beaches & parks, oh my!

Thanks to Buddha's birthday, I did not have school on a random Tuesday the second week of May. As I said in my last story I had just returned from Seoul, only to work a half day at school that Monday and then be off Tuesday. The half day was not planned, but due to a pipe bursting and sewage water mixing with sanitary water...many parts of the Gumi area were on a shortage of water. I was lucky to have mine returned on Monday afternoon. My school however could not prepare lunch due to not having sanitary water that morning, so we were all sent home around noon.

So, as I sit on my bed in my apartment, watching random television shows online, I suddenly feel the urge to take a trip. Most of my friends were still in Seoul, so I could have gone back there, but KTX train tickets are a bit pricy. I wanted a cheaper, closer, spontaneous trip. That's when I thought of the beach! The weather had been getting warmer so I thought it would make for a great day activity. I get on Facebook, mention in my status that I want to take a trip to the beach, then check the forecast. 90% chance of RAIN. Just my luck!

However, I decided to go anyways. Sitting in my apartment all of Monday night and Tuesday didn't sound like fun to me. I was lucky enough to chat with a friend who was on Facebook at the time and said he lived near Pohang. We check train & bus times, set a time, and before I know it...I'm in Pohang! My luck increased even more when my friend Juan introduced me to his Korean friend Seungik who was gonna show us around the Pohang "nightlife" scene. Seungik's parents were also generous enough to offer a place to sleep that night at their home. Korean hospitality is amazing!! :)

JUAN, ME, & SEUNGIK

The three of us went out for dinner, then to a couple bars (from looking at the above picture it may appear that we are alcoholics, but I promise we're not, lol). The next morning we wake up to an authentic Korean meal being prepared for us. After eating lunch, the parents offered to take my friend and I to tour a traditional Korean village. Just as the weather forecast had promised it did rain that Tuesday. But, equipped with umbrellas, we still went to see the village. Most of the rain was gone by the time we got there, so it wasn't that bad.

TRADITIONAL KOREAN VILLAGE

After the village my friend Juan and I decided to venture out on our own & find the beach. We thanked Seungik and his parents a million times because they were super nice to show us around & take care of us, especially when we planned our trip last minute. The father even gave both of us a USB stick as a gift, then wrote our available evening bus times down on sticky notes for us so we knew what time we could head back home, lol. So nice!!

After wandering around town a bit we decide to hop in a taxi in search of the beach. Turns out it was less than 5 minutes away. We get outta the cab, grab a few beers, then head to the water. As I said, the rainy day wasn't perfect beach weather but the rain stopped the entire time we were there. Also, this wasn't the nicest beach Pohang has, but it was the closest & satisfied my craving for hanging out at the beach. I'm looking forward to going to the beach alot more often in the summer! :)

I'M SUCH A FOREIGNER!

JUAN AND I

After having mid-term exams and two holidays so close together, both the teachers and students didn't seem to be in the mood for much of anything on Wednesday. Most of my students slept, but I took everything into consideration and decided to not be too upset by it. After all, I didn't feel like working the rest of that week either!

I made it to the weekend, which consisted of going out Friday night to celebrate Rita's birthday. We had dinner, went to a bar, sat in the street drinking for awhile (sounds funny to casually say that, but that's what happens in Korea lol...the conventient stores provide you with chairs & everything), made some new Korean friends on the street, then ended up at Corona. The end result of this was me getting home around 5am...only to do the same thing the following night, except it was closer to 6am because I had some friends from other towns come visit & they wanted to check out Corona as well. So, two late nights of that place led to a super tired Amanda on Sunday.

MY NEW FRIENDS!

