I will start off with rock climbing Wednesday. I was told to come at 6 because it is a meeting. So I show up and am immediately put in the car with Oma and her Husband. We go to a restaurant in a part of Andong I have never seen. The meeting was a short presentation that I am not sure what it was about. Then there was dinner. But there was a very special guest. The Andong Mayor, which is seems in Korea is a bigger deal than in America. He was respected like I have never seen before. After we finish eating one of the club members approaches me and says that the mayor wants to meet me.  So I go over and am very cautious about what I do, trying not to disrespect him. I talk to him as the member does a little translation. After the hello, where do you work, and a few other questions he hands me a shot glass and pours me a shot of soju. I am instructed to take it to so I do. Then someone hands  a glass and me a bottle of cider(sprite) and he points at the soju and I am given that instead.  I don’t think he normally drinks but made an exception this time which I thought was pretty cool. I pour him the shot and he takes it. I felt honored. It was something that not many people get to do. But after that I had to leave for our cultural trip.
  The TALK program provides all the scholars with a short 2 day trip learning about Korean culture. For us it is a chance to see friends that we have not seen since orientation. Its 2 days of a lot of bus riding, staying in a nice resort, and trying to do as much as possible. We went to a folk village where we made Korean paper which was a really nice picture frame, and we taught about traditional Korean tea ceremonies, which was really cool. Our group didn’t really worry much about the traditional way to do it we just tried to drink as much tea as we could in the allotted time. We stayed at a 5 star resort on the beach with a mini water park and screen golf and a full arcade and spa. But we got there so late we were unable to do any of it. But we were all able to hang out and at like 2 in the morning a group of us went to the beach. Even at night it was beautiful. Then we went to the waterpark that was empty of water and sat in a wave pool and watched the stars. It was an incredibly clear night and we were amazed at the number of shooting stars that we saw. But later found out it was a meteor shower.  In the morning we went to the same beach and were able to go on rock that are underwater when the tide is high, Adam found a pretty purple start fish, and I caught a great picture of him passing it to Ellen. Time there was short because we had to rush to a temple. Which the time there was even less, we get there and it takes 10 minutes to walk back to it than we had 5 minutes to look around and had to come back. All of this was because some people were over 40 min late for the morning bus. The first time I didn’t not agree with what Korea was doing was during this trip. We drove on the world’s largest sea wall, which is basically and 33km elevated road and wall blocking the sea off, where basically they are letting the sea dry up and going to use the land to their advantage. I think it is stupid they must be killing a lot of sea life doing this. It was crazy to watch and the fact that it is going to be a tourist attraction is shocking. We did a little bit of reading on it and I am just in full disagreement with it. That was the last part then It was just more driving back home. Probably about 15 hours in a bus those 2 days. But it was still fun to see people I hadn’t seen in a while. That Sunday I found a screen golf place in Andong. It is 15$ for like 20 minutes of warm up and 18 holes. I only go through 9 till I couldn't do it anymore. There is a stroke limit and I ever once made it through a hole. I hit the stroke limit each time. It was very very frustrating. But nice to be able to play golf.
 






 OPEN CLASS!!!!! It is a class where everyone is invited to watch, parents, teachers, and anyone else who wants to see me teach. I was excited for the lesson, it was on the 5 senses and I was going to be very interactive with the kids and even show a magic trick in the beginning. I was promised the kids would be angels. My kids didn’t get the memo. It started with no one in the classroom so I was not sure if I was supposed to start. No parents or teachers means the kids don’t care and they would not listen at all. They were worse than normal. When I parent did come is they acted a little better but they were not angels. The lesson went ok but the kids were just going crazy. Then I ended at the time I was instructed to end. But as I was ending the Principal walks in, looks and her watch and u can just see she is not happy. Well I guess I was supposed to go 10 minutes longer cause everything was delayed 10 minutes but no one decided to tell me. So the whole thing felt like an epic fail. But it’s over with and I don’t care. I did my best and can’t change anything now.








 BUSAN!!!! Wow can someone say beautiful. I went with Kelsea and Jake (her fiancé who is visiting her from back home, a great guy I am glad he was able to come). We met up with Katie it was a fun group. It was raining Saturday but we tried not to let that stop us from seeing some sights. We went to this temple on the sea side. Wow I can’t describe it you will just have to see the pictures. It was amazing but the rain was intense. It was like a monsoon, my water proof boots don’t work when puddles are so deep that it can get in through the tongue and at times over the top of the boots. So needless to say even with the umbrella we are soaked. After the Temple we find a motel to stay at, the nice thing is a lot of motels are just pretty much rooms without beds and just heated floors with pads and blankets. I really like that. Its comfy and warm. After we get our room we adventure back out into the rain to get food. We find this place called Fuzzy Navel and they had good Mexican food. It was delicious. Then we all just hung out in the room watching the movie channel with English movies with Korean subtitles.





Sunday was a beautiful day, we got u and went to the beach. Had the waves crashing at our feet and watched surfers. The pictures don’t go anything here justice.  Jake and I could not wear our boots because they were still dripping wet. It would eventually take 4 days for them to dry out. But those were the only shoes we had so we ended up buy cheap plastic sandals that were too small but they were only 2.50. Let the blisters and skin rubbing raw start. We went to this park and were able to climb on rock on the sea side and once again watched the wave’s crash in and watch Koreans fish. I feel like this was s secret spot. There were no tourists just fisherman here. Then we walked on the bride thing along the rock side back to the beach. It was just a great relaxing weekend. I will let the pictures do most the talking. This Saturday I will be hiking 1400 meters high.