The End of Classes and Maybe the End of Life

Hi Everyone!

Today was the last day of classes at university, which means final exams are coming up next week. I was supposed to present 2 final presentations today, but one of my classes was delayed, so I will present next Monday. I got to deliver a mind-blowing presentation about the Canadian berry market in my Agricultural Marketing class though, so that was a highlight of my day. I used Prezi to make my presentation, which is an online presentation maker--it's similar to powerpoint in that you have slides to convey your information, but there's lots more zooming and it looks like a movie or game when you present it. Good thing it's online too, since my memory stick wasn't working with the school computer. Too bad the students probably couldn't understand a word I said :( Oh well.

I might go shopping today, since my favourite cereal is on sale. This is what I bought last week: 

Fruit and Fibre is on sale this week!! I bought 4 750g boxes for $12.

Also, this past week my elementary school had its 3^rd annual English competition broadcast. They put me on the school’s TV channel and had me interview and quiz the best and brightest English students in the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade. Some of these students are real good at English!

Yesterday the local office of education took me and the other Damyang TaLK teachers out for a Korean delicacy. We had hwoe (pronounced "hwae") which is the Korean version of Japanese sashimi (raw fish--different than Japanese sushi which is raw fish on rice, sashimi/hwoe is slabs of raw fish all by themselves). We arrived at the restaurant and made our way into a dining room where we sat down at a long table with trays of hwoe already prepared for us and waiting (not a good way to start in my opinion--you should serve the food after your guests arrive so they know you've freshly prepared it). The supervisor had started pouring the alcohol for us, but I think you could tell most of us were pretty nervous about eating such raw fish in front of us—especially Irene, this is her nightmare about Korea. 

Irene, overjoyed to face her biggest fears in Korea, and Sujie, her co-scholar to her right,
secretly laughing at all of us in her heart.

Reminds me of that scene from Mr. Bean when he is staying in the hotel and eats a bunch of expired oysters that give him a nightmare about seafood. Similar experience :S

Imagine 8 American young women eating raw seafood like this.

On the hwoe tray there was some white slabs of fish (probably the safest choice since it didn’t have eyes, innards, or limbs attached), some deep purple octopus tentacles (they’re kind of beautiful to look at actually), a couple oyster things (the one that looks kind of like black snot—sorry if you like oysters! Maybe it was a clam?), a couple strands of something red, and some perfectly pink, cooked, whole shrimp (big ones too! Maybe they were prawns).

At one point in the meal, someone noticed that the strips of red things were slightly moving…. Which brings us to our next course!  

Nakji is a Korean delicacy (why is it that cultural delicacies are always the weirdest foods??) of raw octopus. I’ve only heard about it in “Weirdest things about Korea” story books, blog posts, YouTube videos and the like.

But here it was, in real life, in front of me, expecting to be devoured by hungry Asians but instead delivered to a few terrified North American women (and myself).

Nakji is incredibly fresh—perhaps you can already see where I’m going with this—so fresh it’s practically alive. Basically they pluck some octopi from the big, enticing, quality assuring fish tanks out front of the store and then kill it, cut it up, put some sesame oil and sesame seeds on it and serve it to you, still raw and wriggling. *shudder* Sorry, I’m too North American to appreciate this…

I felt like this.

If you're up for it, I took a video of our group having a go at this crazy dish. It's a few minutes long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9EXraZ_Vuw&feature=youtu.be

That’s it for today J I hope I leave you with a positive mindset.

Weekend Update: Josh Comes to Korea

So this weekend I have spent visiting my friend Josh at his apartment in Bundang, a suburb of Seoul. It has been mildly successful and mildly disastrous.

1. On the way here, my bus was not full and so I had a whole seat to myself. Ooh luxurious :)

3. Josh and I went out to eat yesterday night at a restaurant chain that I had been to before. However, the menu was completely different (seriously?) and we ended up having to pay more than we thought, since the advertised price was per person.

2. I went to a Jimjilbang/sauna this morning with Josh. It was a pleasant experience, probably because I didn't have my glasses on haha. Still kind of weirds me out though...

3. I had spotted that there was a Daiso nearby and we went to find it in this huge Costco-esque farmer's market, but it turns out you need a membership card, so we couldn't purchase the armful of things we had selected.

4. We went looking for TWO Subway restaurants that were supposed to be here but did not exist in real life. I went after a third, but the bus route is much different than online and signage is terrrrrible in Seongnam. What a fiasco. I drowned my sorrows in chocolate bread from Tous Les Jours to make it better.

5. When we got to the terminal to go home, all the tickets for the next 2 hours were sold out...so here I am, waiting. I had to pay a lot more for the next quality of bus since all the cheap tickets were gone.

