Post Hike Photos

Building 정

Is this the real life or is this just fantasy? (Introduction to homestay life)

Departure day, or as the OCT fondly refers to it, D-Day. 8/17/2013. This is what the six weeks has been leading up to. From this point on, we are scattered across Korea. Luckily, some of us will still be quite close together. Here is my crew for the next year. The blonde (Meghan) and the short Korean (Mary) are the two that are closest to me. The rest are within the hour. As we lined up my province, the last time we'd all be together for a while, I turned to Cait and whispered, "Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?" And soon, we were off. As our names and schools were called, our co-workers rushed forward to greet us. Mine gave me flowers and then took a picture with me in the line. Some of the pressure was off; I had met my future co-workers. Most of the pressure just began to pile on. For the rest of the day, I'd be eating with my vice principle (who knows no English) and my Fulbright co-teacher. Then, we spent 2 hours in a car...where I slept. In a strange turn of events, my Fulbright co-teacher is also my host mother. 

My host mother told me to call her Sarah. Her husband is Jason and their son is Charlie. Sarah and Jason are both English teachers. Their English is great. Charlie tries very hard and we have some great conversations. Upon arrival at my home, I get to see my own room. Its really big and nicely laid out. I spent the night unpacking after giving a customary gift to my host family. They let me know that I don't have any rules. My host family also tells me about their religion. Their some kind of Christianity, but ever since 1988, they've followed the teachings of a minister whose English name is Joshua John. Joshua John was a poor man who stopped his education after elementary school. After that, he met Jesus and was grown entirely by Jesus. Under Jesus' instruction, he built a natural temple/worship ground. All day Saturday, we visited this worship ground. Although my host family is religious, it does not seem that they will try to pressure me to be religious in any way. During the "message" part of the ceremony, Sarah and I trekked around the outside of the natural temple. We basically did a 4 hour hike and got to know each other a little better. It was very beautiful there and actually really nice.

The entrance to the natural temple.

The temple is centered on collection of rocks. Every rock has a special meaning and purpose. When Joshua John finds one, he brings it to this place. Now, there are hundreds of rocks.

This pavilion sits at the center of a man made lake where kids swim when it is hot.

My host mom's favorite rock

It is the face rock. People pray in front of it. 

My host brother Charlie sitting on another face rock.

See the face?

I had to take a picture of the kid with the Jesus T-shirt.

Me and the Gazebo thing.

My host mom's other favorite Rock.

Who's to say kids can't have fun at a Church Retreat?

Jason and Charlie

After the temple, we went to Jeonju for a surprise visit. Jason's family lives in Jeonju so he knows the city well. Jeonju has one of the most famous Hanok villages in Korea. We took a peek at a Confucian school from the 1500s (I think). The style of roofing is very particular to Korea.

Who doesn't love a 400 year old tree?

The Ethics Hall

"Love hot, hate hot" What a motto!

Traditional Korean instruments

Some old Hanji paper. There is Chinese and Korean lettering.

My bedroom. Let's hope I can keep it clean!!

The living room. This is where my host brother and I build "Cheong" or closeness over American music and Korean reality TV shows. I watched about a half hour of what seems to be Korean survivor. So much spicy food. 

Our kitchen/dining area

And there are stacks upon stacks of Korean children's books that I hope to practice with. I read out loud to Charlie and Jason last night...or at least tried to!

The End of an Era: No more KLCC

The Classes
With no prior Korean Language experience, I was out of my leauge when arriving in Korea. Within a day of our arrival, we were sitting in the Fishbowl waiting for our Korean language exam. I, as expertly as I could, (with a few things misspelt) wrote "안녕하세요. 저는 알래산드라 입니다. 감사합니다." Then, we had the listening portion of the exam. My teacher asked me a few questions. I gave her a

Then, in English, she asked me if I knew the Korean alphabet. I almost said "aniyo" (no), because it sounds more like yes to me than nae (yes). Luckily I changed my answer correctly, but I don't think she was impressed.

