Wrapping Up Korea

Though many of you know that I have started a new adventure, I feel weird talking about it without wrapping up my time in Korea. My last entry was from April and my contract in Korea didn’t finish until early July. Below I’ve put two posts about significant things I did in Korea that I never got around to writing about. 

I have to say overall that I loved my time in Korea. When I think about the things I did and the people I met, I’m very grateful I had the opportunity to go. I had always thought about teaching abroad and I’m very glad I did. I’m even gladder that I got the chance to do it in Korea. Korea is a country I never thought about visiting. Though I would like to travel the whole world, (honestly) Korea never held much interest for me. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go there the most, when I was given the opportunity. It sounds strange, but I liked the idea of choosing to live in a country I knew I would not want to visit as a tourist; and it was amazing.

If you haven’t tried Korean food – you must. I’m sitting here missing the food just writing this. If you don’t know where to start try galbi (Korean barbecue), or bulgogi (marinated beef); you can’t go wrong with either.

I have so much love an appreciation for the quirks of modern Korean culture. What I once thought was strange: couples outfits, etc. I now just smile and say ‘oh Korea’ fondly. I miss Korea a lot; I miss my friends and my lifestyle there. The obvious follow-up question to that is ‘would you want to live there?’ and the answer is no. Will I go back to visit: absolutely.

I had a great year there, but the wandering continues…

My final kindergarten class

A Korean Wedding

The weekend of my birthday was my former co-worker’s wedding. She had left the school a couple months earlier, but not before inviting us to her wedding. I was very excited to see a Korean wedding; it was definitely a different experience. First off, there’s no sense of “I’m the only bride in the world on this day”.
Let me explain what to do/expect at a Korean wedding.

The wedding was held on the floor of a large reception/conference type building. When you get off the elevator you see a large dining room to your left, a wedding hall straight ahead, and a small decorated room and some tables on the right. First you want to go to the small room. It’s beautifully decorated and there you see the bride sitting on a bench posing for pictures with friends and family. We went there (all 6 of us teachers) and took pictures with her. In a funny ‘Oh Korea’ moment, one of my friends was moved away from the bride and to the back row because her face was too small and it would make my friend, the bride’s, look big. Korean women are really into having small faces. You know you’ve been to Korea when you receive a compliment (or just a comment) on the size of your face.

After taking pictures you go to the desk where you sign a guest book and leave your gift with some men in charge of collecting them. You always give money. Then they give you a ticket so you can get into the dining room later. It leaves you feeling like you’ve just paid for your meal, but considering the price of weddings, that’s not so bad. Then you go (we went) and sat in the wedding hall. That room was spectacularly decorated and you could see the wedding before just finishing their pictures. It seems strange that the same room could be used for multiple weddings. Coming from an American perspective, it doesn’t seem unique enough. You want everything to be tailored to you, and in the Korean setting that’s not possible. At least at the wedding I saw. Everyone has the same colors and the same flowers. I thought I would really dislike the whole atmosphere because it’s not as personal – but I actually liked it. The decorations were really nice. They had professional pictures of the couple projected in a couple places and overall it was really nice.

Sarah (my friend) wore a white dress, but her parents were dressed in hanbok, traditional clothing. The ceremony was short, and all in Korean so I can’t comment on its content. My favorite part of the ceremony was when the groom sang to the bride. It was really sweet. After the ceremony we hung around for a few pictures. They did one with all the family, then one with all the friends.  After the pictures we went to the dining hall. It was a huge room with galbi tang (beef rib soup) on the table with the usual overload of sides. There was also a buffet set up where you could get more food. Sarah and her husband changed into hanbok and came around to see everyone. When we finished eating, the wedding was done and we left. I don’t think Sarah and her husband sat down at all. It was nothing like an American wedding that’s so focused on the reception. I had a great time, and Sarah was a beautiful bride.

Temple Stay

In May I finally got around to doing a temple stay. Even before going to Korea, a temple stay was on my to-do list. What happens in a temple stay is that you go to a Buddhist temple and are able to stay overnight. I’ve had limited experiences with Buddhism, but they’ve all been extremely positive. What’s not to like about a religion/philosophy that at its core is about being a good person, and not doing harm to others.

