Three months have come and gone since arrival in Korea! My time here has been equally fun as it has been fast! I've been keeping quite busy the past month with busy school days filled with testing, student evaluations, and lesson planning and then traveling on the weekends.
The yellow dust made its comings and goings this past month. Those of you who aren't familiar, yellow dust is what travels in the air from the Chinese mines over the yellow sea, and makes its deposits all over the lovely Korean country. Its very real, and very annoying! Koreans take it super seriously and many wear masks when they go outside so it doesn't make them sick. Apparently, it was quite bad this year... but I have to say it didn't bother me that much, and I made do without a mask...
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| Oh yes, very real. |
The job is still going good. My kids have shown significant improvement since I took over their class, and that has been such a treat to see. It's been nice to settle into a nice routine during the week, and subsequently the weeks have flown by.
Also, it feels nice to be fully acclimated to living in a different country. I remember the very first day being here, feeling so overwhelmed that it took us 2 hours to work up the courage to enter a restaurant to order food. The first week, there was so much dread involved in planning a trip to the local mart to buy a carton of eggs... now you could chew me up and spit me out anywhere in the country and in six hours I could be sitting back in my apartment comfortable as ever.
Each weekend trip this month has come with its own fun story of being lost or clueless, and I've grown to think nothing of it.
The past month, we went to Mt. Biseulsan (
map) which is an hour and a half bus ride to the outskirts of Daegu, all of which was spent standing because of the impressive number of ajummas (technically, a middle-aged, married woman... more often used to describe an old, generally crabby lady) joining us on our hike.
Here you can see an ajumma in her natural setting. Notice this particular one opted for the full facial armor, a popular choice among ajummas nationwide. Nobody understands the harmful effects of UV rays better than ajummas. Nobody.
Actually, most Koreans regard the sun in the same manner as this guy....
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To all of those who don't understand the reference, I congratulate you on having at least an
hour and a half more meaning to your life than I. |
Anyways, this particular mountain is the highest point at which azaleas grow in the world. We ended up getting off the bus prematurely and found ourselves quite a distance from the actual mountain. It took an friendly cab driver to spot us on a rural road after about 30 minutes before we were able to figure out where we were. It was very hazy that day, so the pictures of the landscape don't really do justice to actually having been there.
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| On top |
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| The highest point you see is where we actually hiked to. Yes, it was a long way... |
The next weekend, we traveled to Busan (
map) for an ultimate frisbee tournament (think soccer with frisbees). It was quite a fun, long weekend in which we played about 8 games each at forty minutes a piece. It was a lot of running, but it was so fun to do that on the ocean none the less. One of my favorite things was the reaction the Koreans had to seeing us play this foreign sport (most Koreans don't know what a frisbee is).
The Koreans walking the boardwalk would look in disbelief not only at the game we were playing, but also at the fact that we were in shorts and T-shirts and it was 70 degrees outside... cold to a Korean. Also, if I had a chun for each time we had someone walk right across our field without knowing what was going on, I'm pretty sure I could quit my teaching job. Buying coffee in the morning, Donald enlisted Richard, a somewhat competent English speaker, to help him order coffee drinks. Little did he know, also enlisted Richard as his lap dog for the rest of the day. He literally followed him around from 9am-4pm. It was quite funny...
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| Dick and Don |
The next weekend, Don and I went to Yeosu (
map) for the 2012 World Exposition. We were quite excited for it, and were mildly disappointed when we weren't able to see some of the main pavilions because of the vast amount of people attending that day. We were still able to see a lot of cool things and it was a great time! The theme of the expo was marine life.
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| The roof here is one giant lcd tv. |
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| John Legend happened to be there performing. |
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| One of my favorite things: the light/water show at "The Big O" |
The next day we took a trip to the beach, and then got on a ferry which took us to one of the southernmost parts of Korea. There was an amazing temple at the top of a really intense hike. The temple was built into the mountain. I only got to spend about twenty minutes up there since the last ferry was leaving, but I got a few pictures.
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| Caught a glimpse of the Expo on the way back in the harbor |
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| Winner: 2012 Best Brows Competition |
My time here is still going well. Its becoming hotter and more humid with each passing week. Daegu is the hottest city in Korea because it's surrounded by mountains and as a result I've reached a point where I can withstand wearing pants when it's 85 degrees outside.
Well, thats all as of right now...
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