-------------------------------------

So, after much trial and tribulation, I made it back to university. It seems every time I leave Gwangju I come away with a much stronger affinity for this place. I just love my town here :) Seoul is a black-hole of time-sucking transportation and expense.

The only other interesting thing I have to report today is about what happened to me at the bus stop this afternoon. I arrived at the bus stop, expecting to take the 184 to go downtown. Now, in Gwangju, they have these incredibly handy TV screens installed at the bus benches which tell you how many minutes until the bus you want will appear. However, my bus was on "standby" whatever that means.... anyway, I pulled out my phone to use the bus map application I have, so I could find an alternative route to where I wanted to go. I was in a bit of a hurry, since the bank I wanted to go to would close in an hour. I found out that the 7 express would get me close enough to where I wanted to go.

At that moment, a few young ladies approached me. "Excuse me" they said, first in Korean, then English. They wanted me to watch a short video on their cellphone and then answer a survey. They said it would take a few minutes (which I was hesitant about since I had to get going quickly). Anyway, I told them I had to go soon, but I would take part in their quest for public opinion.

They showed me a video about their cult, the "Church of God". Seriously, this isn't one of those, "is it a cult?" times, it was blatantly obvious. 
They were telling me all about how they believe in the heavenly mother as well as the heavenly father, who they claim is Jesus (they said she's from the "Jerusalem above" or something like that. They talked about the bible (not sure if I should capitalize, since they might be referring to their own book of lies)). They said when Jesus came, not many people recognized him, but now the heavenly mother is here, so everybody can recognize her. But they said she was some sort of secret (what?). It made me sad--their video was all of these non-Koreans coming to Korea to take part in their sinful indoctrination. In fact, there was a Korean woman in traditional Korean dress walking around and talking to people. I pointed and asked, "Is that the heavenly mother?" "Yes", they replied. Sigh.
At this point, my bus arrived and I was quite thankful. They quickly asked me how I felt after watching the video and talking with them. "Do you feel good or bad?" "Bad!" I replied with a big thumbs down, to which they gasped sadly.

Midweek update (3rd week of November)

Here's a quick recap of this week so far:

- My friend, a fellow UFV student, was admitted to hospital two days ago with appendicitis. They operated immediately and removed the problem. Word on the street is that she'll have to pay $2000 for it, but her health insurance will cover 90%.

- I submitted my application for extension yesterday, which means I will be here another 6 months after my contract ends in January. That means I'll come home next July.
Why did I choose to extend? Well, the main reason is that I simply like it here. It's a nice place to be and I am enjoying my life in Korea; I'm having a good time. I like my kids, I like my job, I like the food, I'm not doing too badly with the language, I'm not bored, I'm not too homesick, etc. Things are simply going well. On the more practical side of things, I wouldn't be able to start at UFV until fall of 2013 anyway, since I'd be coming home almost a month after school begins in January. As well, to be honest, I could really use another 6 months of pay in order to continue to finance my education.

- My school is having a "performance day" on Friday, which will involve some student plays, concerts, performances, etc. My grade 4's will be performing "The Rabbit and the Turtle". I'm so proud of them.

- I'm planning to go to Tokyo in December, to visit a friend and to see the sights. I got a smoking deal on airfare.

- I have 2 big projects coming due next week, and I'm not really excited about either of them. Actually, to be honest, I'm already finished with this semester of classes in my mind. I just don't want to keep going to them :( It doesn't help that my UFV GPA is unaffected by the grades I receive here.

- This past Sunday (November 11) was Pepero Day in Korea. It's a commercial holiday created by the Lotte conglomerate to celebrate and distribute Pepero, a Korean snack equivalent to Japanese Pocky (basically a long pretzel stick covered in chocolate). You're supposed to give a box of Pepero to someone you like and vice versa. It's similar in effect to Valentine's day actually, except Pepero day was created by a company. Can you imagine if we had a Lays or Oreo or Smarties day?

- I lost my voice on Wednesday. I sound like a frog (speaking of which, Korean frogs don't say "ribbit" they say "gaeguri" or something like that); it's quite embarrassing  I don't know how I'm going to teach Thursday's class.....

- Finally, I have some more, kind of random photos to share:

These are some photos from our Halloween party that I received.

I'm carving the pumpkins. I love them, but there's absolutely no way I would
trust any of my kids with a knife.

Me and JiAe, prolly the best-dressed student at the party.

Some of my grade 3 troublemakers. They didn't clue in that I had
a knife, so they tried scraping the skin off the pumpkin with their spoons.

Me, going inquisitor-like on that pumpkin.

I told my Dad that I would take a picture of the endless make-work projects in Korea. They simply can't get enough of road construction... Perfectly fine streets get plowed up all the time and then patched like below...

This street stinks. Literally.

