Tea For Two

We had Friday the 21st off for Buddha’s Birthday. Since we had a long weekend we decided to get out of the city and travel to Jeollanam-do, a province in the Southern part of Korea. We met our friends in Seoul Thursday night and boarded the midnight train to Jeollanam (you’re singing now aren’t you?). We took the standard train and arrived in Gwangju city at about 3:45 in the morning.

We really weren’t sure what to do at this point. We wanted to go to Boseong to see the Green Tea fields but it was still early. We decided to just take a cab to the fields anyways and rest somewhere close by. The cabbie drove over a hundred miles per hour and we arrived about 45 minutes later by the grace of God. There were already around 30 people there in hiking gear unloading bags, cameras, and tripods. We followed them into the park and realized we could catch the sunrise over the fields then find a place to sleep. We climbed the fields (which was quite hard at five in the morning without any sleep) and stopped about 3/4 of the way up. We had an amazing view of the Green Tea Fields and the sunrise over the mountains. It was beautiful and we were actually glad we didn’t find a place to sleep and came straight here.

After sunrise we slowly made it down the hill and found a pagoda to sleep under. We slept for several hours, then had another walk through the fields, and had green tea ice cream. We grabbed a quick brunch of bibimbap and ramen and hopped on bus to Yulpo Beach to try out the Green Tea Baths. It was only about a 15 minute bus ride and the baths were great and relaxing and the perfect way to relax after being up for almost 36 hours.

After the baths we got another bus and headed to Yeosu, where we would be staying for the remainder of the weekend. The relaxing bath, and lack of sleep finally caught up with us and we all slept on the two hour bus ride to Yeosu.

We found a cheap hotel for only 25 bucks a night, Ondul flooring, unfortunately, but for the price we couldn’t complain. One couple splurged (40 bucks) and actually got a room with a bed and it had a balcony with a great view of the city. We had a nice seafood dinner (it actually wasn’t too bad for me) and then called it an early night since we hadn’t slept in almost two days.

The next day (Saturday I think) we woke up to a gloomy morning. We stopped and got coffee and umbrellas and made our way to a temple in Yeosu. Jinnamgwan is the oldest existing single-story wooden building in Korea. We stayed for about 30 minutes taking pictures and looking at the small museum about the temple. We wanted to take a ferry to some islands off the coast but with the gloomy and rainy day we decided to go to Hyangiram hermitage which is a huge temple built into the side of a mountain overlooking the coast.

Even with the rain, the temple was beautiful. After walking up way too many stairs, we reached the top. The temple consisted of several buildings of different sizes, shrines, memorials, and turtle sculptures everywhere. Apparently the temple caught on fire in November and many buildings were destroyed, but it was amazing. They had wishing stones, wells, walls, and rocks everywhere. The wishing wall was basically a stone wall that you made a wish in front of and then tried to stick a coin on the side of it. If it sticks, your wish will come true. Derek and I both made wishes that stuck, and no, we can't tell you what they were!

We made the long trek back down the mountain and stopped at a cute restaurant because it had a sign that said French Quarter New Orleans on the outside. Derek and I immediately start talking about how we wanted Po’Boys and thought it might have some western food since they had signs from New Orleans, New York, Vegas and some other U.S. cities. Of course, it was a traditional Koran restaurant but we were able to get steamed crab that was pretty good, along with Pajeon (Korean pancakes). Dinner was great and we eventually got the bus back to Yeosu.

By the time we got back to the city it was pouring rain so we went to our rooms dried off, then met up later for some flavored soju and a night on the town in Yeosu.

The next morning we woke up and took the 11:00 o’clock train back to Gwangju where we would spend the day, then take a train to Daejeon then take the KTX train to Seoul (confusing I know).

We arrived in Gwangju and went to a nice Arab restaurant in the downtown shopping district of the city. Derek and I were tired, so we opted out of going to see some monument to a massacre that occurred in the city in the 80s and had some coffee and walked around the city instead.

When we arrived in Daejeon, I was really excited about taking the KTX to Seoul. We rode first class on the train (only tickets we could get). We traveled at 300 kilometers per hour and we made the 100 mile trip in less than 50 minutes.

We finally arrived back on the island, after a long day of traveling and with a little confusion from a cabbie in Seoul, but at 12:45 we finally walked through the door and crashed. It was a great holiday with great friends, and we have to thank Buddha for the extra day off!

