Tradition... Tradition!

Heather had promised me we would do some travel when she returned from the US. She had told Leon and I we would go to some famous island in Korea whose name I forget, but since it took her so long to get back to Korea, there wasn't time for that. She ended up taking me to a little traditional Korean "resort," with tiny one-room cottages for an overnight stay. It was a three-hour drive to Andong, and the place was right by a little river and some hills.


Here's the view from our room:

This is one of the buildings in the complex:

Another:

Here's part of the property:

Heather and I took a little walk along a trail by the river:

There was a little sign on the trail that said these rocks are naturally shaped like this:

Here's the river:

Here's our room. Notice how small the door is:

As there are no beds in traditional Korean homes, lots of mats and linens are provided:

I think this was our breakfast building (rice, kimchi, vegetables, fish, and soup). The clayware is called onggi, I believe, and it's used for pickling, curing, and storing food:

After breakfast in the morning, we went to some Buddhist site that someone told Heather was great. It wasn't. I took a picture of this building, but couldn't take a picture of the statue of Buddha, which was about twenty feet tall and carved out of the side of a rocky hill:

Next we visited a traditional Korean village, which had examples of housing from poor to rich families, and there was also a museum that showed furnishings, food, events, etc. from traditional Korean homes and villages.

This is me in front of a little pond:

Here are some shots of the traditional houses:

This is an outhouse:

Korean houses were always surrounded by a wall, with a gate. I learned in the museum that the reason the Korean word for "wife" means "inside" is because wives were required to stay inside the wall of the family's home at all times, except for one or two "girls' days out" in which the women of the village got together for a picnic or something.

This is the kitchen:

I believe this is the abode of a poorer family:

On the way back we stopped at a bridge to see the water. This is me with Heather and her mom:

Me on the bridge:

This is the river. The water looks blue in the picture, but it was quite green for a river in person:

There were two quirks I noticed in Heather's family on this little trip: their obsession with snacking and her father's obsession with his car. Before we left Ulsan, we stopped at the store to buy breads, fruit, chips, crackers, candy, pastries, etc. to eat in the car and in Andong. We stopped for a big lunch of this chicken and noodle concoction when we got into town, then continued snacking most of the night. The next day there was breakfast, leftover snacks in the car, ice cream at the museum, more snacks in the car, Japanese noodle soup for lunch at a rest stop, then ddokbbokki (I think that's the right romanization--it's a very thick noodle with a little bit of veggies and ground fish reshaped into little patties with red sauce) as a snack just outside of Ulsan. I eat about six times a day, and that was a lot of eating, even for me. I'm not sure if this is a Korean thing, or if it's just this family.

Heather's father didn't really participate in the excursion, since he was focused on preserving the car. This I know is not uniquely Korean; old guys everywhere are always fussing over the car (and some young guys--Ryan, I'm talking to you). When we bought food at the grocery store, he drove all over the garage looking for two spots open so he could park between them and prevent dinging from other car doors; he woke up early the next day to put newspaper in the floors, because it had rained all night and he was afraid of the mud; when we made our stops at the temple and village and for food, he removed the newspapers and vacuumed the inside. He's a riot.

Last Day for my First Contract

Well, I finished my 17 month stint at Kate LA, and am back home in Maine for several weeks. I've only been away for two and a half weeks, but already Korea feels like a distant memory. I'm sure once I get busier around here and my next trip approaches, time will go faster.

So I'm posting some pictures of my last day at Kate LA (at least until late August, when I go back). I had a party for all my classes, in which I gave them chocolate cupcakes I made from scratch (using Heather's oven), and I showed them Roadrunner cartoons, and some Looney Toons. My advanced classes got to watch Halloween episodes of The Simpsons.

Here is me with my 6th-grade level class. Most of these kids just got back from the US with Heather. They speak English very well now, with really good American accents, for the most part. Heather's daughter Kate sounds just like my sister. The boys are Harry and Wesley; the girls are Kate, Sally, Hanna (who's not even in this class, but popped in at the end), Annie, Alisa, Tana, and that little one is another Sally (also not in this class):


This is my 4th-grade level class, Hanna, Sally, Betty, Sally, James, and Gyu-ho:


This is one of my 2nd-grade level classes, John, Sally (yes, ANOTHER Sally), Ella, Alex, Crystal, Jenny 1, Jane, and Jenny 2:


This is my lowest class. They are at a first-grade level. They drive me insane. I found out at some point that they are in 4th and 5th grade, but I would swear they're in kindergarten. Have I mentioned this before? It's pretty much all I talk about when I mention this class. Anyway, it's Kitty, Helen, Lynn, Steven, Arnold, Danny, Oscar, and Kevin (who is utterly incapable of silence):

