Birthdays & Paragliding

The weekend after the song festival was spent in Busan. I took it easy Friday night for once, then headed to Busan on Saturday to hang out with my friends. I actually got lucky and ran into quite a few different groups of friends at the bar we went to in Busan. It was nice to briefly catch up with everyone.

Now up to this past weekend. Since Jinae and Kristin both had birthday in October, Jinae arranged for us girls to go paragliding for their birthday celebration. Even though it was a bit pricey, I am always willing to try something new & exciting. Now it wasn't as risky as skydiving or anything, but it was still flying in the sky which sounded awesome to me!

Here are some pics from Kristin's b-day dinner this past Tuesday. Since Gumi is only a 30 minute train ride from Daegu I joined everyone for dinner. 

So, back to the paragliding story. We had to wake up super early Saturday morning to make sure we got seats on the 7am bus to the town about 2 hours from Daegu. That Friday night we spent just taking it easy and working on our Halloween costumes for Saturday evening. 

Once we got to Mungyeong it had started to drizzle rain. Luckily it never fully rained so we were still able to do our jumps. There were 13 of us along with another group of foreigners and a Korean family. So with three groups we had a bit of down time waiting for our turn. We broke our group up into 2 jumps. I went with the first group :) 

We rode in this massive truck that took us up the winding mountain to the top. The fall foliage and mountain scenery was beautiful, despite the rain and clouds. Once we arrived to the top it was time to get suited up in our gear.

After we were suited up, our instructor attached themselves to our backs. That was when he said "Ok, 1, 2, 3, run off the mountain!" It took a couple tries to get the parachute up and going, but finally we were in the air! I took my camera with me, with it tied tightly to my wrist of course, so I managed to take a video and some pictures of my own. Not sure how high we were up in the air, but it felt amazing!

Since we had such a big group going, we asked for a discount. The guy said he couldn't give us a discount, but he would include video and pictures for everyone. So here are a couple of the pics from the camera they provided:

After our group's jump we went back to the waiting area. Actually while waiting for the second group to go (due to the rain) all of us decided to play with our cash that we had brought to pay with. Since it was 110,000WON per person we decided to "make it rain" with our stack of WON. The video's we took are priceless! We even managed to find some music to match the occasion. I'm sure the Koreans watching from outside were highly entertained. Here are a couple pics from our silliness:

Of course, picking up the money off the ground wasn't as much fun as throwing it in the air and dancing under it, lol. Still a fun time! Finally the rain let up enough for the other half of girls to do their jump. Afterwards we snapped a group pic & then headed back to Daegu to get ready for the Halloween festivities. 

XOXO,

Amanda

Asia Song Festival

Free VIP tickets to the Asia song festival? Sure, why not?! I had heard about this K-pop concert awhile back but didn't think much of it until my friends said they were going. Daegu seemed to be handing out tickets for free, not sure if it was just for foreigners or not, but we managed to get our names on the list.

However, we almost didn't make it due to the bright idea of going out downtown the night before. We had the bright idea to save money and pre-drink at Kristin's house. Well I'm sure you can guess the result of that. The next afternoon we were dragging as we attempted to get some food & head across town for the concert. By the time we got there we were somewhat re-charged.

OUR GROUP

The stadium was slowly filling up as we found our seats on the grass field. At this point the weather was amazing. It was a little cold, but not bad. Once the concert started the screams began. There were three young Korean girls behind us who had deafening screams, especially when the more popular groups were performing.

BEAST FANS

BEAST

G.NA & DANCERS

G.NA

We also made a friend. This cute little boy kept wanting his picture taken & eventually he insisted on taking our pictures. About 2 or 3 hours (felt like it atleast) we were starting to get ready for the main performance, which was Girls Generation. It's a group composed of like 9 girls. All of these K-Pop groups remind me of our phase of boy bands in the 90's lol.

OUR FRIEND THE PHOTOGRAPHER

So just as we think it's getting near time for them to perform, it starts drizzling. The stadium did not have a roof & of course none of us had brought umbrellas because the weather was so nice that day. Finally we decided to run off the field. I didn't mind a little rain, but my camera and phone are not quite waterproof! So we ran & huddled under the covered part of the stadium where an old man was "oh so conveniently" selling ponchos. We grabbed our $2 ponchos & decided it was best to leave since there was such a big crowd leaving. Of course, we take a few steps back outside & the rain had already let up. By this point we were just ready to leave. Overall, the music was enjoyable & the dancing was entertaining. Even though we didn't know enough of the lyrics to sing along lol.

