a Hike, a BBQ, a Museum

Corey has already posted the photos on facebook, but I'm going to write about the activities we partook in this week.

Wednesday was Labor Day so Corey and I had the day off according to our contracts. The other teachers at my school still had a normal work day supervising students who were writing their midterm. Corey's principal gave his school a day off and invited the staff to go on a hiking trip to Cheonggyesan, a mountain near Seoul.

We met up with two of Corey's co-teachers in Incheon and took a bus to meet another ten teachers at the mountain. It was my first time meeting most of the teachers from Corey's school, but they were all very welcoming. We began our climb soon after introductions, taking many rests to drink water and enjoy the beautiful view. Since it was a holiday and the weather was beautiful, there were a lot of other hikers on the trail.

busy hiking trail

Corey and the Sunhwa staff team

Corey and the mountain view

I wonder who had the job of numbering the steps?

At one point, our group left the trail a little bit to find a quiet spot to set up a picnic. All the teachers unpacked their kimbap and Corey and I opened our tupperware containing peanut butter sanwiches. Everyone was sharing their kimbap, trying one another's culinary creations and they shared with Corey and me too. We offered some of our peanut butter sandwiches but they were politely declined by all. It was funny to find out that our peanut butter sandwiches were the "weird foreign food" at the picnic.

pretty view

picnic time

After a few hours of hiking, we were back at the bottom of the mountain and everyone was hungry again. We stopped at a restaurant and had many Korean dishes including tofu, kimchi, vegetables, more kimbap, and cucumbers. It was very refreshing food after a long hike. Many of the teachers, including Corey, also drank several toasts with meokkoli (Korean rice wine) but I stuck to powerade. Once everyone had their fill of food and drink, we headed back to Incheon.

On the way down the path

On Friday, the fun continued at Corey's school. His co-teachers told him there was going to be a barbecue and they invited me to come too. When we heard barbecue, we automatically pictured hamburgers and hotdogs on a grill being doled out to students. When we got outside, we saw students sitting in groups, each with their own grill, cooking an endless supply of sausages, samgyeopsal (Korean bacon), kimchi, and rice. That's when Corey and I looked at each other with an expression that said, "Oh yeah, we're in Korea!"

BBQ

We joined a group and watched as the students expertly cooked all the raw things that were brought over to them by teachers and parents. The students held bits of meat out for us on the end of their chopsticks and said "eat". Then they'd feed us various things that they had cooked. I thought maybe they weren't sure if we could handle taking the meat off the grill with our chopsticks, but then I saw they were also spoon feeding the other teachers and their friends too. I was a little nervous because the students started tricking each other into eating spicy peppers by hiding them in the middle of spoonfuls of rice and meat. These peppers were so spicy that even the Koreans were crying when they bit into them, but then of course they'd be dared to eat another one and they'd do it all over again.  Luckily, I avoided the spicy stuff.

Cooking some samgyeopsal

After a great week, we had an exciting weekend to look forward to as well. Corey's co-teacher invited us to meet her and her friend at the National Museum in Seoul. We had a delicious lunch at the museum cafe and then took a two hour guided tour (in English) of the museum. It did not feel like two hours. Our tour guide, Agnes, made it a great learning experience and we were hanging on her every word about Korean history and culture. She was obviously very proud of her Korean heritage and it was nice of her to share her passion with us.

Corey and Teacher Shin in front of the ten-story pagoda

Corey and me

We saw a lot of beautiful pottery and a room filled with Buddha statues, a model of a traditional Korean house, and many more artifacts that each had their own story. I thought it was really thoughtful of Corey's co-teacher to take us to the museum for the English guided tour because I probably wouldn't have thought of the possibility of even having a tour in English, never mind figuring out the limited times at which this special tour is offered.

Pottery

Iron Buddha

Once we finished the tour, we strolled around the grounds outside the museum, took some photographs of the pretty spring blooms, and then sat and talked for a little while. After some time passed we said goodbye and Corey and I headed to Itaewon. We went to the bookstore and I got a children's book that I want to work on with some of my lower level students. Then we ate at our favourite falafel place and called it a day.

In front of the museum

Flowers everywhere

Admiring said flowers

This coming week, my students are away on a field trip from Monday to Wednesday so I'll be desk warming/lesson planning again. More news later.

Multibang!

This week at school has been Spongebob overload. I used a template of a ppt game from waygook.org and edited in practice questions for the students' midterm next week. Although the game does keep the students interested, it's still a bit hard to hear the Spongebob theme song 13 times in one week.

Thank goodness for the weekend! This Saturday, we went out for our friend Chris's birthday. We walked through the park on the way to Bupyeong. We saw some spring blooms and stopped for a photo op. We also obeyed the signs.

photo op

blooms

No to butterfly nets. No to cooking. Yes to puppies. 

