Summer Break

July 25th – 29th was my summer break. I didn’t know that before I came, but that would have been helpful because then I could have made plans. As it stood the only people I really knew in Korea were the teachers I worked with and they had made plans weeks in advance. I got lucky in that two new teachers came a week and half after I did. It sucked even more for them because they had three days training then a week free. Since we were in the same boat we did a lot together. There is also the other joy, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but that until I get my Alien Registration Card I cannot get a cell phone or the internet in my apartment. So not only were we newbies, but for any of us to make plans it had to be done a day in advance or communicated in the amount of time we were online that day. It’s been interesting getting use to being disconnected. It’s all the more difficult because I don’t know where a lot of things are so I can’t even suggest landmarks to meet at. It’s been a struggle.

For the week of my summer break Korea decided to celebrate with daily downpours. I spent a lot of the week wandering around my neighborhood and getting to know the area, or hiding inside. I went to Seoul a couple days and that was the highlight. Seoul Station, which is in the center or Seoul is a 40 minute bus ride from where I am. The bus system here is really nice. The charge for this bus ride is about $1.40 and the bus runs every 10 minutes or so. The bus is air conditioned, has nice seats, (and when I get a phone) is equipped with phone charging stations. From Seoul Station you can pick up two of the subway lines (there are 9 in total).

The first place I went to was a neighborhood called Insadong. It was down pouring like crazy the day we went (that night were the mudslides) but we tried to dodge from store to store. There is a main street in Insadong that is really cute. It’s a great place to walk around. We ended up leaving after a little while because of the rain but went back on a nicer day. There are quite a few touristy shops in Insadong and it’s also well known for its traditional tea houses. We attempted to find one and order tea but ended up with a drink that tasted like cranberry juice and had a couple pine nuts floating in it. Such is ordering food and drinks in Korea. It’s a lot of pointing to something then crossing your fingers that whatever you just ordered is good.

On another day one teacher and I went to Namdaemun Market. Namdaemun is a huge market where you can find almost everything. There are sellers in shops outside and huge shopping markets that you don’t see until you’re inside what appears to be a one-floor building only to find out it goes down two more levels and runs underneath all the other shops. Again, it was raining the day we went but it was easy to walk outside when it was nice then duck indoors to escape the rain. There were shops selling cameras, clothes, food, baby clothes, ginseng and pharmaceuticals, beauty products – everything. We went into one building that had to have 50 sellers all next to each other just selling jewelry and hair things. I feel like this wouldn’t be too unusual except everyone’s stuff looked the same; not only that but everything was sparkly. Women’s fashion here is pretty “cute” and literally everything was sparkly from necklaces to hair ties. Walking into that much sparkle was overwhelming. I can only imagine what it would look like on a sunny day.

*I will take this moment to say that if I should return from Korea wearing bows and super sparkly things I hearby charge you all to have an intervention.*

Overall it was a good vacation. I would have loved to go journeying somewhere across Korea or a neighboring country but the weather really limited things and I didn’t have very much time to plan. Korea has been having an unusually long rainy season much to my enjoyment. On a positive note, I have been reading a lot. It was nice having a week vacation and I felt good going into school afterwards. I taught two weeks before so I felt like I got things under control. Now I just need to last until my next week-long vacation . . . at Christmas.