Ulsan- Daewangam Park...

It was the end of the first semester, so this means- Teacher's dinner. Because our vice principal was leaving we went on a little furthur of a journey than a local restaurant. We went to Ulsan.

I had never been to Ulsan before. We all boarded a coach bus at the school right after the kids went home after lunch to make our journey. I never really know what is happening on these trips/dinners, I just watch and go with the flow. Every once in a while, I get a bit of information. 

On this particular day, It was 100 days since the Sewol ferry and it just so happened that the man that many people held resposible for the tragedy- the shipping companies owner, was found dead. For months missing person and wanted posters hung in all of the buildings because people assumed he was in hiding in Korea. Apparently his head had been decapitated shortly after the ferry accident and he was only found months later. Anyway, I'm only mentioning this because as we drove to Ulsan, I was given the scoop on this because it was new information, and was being played on the large TV on the bus!

As we drove to Ulsan from Daegu we passed through the industrial side of Ulsan. When I first came to Korea, I was told that Ulsan was industrial, Busan had nice beaches, and Daegu was hot. So far all of those things have held up... In Ulsan many of the large companies from Korea have manufacturing plants. We saw massive car lots and factories, and it was obvious they were making tons of stuff. I admire how Korea keeps much of the business in Korea. There is an obvious push to take care of their own.

When we finally stopped we were at Daewangam Park on the coast. Daewangam Park is nice for taking walks and it's coast has fantastic rock cliffs. Ulgi Park is located at the end of the sharpest point on the southeastern part of the park towards the East Sea/Sea of Japan. Ulgi Lighthouse is located there and is famou for guiding light on the sea. Around the area are pine trees that are over 100 years old and lots of shade to enjoy. Past the pine tree path, is Daewangam Rock, which is an area that is full of huge boulders. The rock that you can see straight ahead is called Yongchaum because it looks like a dragon that is about to come out of the water. Legend says that Queen Munmu of the Silla Dynasty became a Guardian Dragon of the country after she did and was submerged under the water. With fascinating rock formations, a forest of some 15,000 pine trees, and a wide-open view of the East Sea, this area is considered the second most magnificient spot of the East Coast after Haegeumgang River. The park has a large rock island that looks like a dragon rising up into the sky and it's connected to the mainland with an iron bridge. All of us teachers were able to explore the area and walk on a wooded path along the coast. 

We went and saw another light house before we headed to our dinner spot. It was sunny- don't forget your sun umbrellas! :)

 

After our short hike and adventure, we went to eat Tteokglabi. Tteokgalbi is a delicious Korean dish made from beef ribs, where the meat is minced and pounded on the bone, then marinated in a sweet, salty, and savory sauce, and then grilled or barbecued over charcoal. It’s sweet, chewy, and juicy, and best of all, it’s very tender because the meat is already chopped into small pieces and softened. I had never had this before, and I really enjoyed it. I found it similar to seasoned hamburger meat. 

“Galbi” means ribs in Korean, and “tteok” means rice cake, and it was given this name because the process of cutting, marinating, and shaping the meat is similar to the process of making a rice cake. The final dish is also soft and tender, much like a rice cake in texture.

We still ate it similar to samgyeopsal, where we used a lettuce leaf and piles all the bits on it before eating it in one bite. This teachers dinner was delicious!

English Festival- Scratch art...

Like I said about the paper football "English Festival", I am able to teach whatever I want for 4 lessons a year, and I wanted to introduce scratch art to the kids. It is not really a thing here in Korea, and most of the students were doing this for the first time. 

Because of this, they were little angels. I have never had a lesson where I had to pay attention less! I was almost lost and didn't know what to do with myself! ahah

The lesson I taught first was about different patterns : polka dots, check, plaid, floral, stripes, paisley, and animal print. After that, I gave all of the students a piece of scratch paper, and had them divide their paper into 7-9 spaces. Then, they went for it with patterns. Some classes were really creative and made their own patterns, while others just did the ones I showed them. Either way, I can't even remember 1 student you wasn't interested in this activity! Even the ones who didn't especially like "art" still were very much engaged...

Since I had so much free time while the student were creating, I made my own thing...

Again, I highly recommend this activity. I am lucky this year, and my English department has a nice budget and I was able to purchase materials. My first semester here, this would not have even been remotely possible, because I purchased my own materials by myself at that time.

Boryeong Mud Festival 2014...

PRE-MUD

MUD

POST-MUD

One of the most famous and well known festivals amoungst the foreigners in Korea is the Boryeong Mud festival. It is located in a small coastal city one hour south of Seoul. This festival is a newer one and really caters to foreigners. If I had to guess, I would say at least 55% of the people there were not from Korea. It was the first time since being in Korea, that is was obvious that foreigners could do whatever they wanted and didn't have to hold back for Korean modesty standards. People were walking around in bikinis, and getting their pictures taken, and just didn't care! It was actually quite refreshing to be honest. I think it helped that it appeared to be quite a few military there as well.

We found it a little odd that there wasn't much mud, except in the small area that you had to pay for and get tickets. We didn't pre-order the tickets because we had read that there was other mud. We we couldn't find much other mud, we attempted to buy tickets, but apparently they only sell a certain amount of tickets each day. This was odd since it didn't seem like the mud area was full.