Also, during the day on Saturday I ventured to a town 15 minutes from me called Gimcheon, where a friend lives & some other ppl were meeting up. After checking out the town & having lunch we spent the rest of the day in a beautiful park with lots of neat statues. Nick brought his rugby ball so while the boys were entertained playing I decided to take some pictures around the park. I discovered some pretty neat settings on my camera that I never knew I had! :)

PLAYING IN THE PARK...WE MADE NEW CHINGUS (FRIENDS)

ONE OF MY COOL CAMERA EXPERIMENTS :)

MY FAVORITE PIC FROM THE PARK

Overall, it was a fun eventful first two weeks of May! This week has been pretty relaxing. I started teaching my after-school classes twice a week & of course I have my Korean class on Tuesday nights. We didn't have it last Tuesday because of the holiday, so this week was a major catch up/review time for me. I'm glad I reviewed on my own though because in class we moved right along learning new things! Only 7 more classes to go until I am fluent...HAHA! :) One can dream, right?!

As of right now it is Friday morning and I am on my break time at work. Counting down until 4:15pm! :) I've started running alot more as of this week in the evenings. So, today I am ready to get home, get my exercise out of the way & enjoy the weekend!!

XOXO,
Amanda

World DJ Festival

Wow, I went from not doing too much to doing so many things in the past week! So, I shall attempt to summarize my adventures. The last weekend of April was spent in Jeomchon, a small town about an hour and half away, where a few of my friends live. We had many plans, but due to the rain we spent most of the weekend relaxing, which was fine by me. We were able to hike Sunday morning and the cool air made for a great hike up the mountain. :)

The first week of May at work was exam time for my students. Plus we had a random holiday on Thursday...called Children's Day. So Mon-Wed was monitoring exams and deskwarming. Then Wed we had a half day and the entire staff went out for lunch together. Now, when anybody mentions a school lunch/dinner meeting...you can guarantee that lots of soju & beer will be involved. This was of course the case this day...so by 3pm, who was wasted off soju? THIS GIRL! And who had their first ever hangover in Korea at 10pm when they woke up from their "nap"? Correct again, ME! Lol. My co-workers were funny because they were almost arguing over where I should sit at lunch and who got to pour me a shot of soju. We ended the event with a few different "korean style" drinking games...a couple at which I obviously lost at...meaning more alcohol for me, joy! haha :) Lesson learned, don't drink so much early in the day if you have plans at night. I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner/drinks, but considering my condition we decided on meeting for coffee instead. This was still not a good idea because the hangover officially caught up with me at the coffee shop, so I had to end the night early & go back to sleep.Thursday (our holiday) consisted of me sleeping off and on & preparing for my weekend trip.

WORLD DJ FEST:
Friday after school my co-teacher was kind enough to give me a ride to the KTX (fast train) station that is located out in the middle of nowhere, Korea. It would have been a costly taxi ride so I was thankful for his offer! I met up with Rita and we hopped on the train a little after 6pm. When we arrived in Seoul, I was amazed at how many people are in this gigantic city. The line to get from the train to the subway station was a mad house alone! Rita and I were clever and used our "stupid foreigner card" to pretend we didn't see the line and snuck ahead to get to the subway. Seeing how I'm from Texas and didn't travel much back home, this was my first subway experience. We make it to the part of Seoul that we needed to be in to meet up with the rest of our friends. Then we all join to eat a quick dinner in one of the tents outside the train station...rice noodles and bbq chicken on a stick, yummy! We then head off to catch our next train to Yangpyeong...about an hour outside of the main part of Seoul. This is where the World DJ fest was taking place.

Upon arriving we hear loud music outside of the station...so of course we follow the music, across town, across a bridge, and at last arrive! We then check in to get our wrist bands, and then head to the back of the festival area to check in for our reserved tents and sleeping bags. At this time there were 6 of us, so we had to set up 3 tents before we could start the fun of the music festival. Finally we make it inside the festival and choose a stage/DJ to listen/dance to. There were 5 or more different stages with different styles of DJ's playing music. We spent most of the festival wandering around to listen to all of them. The only thing that sucked about Friday night was that it started to drizzle rain. For the most part we stayed pretty dry, just wore the hoodie of my jacket and I was fine.

