Field Trips and Yummy Food

Courtney and I are on our way to being professional Korean speakers!! We spend a good few hours the other night studying like good students. The past couple days have been pretty exciting. Yesterday we went on a field trip to the Keumsan Temple and Hanok Village. Let me start from the beginning shall I? We awoke on that beautiful Sunday morning and frolicked down to breakfast.

Breakfast!

After breakfast we went to our assigned busses, wearing our matching sky blue shirts and prepared for the journey to our first stop, Keumsan Temple. On the bus, not only did they give us cracker snacks, but we also got lollipops! We joked about being treated like little kids with our matching shirts and constant snack food receiving. When we got to the temple, we pretty much had about 2 hours to wander around and take in all of the beautiful imagery.

Group 8 Gyeongbuk!

A sea of blue.

After getting to see the monks in action, we all went down to a creek where there were a bunch of families with children playing in the creek. They were using smooth rocks as water slides. Lots of us took our shoes off and dipped our feet into the creek and some brave teachers even jumped down the rock slide.

When it was time to head back to the buses, we all gathered our shoes and walked for about ten minutes past street shops and more families spending their Sunday at the temple. Our next destination was to Hanok Village which was about 40 minutes away from the temple. Our first order of business was to eat some Bibimbap which Jeonju is famous for.

Bibimbap

The food was really good, it was our first taste of non-cafeteria Korean food and it had the spiciness to prove it! Once lunch time was over we had a few hours to kill exploring the village before we all had to meet up to make traditional Korean fans! We saw more temples, traditional homes, museums of wine and some traditional art, and a cute yet overprized Korean antique-esque store. Courtney took tons of pictures of course, and I got some nice and really cheap ($4) blackberry wine for my co-teachers. When we ran out of time for independent exploring, we all had to meet up to make our Korean fans! It was pretty much like arts and crafts when you are in second grade. We sat down at tables with blank fans and colorful rice paper in front of us, along with paper machete looking stuff with brushes in a bowl. As juvenile as it might have been, it was really fun and the fans have since been very useful in class when the air con is being sketchy. After we finished making our fans, we walked to where there was a traditional drum performance going on outside. That was really cool to watch and the ladies participating in it had really interesting costumes on with ribbons attached to their hats! Towards the end of the performance they included all of us EPIK teachers, so it was kind of like a huge cheesy conga line, but Korean style! It was very fun.

Sam and Courtney

When we got back to the university, it was already dinner time, and after dinner we were free for the night; no Korean lessons! Courtney decided to brave Korea on her own and went for a run while our new friends Sandy and Colleen and I went to the very close by coffee shop to practice our Korean. After her run, Courtney joined us, and the 4 of us sat at the café for a few hours studying. By the time we left, I was pumped because I had learned how to read Korean symbols!! Of course I still don’t know what most of the symbols actually mean yet, but I can read them!! I can spell my name and Courtney’s and anyone else’s! It was another great day in Korea.

Today was back to classes again. We had four 1.5 hr lectures and then our last Korean lecture in the evening. Today’s classes were a bit dryer than the ones we had the other day. We had “Cooperative Learning”, “Developing a Relationship with Your Co-Teacher”, “Making Your English More Comprehensive” and “Education System in Korea”. These classes were a bit more serious than our first day of lectures, and there were some that we liked more than others. Lunch today was my favorite food we’ve had so far! We had soup again but this time the noodles were massive! They were similar to Italian Bucatini noodles which I love love love, but these were called Udon noodles! We also had tempura veggies and rice balls covered with seaweed. I’m a big fan of seaweed covered stuff I have noticed. It’s crazy how much they feed us here at this orientation though. We have lunch at around 1 and then we have dinner again at around 5, not to mention they give us snacks after some of our classes! Most days we aren’t even hungry for at least one meal of the day, but I can’t stay away from the cafeteria just out of sheer curiosity.

Our last Korean lesson went well; we learned the basics of reading as well as some survival Korean phrases. After class Courtney and I met up with Sandy and Colleen again at the coffee shop. Sandy and I worked on our lesson plan that we have to present in a few days to our class. We all got grouped in three and have to prepare and present a lesson plan. Sandy and I are in a group with another girl named Sam, while Courtney is grouped with Colleen and a guy names Daniel. Once Sandy and I finished brainstorming for the night, Courtney and I got gelato from the café. Yes you read correctly, we sumbled across a café that serves gelato….in Korea! Courtney got awesome dark dark chocolate, and I got Tiramisu. For the rest of the night, the four of us just chatted and got to know each other a bit better. We are all going to Gyeongbuk, so its exciting to think about get-togethers and what not once we all part ways. The concludes the night for tonight. So I bid you adieu from both Sam and Courtney, and may your Monday be as good as ours!