Since I talk about this place all the time, I figured I should add some photos of Bupyeong. This is what it looks like from the outside. Inside and underground it is a network of tunnels that connect shops, restaurants, movie theatres, offices, two subway lines and more. 

Entranceway at Bupyeong

Traditional performers in the centre of Bupyeong

Once we met up with Chris, Laura, and Mitchell, we went to a Nepalese restaurant to eat some delicious food (which I forgot to take pictures of because I was really hungry and excited to eat everything. sorry.)

Then we went to a multibang nearby. The multibang is sort of like norebang (singing room), but with more options. We booked a room for 2 hrs to play video games and karaoke our hearts out. The place also has a snack bar with free ice cream, popcorn, and drinks to enhance your multibang experience. Basically this place is heaven for preteens (and pretty much everyone else when taken in small doses)

settling into the multibang

snacks

We got really into Mario Kart racing for a while. Like, really really into  it. It's so easy to get sucked into racing games. There's just one focus--get to the finish line first. You can see the concentration on our faces.

zombie racers. photo taken by Laura

Then we switched to a dance game. We took it very seriously. You can tell by the ponytails, that we weren't messing around :p

dance off!

Finally, we did some karaoke. It was great to sing in English since usually we hear a lot a lot a lot of K-pop in school and around town. Our room time ran out in the middle of a very passionate chorus of Lady Gaga's "I'm still in love with Judas" and we had to leave the multibang and go back to reality.

Rockstars. 

Quick Update

This weekend has been a bit of a catch up on work/cleaning/rest etc. so not super exciting. Anyway, Corey and I took some pictures from a walk we went on a while ago and I'll share them here. They're taken at our local Subong Park. The park is so well designed for everyone to be able to enjoy it. There's always a lot of people around, but it never feels crowded since there are so many areas on different levels.

Corey on the artificial rocks, by the artificial falls

mid-level of the park and expanse of Incheon

Looks so real, but the rocks feels like plastic!

Tennis court is in use again

Kids' park. Yes, that is a covered trampoline on the left. 

School Science Festival and Looking for Cherry Blossoms

The last post was lacking photos, so this time I'll make it up to you with a lot of pictures from our recent adventures. In case you're behind on the times and still think the biggest news about Korea is surrounding Psy's Gangnam style video, I will just say that you do not watch enough Saturday Night Live. The new topic of interest is the war between the North and the South, that thankfully has remained a war of words thus far.

On Friday, I found out at lunch time that afternoon classes were cancelled due to a school-wide science festival. The students were really excited to test out the model airplanes and rockets they'd built as part of the science of flight. I just hoped that the North would not consider my students' actions a provocation. 

rocket launcher

the rare model plane that didn't just nosedive

The rockets were made from pop bottles and bits of cardboard, while the airplanes were built from metal and paper kits. Most aircraft did not survive their initial flight.  

students waiting to test launch their rockets

students waiting to fly airplanes

Sometimes, the walk home from school is almost as much fun as actually being at school. Now that the weather is nice I can go on the adult-sized monkey bars with no mittens. I only made it 2/3 of the way across, but by the end of spring I'm going to be so pro!

monkey bars!

Saturday morning, we got on the subway and headed to Yeoiudo to see the Cherry Blossom Festival. One of my co-teachers recommended that we not miss it. Unfortunately, I think due to the cold weather, there were very few trees showing off their pretty pink blossoms. We could see that there were many bare trees that lined the walkways which surrounded the main festival area, where food of all kinds was being served, and games being played, despite the lack of actual blossoms. 

 eggs for sale

or octopus

 or gummies!

balloon darts. Play on roller blades for added difficulty

hot dogs and bottles of rice tea

the green and yellow are all stalls from the festival. Endless!

We still enjoyed walking around the park area. We also ate a hurricane potato and several gummies (a very rare find here) that we bought from the stalls at the festival. 

Happy Emily with hurricane potato and rare blossoming trees

Corey and water

These are not cherry blossoms, but they're pink and blossomy. They'll do.

A huge statue of Emperor Sejong

When we got to the edge of the park, we saw... another park! This park was right on the edge of the Hangang river. There were people riding bikes, flying kites, and listening to live music. We stopped to watch all the fun and then sat and got some sun by the water. 

Park on the river, with Seoul skyline

Corey in front of the water again :)

After a while, Corey and I decided to begin to walk toward Itaewon in search of the delicious falafel we had last time we were in Seoul. It took us about an hour with a few stops along the way, but we did eventually reach our destination. Plus we got to see a lot of areas that we usually miss when we take the subway. We had an early dinner and then headed back to Incheon. 

The bridge toward Itaewon

That's what's going on here. Not quite the images you're seeing on CNN, eh?

p.s. people keep asking me "What is kimbap?" Here is a picture of it. It looks like sushi, but it doesn't have fish (necessarily). This one has egg, carrot, pickled radish, and green vegetable stuff.