We finished our night by going downtown once again. However, the lack of energy from everyone turned it into an earlier night than the one before.

XOXO,
Amanda

Charming Jinju & Sunday Funday

Time to play catch up once again. Two weekends ago my friends and I decided to go to a lantern festival in Jinju, which is about an hour and a half from Daegu. What's a lantern festival? Well, the better question is, "Why the hell does Korea have so many festivals? And why are they about the most random things?!" Or you could ask why do my friends and I feel the need to go to them?


They always seem like a great idea, until you arrive & have to push through crowds of Koreans to even walk around the area. Dealing with so many crowds all the time is definitely not helping my claustrophobia. In fact a couple weeks ago I had a full blown panic attack while squeezed onto a train from Daegu to Gumi. That was the longest 30 minute train ride of my life. I had a standing room only ticket...and there was hardly room to stand.


Anyways, back to the festival. Our friend Cindy lives in Jinju so we were happy to have a place to crash for the weekend. Friday night I stayed at Kristin's in Daegu & we left early to take the bus to Jinju Saturday morning. During the day we didn't do much except eat lunch (we had dakgalbi...a spicy chicken korean dish...one of the few that I love) and then we went to check out the festival during the day. 

The basic set-up of these festivals is the same. Lines of tents either selling random merchandise or junk food. So we wandered the tents, ate some food & played a few games. One of them being a toy gun target practice. Being from Texas my friends assumed I would win us an awesome prize, but I ended up sucking. It was a toy gun after all, lol. But Sophia seemed to know how to aim it, so she won us a bottle of alcohol. Sounds great right? Well, we later discovered it tasted like tree bark. Bleh! Haha!

After playing around for the day, we headed back to Cindy's to relax & get ready for the night. When we made it back to festival the view was beautiful! They had giant lanterns lit-up floating on top of the river water. There was bridge you could walk across to take better pictures of the lanterns, but it cost money and the line was super long. So instead we took some pics then headed to the top of the street bridge to watch the fireworks. Korea also loves their fireworks! 

Next we headed to the area of tents again, took some pics of the lantern tunnel, & walked through the "love jungle" which was a walkway through some bamboo with lanterns. The lanterns were of random bugs and animals "in love" so to speak. The pictures below may show what kind of love they were in, haha!

After we got tired of pushing through all of the people at the festival we decided to head to a bar in the area. By this point most of us were tired so we didn't stay too long. But, right before we left the bartender decided to do a fire show for us. He was pretty impressive & ended his show by saying the girl who does the best dance gets the shot he lit on fire. Well we chose CIndy to dance and she had to battle against a Korean girl. The jealous look on the other girl's face was priceless when she saw that Cindy could dance.

So, we eventually made it back to Cindy's place & passed out. Apparently Maggie woke up early and snapped a pic of us. We look so peaceful! :)

On Sunday morning we decided to head back to Daegu early for some Sunday Funday! Our first event was ice skating at the Woobang Tower in Daegu. It's beside the Woobang amusement park. Speaking of which, I've yet to experience an amusement park here. Might have to check one out sometime soon. I was hoping my school might go to one for a field trip, or maybe they have already and didn't invite me, lol. Ice skating turned out to be a blast! We got the "waygook" discount so it was only 4,000W, we got 50% off. Gotta love getting a discount just for being a foreigner! 

The rest of the day was also awesome because we met up with Whitney, who's parents were in town visiting. It was actually their last day here, so we met up with them at Traveler's where they were watching rugby. 

We joined in watching rugby because considering that was the main reason everyone was in there, we had no choice, lol. Best thing about Traveler's is their food. Any chance I can get western food, I take! So after a few drinks, and a few hours later, we decided to go find some dinner. We ended up at Caliente, one of the mexican restaurants in the downtown area. So, of course I was down for more western food! Whitney's parents were so sweet & paid for everyone's meal. It was good to hang out with them, they were like our own mother & father for the day! I couldn't imagine my parents coming to Korea...that would be hilarious if they did though! 

That about sums up my Jinju/Daegu weekend! I wish all of my Sundays were like that one! Although I was a bit tired Monday morning, it was worth it! Speaking of, I am headed to bed for the night. Will write about the Asia song festival soon.