I didn't get a proper class photo for this class, one of my other 2nd-grade level classes. That's Terry and Celina, watching Roadrunner:

That's Jenny in the back and Wendy (a colossal brat), playing a form of jacks:

This is another 2nd-grade level class with no proper photo, mostly because Emily, my replacement, wasn't around to take it and remind me. That's Joe in the back and Albert:

The rest of that class is Eric, Sean, Louis, Erin, and Lucy is in the front:

This is my 3rd-grade level class, but they will pass into the next level soon. This is the class that seems to have the strongest bond with me, particularly (from right to left) Melanie, Danny, Michelle, and Andrew. The girls were in my class from day one, with Danny, who is their lifelong friend, joining shortly after. Andrew came a few months in, but was able to mesh pretty well with the group. Jeff, although he isn't shunned or scorned, never seemed to merge into the knit.

That class always brings cakes and snacks for special occasions. Melanie's mom brought this ice cream cake for us:

Michelle came in with several boxes of brownies, cereal bars, and other snacks, which we didn't end up eating and I just passed around to the other teachers later. Danny's birthday had been two days earlier, so his mom sent in a cake that day, as well. We had a pretty laid back last week, especially since we had two days of testing and I don't give homework on test days. I'm sure they were happy.

Most of the kids in my classes were very vocal about not wanting me to go, so I imagine they'll be glad when I come back. I'm not sure if I'll get any of these classes back, though, especially considering the overhaul that's about to go down at the school. The schedule changed immediately after I left, and I'm sure a lot of classes were moved around and kids separated. Additionally, Heather mentioned wanting me to do more TOEFL test preparation classes, so I may have less time in my schedule for actually teaching basic English. It may be better for the kids that way, anyway. As much as they like me, over the next two months they'll get used to Emily or one of the other teachers if they get moved, and probably not want to change again.


Anyway, after school we had a going away party with the whole staff for me and Sue, one of the Korean teachers who didn't renew her contract. We had shabu shabu (thinly sliced meat and veggies cooked in a liiiiight broth, but not eaten as soup) and naturally went to a no rae bang afterwards. Here's Mingyu singing (trashed):

Goodbye for Now

Well, I'm leaving Korea in a few hours. I have kind of a shitty flight schedule, surprise, surprise. Courtesy of Mingyu. He got me a halfway decent set of flights out of Seoul because I berated him strongly enough about trying to choose a flight that went all the way to Atlanta, then back halfway across the continent to San Antonio. But then he waited to long to get me a flight TO Seoul that the only thing left apparently was a 7am flight from Busan, at least an hour away from Ulsan. So Heather has to take me to Busan starting by 5am, then I'll have to collect my bags and check in again and wait over four hours for my next flight. By the time I land in San Antonio, where I'm spending a couple weeks, I'll have been traveling for about 31 hours. HURRAY.

They sent me off with fireworks tonight in Ulsan Grand Park.

Not really. It was just the Rose Festival beginning. But it was cool to see fireworks tonight. I raced out to catch the display, but it stopped before I got to the setoff point. I continued to follow the hordes and hordes of people who had come to the park at the same time, figuring there was some sort of festival or show going on. There was a big setup of vendors selling their wares, mostly pottery, but also jewelry and textiles, everything seemingly handmade. They were wrapping a stage when I got there, so I guess there had been a show. Oh, well. I had packing to do.

Anyway, regarding the Pop Quiz, Asshole, I decided to stay with my current job when I get back to Korea. Some of my major reasons for wanting to leave were the opportunity for longer vacations and fewer classes with less work, but with this job I get more money and almost total control over what I teach, so in the end it seemed the latter was a better choice for me. I figure if I took the job at a public school, I'd just want to use my longer vacations to travel Asia, and I would just eat away at the money I'm supposed to be using to pay off student loan debt. So, I will hang my hat on the same rack for another year.

Other up sides include the fact that the school is moving to a bigger, better building in which the classes actually have WINDOWS, Heather is promoting the head Korean teacher to an assistant managerial position so her inept brother isn't totally in charge while she's in the US each year, and Heather says she'll find me a totally suite (my words, not hers) apartment for when I come back.

So I'm hoping everything will turn out okay.

I have some other blogs to put up about my last day at school and probably some other stuff that I can't think of right now, but I don't have time. I'll post in a few days, once I'm done changing continents and get settled in.