Almost all the sidewalks in Korea are made from bricks like this.
That way, I guess they're easy to fix and replace--just pull out all the old
bricks and set new ones in place. It looks fine, but it becomes all uneven
and people trip all the time.

Also, I saw this out my window the other day. Wouldn't this be helpful at work??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB60lsH88t4
(1:12, SFW)

-------------------------------------------

- My roommate was in the process of getting hired for a big bank in Korea. It was a job he really wanted, and I'm sure he's qualified for it, but last week's interview (one of many) didn't go well and the results were posted yesterday. He didn't pass. I feel really bad for him, this is a pretty big setback, since Korean jobs are for life. But, he's choosing to keep a positive attitude, which is commendable. I'm sure some soju helps too.

- I went to get some more passport photos/resume photos today. Here's what I got:

The old Korean photo master airbrushed me
like crazy. He's actually really good with photoshop,
I was really impressed :)

Oh, and my voice is at 25% health today :(

------------------------------------------------

Here's a follow up to that incredibly wonderful moment that happened yesterday:

I got a letter from one of the students in my class (the same one that hugged me actually).

It was addressed to me; apparently I live at my school's English classroom :)

Today was one of the happiest days of my life

So, I was tired and a little grumpy today because it was much colder than usual, but something happened before my English class that turned my world around.

I had just gotten into school, and I was walking down the hallway so I could go upstairs to my classroom, when a gaggle of my grade 4 boys saw me.
"Ah! Daybeed!" They said, and then they swarmed around me and hugged me! One of my favourite students said to me with sincerity, "You're my friend!"

I could have died right there and then. I positively melted.

I love my job and my kids.

Gwangju International Community Day & Pungam Lake

Hi everyone!

Here's all the latest for this weekend so far.

I went out for lunch with the pastor from the UBF church nearby, and he's actually legit and pretty cool. I'm looking forward to going to chuch tomorrow, but I have to go twice... he wanted me to be introduced at the Korean service (10:30am) and come to the English service at 5:00pm. 

This is me in the pastor's van when I wasn't sure if it was a cult yet...

This is some of the artwork that my students produce. I'm sure an art therapist could tell me a lot about what my kids are going through these days. 

Speaking of kids and going through things, this past Thursday was an incredibly significant day for all 4th year high school students in the country. It was the day they all took the university entrance examinations. In other words, they had an entire day's worth of testing that will determine their future based on their results. When they release the scores next month, the suicide rate will inevitably spike.

I think I see Spongebob in there...

This is the main lawn of my university.
The leaves are beautiful right now.

On the way to the festival. I got a haircut recently,
which was an experience in itself. I had been really apprehensive about getting it done here because I didn't want a bowl cut or some other crazy thing going on with my hair due to the language barrier. I had asked a few Korean people I know and they pointed me in the direction of some good salons, so I finally was brave enough and picked one. I walked in to a place that had no customers in it and asked/acted out to the first person I saw if they could cut my hair. She told me to wait a minute while she finished reading the newspaper (?) and in the meantime I had an interesting conversation with a Korean lady whose boyfriend is African, and she wanted to know if Canadians would be disapproving of their child, should they have one. I told her it would be a beautiful baby, and then we talked about Koreans being disapproving of black people in general. Then, the salonstress (is that the right word lol?) cut my hair while 3 (THREE!) attendants stood around me and wiped my face constantly with sponges, lest any hair remain on my skin. They asked if I wanted my head shampooed, but I normally don't get it done because it costs like, $5 extra in Canada (but judging by their reaction to my refusal, I wonder if it's included in the price of the cut here). The total came to $9 which is perfectly fine with me. Can't wait to have it done again in another 3 months :)

The 2nd last thing I want to write about is a festival that happened today. It was the Gwangju International Community Day, put on by the Gwangju International Centre. It's basically an organization that exists to help all non-Koreans settle into life here in Gwangju and the area. They had organized a bit of a festival outside the world cup stadium, so I went to check it out. They had a bunch of tents from different nationalities selling their local cuisine (naturally, the American tent had the longest line up... of Korean people!). I totally had a real American hot dog, and it was deeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!!

Anyway, I did some shopping at the nearby Uniqlo store because they're having some sort of anniversary sale, and then I went to check out a park I saw on the way to the stadium. 

This is the highlight of my day! It reminds me a lot of Mill Lake in Abbotsford, simply because it's a nice, calm, big lake with some bridges and a path around the outside. 

I found out later this place is called Pungam lake.

This is a rare gem in Korea, believe me. Nice parks are a blessing.

They even have nice bridges.

All of a sudden, I came upon a beautiful rose garden!!
With real roses, in real bloom! (isn't it a little late for roses?)

Yes, they smelled wonderful.

Imagine what this would look like in summer?