XOXO,

Amanda

Hiking Seoraksan

Guess what? Another random Korea holiday occurred during the first week of October! Lucky us! The result? A trip up north to check out the infamous Seoraksan mountain. It's the 3rd highest in South Korea & as I found out this past weekend, a VERY popular tourist spot! The first highest is on Jeju island, and a few of my friends have been able to check it out. Maybe I can squeeze in a trip one day before I leave Korea!

So, the only reason I knew we had a 3-day weekend was that I've learned all major holidays in Korea are numbered in red on the calendar, lol. My teacher completely failed to mention that we had one in October, but no worries, I figured it out pretty quick! Which is when I decided to join a group of friends from Daegu who were going hiking.

Now that it's "fall" here, hiking isn't as gruesome as it was during the summer. My first hike ever was in Daegu, but it was a short one in the spring. My second was here in Gumi, but the humidity about killed us from the summer heat. This third hike was my favorite. PERFECT weather for being in the mountains!

So Friday evening I headed to Daegu to stay the night with my friends. Our original plan was to take the earliest bus possible Saturday morning to Sokcho since it was a 5 hour bus ride, but that bus was sold-out. We ended up taking the 11:30 one, which put us in Sokcho too late to head to the mountains. Instead we checked out the beautiful beach & went out for dinner at a small Korean restaurant. Dinner provided much entertainment due to Kristin's declared admiration by our old Korean man who was serving us, lol. He brought her a cup of coffee after we had finished eating and told her "I love you." Eventually he brought the rest of us coffee, but not not with the same love he had for her, haha!

our human pyramid on the beach

the girls...jumping pic!

When we first arrived in Sokcho we found a cheap place to stay. Well, the result of such a cheap place to stay was that we later discovered the room was full of mosquitoes and bed bugs, gross! I managed to only get a few mosquito bites, but some of us weren't so lucky. Needless to say, first thing Sunday morning we moved to another place which was much nicer and only a couple bucks more.

Sunday morning after grabbing a bite to eat & some coffee we caught the bus to the mountains. Once we arrived we immediately noticed the massive amounts of people. Considering that Monday was a holiday and that the leaves were beginning to change color in the mountains, EVERYONE decided to go hiking. Never in my life have I seen thousands of people battling to hike a mountain. But there they were. And we filed right in line with them.

Buddha statue

One of our friends had previously been to these mountains so she advised us which paths were the best to take. We decided to do the 900 steps path and another path after lunch to see the caves. We were hiking at a decent pace, bumping elbows, passing ajummas & small children...until we got to the part where the steps begin. Hiking just isn't the same when it's stop & go. I mean I like a break now and then, but this was ridiculous! Apparently parts of the paths on the stairs could only handle one-way traffic, so each line took turns...people coming down, people going up.

in line for the 900 steps

 our 500 best friends, lol

We also had our own personal competitor, Kristin, who insisted on being the first to reach the top. So we may have done a bit of cutting in line in the midst of trying to keep up with Kristin & sneak in front of her from time to time. :)

A few hours later, we were at the top of the 900 steps. The view was incredible! Of course we did the touristy photo session, but then we found some rocks to sit down on & soak in the view around us. The wind was cool & the sky was clear. A perfect fall day to be outside, especially in the mountains.

By this time in our hike we were all starting to get hungry so we headed back towards the bottom for lunch. Of course the food selection in the mountains consisted of only Korean food, so I had to settle on noodles. I'm just not a fan of the traditional style foods they commonly serve in these type of restaurants. Some people love bibimbap, but I eat it enough at school. And I broke up with kimchi a LONG time ago! lol.

After a late lunch and a bit of relaxing, we noticed that it was nearing the evening which meant that we might not have time to do another hike before dark. We finally agreed to just come back early in the morning to do the other hike. That was until we realized that the 3pm bus we wanted to take Monday afternoon was sold out. We were then left with the choice to leave at 10:40am or 9pm. Since we had to teach Tuesday morning, we chose to leave Monday morning, even though we were disappointed we didn't get to hike the second trail. :(

Had it not been such a long line during the first trail, we would have had plenty of time to do two paths. To get to the summit takes 11 hours, one way! So we knew we didn't have time for that. You have to plan on camping or lodging in the mountains to do that hike. Maybe another time...maybe, lol.