I went for the temple stay with twelve other people, none of whom I knew. There’s a great company called Adventure Korea that organizes trips for wayguks (foreigners). When I saw they had an upcoming trip to Geumsansa temple for a one-night temple stay, I signed myself up. The temple was a few hours down the west coast from Seoul, by bus. We arrived on Saturday and they gave us time to walk around the temple grounds. There were about four buildings (for praying) and a big bell. After we walked around we were given our temple clothes. Everything about the clothing style was meant for comfort and freedom of movement. If I didn’t look like such a block in them, I would have loved to take a set home. The complete look was loose-fitting pants, and a loose shirt. That night we did many things: met the monk who would be with our group, had tea with him, had dinner at the temple, made a paper lantern, and said the nightly prayer. We went to bed early because the morning prayer was at 4:00am.

Sunday everyone got up for the morning prayer (they were surprised since it was optional) and after that we did 108 bows. The number 108 is very significant in Buddhism. I don’t remember the exact math of it, but I know it holds great importance. Every morning the monks do 108 bows. This bow is not just bobbing your head. The full bow starts with you standing legs together and palms touching. Then you put your knees on the ground making sure your right elbow, then your left, are also on the ground. Your whole forearm on both sides should touch the rug/mat. Then you touch your forehead to the ground. While your forehead is touching the ground you bring your palms up, then put them back face-down to the ground. Then you stand. Then you repeat 107 more times. While we did the bows the monk held a bamboo stick he would slap against his hand to signal us to bow again. Lucky for me, he kept count (I lost track around 40). He told us while we were doing it we should think about our past, or our family. I tried to focus on individual people for a couple bows, then switch. When you didn’t focus on the strain of the motion, they were a lot easier to do. When he signaled we were doing the last bow, I actually thought we were only somewhere around 70. This was by far my favorite part/accomplishment during the temple stay. I won’t pretend though, that I’m as skilled as the monks: my legs felt like jelly when I walked down stairs.

After we bowed, we meditated with the monk. Then we ate a traditional monastic meal. The lesson of the meal was to appreciate simplicity of food, and not waste anything. We had four bowls: one for soup, one for rice, one for side dishes (radish, vegetables, etc.), and one for water to wash everything. We served ourselves, but told beforehand that we had to eat everything in our bowls; and I mean everything. At the end of the meal they gave us some rice water to rinse the dishes, and we used a pickled radish to help clean. After cleaning the three bowls (not the water one) we had to drink the rice water and eat the radish. Of course, the rice water was not delicious: it had pieces of vegetables and rice in it from the other dishes. The point though, was that the bowls were clean and nothing was wasted; that’s the Buddhist lifestyle.

After the meal we made Buddhist beads. Really, we were given string, and 108 wooden beads. They gave us an hour on the temple grounds to complete our necklace. The way you are suppose to do it, is each time you put a bead on the string you should attach a wish to it, and do one full bow. Maybe I didn’t mention that I had already done 108 bows that morning. I was able to do a full bow for 40 beads, but then I thought that Buddha would understand that at the end of it all, I would like to walk from the temple and not have to be carried. Overall, I really enjoyed the process of making the necklace. It’s harder than I thought it would be to attach meaning to each bead. Since I think Buddhist beads don’t hold the same superstitions as birthday wishes, I can tell you what I was thinking. For each bead I tried to think of a friend or family member. My wishes were usually health or happiness related. If I knew someone was having trials, I tried to focus on that for them. I know this necklace will be something I’ll treasure forever.

After the necklace was completed, we had tea, changed back into our clothes, and were on our way back north. I’m very glad I had the chance to do a temple stay; it was a great experience and one I always remember. 

I made this lotus lantern!

Getting Sick in Korea

In early April I got sick. It started out as a cold and ended up as bronchitis. I just wanted to mention it because of the stark differences in health care in Korea and the U.S. At first when I got sick, I thought it was just a cold and that I would get over it in a couple days. As anyone who has worked with kids would know, they are germy little things and you can't help but catch things from them from time to time. In Korea the first thing you do when you're feeling sick is go to the pharmacy. It's the same as in Kenya. You go to the pharmacy, explain your symptoms, and they can give you some medication right there. It's a nice way to skip the high price usually charged by doctors (back home).