This Little Light Of Mine

Buddha’s birthday was on the 21st and to start the celebration we attended the Lotus Lantern Festival May 15-16. The festival and parade was in the Insadong district of Seoul and there were thousands of lanterns and people dancing, eating and of course—drinking.

We got up somewhat early on Saturday and made our way into the city. We went to Itaewon (the foreigners district) again, because I found a Greek restaurant where I could actually get Hummus. It was good, but unfortunately you could only get it as a side, so I have decided I am going to have to suck it up and make my own. Later, we met up with our friends and went to Hongdae, so we could go to this special café.

It’s called the Bau Haus Dog Café. You can get a drink at the café and sit with twenty plus dogs roaming around. It smelled like a vet, but once you adjusted it wasn’t too bad. They had treats you could buy along with many toys, beds, shampoos, etc. We sat down and ordered a drink but were bummed no dogs came around to our table. After about 5 minutes we realized we needed to buy treats so the dogs would pay attention to us. That did the trick, but apparently we bought the kind the dogs didn’t like so only about 5 dogs came over to us, and that was with much coercing. One dog looked like Neil and I was so excited. I went and picked him up and he sat in my lap for 10 minutes eating and letting me pet him. I was so happy and kept calling him Neil, until a worker came up and said a family would like their dog back. Oops. They didn’t seem to mind, but quickly got their dog and left. We spent the rest of the day walking and shopping and had a great dinner of Mexican food that was similar to the Mexican restaurant I went to in Jeju. We will definitely go back.

Sunday, we woke up and went to city hall to meet our friends. We were early, so we walked around and discovered the Seoul Museum of Art, the U.S. Embassy and Gyeongbokgung Palace. We didn’t have much time, but we watched the changing of the guards, and I was able to take a couple of pictures from the outside. I definitely want to go back and actually tour the palace.

We met up with our friends and we went to Insadong. We tried to have a BBQ, but it didn’t work out so well for us. We tried to grill in a park that turned out to be a sacred memorial and then we tried along the Cheonggyecheon Stream, but we got about 5 kabobs grilled when we were told to stop again, so instead we sat along the stream and enjoyed the nice day.

We made our way to the festival area and looked at the lanterns and festivities. The parade wasn’t starting till seven, but I wanted good pictures so we found a spot early and camped out for several hours. The parade was beautiful, with groups of 50-100 people holding lanterns of different colors, shapes and styles. They even had huge lanterns that looked like floats from Mardi Gras, but unfortunately they kept going down a different street. These huge lanterns varied from cartoon characters, to huge peacocks with moving wings and even a fire-breathing dragon. Since I was in the front, several people in the parade gave me lanterns and Derek and I ended up with about four lanterns that we are going to put up in the apartment. Tired from the long weekend, and not wanting to ruin our pretty lanterns we left before the parade was over to head back to the island.

I haven’t put up the lanterns yet, but will make sure to post pictures once they are up in the apartment. In the meantime, here are pictures from the weekend and festival…

Demo Derby

As I promised in the previous post I was going to blog about my demo lesson yesterday. They call it a demo lesson but basically the principal and other teachers just observed me teaching and they film it. We usually don’t blog about school much, it’s pretty much the same thing everyday, and like all jobs there are things we like and things we don’t like. So, we don’t want to bore you by complaining that our co-teachers did this, or our principals did that. But, they took some pictures, and this demo lesson has been a big deal with the schools on the island so I thought it was worthy of a post.

A couple of weeks ago all the English teachers on the island were supposed to go to a meeting on a Friday at 3:00pm. My co-teacher called me at 2:15 and said it was cancelled so I called Derek to tell him the good news. He had no idea what I was talking about and said the meeting was still on so he and his co-teacher came to get me at my school on the other side of the island.

The entire meeting was about these demo lessons each teacher on the island would have to do and how we should be prepared as possible. The meeting wasn’t too bad and we had delicious dinner of Kimchi jjiga then had some drinks with the teachers on the island. So overall it turned out to be a great night, but I was still annoyed that my co-teacher skipped out and told me it was cancelled.

I didn’t think much about the meeting until Monday and my co-teacher tried to explain that I had to do a demo lesson but he didn’t know any details yet. If I hadn’t gone to the meeting I would have been pretty peeved because he was so unorganized. He said I had to set a date for the open lesson and pick what class to teach. He picked the day after we come back from vacation (gee thanks) and a day in October. I picked my 5th grade class because they are the best and have the best English. I asked what the lesson should be on and he said anything from the book and they had to be turned in on Wednesday.