Oh and I almost forgot...we literally got trampled by Koreans while leaving Seoraksan. Once we decided that we were out of time to do another hike, we headed towards the buses to leave. There we discovered a line of more than 100 people waiting for the buses. Well, kind of a line, because usually lines don't exist in Korea. However, we did have the joy of witnessing some Koreans getting kicked to the back of the line for trying to cut in front. All of a sudden we just heard angry screams, then we noticed what was happening.

However, when it came time for us to near the front of the line, somehow Maggie and Kristin got mixed in the middle of pushing and shoving. Which resulted in Koreans yelling at them because they thought they were cutting. When actually, they were just trying to survive the mob of people. You would have thought this line determined if you were going to heaven or hell the way the Koreans were pushing! Eventually we made it on the bus, only for me to have a mild claustrophobia panic attack due to Koreans suffocating me on the bus. Finally a man was kind enough to open the window so that I could breathe. Not kind enough to give me his seat, but atleast he did that, lol.

silly faces at dinner the last night in Sokcho

Alright, I think that about puts me up to date on my blogging. No major plans for this weekend, maybe a Lantern Festival in Jinju, but I really need to start saving money. The exchange rate for WON to USD is lower that it used to be and I need to send some money home, not cool! I'd like to get one more hike in before the true cold winter sets in, so if I can find one that doesn't cost a fortune to travel to or take 5 hours like the last one, I will definitely be doing that soon.

XOXO,
Amanda

Gyeongju

So since the new semester started (which was the day after I returned from my vacation) I have taken a new approach on teaching. In an attempt to bring more organization & consistency into my teaching methods (which is near impossible to do in Korea) I have implemented a rewards system based on participation and overall classroom behavior.


The basic idea of this is to get the students to understand that their participation in class counts for something. The actual chart may seem more fitting for elementary age students considering I give them a sticker for each time I believe the class went well, but hey it's working so far! Some kids ask me, "Teacher, sticker today?!" lol. Plus I figured it was something they could actually physically see on the wall.


My original idea was that they had to do well 4 classes in a row, which is 4 weeks. But then I considered the fact that classes get cancelled & it may be tough for the lower level classes. So now each week they have a chance to get a sticker, and once they have 4 stickers somewhere on the chart, they get a free day. Free days benefit me as well, haha! :) P.S. Eight decks of playing cards = best investment ever! Gives them something to do during during free time & didn't really cost that much to buy!


At first one of my co-teachers argued with me about my chart & said it would insult the co-teachers who were in charge of the lower level classes & weren't able to receive a reward. I tried to explain that the plan was to encourage their participation in class, not call them out for being lower level English speakers. It ended with him asking me to take my charts down. Instead I went to Mr. Bahn & asked him if my plan offended him. He said of course not and that he thought it was a great idea.


Oh yea, another thing that has helped with teaching is that the co-teacher who used to sleep in my class has been replaced! He was only temporary, but I didn't find that out until summer & I was so happy to hear it! I now have another female co-teacher, which puts me at 3 men & 2 women to work with. She is 100% better than the other guy because other than the obvious reason that she doesn't sleep while I teach, she actually helps me & makes sure my students stay awake. Which is great, because those classes are the lower level ones.


Overall, teaching has been going okay. Besides a couple holidays & a field trip, I had a solid 6 weeks of almost uninterrupted teaching. Progress for the students & progress for me! But now it's finals week & I must say I'm enjoying the break. My goal is to come up with atleast 3 solid teaching ideas for the next few weeks. I know I will have to start testing the students again to determine their English speaking level, so that will be close to 2 weeks of not teaching. I actually enjoyed testing the students' speaking levels last semester. Helped me to get to know my students a little better. I mean, don't ask me to tell you their names or anything, lol, but I did learn some stuff about them.


My side project from my school for now is to come up with some simple trivia type questions for their school festival at the end of this month. I was hoping "school festival" meant free day for Amanda teacher, but alas, I have been assigned to create around 50 trivia questions for an English game. Oh well, could be worse!

A couple weeks ago my school went on a field trip & since all grade levels but one were attending, I got to go with them! We actually went to a city I've been meaning to go to for some time, Gyeongju. We went to the Cultural Expo Center, where you can participate in many different cultural activities. Since Mr. Bahn had been many times, he and most of the other teachers spent the day drinking & hanging out in the food tents. 

