The past few weeks have been quite busy! School has been a little crazy, which isn't anything new and life outside of school has been nonstop. Let's start at the beginning.....
Teachers Day is a day celebrated in Korea to honor teachers ( I think you could have figured that one out). It was really nice, my kids brought me flowers and presents and the moms also bought me gifts. Some of the gifts were very nice, a small Coach key chain, and some were very nice but not so useful, whitening cream (Koreans want to whiten their skin, us Americans we want our skin darker). Thankfully, we can exchange things such as whitening cream for things we will actually use. Nevertheless it is a thoughtful gesture on the part of the moms. The school's gift to us was an American BBQ. Now, although it was nice to eat watermelon, grilled chicken and potato chips, it would have been nice to get a gift from the school. I mean we are their livelihood and the reason they are in business, a token of their gratitude would not have been too much to ask, but I digress. The BBQ was great and the taste of grilled chicken was almost as good as the smell of charcoal and lighter fluid, it's amazing how much that smell can take you home! As the night went on the beer and Soju started flowing freely, and to make a real long story short, the BBQ lead to our director and assistant director taking all the foreign teachers to Noribong (karaoke) and both of them passing out while singing! Amazing, only in Korea!
That same weekend I ran a half marathon with the Seoul Flyers. It was a really nice course and I took 2nd place and set a new Personal Record with a 1:28.05! That is a 6 min and 40 second improvement from my old Personal Record. I won a heart rate monitor and 4.8kg of beef!!! Once again, only in Korea! That same day was the Lantern Festival. This is one way Korea celebrates Buddha's Birthday, or the Coming of Buddha. The whole day was filled with different things people could do and see. You could make your own lantern, learn all about Korean culture, and see different Korean folk dances. The day ended with the Lantern parade. It was very cool and an experience you can't get in the states. In Korea, they really embrace their culture and traditions.
The next week at school was a short week, we had a three day weekend!!! This is really exciting because they are very hard to come by in Korea. Even though it was a short week, it felt like the longest week of my life! We had new lesson plans due, weekly comments due, our birthday celebrations due, and our lesson plan for open class due. Open class is something a lot of the private schools in Korea do to give the parents a chance to come to school and watch you and your partner teach. It's a bit of a joke because we rehearse and practice our open class lesson with our students so it goes smoothly when the moms come. It really defeats the purpose of seeing us teach. It's not real and therefore not what class is really like, but I have learned to not get too frustrated with the small things, and this is a small thing. I just wanted to get my work done so I could enjoy my long weekend.
For the long weekend, six of the other teachers and I went to a city called Busan in the southwest part of Korea. It's right on the East Sea and just beautiful. We took the fast train down Thursday after work, took about 3 hours, and had two and a half days in Busan. Friday was absolutely gorgeous and we spent the day on the beach and may have spent a little too much time in the sun, but it was nice to just relax. Saturday it was raining so we went to the Busan Museum of Art. The exhibit on display was art from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and we saw paintings from Monet to Picasso, and although I would have rather been hiking, it was very neat. Saturday night we went to the biggest fish market in Korea and ate some real sushi. Yes, real raw fish! Some of the teachers ate LIVE OCTOPUS! The octopus were moving on the plate. I wasn't that brave but I did have the raw fish. It wasn't too bad, very mild with little taste but very chewy.
After that, we made our way through the mini monsoon that was taking over Busan and found a pub close to our hotel. As we made our way into the pub, I slowly felt like I was back home. See, Busan is a popular destination for foreigners and with the three day weekend, we kind of took over the city. The whole night, I felt like I was on spring break in Florida, not on a three day weekend in Korea.
This feeling of home was present all weekend. I had dreams all weekend of home and going home, and as Sunday approached, I felt as if when I left Busan I would be going home. Not home to Seoul, but home to Minnesota.
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