Around 2am Rita and I decide we are tired and "danced out" so we head back to our tent. Now, the placement of the said tents were not ideal. They were located directly behind the stages of music...therefore since the festival continued on until 6am...we were "lullabied" to sleep by techno music and DJ's yelling on their micropohones. Factor in that we were of course sleeping on the hard ground....not the ideal situation for getting a good night's sleep...but overall worth it!

Saturday was nice enough to present us with a beautiful hot sunny day! A nice welcomed change from the previous rainy night! :) So, after walking into town to find some breakfast, we decided to head back to the tents to wash up & change into less clothing. We then headed back to town to kill some time until the festival/music started up again in the evening. Luckily, we discovered a river/stream that ran through the town of Yangpyeong. This is where we spent most of the afternoon, wading in the water, relaxing on the rocks. Eventually we made it back to the festival to enjoy some music that they started playing. Dancing to "techno style" music during the day made for an interesting concept, but was soo much fun! I think my fav part of the weekend there was the daytime dancing and festival fun.

We also participated in some of the activities they had at the festival, such as tight rope walking. Of course, the rope wasn't high off the ground, but after watching a few friends try it, I decided to give it a go. I'm a natural klutz, so I figured I'd fall after the first step. However, I made it across on the first try! My sweet prize was a pair of Reebok socks, lol. Those came in handy later that night when my feet were cold & wet!

Saturday during the day we met up with more friends (mainly people from the program I work for, EPIK). Also, there were tons more people overall there on Saturday than Friday of course. The lines to get in the festival were insanely long, so we were thankful we decided to come the night before! From being in the sun all day, and drinking on and off, Saturday was a struggle to stay up late. I lasted until 3am, and I would have liked to enjoy the music longer, but it suddenly got so cold that I could see my breath in front of me! Korea cannot make up its mind when it comes to weather! We experienced 3 different weather types in 24 hours, lol.

So, I'm in my tent, preparing for "sleep" and finally manage to doze off in the tent. Around 5am I wake up to people talking, taking down tents, and a DJ yelling "do you want to hear some more?! put your hands in the air!" or something along those lines, lol. I'm thinking to myself, "it is 5am, who the hell could possibly still be listening or dancing right now?!" I picture that the DJ was playing to an empty audience. However, he managed to wake me up, along with the drunken people around me taking down their tents. So, I get up and trek along a mile walk to the bathroom...which was by far the most disgusting site I've ever seen, being that it was an outhouse type on a muddy hill near the camp site. Blah! I return to my tent, rinse my feet off at a "sink/water" station near the campsite, and return to my tent. This is when the socks came in handy! :)

Around 8am I am woken again by someone in the tent beside of us yelling "She took the damn sleeping bag!! She stole it! They're gonna charge me $50 for that!" haha! I'm guessing some person staying in his tent left with a rented sleeping bag. Sucks for him, but I don't think all the drunken yelling was solving anything. Finally an hour later we decide to pack up our tents and head out. Walking through the festival field the day after was interesting...I've never seen so much trash everywhere in my life! That's what happens when Korea hosts a festival without trashcans! I understand they are big into recycling but come on, that has to suck to clean up!

Everyone parted ways when we got back to Seoul. Some people stayed there because they were lucky enough to not have to work on Monday. I, however, had to return to Gumi to work. Oh, and the reason some people were off was because Korea had yet again another holiday. Tuesday, May 10th was Buddha's birthday this year. (It's different every year for some reason). So some schools were kind enough to not be open on Monday or Tuesday. My school was a meanie and decided to still have school on Monday. Makes sense to someone, somewhere I guess!

Like I said, I came back home Sunday afternoon. I arrive to my apartment in great need of sleep, a shower, and laundry....only to discover that my water is not working! I've dealt with not having water before, so I wasn't too mad, but all I really wanted was a shower after 2 days of camping! Finally, I remembered the option of going to the public sauna! There was one a few minutes away from my apartment, so I decided to give it a try. I was just hoping it was open and not outta water like my building. Alas, I was successful!

So, that about sums up my weekend. I shall switch to another post to discuss how I celebrated Buddha's birthday! 

XOXO,
Amanda