Saturday: Up the Mountain and at the Seminar

Today was a busy day filled with lots of hiking, sweating, and sitting. We have been having a good but busy week at the kindergarden. We are working hard to learn all the children's names and to make classes fun. It is hard work as the children have so much energy and it can be dificult to keep up with all of them, especially when you get fresh classes every hour (or sooner like when we have morning classes).

Today was our second weekend in Seoul together and the principal already drafted us into going to a seminar about reading stories to children. When I asked her about it she said that it would be half in Korean and half in English... I don't think she knew what she was talking about as the whole thing ended up being in Korean and I asked myself why I was there and ended up trying to sleep through the whole thing... but that was later in the day! In the morning, Matt and I decided we wanted to check out the mountain that is near our apartment. It took about twenty minutes to get there by the subway. There were so many shops lining the street up to the mountain selling things for hiking. There were kimbop places (kind of like a sushi thing, only no fish, only rice and vegitables), numerous places to buy hiking sticks, pants, shirts, hats, bandanas, lanyards, backpacks, and anything else you could possibly think of. You could even buy something from the brand "Kolon sport" as you can see in the picture below. It is so close to the word "colon" that Matt and I found it halarious and we had to share it with you. Matt says he doesn't want to wear that brand ^^

The mountain is called Dobong San (도봉산). It was a hot and muggy day and the trails were steep so we were sweating quite profusely throughout the hike. I have never seen so many people on a hiking trail in my life. But I suppose that is what you get when you go to the most popular mountain in the second largest city in the world on a Saturday morning. There is no such thing at "hike at your own pace" on these trails. It is more along the lines of "go the speed of the pack or get trampled" type of hiking. Take a look at the pictures first of the people in front of us and then the people behind us:

Matt describes it as "The ants go marching!" If it were not for the people it would be a very beautiful and wonderful hike, but having so many people on the trail and being pushed around was not quite so fun as I had immagined. It was a very pretty area though as you can see from the following pictures:

The mountian side was also dotted with old Buddhist Temples. The first one we saw was quite elaborate and large. The gate was colorful and artfully decorated. I have never seen anything quite like it in my life! It was amazing architchture and lovely decoration in the way of paintings. Here are some pictures:

The last picture is of the ceiling of that entrence way.

After the hike we made our way back to our apartment, showered, changed, ate lunch, and hurried down to where we were supposed to meat the principal for this lecture. We arrived at the university a little before 1:30 which is when it was supposed to start. It ended up starting around 2pm. It ended at 5:30, and the whole thing was in Korean! Matt was having a difficult time translating as the speaker was talking so quickly and there were not any pauses in her speaking. He was having a difficult time keeping up, translating, and then picking up where she left off. I ended up with a general translation of what was going on. The whole thing was basically piontless and I don't know why the prinipal wanted me to go to it as I don't speak Korean!!!!! I nodded of a couple of times the seminar was so dang long. What a waste of an afternoon! But you have to make the boss happy. The only time I had fun was at the very end. There was a story in the pamphlet that we all received that was printed in English, I was able to read that. It was a folktale about how the sun used to roam around and would come and go. One day the creator of the Earth (forgot his name... it was a long name) decided to capture the sun so he made a giant net and the next time the sun came to the Earth he caputred the sun. But the sun was now too close and the Earth was getting too hot. So he decided to let the sun go if the sun promised to stay close to the Earth. No one could get close enough to the sun to release it from its bonds as it was too hot (why the roap didn't burn off I will never know). But the beaver was brave and chewed through the ropes that held the sun down and released the sun. Since it was so hot the beaver lost all his fur, and the creator thanked the beaver by giving him sharper teeth and a new coat of fur but the tail was left bare to remind all of how brave the beaver was.

Now I tell you this story so that the next part makes sense. We now had to create our own story and draw it out. The story had to be about a Beaver. Somehow I was stuck drawing our story (there were two other teachers with us). My drawing skills are not that great, especially when I have to draw something in five minutes. The story we created was largely Matt's invention. To modivate all those in the audience the group with the best story would win a prize. This was our story: Once there was a beaver who had a big bushy tail. One day the moon cam flying out of the sky and landed on the beavers tail! The sun felt bad for the beaver and took the moon off the Earth and banished the moon to the night. However, the damage had been done and the Beaver's tail was forever flat. That is why the Sun guards over the day and the moon is left to the night and the Beaver's tail is flat.

You wouldn't think it was that great of a story... but we won! Here are two pictures, one of me holding the picture we drew of our story and another which is a close up of the picture.

We decided our moon on the left looks more like a cookie and my beaver on the right (the far right was cut off) looks more like a peanut than a Beaver. Surprisingly I was complimented on my drawing skills... but I think they were just being nice. The prize was a little drawer which you can see on the top picture on the Left I am holding it. As I said to Matt "Well, I slept through the whole thing and won the prize at the end!"

We went out to eat with Mihe and the other teacher that came (don't remember her name) and we wore aprons to dinner! That was a new experience! Here are pictures. Mihe is the woman on the left.

And then we went home! I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to hearing from you!

Traditional Korean Buildings

Yesterday we went to see Youngbum and his mother. They took us out to eat at a great Korean restaurant. The food is prepared in the manner it was made for the kings. Here is a picture of Jenna outside the restaurant showing her approval.

Right before we had lunch together we stopped by some traditional Korean buildings. Some of these buildings are a hundred or two hundred years old! The one below is of the entrance to the king's palace.

Matt somehow managed to escape the grasp of this hideous art display by the restaurant we ate at.

Right before we left this area of Seoul we ran into a big independence day celebration. This day marks the end of the Japanese colonization period. Apparently Korea was preparing for if something should get out of hand. Notice the riot police sitting on their shields.

Our One Room (Apartment)

Our apartment is actually called a one room by Koreans because it consists of only one room. Of course the bathroom is its own room with a door, but everything else is consolidated into one room.

Here is the Kitchen

Our desk and bed

Our building is fairly new and we like it a lot because of its location.

First few days in Korea

We finally made it to Korea and we are preparing to teach our classes starting on Monday. This was our first weekend here in Korea and we had a busy day on Saturday. We woke around 6am due to the time change as it was 3pm in America. We took a walk around the park that is close by our apartment. They have a track with some workout equipment on it. It is quite funny as this workout equipment looks ridiculous. There are wheels that make you look like you are driving a giant bus or you are driving two cars at once. There was also this wheel where you could wiggle your butt back and forth... not so sure what that is supposed to do but it was entertaining.

The Mamies (not sure how to spell in English) are out in full force. While walking through the park there is a constant and loud stream of noise from these little bugs that almost drives you crazy.

We went and visited a few friends from America on Saturday, they were excited to see us. We also went to a chicken museum where chicken art was displayed. Chickens were believed to guard the soul as it made its journey from this world to the next.

We are getting more used to public transportation and riding the subway, something we don't have in Colorado but is quite useful to us here in Korea. We made our way all the way to Inchon and back on the subway, a rather long and boring process. We arrived back at our apartment rather late and promptly passed out. I have decided that of all the apartments I have now seen (I have seen two others besides ours of wealthy families) that ours is the best simply because we have an air conditioner and the others did not. Air conditioners are my friend. Today we will make our way over to our church, again on the subway and hope that we can find the building without much trouble. Wish us luck!