My Apartment

I just realized I have not posted pictures of my apartment yet. You would think that would've been one of the first couple posts, but no I did not post anything. My studio apartment is a very good size for only have one person living in it. I have a washing machine and a drying rack. I unfortunately do not have an oven. I love to back and it relaxes me. If I am unable to bake I would be very sad. I was able to purchase a microwave oven for about ₩35000, which is about $35. The shower was an interesting experience for me when I first got here. There is no shower curtain. So, basically the entire bathroom is the shower. I am not enjoying the hard wood floors. The floors get so dusty and I even take my shoes off when I walk in. I also don't need to carry keys around with me (which I lose frequently). To open the door I enter a pass-code to get in. Also with my doorbell, there is a camera when they ring it. So instead of looking through the peep hole I just look at the camera screen. There is a telephone next to the screen so that I am able to talk to the person as well. So that is my apartment! Here are some pictures.

View from the kitchen

View from the window

The bathroom

Amusement Park

Today, the kindergarten classes went on a field trip to the amusement park. It took us about a half an hour to get there from Gunpo. It was one of the smaller amusement parks and when we first got there, there was no one else at the park. So we had the park to ourselves. The rides were not "super" exciting but the day was about the kids. They had a good time. We also went only on three rides, but again its about the kids.

So when we got there, me and the other English teacher were commenting on some of the ride/vendor names at the park.

"Nude Viking" Umm... first thing why are the vikings naked and second thing there are no vikings!

Canival? Is it supposed to be Carnival or something to do with dinosaurs. However you look at it, it is wrong.

We then went on three rides, they were small ones especially because the little kiddies are all small. They all had a great time and it was fun getting out and not be in class. 

It was a gorgeous fall day. It was very warm out, as well. After we went on the rides we had a picnic lunch in one of the open areas at the park. All the kids brought cute little lunches and the teachers were give some delicious kimbap (the Korean cook at our school makes really good kimbap). What is kimbap (pronounced gimbap)? It is basically a Korean "sushi" roll: "kim" is seaweed and "bap" is steamed white rice. There were an assortment of vegetables and eggs in the roll. I enjoy getting the kimbap, the once a month that we do get it. After eating lunch, the kids got to run around and burn off the energy they had. 

After the kids got to run around and we did bathroom breaks for the kids, we proceeded to have group photos. We did a photo with each of the three classes and then we had a huge group photo.

Lion, Tiger and Koala class with the English, Chinese and Korean teachers!

To quote one of the storybooks that we have for teaching English, "It was a very good day!" 

Also there are more photos on my Flickr account!

My First Experience at a Korean Clinic

So I have been getting sick over the past couple days. A lot of my students have been getting sick and they don't know how to cover their mouth when they cough. And then when I tell them to cover their mouths they do it at the end of their cough.


Well anyway, to get any medicine here in Korea, I first needed to go to the clinic and get a check up. The clinic ended up being in the same building I live in. I was able to get my check up okay.  The doctor spoke English and so we were able to communicate. And the entire check up was only ₩6,000 and the prescription I got was ₩2,200, which is about $7. 

Something funny that happened, even before I went to the clinic, was when my director were filling out my information for my health insurance, the health insurance company thought my name was Kemily. And so now on my health insurance information it has the Kemily in hangul (Korean writing). When I was at the clinic and even when I was getting my prescription, they kept calling me Kemily.

With the prescription they gave me, there were four different types of pills they gave me (I have no idea what any of them are). They also came in little packets for each time I need to take them, which I need to take four times a day. I survived my first trip to the clinic, though and it was super cheap.

Getting Traditional

Today, my friends mom, Minju, wanted to take me out to lunch for traditional Korean food. They had picked me up at the subway station and we proceeded to drive to the restaurant. The restaurant was in the countryside and also kind of in the mountains, so it took us a little bit of time to get there. The place was very busy, which I was told was normal. Then when we sat down, on the floor of course, we were immediately served a butt ton of side dishes. Our entire table was full! Towards the end of the meal, Minju's mother was apologizing for the selection that they brought. It wasn't her favorite. I personally thought that it was all good. I was trying a little bit of everything.

It's a little blurry

After we had lunch her mom then took us to a new cafe to get some dessert. We had some coffee and we had a waffle with some gelato on it. Korean's here love them some waffles. They will eat it all the time with ice cream, gelato, chocolate, and other stuff. It was the fanciest waffle I've have ever eaten before. It was really good too.

The day was a very goof one. Even though we were unable to hang out for a super long time, I was able to experience part of Korea by eating there traditional foods with good company. I am glad that I am able to meet a Korean family and experience Korea a little better. I feel this just goes back to my experience with Cultural anthropology. We have these terms, Emic and Etic. Emic is when you experience something first hand while etic is when you watch from the outside, never putting yourself in the situation. I am always striving to have as much of an emic experience as I can but sometimes, just because I am a foreigner, I will be an outsider. Anyway, that is all for now.