So the long story short, I did my lessons, turned them in and of course he changed his mind on Wednesday and said I had to do specific lessons he picked, so I had 3 hours to redo both lessons. I was pretty mad. Then the next week, the day before vacation he said I had to do another plan that was everything in detail from what I would say to what the kids would say (yeah, I’m psychic in Korea, didn’t you know?). I was pretty annoyed that I had to do more plans, and wasn’t told until the last day before vacation. I told him that is not what they said at the meeting and he asked how I know. I responded, “Because I actually went to the meeting.” Luckily his English is bad because he completely missed the sarcasm but it made me feel slightly better. He had been stressing over these lessons and was so unorganized over the past two weeks and he finally picked up on my bad vibes and apologized profusely. I did the detailed plans and though I wasn’t happy, it gave me a chance to review the lesson again before vacation. But then he got the “English Specialist” involved whom I can’t stand and by this point I was begging for 4:30 to get here. Finally, I left for vacation and promised myself not to think about the demo lesson on Monday.

On Monday, I woke up early to make sure I had enough time to prepare, but wasn’t feeling nervous at all. By this point I just wanted the whole thing to be over. On my walk to school I pictured my co-teacher already in the class pacing the floor, biting his nails and pulling out his hair in regards to the demo lesson. Instead, the class was empty and I didn’t hear from him until 30 minutes before the lesson.

I got ready for the lesson and my co-teacher eventually came in asked if I was nervous and I said, “No. Should I be?” I meant it more as a joke, but he didn’t laugh. He cleaned the classroom (which I haven’t seen him do in 3 months) set out chairs and set up the camcorder. He also made me write a detailed lesson on the board (again, which we never do).

When the kids finally came in there was only one other teacher to observe the class, but my co-teacher said to start anyways. As I started the principal and several other teachers came in to the class. They had clip boards and pens, but I just focused on the kids and ignored them, even as the principal got up walked around the class and picked up everything in sight like he had never been in the class. My co-teacher manned the camcorder and it was the first time ever I had been completely on my own teaching (other than after school classes). The kids were actually better than normal too since the principal was there and I wanted to ask him to come to all my classes from now on.

After the class, two teachers thanked me and told me, “You did good. You a good teacha.” I didn’t get any critiques from the teachers, but my co-teacher told me the others teachers said he is lucky because I am a good teacher. So I guess that is a good sign. I’m just glad the whole thing is over and I don’t have to worry about this again. Till October at least.



From the pictures it looks like I was either really interesting or boring them to death. Somehow I think it was the latter.

Life’s A Beach

I’m warning you now that this is another long post. Sorry!

Children’s Day is a Korean holiday where parents give their children a present and say how much they love them. Basically, it’s like Mother’s/Father’s day but for kids. But unlike Mother’s & Father’s Day, it’s a national holiday where you get off work and school! Somehow I was lucky enough to have all three of my schools out for Children’s Day from May 5-9. So when a group of teachers said they were going to Jeju Island off the southern coast I jumped at the chance!

My flight was scheduled to leave at 1:50 on Wednesday and I knew I needed to leave early because of holiday traffic. So I got up early and headed to the bus station. I knew bus #8 went directly to the airport but apparently the driver doesn’t care to follow the schedule so you could be waiting for hours before the bus decided to show. If bus #8 didn’t feel like showing up, I was going to have to take another bus, that was more expensive, into Seoul, then hop on the subway and take it down to the airport. Luckily, after waiting only 20 minutes bus #8 showed up, I hoped on, popped in my ear phones and prepared for the long trip. Apparently, Koreans aren’t like Americans and don’t travel much on holidays. There was no traffic and after only an hour I arrived at the airport 3 hours early. Good thing I had a book and my iPod.

The flight was very short. It was basically like flying from Montgomery to Atlanta. And before I knew it I was on Jeju-do (do means island). My friends texted me the hotel’s name and I got a cab and he dropped me off in front of the hotel in about 10 minutes and for only 4,000 Won ($3.52US). I dropped off my bag and we hopped in a cab to our first destination.

We had heard there are many odd museums and parks throughout Jeju-do. And there are several sex and health parks and museums. We all found this so strange since Koreans are so reserved and freak out if they even see a collarbone. We arrived at the park called Love Land, which is located on Mysterious Road. But instead of stopping, the cab driver started talking really fast in Korean, drove past the entrance then put the car in neutral. We were so confused. He then turned the car around headed back toward the park but again put the car in neutral and coasted. We looked around and saw people were in the streets putting bottles of makgoli down on the road. I immediately shouted, “It’s a game, he’s gonna roll over the makgoli bottle!” Of course that wasn’t right. It’s called Mysterious Road because you can put your car in neutral and coast, and it looks like you are coasting uphill, even though you must be going down. So everything looks like they are rolling uphill. The cab driver was being nice and showing us foreigners the phenomenon. It was really cool once we figured out what he was doing!

I am not going to talk much about Love Land. It was vulgar, strange and a one time event. But what made it even more surreal is that Koreans were taking pictures, pointing, laughing and playing with their children (yes, kids were there, seriously.) at a park that was all about sex. Again, Koreans blush if you show a collarbone, but they loved this park! It was very strange. Anyways, it wasn’t very big, and we soon left to go into the city for dinner.

We ate at an Indian restaurant and I had the best curry! We also ordered a bottle of red wine, and the place was very swanky and I forgot I was in Korea for a minute. After dinner we met up with the other teachers who live on the island and had drinks and a night on the town.

After sleeping in, we packed our stuff and headed to the west side of the island where our condo was located. It was an overcast day, but you could still tell the water was beautiful. The condo was nice and located right on the beach; however it was a lava rock beach so there would be no laying out here.

We weren’t sure what to do, so I busted out my Lonely Planet Korea book (the first time I used it) and we found a park that was close to the condo and had everything from botanical gardens to lava caves. It was surprisingly cheap to get in, only costing 8,000 Won. The park was amazing. There were all kinds of trees and the palm trees were tall and skinny like the ones at The Wharf back home. They had Azaleas everywhere which also made me think of home. They had every flower, cactus and plant you could think of and in the green houses also had some reptiles in aquariums.

Next we followed the path along to the lava cave/tubes. Jeju-do is a volcanic island, and these caves are actually lava tubes from thousands of years ago. One of them is a half limestone and half lava cave which is the only one in the world. They were so proud of the fact they had stalactites and stalagmites in their cave. I was picturing something like Desoto Caverns but they were little maybe a foot big at the most—still cool none the less.

Then we went to the bonsai and stone section of the park. I never knew bonsai trees could get so big. I picture them as the little tree in pots on people’s desks. These were very impressive. The stone sculptures were cool and created naturally from lava flowing through them many years ago. Next was the bird exhibit, and although the peacocks, pheasants, and other birds looked well cared to the ostriches looked in bad shape. We couldn’t figure out if they were rescued and that is why they looked bad or they weren’t being taken care of. Let’s hope they had been rescued.

After the park we went to check out Hypogae Beach, which was across the street. Although it was overcast, you could tell that this beach was absolutely beautiful. The water was a teal/green color and with the lava rocks and sand I went picture crazy! While walking on the beach we noticed horses and they looked to be roaming freely but the mom’s were tied up on quite a long rope. The babies were running around and playing and it was so sweet. Unfortunately, when I got to school on Monday my co-teacher asked how my trip was and if I ate any unique food. I said, “No, like what?” He said “Horse. Jeju is known for its horse meat.” God, I hope the little cute horses were the exception.

We wanted to eat on the beach, since it was beautiful and saw a place that said hamburgers. We immediately started running and talking about what we wanted on it. I said cheese first of course. When we arrived I ordered us four hamburgers and four colas (they didn’t have beer, I tried). While we waited in the cute restaurant they brought us lemon tea, and we looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. Turns out these are jumbo hamburgers that feed families, and we just ordered four of them. Great. Well at least we would have a snack for later. Luckily, the woman knew what the stupid foreigners meant and they brought us one hamburger that would feed the four of us. It was good, although it was closer to a sandwich than hamburger. After dinner, we headed back to the condo, rested and played cards the rest of the night.

We woke up surprisingly early for four twenty-somethings on vacation. We were up at 8:30 and out the door by 10:00. Good thing we left early though. We decided we wanted to go to some Trick Art Museum on the other side of the island and would have to take the bus. We got on a bus from the condo, it took us on an hour and a half ride to the city where we transferred buses and got on one to the other side of the island.

We finally arrived at the Trick Art Museum and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. But it was so much fun. They had painted famous paintings on the wall that looked as if they were coming out from the frame (which was painted on too). Then they had diagrams of how to line yourself up and take a picture to make it look 3D. It started as famous works of art from DaVinci, Monet, David and Ruebens to just random cool paintings. The four of us acted like kids running around, taking pictures then running to get the others to come check out the next cool trick art. It wasn’t as big as I would have liked, but again for the whopping price of 8,000 Won who could complain.