There were flowers everywhere. My dad would love this place.
They even have the machinery for a light-up display fountain,
but I didn't see a schedule posted.

You could buy big bags of toasted wheat and feed the incredibly
noisy ducks and geese nearby. A welcome change from the
plastic bags I saw people try and "feed" them.....

They had put up speakers that were playing some kind of noisy
jazz music and people were walking around with radios attached
to their belts, blaring Korean talk radio :( At least the other side of
the lake was quiet :)

A nice reflecting pond with loads of Koi in it.

That was my beautiful day at the park. I want to go again, maybe bring a book or something to eat or drink.

Quick note: Koreans must get cold easily, perhaps because they're so thin. I see people wearing big jackets, gloves, scarves, and face/neck warmers and insulated pants all the time. I, however, am still boiling all the time.... I never wear my jacket until the sun goes down and I still sweat a lot, partly due to the size of this massive, spread out campus. People keep asking me if I'm freezing..... no, I'm overheating :S

The last thing I want to write about is stuff that I'm really glad I have in Korea and stuff I wish I had more of in Korea.

I'm really glad that I have:

- My utility knife. I don't own a pair of scissors, and this thing has come in handy multiple times. I keep it in my backpack every day. (On an additional note, my lighter has come in handy several times already as well)

- My laptop. It's my entertainment centre, productivity centre, and connection to the outside world. So glad I have it.

- Some books. I bought some at What the Book in Seoul, and it's really been a blessing. It helps me from forgetting the English language yet still allowing my mind to grow.

- My iPhone. It's been incredibly helpful to me in terms of communication and MAPS.

- My camera. Couldn't share things with you guys without it!

- Cereal. Godsend.

- Tea. Another godsend.

- My own sheet set. You need comfort and familiarity here.

I wish I had more of:

- Cheez-its. Some people say they no longer sell them in Korea, but my local Homeplus stocks them (120g boxes for FOUR DOLLARS EACH!!). They're incredibly expensive....

- Books. I'll get some more next weekend.

That's it for today! Have a good weekend everybody!

Weekend Update: 2nd Week of November

So yesterday, due to a supply chain issue, we had our Halloween party in my class. It was really good, in my opinion. We carved pumpkins, decorated our trick-or-treat bags, coloured a little bit, dressed up like mummies, watched an Angry Birds video about Halloween, and trick-or treated! I hope the kids enjoyed it, they all seemed so greedy and poorly behaved :S I guess that's just the stage they're at.

Here's some photos. All my grades were together for this class.

In the background they're turning into mummies. In the foreground they're
getting their pumpkin and trick-or-treat bags ready. Ga-Young (standing on the chair)
doesn't look thrilled.

My naughty grade 3's were at the front 2 tables.

Troublemakers, but when they cooperate they're my favourite
people in the world :)

The other half of my grade 3 class.

My three grade 5 students, left, front, and bottom right,
looking at me expectantly. "Teacher, what?"

Ted (front) who never comes to my class but who I figured would
come once he knew candy was being served. In the background
are my favourite grade 4 boys.

Some more of my grade 3's acting all cute-like :) Ga-young maintains
her unenthusiastic expression (she's actually a terrific student, haha)

The mom who invited herself to the party did in fact show up, and thankfully didn't cause any trouble. In fact, she helped during the trick-or-treating part, which was nice. I still think she might go away when she finds out that none of the kids in my classes receive grades.

So a funny thing happened to me on Wednesday. I was walking to the bus stop from the dormitory when two Korean men came from the corner of my eye towards me. I could tell I was being approached, and to my surprise, they spoke English! Unfortunately, I was on my way to work and since I run on a tight schedule, a 30-second delay can mean I have to wait 10 more minutes for the next bus and that bus could possibly be the one that people want to get off or on at every single stop.... either way, I don't have a lot of leeway time.

Regardless, I told them that I was on my way to work, and so they walked with me. Turns out this guy is a pastor from a local church. I didn't know there was an English speaking church around campus, so this is welcome news. He told me they have an English service on Sundays at 5pm and that I was more than welcome to come. He then asked where I was going to work and I told him the name of my school in Damyang. He then said, "Well, if you'd like, I can drive you to your school." Sweet deal I thought, but I made sure that he could get me there by 2:20. I wasn't sure if he realized how out of the way Damyang was and I didn't want him saying he would do it and then drop me off on the side of the highway or something. He insisted it was perfectly fine, so I went with him and he drove me first to his church (which is actually really close by) so I could see where it was for Sunday. At this point, the thought flashed into my head... What if this is a big cult? Apparently there are quite a few cult-like churches in Korea, and people should be wary. I managed to get WiFi in his car so I quickly Wikipedia'd the church and it seemed legit. Whew. We then went to my school and chatted along the way. He invited me to lunch on Friday (which is today), so I went to meet him and we had a great chat. I'm surprised he was able to meet with me, he must be intensely busy. After all, he's the senior pastor of this particular UBF church and he told me that he's publishing his 3rd book next month and preparing to speak at a conference in Spain in December.