Minju and I at Cafe Mou

Hiking and Making Friends

I am sorry I have not updated recently. It has been a very busy month. This weekend it another long weekend for us. It is Korea's National Foundation Day on Monday, which celebrates the creation of Gojoseon (ancient Korea). So that means I have no school on Monday, YAY!

Anyway this post is not about the holiday, this is about my adventure I had today. So I have been wanting to go hiking for awhile now and Korea is full of places to go hiking, especially in my area. I have not been able to go because I was unsure of where any of the hiking trails were and also because it has been too hot to go hiking. Now that autumn has come, the weather is cooling off but we still have beautiful sunny days. Perfect for hiking.

I went hiking today up one of the peaks near by, which was 469 meters uphill. Towards the beginning of the trail there is a temple. When I got to the temple there was a monk who came down and greeted meet. He spoke a little bit of English and so we were able to communicate with each other a little bit. He asked where I was from and then he offered me some water from the fountain. He then looked at my palm to look at my lines and said "good". I'm assuming he was looking at my "life lines." He also asked if I was a christian. He was very nice.

Then just after I had left the temple, there were some adjoshi's (older men) taking a breaking and eating some apples. As I walked by one of the adjoshi's had an apple cut and on his knife and he offered it to me. I at first said no in Korean but he kept insisting. So I took the apple and thanked him and went on my way. On my journey up the mountain, even though it is a short distance, it was all uphill. It was pretty steep. There were sometimes makeshift steps and from where my foot stood on the ground, the step would be as tall as the top part of my shin (a little over a foot tall). But I was finally able to reach the the top. The view of the city was beautiful. And the leaves were already changing colors faster than they were in the city. When I was at the top, another adjoshi wanted to talk with my in English. He told me about how he has been to the US twice and some other stuff.

Gunpo

 

After making it to the top and then eating a sandwich, I headed down. Going down was easier than going up but it was really bad on my knees. I really enjoyed the hike, though. Next time I go hiking I'm gonna hike Taeeulbong Peak, which is 489 meters.

Walking the Neighborhood

I went on a walk in my neighborhood today. Was able to walk around and get more acquainted with it. I've been walking the same path to and from work and to and from the station and have not done much in the city other than that. So I wanted to go out and follow a path and then eventually end up back to my apartment building. I was able to make an odd circular shape and make it back to mu building. Here are some photos.

Chuseok (Korean Thanksgivng)

This weekend is one of the big holidays for Koreans. It is a time when family members come together to share food and stories with each other and to give thanks to their ancestors for an abundant harvest. At my school they wanted the little kindergarten kids to learn some of the customs that go along with Chuseok. This includes all the children wearing their hanboks (traditional Korean clothes), and that includes me wearing one too!

We also learned the art of tea making and drinking. While making the tea we were told to have a clear mind, to meditate while we are making it. The tea itself didn't really taste like tea. It tasted like warm water with maybe a hint of some sort of flavor. I feel it needed to brew longer. They were having us brew it for only a minute.

Then on Friday, we learned a couple tradition Korean games, we learned a dance, and we learned how to make rice cakes.

For the games, we learned jegi chagi, which is basically a form of hacky sack. We also learned how to play paengi-chigi, which is a game where you spin a top and have to try and knock it over with a rope. Another game we learned is called tuho, which is where we throw an arrow into a large pot. We played another game (I don't remember what it was called) where we had a small basket on our head with a wooden block inside and we had to walk to the other side of the room and drop the block out of the basket on our head to try and knock down a block that is on the ground.

We also learned a Korean traditional dance called, Ganggangsullae. This is a Korean circle dance performed by women and children. In the dance we would hold hands and sing along with the music. We would also let go of each other hands and move our hands back and forth, in and out of the circle.

One last thing we learned was how to make Songpyeon. They are a traditional type of food eaten during Chuseok. Your first start by getting a small piece of rice cake and flattening it out to make a circle. You then stuff it with either red beans, raisins, sesame seeds, or chestnuts. We had the choice of raisins or red beans. Once you have placed the stuffing on the circular rice cake, you wrap it up to form a ball. While I was making my songpyeon, one of my Korean co-teachers made the comment to me that if I make a beautiful songpyeon I will meet a good-looking spouse (if single) or give birth to a beautiful daughter (if married). The rice cakes are then packaged with pine needles to add a fragrance to the rice cakes.

That is all for now. I'm gonna try and get to one of the palaces during the holiday because they put on some special events for the holiday.
You can find more photos on my flickr account!
Find out more at these websites!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuseok

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanbok