This week of teaching went pretty well! I'm really beginning to understand why they told us that media clips should be selectively chosen... watching the same clip of The Simpsons 20 times was a bit much!
Last night I had my second staff dinner. The evening started out with a game of "Fusion" which ended up being what I call soccer baseball. It was an awesome game and good opportunity to know my coworkers in a new setting. It also helped that my team WON and I scored 2 run. The most foreign thing I've heard so far in Korean is when my coworker told me that I'm a "sporty woman". Women don't play sports here. I brought a change of clothes and running shoes while my female coworkers stayed in their nice clothes and slippers.
I wasn't planning to go for the dinner with the staff but I found it difficult to refuse free food! When we got to the restaurant, they asked me if I preferred spicy seafood, or soupy seafood.
Okay...
I try to be open to new things, but seafood really just doesn't do it for me. We were seated next to soupy seafood which contained shellfish, shrimp, and a crab the size of my head. Luckily I was starving since my lunch that day was replaced by a trip to the post office to ship Matt his birthday present. The waitress brought a bowl over to the table. In it there was a live little octopus. She threw him in the bowl and I watched him crawl around until he, you know, died.
I actually tried a small piece of the tentacle and it was just as nasty as I imagined it to be. I tried some squid which actually wasn't too bad because it didn't have the texture of a tentacle.
After dinner we headed to a norebang. It was here that that I finally got overwhelmed by attention and Korea in general. This was the first time I met a lot of the staff (our first dinner was only the English department) so they all wanted to meet me and talk to me. All of this attention was very well intentioned but after a while, I was tired of it.
Thankfully I had Chuseok to look forward to :)
This morning I woke up and packed for my 4 day weekend! We made a heavenly stop at McD's for breakfast before we headed off to Anmyeondo.
We pitstopped along the highway where we tried and failed to find a geocache.
We arrived at our pension and it's awesome! After we unloaded our things we headed to Kkotji Beach.
The first thing I saw at the beach was Korean beach food - french fries, silk worm pupae...
At this beach there are two huge rock formations called Grandmother and Grandfather rock.
After a while we noticed that the tide was going out and people were able to walk to the rocks! It was perfect; like an unexpected treasure-find. We walked over to the rock and were able to see the sealife that the tide left behind (snails and hermit crabs mostly). As time went on, the tide receded so far that a huge pathway was exposed that led to the rocks.
Once back at the pension we ate amazing Indian food and drank amazing chai tea :)
Monday, September 12
Yesterday we ventured out to find lunch but stumbled upon a hermitage instead! We roamed around for a while and eventually found a geocache there.
When we got to the hermitage, the tide was out pretty far. There was a "floating pagoda" which was just stuck in the mud! Luckily while we were there, the tide starting coming back in. We walked along the floating boardwalk to the pagoda.
We went to the beach, I had a nap, then we found a sweet deal on ATVs. I wouldn't have thought that I would've driven an ATV but it was awesome and I'm so glad that I did!
This morning we headed out to play paintball! I was actually a bit worried... I had been paintballing before but with a huge group that included nerdy paintball aficionados who yelled at me when I cowered in the corner.
Anyway, it was awesome and now I can show my students my battle wounds from Chuseok.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach, Patti and I took a detour to find a geocache, we had dinner on the beach, and then a campfire back at the pension :)
Last night I had my second staff dinner. The evening started out with a game of "Fusion" which ended up being what I call soccer baseball. It was an awesome game and good opportunity to know my coworkers in a new setting. It also helped that my team WON and I scored 2 run. The most foreign thing I've heard so far in Korean is when my coworker told me that I'm a "sporty woman". Women don't play sports here. I brought a change of clothes and running shoes while my female coworkers stayed in their nice clothes and slippers.
I wasn't planning to go for the dinner with the staff but I found it difficult to refuse free food! When we got to the restaurant, they asked me if I preferred spicy seafood, or soupy seafood.
Okay...
I try to be open to new things, but seafood really just doesn't do it for me. We were seated next to soupy seafood which contained shellfish, shrimp, and a crab the size of my head. Luckily I was starving since my lunch that day was replaced by a trip to the post office to ship Matt his birthday present. The waitress brought a bowl over to the table. In it there was a live little octopus. She threw him in the bowl and I watched him crawl around until he, you know, died.
I actually tried a small piece of the tentacle and it was just as nasty as I imagined it to be. I tried some squid which actually wasn't too bad because it didn't have the texture of a tentacle.
After dinner we headed to a norebang. It was here that that I finally got overwhelmed by attention and Korea in general. This was the first time I met a lot of the staff (our first dinner was only the English department) so they all wanted to meet me and talk to me. All of this attention was very well intentioned but after a while, I was tired of it.
Thankfully I had Chuseok to look forward to :)
This morning I woke up and packed for my 4 day weekend! We made a heavenly stop at McD's for breakfast before we headed off to Anmyeondo.
We pitstopped along the highway where we tried and failed to find a geocache.
We arrived at our pension and it's awesome! After we unloaded our things we headed to Kkotji Beach.The first thing I saw at the beach was Korean beach food - french fries, silk worm pupae...
At this beach there are two huge rock formations called Grandmother and Grandfather rock.
After a while we noticed that the tide was going out and people were able to walk to the rocks! It was perfect; like an unexpected treasure-find. We walked over to the rock and were able to see the sealife that the tide left behind (snails and hermit crabs mostly). As time went on, the tide receded so far that a huge pathway was exposed that led to the rocks.
Monday, September 12
Yesterday we ventured out to find lunch but stumbled upon a hermitage instead! We roamed around for a while and eventually found a geocache there.
When we got to the hermitage, the tide was out pretty far. There was a "floating pagoda" which was just stuck in the mud! Luckily while we were there, the tide starting coming back in. We walked along the floating boardwalk to the pagoda.
Anyway, it was awesome and now I can show my students my battle wounds from Chuseok.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach, Patti and I took a detour to find a geocache, we had dinner on the beach, and then a campfire back at the pension :)
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