대한민국 화이팅!!

My blog title might be 대한민국 화이팅 (Pronounced: Daehaminguk Hwighting = In English: Korea, Fighting!), but I don't really have anything up here about World Cup soccer. I just love the phrase. Korea is, sadly, out of the World Cup. It was an interesting few weeks though. I can now gloat to my students that Nederland-uh is still in! My poor students. They had such hope for their team...

Speaking of my students. The other week in grade three (3-2, one of my favourite classes) we were playing Family Feud and you have to be very careful where you click on the screen for the answers to pop up or else it'll go to the next slide. I accidentally clicked it to the next slide, but I thought it was going to show all the answers so in my milisecond of panic that I was going to give away all the answers, I said "shoot!" without realizing it. My students have heard me say it before, I think, but I guess since it sounds so much like "shit" the students broke down laughing and saying "shoot". Cindy started laughing, I started laughing and that's basically how the class went for the next five minutes. And now that I'm writing it I realize it doesn't sound as funny written here. It's hilarious in my mind, but I also know my students as well as Korean students. Kris and Gab thought it was funny, but maybe you won't.

In the same class last week I was describing the sticker system that Cindy and I used for the cards they made for me the previous week when Jin-uk, one of my favourites and the boy who is convinced that I understand Korean (I know, I describe students a lot on here, but I forget which one's I've mentioned and how long ago so if you remember his name, congratulations and if not, that's why I put the reminders up!) goes into a detailed question, in Korean, most of which I didn't understand, but based on the topic of conversation and where he was pointing on his poster where we have the sticker system, I knew exactly what he was asking. Without thinking I shook my head and said: "no, no, no" and proceeded to explain again how it worked. I didn't realize what I had done until the whole class stopped, starred and there was a mix of laughing, surprise, awe, and "I KNEW teacher understood Korean!" going around the classroom. That was a BIG mistake on my part. They already think I understand more than I do and I just made it worse. I spent the rest of class telling them to speak English in the English lab and refusing to answer questions in Korean even if I understood their question perfectly. Which is harder than it seems because it's so natural to answer a question in Korean with an English answer without realizing you're doing it.

This isn't the only time I've done it. Sometimes purposely, other times accidentally. Each time I do (I usually only do it with my grade three's) it's harder and harder to get them to speak to me in English. Oh dear. What have I done?

Thanks to an awesome music lesson I did, my grade three's now tell me "Teacher! My life would suck without you!" the title of the song by Kelly Clarkson. That lesson was a huge hit with the students.

Ok, enough about school.

Damyang: Kristen was teaching adults for two weeks in Damyang a bit ago and Gab and I went to visit her one night to hang out and save her from boredom. Thanks to Sam's photo lessons and the use of his kick-ass camera, I spent the time practicing taking pictures. Kris and Gab acted as models at times.
I have ALWAYS wanted a picture like this. These things are all over Korea so you can see around the corner if I car is coming. I finally got one!

Newly planted rice fields with the backdrop of gorgeous Damyang mountains. There's a reason this is one of the prettiest places to be in Korea!
Corn! Korean's love their corn. My opinion? It's not very tasty compared to Canadian sweet corn, but then, Cindy told me she doesn't like Australian corn so maybe it depends what you grew up on. Or maybe Australian corn is just gross. I'll have to go there to try it.

Photo-op! I only put a couple up since I'm pretty sure you don't care about my growing photo skills (which are still baby-like) as much as I do... but here's samples anyway!

Mushroom restaurant. I went to a mini opera house restaurant in this area with Hyun-Jin in January. I want to go here some time!

Samseo school picnic: I got lucky and Samseo's picnic was on a Wednesday, the day I am at their school! So not only did I teach them once in six weeks, but the week after I was back there, we were on a picnic! Awesome.... (I'm supposed to be there today, but it's exams so I have it off again! Hence the time to blog or else this wouldn't be here for another few weeks...)

First we went to a temple/old school place. Same one I went to with English Town back in January. Check out the blog with Gab, Kris, and I hugging a massive 2000 year old tree. I'm not posting pictures of it again. The teacher in the front is the gym teacher and used to work at Samgye middle. He brought bokbunja, a type of Korean alcohol, along. Lets just say it's a bad idea to match a man that size shot for shot at noon on a school picnic while hiking a mountain.

Disco, my co-teacher at this school. Annoying at times, but we've figured each other out now. Check out the clothes and that's her style. Way out there colours. Makes for interesting mornings to see what she's wearing!

So helpful. Not one complained having to carry the gimbap and teachers lunch food the whole hike. It's normal here for the boys to do things like that. In Canada it would be an argument to make the girls carry some. It's wonderful being a girl in Korea sometimes! and foreign... and a teacher. I expect this kind of treatment when I'm home in Canada boys...

Some of my favourite grade three boys.

Grade one boys. The one in the white shirt is hilarious. His English is pretty good, but sometimes when I correct him he just gets the cutest look on his face when he doesn't understand how he could possibly be wrong. I wish I could video us talking sometime.