Regardless, I now have a connection to a local, English-speaking church which is exactly what I (and God, because He's the one who's reaching out to me) wanted. Happy day.

Midweek Update (2nd week of November)

Here’s a quick update for this week:

-         Even though they told me the supplies weren’t approved yet, all my Halloween stuff came in last week. Regardless, I had postponed the party until this week. It’ll happen Thursday. It’ll be awesome.

-         It’s getting cold here! It’s okay during the day, but once the sun goes down it plummets L

-         I went through all 600 of my photos from the cultural trip and pulled out the best ones for the huge post I made about the trip, but there’s some more photos which are just really nice (plus some random, odd ones), so I’ll include those now:

Some of my grade 4 students.
They're practicing for a play this month: The Rabbit and the Turtle
(apparently they don't use the words "tortoise" and "hare" very much).

SeonHa, my co-teacher with one of my grade 4 students who looks quite cynical of
my attempts to make a JibJab video for the Halloween party.

Some of the fall foliage around here. It's gorgeous these days!

More foliage. Asian lampstand.

Irene at Bulguksa temple, Gyeongju

Some of my grade 5 students wanted to be a ghost bride for Halloween

I pass this restaurant to and from work, but one day the bus stopped at a traffic light long
enough for me to read the name and discover that this place serves canines.
You know what I mean.

In E-mart the other day, I simply had to snap a photo of this
coffee shop company promise.

Look at this absolutely tiny washer!!
It's the size of a carry-on bag and it's 500!

- So there was a bit of an incident in my class today - Grade 3 always provides me with drama....

Anyway, recently I helped out one of my English teachers with her open classes. While at this open class (an open class is where parents can come and observe the teacher's teaching skills), I met some kid's mother, who wanted her grade 3 daughter to come to my class. She kept asking what time it started and I kept referring her to the schedule. posted. on. the door. 3 times! 

Anyway, she asked if she could come to the next class (this was a few weeks ago), and so I prepped my co-scholar and myself for this parental presence, but she never showed up (neither did her daughter). Since then, her daughter has started coming to my class, and today her mother showed up, unannounced. We're learning about food this week, so I drawn up a colouring worksheet of a place setting, so that students could draw what they wanted to eat and then I could ask them questions about it. 

Now, every kid develops at a different rate, and drawing is a talent/skill, so obviously some are better at it than others. However, drawing is also kind of subjective sometimes, so I'm fairly open when it comes to acceptable worksheet submissions. Now, this lovely grade 3 girl had finished her paper, using 2 crayons and 1 marker. I asked her what she had drawn to eat, and she told me all about it. A nice glass of water, with some delicious spaghetti and some kimchi too. She could even tell me what's in spaghetti sauce. That's a great answer for me.

But her mother had other ideas. She came over (again, she was unannounced and intruding in this class) and picked up her daughter's assignment sheet and told me "she didn't do it" as in, she hadn't completed the assignment. She then tried to corral her daughter and get her to come back to me, I'm presuming to "finish" the assignment or to talk to me more in English... either way, her daughter was refusing and ran away from her. Then this lady got mad at her daughter and by extension me for not controlling her daughter.... and in my opinion it was really tense and awkward as one of the English teachers tried to talk to her in the hallway and then they were all silent like....

Then this lady decided to leave with her daughter and her assignment sheet (normally I keep all the things the students produce for my records) and then said "I'm coming back tomorrow" to watch my class :P She didn't even ask me.... 

This lady is also a teacher at a nearby school. My co-teacher and my English teacher were trying to comfort me, because I was pretty intimidated and scared of this rude classroom disruptor.... The first time she asked me if she could come and observe my class I had made in my mind a rule that parents can only come one time. I'm going to have to enforce it tomorrow. My classroom, my rules. 

Speaking of rules, I had a chat with my co-teacher about the limits and extent of my authority. This is something worth knowing. How much do I have control over, exactly? 

In the end, I think this lady will calm down when she realizes or is informed that I don't give grades in my class. After all, that's all Korean (she's actually Filipino) parents really care about for their kids, and I'm quite certain that's what this lady wants for her daughter as well.

Sigh, such drama.

Provincial Office of Education Cultural Trip: Busan and Southeast Korea

So this weekend (Thursday to Friday) the provincial office of education wanted to take all the TaLK teachers from this province on a cultural trip. We get one of these per semester, and this one was going to Busan! We were all excused from our teaching duties, because this field trip is mandatory.

Everyone met up in Gwangju early on Thursday morning and then we boarded buses and departed.

