Hiking n Birthday n Teaching

Let’s start with teaching. It is why the Korean Government brought me here (the program I am with is sponsored by the Korean Government). Well Jan-Feb is a confusing time in an Elementary school in Korea. Every school has different days off and some have none and often your schedule changes the day before. I have been told that I have a week of then on the Friday before I am told see ya Monday. Makes you change your plans fast. The one thing that has been consistent is that I have been teaching in the morning. Which overall I really like, I finish early and the day goes fast. It also leaves a lot of the day to do other things. I have really enjoyed teaching my classes though. They have been a lot smaller. One week we had a lot of fun making fake passports and learning about several different countries. There was also a week dedicated to animals and at the end of the week they were able to make their own zoo.  I think the smaller class (2-3 a class) has really allowed the students to connect with me and should make the rest of the year a good year.

 

An ancient fridge. The would fill it with ice in the winter. 

A couple weekends ago I went to Gyeongju which is an ancient city. There is a lot of history there, especially with Buddhism. Went with my good friend Hannie, we just rented bikes and rode around. Which is a popular and fun thing to do. There are a lot of just beautiful scenery and old buildings. There are also a lot of museums scattered everywhere. We went into a couple of them. When you’re in them you can see the importance of Buddhism in the area because that is what many of the museums revolved around. After many weekends of crazy adventure this was a great change of pace, and a good warm up for the following weekend.

Meanwhile I have been introduced to a kid name Kyoung Won. He is an 8^th grader in town and is moving to an undisclosed location for and English high school. Well I know where he is going but I was told it’s a secret so you can’t know. And you will never guess. But I was asked to just talk with him so he can get used to hanging out with a native English speaker. I hesitated but I decided to do it. I am very glad I did. He is a great kid and is really fun to hang out with. I meet with him twice a week till he leaves at the end of February. I am excited for him and his future. But I will say he is learning a lot from me but I am learning just as much from him. So it’s going to be sad to see him leave.

The snow was a little deep









 Snack break

Clouds rolling through

Sobaeksan is my favorite mountain, so I felt on my birthday weekend I wanted to do what I love, hiking. So I invited many people for a challenging and somewhat dangerous winter hike. Hannie was the only one up for the challenge. A challenge it was.  The easiest part was waking up for the 7am train. I got up in time to make pancakes for the pre-hike meal. The first 2km were just an uphill cement road, which I hate when I am hiking. I want to be on a dirt path in the mountain. When we get to the start of the real trail I put on my eigen(crampons) and an old man tells Hannie she cannot go without them. But we ignore that piece of advice and trek on. It is impossible to describe how she got up the mountain. At one point we took a short second to think about how dumb and dangerous it was that we were still going. Then thought back to the guy saying she can’t do it and that was motivation enough. Most of the time there was a side with snow she could hike on which sometimes there would be a step that goes up to her knee. Other times she was jumping and stepping from small dry parts or rocks there were scattered on the trail. It made the hike that much harder but that much more rewarding.

Its to cold to zip my coat

The peak is 1439 meters and at the top it is my favorite view I have found in Korea yet. It is just a 360degree view of amazingness. The temperature difference from bottom to top was insane. I could have been in a t-shirt hiking at the bottom and at the top with the blistering wind I could not find enough layers. On the way up there was one point where the bare trees were covered in icicles and it was so beautiful because they were causing them to droop over the path so it was like walking through a tunnel of it. To give ya a sense of the difficulty of the hike, the way up took 3 hours. The way down took 1.5 hours. On the way down there is a small entrance to a cave. Not meant for people. We go to look at it and Hannie notices that there are bats hanging from the top. Which stops me from going down in there; I had my head lamp and everything. Next thing I know she starts screaming and sprinting away saying something big is down there. That freaks me out and I run as well. Come to find out she saw a “big” bat. I was thinking something dangerous that was coming from the back to attack us.

 

When we got back we had a great dinner with about 10 of us to celebrate my birthday. It was great to see people coming from many different cities just to say happy birthday and have dinner. I really appreciate all the friends I have made here and I know the friendships will last forever.