't seen an election until you've seen one in Korea, let me tell you! 5.18 Take Two: Daylight!
Kris and I went back to 5.18 for another picnic. This time in day light hours after church one Sunday. We had to read books for our schools English contests so we could prep our students for them so we figured here was a GREAT place to sit and read the afternoon away!
The city during the day. Church friends:
One of my best friends in Korea is Joel. She is hilarious, smart, funny, and so good to talk to. Unfortunately, because she teaches in a Hagwon, our teaching hours are opposite (I'm 8-5, she's 2-11) we can only see each other on the weekends, assuming I don't travel somewhere which happens a lot.
After church one week we went downtown and then out for coffee for Sharons birthday. Afterwards Kris and and got stuck in a downpour rain storm in which we were soaked to the bone after running ten steps from the bus to the grocery store. We still had to get home though and by that time we looked like we jumped in a pool and the water stuck to us and never dripped off. There was SO much water, I couldn't believe it. I have concluded that my umbrella is not fit for Korea. Why they sell them that small is beyond me. Although I think it might be to decive foreigners so that they'll buy the cute little umbrella's and when monsoon season starts we have to buy new bigger umbrellas to avoid being soaked all day long! I have a picture of what I looked like after getting back, but you can see the disaster that is my apartement in it and since I don't really distinguish between my bedroom and my tv room, there are things I'd rather not show to the world is laying around my house!Worship Team:
Our worship team went out for dinner because our team leader, Brian, was leaving the band. He's going to USA in November and felt that it was time to quit and let Jay, his new co-leader, officially take over while he prepares to leave Korea. After dinner a few of us went bowling.
We split into two teams (Ki, Bi, Bo!), mine had three, Kris' had four. We bet that whoever lost had to treat the other team to ice cream afterwards.
Team "gutterball". We played two games and took the average. My team lost by ONE lousy point. However, I'd like to point out (because I hate loosing) that their team had the score of one extra person and we still only lost by one point. I also had the topo overall score. I don't remember what it was, but it was 130 or so. Maybe a little under, but definitely not over.So really, we won :)
World Cup:
Korea is OBSESSED! Everyone knows about the world cup and everyone watches it. If you don't watch it, you sure know the score of the last game and all the team players as well. For each game there are big screens set up all over major cities. In every baseball or soccor stadium, parks, squares, roads (they block them off for this), bars, restaurants, etc. It's insane. I'm not used to this because Canada doesn't have a team and thus we have no united team to cheer for and go for our ancestors country. The way this country rallies behind their team is amazing. All the waygooks (foreigners) out here were convinced after the first game that Korea won we'd be seeing Park Ji Sung's goal as often as we say Kim Yu Na's gold medal figure skate at the olympics. We didn't, thankfully, but it sure was close! they really treat achievements as national achievements here, it's amazing!
Anyway, for the first game Kris and I went with a friend from church and his friend from Seoul or Busan or something like that to a Jazz bar to watch the game.
Here we are cheering the Red Devils on for the win!Bike Marathon:
My friend Sam started teaching me photography (if you forgot, this is the guy who took all those pictures of me and Kris in January and then won the photo contest back in March) and has nicely lent me his wicked awesome camera to practice on (he has another even more wickedly awesome camera so it's not a huge loss to him right now). At our first "lesson" he found out I did triathlon once and thus invited me to join his cycling club the next Sunday for a 50km bike race on the seawall about an hour and half from Gwangju (I forget the name. It's long, and Korean. Forgive me). Sam spent all week telling me I'd be fine even though I hadn't practiced, or even exercised for a few months (my achillies heel injury just recently healed properly and I've finally been able to start running again - as well as wearing shoes properly - but I had just started again when Sam wanted me to do this race). I protested all week all the while knowing in the back of my mind I was going to do this race whether it killed me or not. Since when I have refused a challenge? So Sunday came along and I ended up in a car with three Korean men who listened to the same two songs (with the odd other song thrown in the mix occasionally) the ENTIRE ride to the seawall. I wanted to break the CD player in two. The songs were two songs popular in Korea when preparing for a competition. It's all about being number one and doing excellent etc. If it wasn't so annoying it would've been amusing. It was after the race when they promptly changed CD's to Kpop. Much better to listen to if you ask me!
Here I am at the start of the race. 6000 people, we started mid-pack. This is the biggest race in Korea ever because it's the change to bike the seawall which doesn't happen often so all the cyclists in Korea came out to this race. It was insane, but SO FUN!
FIGHTING! Everyone in the blue shirts like mine are from Sam's club. Everyone in shirts like Sam's are from Sam's workplace, Kia Motors.
Sam took a bajillion pictures, documenting my slow demise as the race progressed. Here I was still happy-go-lucky.
At the half way mark. It was SO crowed that you had to stop (it was confusing to turn around to head back) so we took the opportunity for some pictures! It was so beautiful there. The sea smelled wonderful and the breeze was fresh. Even if I did want to stop the wind on the way back!
Sam, me, and Sam's teammate. Pardon me for not remembering names.
A bunch of us at the end. I have no idea who the women are, but there wasn't many women in the race. Maybe 100 of the 6000 were women. I was the only foreigner and very much noticeable as well. I also found out that Korean's don't turn red when they exercise. I do. A lot. They thought I was dying (which I was, but they didn't need to know that). Km 35-43 were the hardest. The wind was killer, but Sam and the team leader got me through it. If you want a detailed description of the race, check facebook. More pictuers, and more dialogue. Before I end this post, I have one thing to say about my school. The last few weeks I've been prepping five students for an English speaking contest. I spent three periods a day with them (on top of my three classes I already teach a day) teaching them about the books they read (Tuesday's with Morrie, Huck Fin, and Great Expectations - these were easier versions, not the full thing) and giving tips for the contest. To make a long story short, my students rocked the contest. In combination with their reading, writing, listening, and speaking scores, my five students got 1-4 and 10th place in the county. I am SO PROUD of them. They did amazing at the competition and really showed what they can do. I am sad it's over because even though it was more work for me, I really enjoyed teaching them.
Next up: DMZ round TWO -- the PSA tour! (which I must say, was 100x better than the regular DMZ tour...this is why I came back! Hope you're in suspense now!)
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