Our bus driver was really nice and our bus didn't smell like cigarette smoke!

We drove to Suncheon, picked up some more people, and then continued to Busan. At Busan, we turned North to see a special mountain and look at a temple there. It was very beautiful, especially because the fall colours are starting to come in full force.

On the top of the mountain is a special hike you can take to a grotto carved into the side of the mountain, where inside rests a big buddha. Unfortunately, it was being air conditioned behind plexiglass, lest the god deteriorate from the elements. Also, camera flashes were prohibited because they thought the god would melt.

Waiting outside the grotto. 

If you ring this bell, you'll get good fortune. Costs $1 per ring.

Regardless, it was a beautiful place, and there were a million other people there as well to share in the moment. Lots of school kids must have been on a trip. 

This picture is from Bulguksa temple, which is sort of near the base of the mountainn
(the grotto is near the top). The thousands of school kids wanted me to take their pictures for them. 

 After the mountain, we went to the Gyeongju museum, where you can look at all the cool things they've dug up around town. Lots of knives, pots, jewelry, and armor. One of the most interesting things they had was some of the crowns that they've discovered in the area. Oddly enough, you can see the relationship in design between what's on the crowns to what is considered fancy or a symbol of wealth in contemporary design. Lots of frills, lots of bling.

A genuine Shilla era crown. I believe it was worn
by queen Seonduk or something like that.

The typical outfit of a Shilla era royal.

Dagger and scabbard

 They also had a bunch of pagodas on display. I learned that pagodas are supposed to carry a bit of the buddha's ashes, which is what makes them important and symbolic. As well, Chinese pagodas are usually made from brick, and Japanese ones are made from wood. Korean pagodas however, are made from stone. Stone was more plentiful and apparently easier to work with. Plus, one didn't have to worry about fire destroying the structure (kind of ironic since there's ashes inside).

This pagoda is thousands of years old.

 I should also mention that they had other pagodas around, but they were replicas (made in the '70s or something). I laughed and felt like a stereotypical Western tourist when I said, "These don't look very ancient..."

After the museum, we went for dinner and then went to the five-star hotel for the night. We have a new head honcho for the provincial office, since the old, foreigner-hating Korean woman decided this job was too much bother and moved departments. The new boss is the polar opposite and is really laid back and much more lenient on things like curfew, behavior, and excursions.

Our hotel room in Gyeongju. It's got ondol (heated floors) so you don't get a bed.

The next morning we had a western style buffet (they tried hard but they couldn't get the eggs right--too slimy) and then left for some burial mounds in Gyeongju. When a queen or king would die, they would create a big coffin, and then pile some rocks on top and cover it with dirt. Gyeongju has many burial mounds and you can rent a bicycle and tour around all these things.

The building in the background has a pagoda design cut out of it. Gyeongju is like
one big Korean history theme park city.

Annie and Nancy rented some bikes in Gyeongju.

Some of the burial mounds. There are tens of these things all around.

While we were walking through the park, there were some little kids getting their graduation photos taken so I took some photos since they were so adorable. Some other kids were being cute and playing, so I wanted to show them to you also. 

Their teacher noticed I was taking their picture, so she told
them to wave at me :)

Adorable. 

As you can see, the leaves are really nice these days.

This is a famous ancient observatory tower called cheomseongdae.

Gyeongju is also famous for its bread, so I bought some to take back to the teachers at my elementary school.

Making the famous "gyeongju bbang" ("bread" is a loan word in Korean coming from French "pain").
Gyeongju bread is either bun style or pancake style and has red bean paste on the inside. Mmm :)

After Gyeongju, we headed for Busan and stopped to take some photos of the coast along the way. 

Some buildings on a bluff. We made an unscheduled stop to take photos here.

I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but we were able to barely
see the island of Tsushima (belongs to Japan) in the distance.
Apparently you can only see it about 60 days of the year.

After stopping at the bluff, we drove to a nearby temple to take a look.

Our supervisor insisted we stop at this awesome temple on the coast

It was absolutely beautiful. They were piping in some buddhist music
(sounds like one person hitting a drum over and over and singing) and you could
smell the incense. I felt like I was in Civilization IV.

The edge of one of the roofs.

To the right you can see the bridge one must cross to enter the temple.

They had a few dragons guarding the place.

A sneaky shot of the inside of one of the prayer rooms. I was able to
snap this photo because the doors were open so buddha could look out to sea.

A jolly buddha outside. Probably 10-15' tall.

Some of the stairs you could climb to see another buddha (this time female)
statue. I can't believe how so many old Korean people were able to climb these things.

 Our last stop of the day was Haeundae Beach, a very famous landmark for the city. Some people say it's the nicest beach in Korea.