Imagine my surprise when I turned out to be in "Advanced beginner" instead of normal beginner. And so began my hardest week of classes.

The Teachers
My first week of classes felt like a constant Mulan montage where the teachers took one look at me and said, "This is what you give me to work with? Well honey, I've seen worse."

Kim 선생님 (teacher) and Park 선생님 were very patient with me, considering my understanding of the Korean alphabet was much lower than most of the students. Luckily, in true Korean fashion, I studied very hard. After the first week, when I left class with a headache everyday and dreading returning, it became easier. Soon, I was no longer the worst student in the class. Then, I was one of the first to understand grammar rules. Both the teachers seemed to enjoy talking to me more frequently rather than seeing me as the student who knows nothing. In our midterm evaluation, both teachers recognized that pronunciation was (and is) still hard for me. However, by the end of the 5 week class, I felt slightly competent. Obviously, I have years of work ahead of me if I want to be even somewhat fluent in Korean, but at least I'm not completly hopeless. Thank you 선생님!

Going out with the Teachers
As a formal thank you to our teachers, we took them out to dinner. We had Samgyeopsal 삼겸살(pork belly) at a Korean barbecue. The barbecue is done in front of you. It is DELICIOUS. Our teacher tried to make us converse in Korean during the entire dinner. We ended up doing pretty well. Our conversations were FAR from perfect, but we kind of had them. After dinner, we went to our favorite bar to drink. Our teachers taught us some Korean drinking games. We taught them a simple version of Kings. It was a blast.

Also, on a practical note, our teachers tried to show us some of drinking culture in Korea. Whose glass to pour and when, when you can drink, who can drink in front of who... There are a lot of rules and breaking them can be rude. Of course, I broke all of them at least 3 times...but who's counting?

Graduation
At the end of Seoul weekend, we had a graduation ceremony. I don't have any pictures of the ceremony now, but when I find some, I will post them. The ceremony was very entertaining and boring at the same time. Each student received a diploma in a felt case from the head of the Korea University Language Program. Honestly, the red case was probably nicer than my diploma case from UVM. Since all of us passed, everyone got to graduate. They also gave us a gift (a towel with the Korea University symbol on it).

After the diplomas were given, some students won awards for diligent studying and highest grades. Then, it was time for the final presentations. Every class had to make a final presentation. Half the classes did plays, half did movies. The advanced class did a series of speeches.

Our movie prompt was "A day in the life of an ETA." We decided to do a soap opera theme and I starred in "ETA Days of Our Lives." Other skits included an ill-fated mountain adventure, Hugh Jackman's visit to Jungwon, The Jungwon Wizard of Oz and many others.

I'm not sure if this link will work, but this is our video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM8VQ4fWbTI&feature=youtu.be

서울에 왔어요

(The video that inspired this blog name. Cred to Isaac, Dharma, Michah, and Meghan cause I was not in this/did not do this)

A week ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Seoul. Contrary to popular American belief, Seoul is actually 2 syllables. Seo-ul. Yeah. So start pronouncing it right, 미국 사람 (Sorry, I just got a Korean keyboard and I've been wanting to use it.) Our weekend in Seoul was pretty jam-packed. I didn't take that many pictures, so the internet will be supplementing my description. Basically, this trip to Seoul was a preliminary scouting mission. All it did was make me resolve to return...and soon.

First, after arriving, we went to to Fulbright building. Here, we saw Mrs. Shim and went over our contract. She is a pretty funny woman, and her English is excellent. Although, she also is terrifying by her own right. I would not want to piss her off...

 At the Fulbright building, we also had a lovely visit from Dr. John Linton. The good doctor is a very important person in Korea. You can read all about him here. Basically, the simple explanation is that he was born in Korea, but is American as well. He defines his hometown as Jeonju and thinks of himself as Korean to an extent. He explains it way better in his interview. For us, it was a pretty surreal experience. Basically, there was this old white guy telling us very valuable information. Through everything that he said, it was obvious that he only hoped for the best for every one of us. Some of his opinions and generalizations, however, outdated or inconsistent with American standards. Because he looks like he would fit in incredibly well with my Irish-Catholic family from Texas (and speaks with the accent as well), it was hard to remember that he is more Korean than he is American. He has spent more time living here than in the US and, for that reason, his ideas seem as foreign to us as many Korean ideas. It was like an cultural optical illusion. A cultural optical illusion that spoke to us about diarrhea for 20 minutes straight.