Eric! He was in winter camps. I think he denies it to the other students. I don't call him Eric in class lest he want to murder his teacher out of embarrassment.

Love these girls! They're SO enthusiastic in class and make life easier!

It was a beautiful hike, but the guide got a little long winded and you could tell the students were getting restless and bored after an hour...

Some of the cutest kids ever that we met on the trail! in their uniforms, they were SO short although they look fairly tall here. I couldn't tell you the age, but they were TINY!

He was one of the only students who loved the pictures. Everyone else hid from me and my camera... he even insisted on taking one of me so they wouldn't be all of the students.

I got home around 3pm that day, ate Jajangmyeon, and promptly fell asleep. Thanks to the bokbunja. I think gym teacher man found it amusing I was trying to match him so he kept serving me more and more. Apparently it's stronger than I realized. Whoops!

DMZ Part II: The Panmunjom Tour!

The last DMZ tour was interesting, I really wanted to see the Third Tunnel and the Dora Observatory, but what I really wanted was to see the Panmunjom, the only town if you can even call it that, that both North and South Koreans control. Until 1979 it was the only place North and South Koreans co-existed, but then when South Korean soldiers and I think some American ones as well, went to trim a poplar tree that was obstructing the view of one of the sentry posts (something they did every year so it was nothing new), North Korean soldiers came over and told them to stop. When they didn't they attacked them and murdered two soldiers with axes. It is now referred to as the 1979 Axe murders and was the reason behind the area being split right down the centre with North Korea controlling the northern part and South Korea controlling the southern part. It's been a spot of continual conflict over the years since. Tours here have become popular. It's the only place you can see North Korean soldiers, it's in the heart of the DMZ, and since the sinking of the Chonan has been rather tense. Two weeks before we were there my guide told us even he was scared to do the tours there because it was so tense. While we were there it was tense, but not tense enough for any part of the tour to be cancelled. Thankfully.

This time on the drive up there were more soldiers in the sentry posts along the Han river. Last time we saw one post occupied. This time many of them were.

We went back to Imjingak (not by choice, it was the only overlap between this tour and our last one) I don't remember if I showed this train or not and I was too lazy to check. It's the one that was shot up in the Korean War and abandoned by it's 19 year old driver who fled to South Korea and later brought back and put on display.

Inside the buildings smack dab on the border of North and South Korea. Kristen, who is taking the picture, is in South Korea, I am in North Korea.

Taken from North Korea. This table is in the middle. The black microphones in the middle are the border. North Koreans routinely have to show they are bigger and better and sometimes lower the seats of the South Koreans so that they are looking up to the North Koreans. However, as our guide said, that didn't work because they are shorter than the South Koreans anyway so they were still looking up or equal to the South Koreans.

Me and the South Korean DMZ soldier. They wear different uniforms from regular soldiers. Behind that door is the rest of North Korea. We weren't allowed there. We'd be shot if we opened that door. We were also told if we touched the guards, we'd be punched out cold. It was tempted, but I refrained. I wonder if they'd really punch out a girl? Hmmmm.

This cement pad was put in through the town after it was divided. I'm on the North Korean side and the stone is South Korea.

If the soldiers want to talk. This is how they do it.

If you look at the North Korean building, there's a soldier standing there. He had binoculars out and he assessing this latest tour group. Our guide, Mr. Kim, said when they are reunified, that man will seek him out and say, "oh! I know you! You are my friend! come here, we are buddies!" Mr. Kim was hilarious.

If Chinese people want a tour, they go through North Korea (because their countries are chingu's [Friends]) and then the building we were in would be opened on the North Korean side and closed on the South side. A man defected once on a tour. That caused an uproar and almost got people killed, but he survived and South Korea didn't send him back (or he'd die so...)

Because the DMZ is a protected area and no one lives there other than the two villages and Panmunjom, there are very rare species that live only here. It's SO lush and green everywhere! I would love to walk or go horseback riding through it, but the mines kind of make that impossible. You can just make out the birds in this photo. You could see them much more clearly in person. It was beautiful to see all of it. I can't imagine the wildlife in the DMZ! No pollution, no people to ruin it...

We weren't allowed out of the bus here, but this was the site of the 1979 Axe murders. If you look at pictures of it on the internet, you'll recognize this.

The bridge of no return. Used for prisoner exchanges. Once you cross over, you're never going back to the previous country.

So that was the PSA tour. Best one out of the two and I'm so glad we went back! The history of the DMZ is incredibly interesting to me, as are the current problems there. After living in Korea for 10 months, I've learned a lot about South and North Korea. South Korea's dream to reunite with their countrymen is so strong! They all want unification, but you can tell they all know deep down that it's a long ways away if it ever happens. It's a sad history, but a history that's worth learning about.

Friends Forever (not intended to be a cliche)

Here is the story of my last month (minus this past week. I'd go into details about how my computer sucks, but I won't waste your time. Those pictures will come at a later date. Hopefully not too late though!)

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!)