On the way to Haeundae Beach in Busan. Behind the tower on the right
hand side was our hotel for the night!!

Haeundae Beach

Haeundae Beach

While at the beach, we also visited the aquarium on site. It was well done and the animals looked like they were being treated well. The sharks were scary with all their sharp teeth!

They had speakers playing a little song, welcoming people to
the Busan "Aquarioom"

Inside the aquarium. They did a good job with all the fish.

At the penguin exhibit. The light makes me look sinister :(

Shelby and Brandon smile at me as we descend to look at more fish.

My friend from Texas described this fish as "ugly as hell".

I've never seen this type of jellyfish before, have you?

More jellyfish. So graceful.
How do they even see where they're going?

Stunning.

Lion fish.

Holy mackerel. 

Nemo!

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.....

The octopus came out of hiding to see me. Probably hiding
from all the Korean people licking their lips at him :(

Clever! This was definitely a high note of the aquarium.

Shark tank! You can pay a little extra to ride in a glass-bottomed boat above
these things. I think you might be able to scuba dive with them too, but I'm
not sure if that's here or in Seoul.

Those teeth :P

They have Korea's longest underwater passenger tunnel or something like that.
Either way, it was pretty cool :)

Yikes!

Jim Carrey stopped by to advertise for Madame Tussaud's

Welcome to the beach!

After spending some time at the aquarium, we went to a restaurant and had samgyeopsal for supper. Sam means 3, and gyeopsal has to do with layers of fat. Thus, samgyeopsal is like really thick bacon that you barbeque and eat with banchan (side dishes). It's really delicious, and kind of like the Korean social equivalent of a steak dinner.

The restaurant.

Frying the samgyeopsal. Nancy doesn't look too approving, but it
was a great meal.

After dinner, we arrived at our waterfront, super deluxe, five-star hotel. It was our Western coordinator’s birthday, so we had purchased her a cake as a surprise, and so I hid with a few other people preparing the cake and lighting the candles as a surprise. We brought it into the hotel lobby where everyone had gathered for roll call and sang happy birthday to her. She cried a little.

She doled out the room assignments and keys and told us we were getting a late curfew. It was at this point when we were gathering our luggage and I realized that someone had stolen my bag of  bun-style Gyeongju bread and replaced it with their box of pancake-style. I was very angry.

People took off for the bars and the clubs but I'm not into that so I went with a friend of mine (Brandon) to Centum City, the largest department store in the world. Unfortunately, it was closing for the night (10pm, Friday, in high pace Korea??) so that meant we couldn't go skating like we had planned. Perhaps another time. 

Our $300 room that didn't even have a coffee maker ;)

Ondol style again. More mats.

The view of Gwangan Bridge, where they have the Busan Fireworks Festival every year.
This is the view from our hotel room.

Brandon and I got lost trying to get to the ice rink and none of the
elevators would take us to the floor we wanted, so we ended up
on the roof and found this awesome lit up tree in a garden.

View from the roof garden at Centum City.

Some of the towers at night.

The blue dot shows you where our hotel is.

Million dollar condos at night

The next morning (Saturday) we had the most delicious breakfast buffet in Korea and prepared to leave. One of my careless roommates neither checked the room before he left with the only key they gave us, nor did he leave the chain in the door so people could still get in and out. So all my stuff was locked in the room when everyone else was in the lobby, so I had to get the front desk to send someone to unlock it for me. How frustrating! To top that all off, he forgot one of his own shirts in the room, so I brought it to him :S

As well, I was informed of how the lack of observation skills among my other roommates caused concern for the coordinator last night on my behalf..... You see, in our room, there is a big room which has the kitchen, couch, and TV, and then in a separate room is a bed. Originally, I had plopped all my stuff down on a mat in the corner of the big room, and as roommates, we had all decided that whoever got back from partying earliest would lay claim to the bed and the rest would sleep on mats. Well, Brandon and I arrived earliest, so I gave Brandon the bed and I wanted to sleep on the floor next to the bed and in between the window. That way, we could close the door and wouldn't be disturbed by the partyers coming in later on. So, I moved my stuff into the bedroom and called the front desk for another mat and blanket set, because we were now short one set for everybody.

Anyway, apparently during the night, the others had come back from the bars and thought I wasn't there. When our supervisor came around at 2am to do a curfew check, they reported me missing, much to the stress of the supervisor, who sent out text messages and started a small information manhunt. I guess they eventually clued in to my shoes being at the front door, and all my stuff being moved to the bedroom, as well as my exposed feet sticking out from beside the bed and realized that I was, in fact, present. Sigh. 