We looked at the map and saw that a hedge maze wasn’t far away, but unfortunately had no idea if buses ran there or how to get there. The nice girl at the gift shop called us a cab, and even waited on the cab to come and gave him directions to get us to the maze. It was a nice country drive, and with everything lush and green it reminded me of summer in Washington, driving up the 101 in the Olympics.

The maze was even cheaper than the other parks, and Julie and I were excited about how we were going to reenact Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire and save each other when the hedges come alive and try to get us. Nothing came to life, and the four of us quickly moved through the maze in a record speed of about 15 minutes. Bryan and I were bummed it was over so quick so ran back into the maze to hide from the others. Unfortunately, karma had a different idea and we got lost in the maze for about 45 minutes.

After the maze we decided it was time to go to the city and meet with our friends. There were no cabs or buses in the country so we decided to walk back to the main highway and catch a bus. It was a little over a mile but it was a beautiful day so we didn’t mind. We must have been exhausted because we all crashed as soon as we got settled on the bus. I woke up right when we got into the city and we all decided we needed some coffee to wake us up. We went to a local coffee/chocolate café (YAY!) and I got a café mocha and chocolate mousse cake. It was fattening, rich and perfect!

We met up with everyone and headed to a Korean restaurant that has good dalk galbi. The meal was great, spicy but not too bad, especially by Korean standards and since there were 10 of us it was cheap too! The whole group went to a couple of bars and had a nice time just catching up since we haven’t seen each other since orientation. Then we caught a cab for the thirty minute ride home.

The plan for Saturday was to wake up, go see these huge waterfalls then meet everyone at the beach. We kinda got a late start, especially since we had to ride the bus again. We rode the bus along the Southern coast of the island, and it was a beautiful ride and I didn’t sleep for once. We then had to be dropped off in the downtown of a small town and walk to the falls. My lonely planet said it was only 15 minutes but after the traffic and several hills it felt like much more.

We finally reached the falls, and everyone was breathing pretty heavily from the walk. So I was quite happy we had to walk down stairs to get to the bottom near the coast. My Lonely Planet says Jeongbang Waterfall is the only waterfall in Asia that flows directly into the sea. Wikipedia says differently, I like to think my book is correct. The falls were huge, and it was nice to put my feet in the cold water after the long hike. We acted like we were on a photo shoot posing and taking pictures.

After about 45 minutes at the falls we decided it was time to meet up with everyone else at the beach. We were sick of waiting on a bus and hopped in a cab for the 15-minute ride to Jungmun Beach. We walked down the hill to the beach and turned the corner to find the beach busy with people. There was a nice restaurant on the water, and the beach had outdoor showers, foot washes, and bathrooms all easily accessible. We had all been craving warm beach weather. The beach was beautiful, the water was amazing, but the sand was definitely not the same as back home. It was more like ground up shells, instead of “the sugary, white sand beaches” we all love from the Gulf Coast. Jules and I immediately put on sunscreen and started soaking up the sun. I fell asleep and at some point decided to try out the water. I maybe lasted 3 minutes at most. It was freezing. What made it worse was that it looked so clear and blue you thought it would be warm but then it was like stepping into ice water.

After the beach we hopped on a bus (I fell asleep, again) and went to a Mexican restaurant in town. We had really good margaritas, and nachos as an appetizer. They weren’t exactly like nachos back home, but they got the job done. Then I had a huge veggie burrito with sour cream and guacamole. It was so good. I would go back to Jeju just for that! But luckily, one of the veteran teachers said there is a restaurant in Seoul that tastes the exact same. Well I know where I am going next!

We called it a night early, said good-bye to our friends and went back to the condo and packed. We all had morning flights so 5:45 came too quickly. We loaded up in the taxi and headed home. At the airport, I got some much needed coffee and I got my schools each a box of orange chocolate (Jeju is know for oranges). Brownie points never hurt right! I flew first class home because that was the only ticket available and was actually disappointed it was only a 45-minute flight back. I landed safely, got my bags and was walking to the bus stop when someone stopped right in front of me. I was startled at first, but then realized Derek had surprised me at the airport so we could take the bus back together to our island. It was a nice surprise and we got to catch up on the ride after not seeing each other for 5 days. By the time I got home I crashed and laid around the most of the day and tried not to think about school on Monday and the dreaded Demo lesson. You’ll find out about that in the next post. Don’t worry.