Mr.Bahn & I

Now that is something I don't think I would ever be able to do in Texas. It surprises me how it's normal in Korea for teachers to drink on field trips, and not even hide the fact that they are, lol. I only had some traditional "dong dong ju" which is a rice wine, then I went walking around with another co-teacher who was appointed by the principal to be my tour guide, lol.


We decided to go watch some Chinese martial arts & a Korean b-boy dance performance. The martial arts was interesting & the break dancing Korean group was highly entertaining to watch. I discovered that they have been on t.v. as well as won awards for their dancing. 

The other stuff we decided to do was walk around the art exhibit (which wasn't that entertaining, but decent) and learn how to write Chinese symbols. I also made a wax replica of my hand in the shape of a peace sign. Random, yes I know, haha! But it was pretty neat how they made it. It surprised me that they could get the wax formation off my hand without messing it up. They finished it by dipping it in about 5 neon colors. A cool souvenir to say the least!

Cool Wooden House Art

 Writing Chinese Symbols

The Process (mine is getting color added)

The Result

Overall the field trip was highly enjoyable. I liked being able to just hang out with the students outside of the classroom/school. I know they enjoyed that as well because I seemed to have a little group following behind me at all times of the trip, lol. I was also entertained on the bus ride to Gyeongju because I increased my K-pop music knowledge. By the way, most buses here have TV's on them. My students begged the driver to put on music videos...and he conveniently had a CD full of them beside his steering wheel, haha! The students had fun telling me the names of all the groups we watched & which ones were good or not, as well as which guys were the most handsome. Oh, Korea! :) 

XOXO,
Amanda

Thanksgiving in September

Leave it to Korea to randomly have a "thanksgiving type holiday" in September lol. Of course I didn't hear any complaints from us ESL teachers here in Korea. It meant we got a 4 day weekend! Saturday to Tuesday!


So, as discussed with Jen & Lea (the awesome friends I made when I first got here at orientation), we decided to get together for our own version of Korea's Chuseok holiday. This plan first involved us meeting in Seoul to do some serious fall/winter clothing shopping. While it was tempting to buy the entire store of Forever 21, I limited myself to a few nice sweaters & long sleeve tops, along with some jewelry & a few cheap t-shirts. I was just excited to find stuff that fit me! I can find a few things in Daegu, a bigger city next to mine, but Seoul is the ultimate place to shop.


From Seoul we headed to Jen (my orientation roomie)'s place in Cheongju. We spent the first night just hangin' out since we were tired from our shopping extravaganza. The next day we ventured out to explore Jen's city. We ended up checking out a cat cafe, which I had never been to before. It was actually very nice & relaxing. Other than the cats trying to steal our food & drink our coffee, it was fun to hang out in there. I'm more of a dog person, but I'm not picky! I love being around animals in general! :) 

Orientation Roomies!!

 I'm not a crazy cat lady, I promise! :)

 Haha, love Jen's expression!

Lea, the Bird Whisperer

From there we just kinda shopped around & then went to the big grocery store to find ingredients for our "thanksgiving" dinner. Since I knew we were planning this I had my mother ship me over some canned green beans, cream of mushroom, and fried onions to make green bean casserole. Seeing as Korea doesn't have ovens, this was made in the microwave lol. 

Chicken Master Jen

Fruit Ninja

We ended up deciding on frying some chicken & making mashed potatoes. Our original plan was to buy a cake from the bakery for dessert since we couldn't bake one. But then we decided we had enough junk food for the weekend and ended up making a fruit salad in a mere attempt to eat healthier, haha! 

YUM!

Jen's bottle of wine made our meal classy...the paper cups, not so much! :)

After eating our gigantic meal, we watched Rent, which I had never seen. Hence the reason Jen & Lea insisted on watching it. We ended the night discussing the pros and cons to living abroad & life in general while I played DJ & selected music to match our conversations. Highly entertaining! Oh, and I can't forget...Jen & I discovered a nail polish called "Crack" lol. Basically it makes your nail polish look cracked on purpose...it's actually really neat (& ironically addictive)! Overall, I must say it was a nice relaxing girls weekend! 

Love these crazy girls!

 Happy Chuseok! <3 Jen, Lea, & Amanda

XOXO,

Amanda