Regardless of the idiocy and carelessness of my roommates, we set off for a day of island hopping. On the way there, the bus was hot so everyone was asleep and it was a traffic jam. The girl in front of me woke up and turned to me and said she was about to start throwing up. Luckily I had a plastic bag for oranges in my travel bag, so I gave it to her and I'm assuming she filled it up with last night's party. Gross. I guess I saved that girl's dignity, everyone's noses, and the bus driver's floor.

But I digress, we continued on to the islands.

Container port. Busy.

We left for the island city where Bo Young is from because we were going to catch a ferry to a botanical garden island nearby. They have recently connected the bigger island to the mainland with a bridge system and underwater tunnel, and the supervisor wanted us to stop at the visitor centre before going underwater.

In the background you can see a bridge. There's an underwater tunnel that goes from
that bridge to the island in the foreground, to right where I'm standing.

A map of where the underwater tunnel is.
That big island in the lower left is the island that Bo Young is from.

I suppose the underwater tunnel connects those above with those below?

 We drove along so many winding roads, it's not even funny. No wonder it takes so long to go such a short distance in Korea, it's either up a hill or down a hill, or around a bend.

At the ferry terminal I saw this sign. I will try to obey the last rule.

 So we boarded a bit of a rickety passenger ferry and departed for a botanical garden island. The captain would yell at us and he made some weird obnoxious noise (I think he was lacking a boat horn, because that's what it sounded like...that or a gong?) to inform us when we could go outside and take pictures. If you want to see a video of the ferry experience, here's one I took: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hme9vOC87cI&feature=youtu.be (36 seconds)

You have to take one of these to get to the botanical garden island.
You can see the Koreans in the foreground are in hiking mode.
I can't begin to tell you how ubiquitous that hiking fashion is.

Some of the cliffs we saw. 

Perfect day for sea travel.

Our trusty, loud, ferry. 

No birds really.

So this island, Oedo (I'm pretty sure the translation would be Oedo Island, but -do means island in Korean, so it might just be Oe Island) was bought by a Korean couple. In their younger days, they were going to make their living off it by growing oranges or tangerines or something. Unfortunately, this proved to be unprofitable and so they decided to just make a garden out of the whole thing. In the end, it became a big tourist attraction. The husband died in 2003, but the wife still gardens and lives here. She's been on TV a few times for her efforts. 

The Venus Garden

A view of the Venus Garden and Concert Hall at the end

A view of the peninsula from the Bamboo Road 

Bonjour!

The Venus Garden on the left and the Stairway to Heaven on the right

Venus Garden

Stairway to Heaven

This are is called Dreaming Heights. They had an impression of Christ the Redeemer. I thought the Korean child added a special element.

They even had a little chapel where I assume people can come and pray 

The Dreaming Heights chapel and small amphitheatre

This area was next to the Hope of the World Garden, which had a bunch
of statues that were children in incredibly scandalous poses. I'm not taking a photo of that :)

This island is in a national park.

This path is in the 3-Way Junction (In Korean, it would be samgeori)

My friend took a photo of me at the summit of the island.

At the summit of the island are more of these European-esque statues.

The island was pretty and well-maintained, and had lots of statues to look at. It was really steep though, definitely not handicap accessible and probably not a great choice for the elderly either (but that didn't stop DROVES of them from coming haha). 

A maddening thing happened though.... I was walking towards the washroom area when two South Asian men approached me. The first one said, "please take a picture, my friend", and so, playing innocent, I said, "okay, give me your camera and I'll take your picture" and I held out my hands. However, as I suspected, that's not what he meant, and he moved me over to stand next to him and his friend took a photo of us. I gave a sad smile. The other man took his photo with me as well. I said goodbye, they said thank-you and left. This happens every once in a while in Korea.... every time it makes me mad.

After the garden, we left for a cable car, which was our last stop before heading back home.

The shipyards at Geoje-si (Geoje city, which is where Bo Young is from).
Daewoo and Samsung both have huge shipyards here.

The drive took quite a while actually, mostly because Korean traffic lights are timed and don't have pressure switches, so they take FOREVER to turn, and because the road's down south are all windy and twisty. Finally, we arrived in Tongyeong-si (Tongyeong City).

The cable car going up Mireuk-san (Mount Mireuk) 

View from the top, looking Southeast

View from the top, looking towards Tongyeong

At the 461 metre summit of Mount Mireuk. How far away is Gwangju?

Looking towards Tongyeong

Looking towards Tongyeong

Me, with Tongyeong in the background

The sun began to set on our vacation. Looking South, Southeast

On the way down, I rode with 3 people who were terrified of heights.
I opened the window.

So that's it! We drove back to Gwangju and arrived in the late evening. I went home and went to bed, exhausted :P It was a fantastic trip, and I've heard we get an awesome cultural trip compared to the other provinces (some don't even get a cultural trip). Certainly, this one was fantastic. I can't wait until next semester, when we'll go to Jeju island :)