“it's a world of laughter, a world of tears, it's a world of hopes, it's a world of fear”

Sports Day

Well Korea doesn’t really have high school sports teams the way the US does. I was in the tennis team, and of course I had friends that played an array of sports as teens: soccer, basketball, football, etc. However, Korea does have PE classes with PE uniforms not unlike back home. But in order to commemorate students who excel in specialized sports, schools all over Korea have a Sports Day. Sports Day at my school is a two day event that includes a whole wide range of events so that every student can participate in something: soccer, relay races, three-legged races, dodge ball, and basketball. Here go another English teacher at my school, Heidi, and I with some students cheering on the teams:

This was my favorite shot from the whole event, the second grade relay race winner’s photo finish:

Can I just say that for a day that promotes physical activity, I’ve never eaten so much in my life? The parents contribute a lot to this event, food and their time. They buy the students A LOT of food: burgers, pizzas, ice cream, sodas, Gatorade, cookies, and any other foods that represent the polar-opposite of a sports day. Luckily, that basketball game I played helped burn off some (but definitely not all) of those delicious calories.

Everland

Something I really wanted to scratch off my Korea “bucket list” was going to an amusement park here.
I finally got the chance to go to Everland, about 40 minutes away from the Suwon station. It’s really convenient to get there too because there’s a shuttle that leaves every 30 minutes from the Suwon station (starting at 9am) to take people to Everland. I doubt we have anything like that for Disneyland back home. In typical theme park fashion it had its signature rollercoast, but my favorite was one in the rock and roll park that spun you in ways you wouldn’t expect. Here’s a picture from that ride:

All in all it was a lot of fun and Korean theme parks are reasonably priced with reasonably priced concessions (unlike theme parks at movie theaters back home). It was about $30 USD for admission at we had a good restaurant lunch for about $18. Also, Everland has many animal displays so we got to see tiny foxes, monkeys, sheep, tigers, seals, polar bears, skunks, and rabbits.

I think we were all surprised to see so many waygooks (foreigners) working in the theme park’s shows. Here we are with some of the performers after the show:

Speech Exam Week
So I am currently wrapping up my second to last week in Korea and it is currently speech exam week. This is the week I’ve also decided to let students know of my plans for departure. The big gasps of reactions I get each time make me appreciate my time here even more. The speeches have gone by well, and especially today, they really studied. The theme is what they would do if they only had a month to live. A lot of the responses are universal like spending more time with friends and family, writing thank you letters and donating their organs. Some are original, like one student would try to die a day before his diagnosis in order to prove doctors wrong, another said he would eat a long list of foods so he could die from overeating, while another noted that she would marry her boyfriend and travel the world.
I have one student though who is painfully shy. She couldn’t go through with her speech and cried in front of everyone. My co-teacher also told me later on that she also missed school the day following the exam. All I hope is that she’s well and that her classmates’ extrovert personalities rub off on her. Learning experience? Never being shy, and never having to come out of my shell because my shell has always been nonexistent, I can’t completely relate to reaching a level timidity where I would freeze, but I do have sympathy for all my students.

So here I am, another round of speech exams on the way from my second graders, the most seasoned of my students and the most prepared, so I’m looking forward to what they have to say. More blogging to come later...

해피 음력 설날!!!!

Hope everyone has a happy lunar new year!!!!

So things that have happened recently have included a birthday, a trip to a Korean monument, dogsitting and just hanging out.

I've been good and the temperature is actually rising here in Korea now. Like 88% of the snow on my block has melted, and yes that's my true scientific statistic, you can go again and check for standard deviation if you must.

One of our group's teacher friends, Trina, had a birthday last week. Thai food, and J&J's at the main gate were what the festivities consisted of and it was fun. Birthdays can be tough for teachers in Korea, and I remember mine came at the same time as my "three month slump." So it's nice to help someone feel better about their birthday when you've gone through yours and you know how it can be.

This past weekend was so much fun. I went to Suwon, which is known as the provincial capital of South Korea. We hit up the market and the Art Street, which is just streets among streets of shops and food. The city of Suwon is best known for the Hwaseong Fortress, a huge landmark in SK. The fortress was built in 1796 during the Joseon Dynasty. Here's a video of when we first began our journey at the south end of the fortress. The walk up was pretty steep, icy, and tiring, so pardon my condition in this video.

There's a bell halfway through the fortress and we got to ring it. That was pretty fun and it was great being able to walk through such an important piece of Korean history. It was reminiscent of my trip to the Great Wall of China. Here's a video of me ringing the bell at the fortress.

After the walk around the fortress, which includes seeing all of the city of Suwon atop of it, I was glad I did it. I still have one great Korean landmark I need to see during my time here, which is the Seoul Tower. Granted, I've seen it from a distance as you have to drive around it to get around Seoul. But I've never been in it, so it's definitely something I want to do in the very near future.

I was also done with my dogsitting assignment yesterday. Mr. Lee and his family brought me some great souvenirs from Taiwan and Rocky was an ease to take care of. It was nice living in Osan too, finally going to an E-Mart, and getting to know the area a little better. I'm privileged in the fact that I live in Songtan and that I don't have to go out of my way to really understand the businesses there. To prove my point, I went to Family Mart (a chain Korean establishment) to buy some juice and the manager said "Happy New Year" in English. Yeah...I don't think that kind of stuff happens in the regular Korean cities. So it was interesting being in Osan and calling for cab and ordering food. It wasn't difficult because I know survival Korean, but it was definitely different than Songtan. Here's Rocky, the dog that assured my stay in Osan for three days (even though I still made my way into Songtan and Pyeongtaek to see people):

All in all this past week has been good in me experiencing Korean culture in that I got to see a great Korean landmark, lived in the home of a Korean family, and the other day some friends and I gathered at this awesome restaurant in Pyeongtaek to have some Korean spicy chicken.

감사합니다 for reading! (thanks for reading)