 We were lucky enough to go to the embassy for an American barbecue. This was a sculpture outside of the building. The embassy was great. Hamburgers, hot dogs, bean dip, and a pool. Oh, and many OCT members thrown into the pool :).

 Then, the next day, it was off to the DMZ. Here is the amusement park outside of the DMZ. Since the Korean War never actually ended, just went into a stalemate, this is an amusement park right outside of...yeah...a current war? A stalemated war?

Who cares? There was a buccaneer boat that I totally would have ridden on if I had time!

 T'was a foggy day in North Korea. If you looked really far away that would be N. Korea.

 I love caution signs. The pictures are always really funny. Like this one looks like "Don't pull a Tarzan and swing from railing to railing."

 So that's North Korea. If you look very closely (and if my picture was better res) you'd be able to see the North Korean soldier looking at us. They stay there all day and take pictures of any visitors. We had to sign a contract saying we would not point or make any gesture at the North Korean soldier because they could be modified into propaganda. Our tour talked a lot about North Korean propaganda. For example, North Korea has a city within site of the DMZ. This city, though, has no people that live there. South Korea also has a village within site of the DMZ, but people actually live there. I believe they said they are paid to live there though. Also, each city has a flag. North Korea's flagpole is higher than the South Koreans, just to spite them (or something). There are fake big beautiful houses that display the wealth of North Korea. Also, the building has an extra floor because the North Koreans wanted their building to be taller than the Korean building. Please take all these comments with a grain of salt. I am only writing what they told us on our tour. Although, our tour guide did say he wonders if their obsession with height might be to compensate for something...(insert dick joke here).

There's me and North Korea. Smiling felt a littttttttle strange...hence my strange half smile. 

The blue buildings are American/Korean buildings and the white ones are North Korean. That way, they each have access to the border line.  

 The soldiers never move and stay in a ready stance. They are all trained in Taekwondo as well, in case there is a problem. These guys are way more intense than the guards at Buckingham. They looked almost fake.

 In the blue buildings, there is a table for diplomatic discussions that lies on the line. The things in the middle there are the dividing line. I was in North Korea for this photo.

 And the concrete slab also shows the dividing line. Again, in North Korea...kind of.

Cait and I trying to be soldiers and managing to take an unflattering photo instead.

After crossing the border to North Korea, where better to go than "On the Border" for Mexican food? We met our Korean language teachers to eat some fine Mexican food. Overall, I would rate this Mexican food as good as Vermont Mexican food. Although, the rice was buttery and the margarita did not have enough tequila. 

Mexican was followed by a night of 막걸리 (Makgeolli). Makgeolli is a delicious rice wine that I look forward to drinking much of in the future.

This is our Makgeolli table with our teacher at the end. After the time at the table, we cajoled a picture of his girlfriend out of him. Ah, so cute. 

And what would a night in Seoul be without a little bit of night fun. We continued our night of drinking at the NB1 hip hop club in Hongdae. Then, we tried NB2. NB2, however, looked like this:

So we didn't stay very long. 

 
When you're still hungover, Itaewon is the place to go shopping. Of course, we got helplessly lost and...yeah...but Amanda still had a chance to buy one thing. We spent 3 or 4 hours in Itaewon and found the stores for the last 40 minutes of that...Whoooops. The rest of the day, we spent in a spa. Public baths/saunas/spas are really important and common in Korea. This was the one we went to:

Dragon Healing Spa.

This is where you relax post spa experience. Side note: nothing brings friends closer than spending a few hours naked together. Many many hours naked together. So much nudity. So many korean adjumas......

Anyway, that's a basic summary of Seoul weekend! Overall, a grand spanking time!