The mud area had a bunch of blow-up slides and other activities to participate in. Without a wrist band we were left with no choice but to sneak into the area. Ben and Abbi found a wristband on the ground and we used it to sneak at least 10 people in. They lost money. We were all ready to pay the 10,000 won to get in, but they didn't let us.
I'm glad that we went into this area because it ended up being really fun! Ben and I raced down the slides and competed with other couples with a bungee race, and obvious won... ahaha

After we had had our fill of mud flinging, we went to the sea and jumped in to wash ourselves off. It was pretty chilly water and it took a big to get most of the mud out of our clothes- it was caked!

"I found you. You're my penguin. With all of these people I FOUND YOU!"

During the night in Boryeong, there was a concert with "Brown Eyed Girls", a well known K-Pop group, and then after that there was a singer, that is also known, but not as popular called, Kim Jung Whoon. He was a bit annoying because instead of singing for much of the time, he talked in Korean for a long time. And he did a bit of screechy-yelling, which was reeeeeally annoying...
After the concert, there were fireworks. These fireworks were really cool and interesting because it was so foggy that you could only see them through the fog and clouds. (They were being shot off of a boat.) 
Also that night was a lot of drinking ("I could really use some chicken...") done by most people, but even with that, the pension floor was ridiculously bad. They only provided very thin blankets to sleep on, so my body was incredible uncomfortable during the night. I laid there for hours wishing I could sleep. Of all of my nights in Korea, I got the least amount of sleep this night, and to be honest, that alone would keep me from going to the festival again. 
I'm glad I went to this festival, but I know that I will most likely not go again. Once is enough for me! :) Definitely, worth a visit though!

Paper Football

Four times a year, I get to teach all of my classes anything I want and we call it "English Festival". Most of the time I try to teach something that has to do with American culture, and for most of these days, I have searched my memory for the fun things I used to do as a kid. 

Since most of the kids are not familiar with American Football, I wanted to teach them about it and also teach them a fun game from childhood! So..... for the whole week, I taught 22 classes about football. I didn't change my lesson. I did the same one for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, but I did slow down obviously for the 4th grade.
I started out with a football powerpoint about the basics and rule. I tried to keep it really simple. 

After that, I showed the students how to make a paper football, and I also taught them the rules!

All of the students really enjoyed playing this game, no matter if they were a boy or girl. I hope that they keep it in their minds as something they can do when they are board. I tried to emphasize that all you really need is a piece of paper (that can be taken off the street) to play! 

This next year, I plan on making a "field" that will require the students to speak sentences when they land within the yard lines. I think they would love to play again, and this way they can, but also learn some more English!

The following moments made me realize that kids all over the World are very similar!!! It really doesn't matter where they are from! ahah

After they played paper football for a while, I introduced them to tailgating. Yes, I know that this is usually before, but I can't just give out candy a the beginning of class! How crazy do you think I am! I also realize that there are usually much more alcohol involved that the kids needed to hear about. I did sensor it a bit...

I talked about grilling and eating tons of food and I found these gummies online and we had enough of a budget to be able to give all of the students one! They were very happy about this too. 

Overall, it was a really good "English Festival" or camp lesson, and I am planning on posting it for other teachers to get to use! The kids really loved it, and they learned something!

DMZ

At the end of June, a group of us went up to the north of South Korea to the most northern part we are allowed to go- the DMZ- the border between the south and the north.

A group of us booked a tour with the tour group Kooridoor. After reading many reviews, they came out miles ahead of the other groups. This was one of the only groups that took your to the JSA (Joint Security Area) as well as many other sights. Also this tour was led by the American military so it had an interesting perspective.
For this trip we went with a group of people that happened to be 3 Marie/Maria's and their significant other and Sian. Even though that added some confusion to the weekend, it was actually a fun novelty!

We left for the tour really early in the morning. There was a dress code that we had to dress to that included collared shirts, closed toed shoes, long skirts, and nice dress cloths. Apparently this is because we need to look nice for the North Koreans who were looking at us through binoculars.

The tour bus took us to the JSA where we boarded another bus. There we got to see the buildings that they have meetings between the north and the south. If you stood on one side of the room you were in South Korea, and the other side of the room you were in North Korea. The picture below I am in the north, and Ben is in the south.

This is the propaganda village that is located across the border in North Korea. We were told that many of these buildings have painted on windows and doors and do not even have floors in the buildings. The North Korean flag that you see if a funny story too!
Apparently, South Korea put up a flag on the border. To counteract this, North Korea put up an even bigger tower and flag. There have been many petty things like this done between the two countries over the years.

After the JSA we went to a  few other places including the train station that goes to the north. It was used a few years ago to take people to work at factories in the north. At the moment, it is not in operation, but there is hope for the future that it will be use a lot! We also went to a tunnel that was built coming into the south from the north. It was so deep and so long. I was amazed by it! We had to put on hard hats and duck our heads because it was so small/short. It was an interesting day and I'm glad that we got to see this important part of the country. I hope some day in the future, there will be peace between the the two sides and they will be able to unify.