The second time after I went to the pharmacy and explained that things still weren't better, and I had an intense pressure in my entire face, the lady's response was "go see a doctor". First, I have to say that I'm lucky in that there is a private women's hospital literally on the same street as my school. It was one of my busy days at school; I don't get any breaks after lunch except for one 20 minute break. I decided to go during lunch, and see if I could see a doctor in that hour slot. Everyone at the hospital was very nice, the doctor spoke a lot of English. I was in and out in under 40 minutes. The total cost without insurance: $13. My first prescription: $7. I ended up going back to the doctor twice more, but each follow-up visit only cost $9 each. The most expensive of the three prescriptions was the one when they finally gave me antibiotics which turned out to be a whooping $17.

I want to show you a picture of the way the give prescriptions here because I thought it was cool.

The pills are in their own little sealed compartments. They even wrote "M" "L" "D" so I know what meal to take each little pack with. (I think the dinner one had an extra something that might make you drowsy, hence why it's different)

Sometimes I really love Korea. On another fun Korea services note, tonight I got a new pair of glasses. I heard that they were cheaper here, and I haven't gotten a new pair in maybe five years. I went in, picked out the frames, and they checked my eyes free of charge. They assembled my new glasses in 15 minutes, the cost: $58. They even had glasses as cheap as $25 a pair. Part of me wants to stock up, but I know that's unresonable and just my bargain hunter-self catching the wind of a great deal. If you go to Korea though, I highly recommend getting some glasses. Although it's cheap, I can't really recommend getting sick...

Icheon Ceramics Festival

In April I went to the Icheon Ceramics Festival. I really enjoyed it because after going to a couple museums here, I'm kind of getting into Korean pottery. At the very least, I know the history more and can appreciate the simplicity. There's not a lot to write about this particular adventure but I wanted to share some pictures from the day. There were a couple buildings that you could walk through and purchase pottery. There were a lot of amazing pieces, but I'm not exactly in a place in my life where making a lot of pottery purchases makes sense. I can't exactly bring them everywhere with me. So instead I appreciated their beauty from afar. There was also a tea set competition that resulted in a lot of modern and cool looking sets. I'll post the pictures of my favorites so you can see.

The entrance

Inside the gate

One of the tea sets from the competition

Traditional style, Korean ceramics

Competition piece

The main building where you could buy ceramics

A wall filled with ceramic pieces!

A close-up of the wall

One of my favorite modern ceramics pieces

Another cool piece

Another :)

A metal tree filled with wind-chimes

My New Kindergarten Class: 6y-1

When I first came to Korea and LCI (my school) I was teaching the 7y-2 class. The kids were seven years old and had been taking English for two years. As I wrote earlier, in February those kids graduated and are now first graders in Korean school. That meant that starting in March I was getting an entirely new class. I now have the 6y-1 class. These kids had never studied English before.

I'll admit that getting settled with them took some time. I had been with my old class for eight months, and we had a rhythm. I was also spoiled because their English was already so good when I came. The first day with my new class we literally stared at each other. I was so nervous, and I'm sure the kids were thinking 'what in the world is this funny looking lady saying?'. They spoke to me almost exclusively in Korean. Whenever they said something to me that sounded like a question I just pointed to the bathroom because I was terrified someone would have an accident because I didn't understand them asking to go. The whole first week was a learning experience. On a positive note though, I do now know how to say 'bathroom', 'pee', and 'teacher help me' in Korean.

The first thing I did was make signs with pictures for the class that said "May I go to the bathroom?" and "May I get a drink of water?". I figured even if they couldn't say it, they could at least point. It's worked very well, and has the added bonus of them not only now knowing how to ask, but doing so in a full sentence. From there we've kept moving forward. Now, three months later, their progress is amazing. It's so exciting and rewarding for me looking back on how we started and how far we've come. They're not reading yet but they are remembering some sight words. Whenever they speak to me they always use English (and a lot of gestures of course). One of our activities in class is poem and I do each poem for two weeks. Many of the kids are now able to memorize the poems! So far two that we've done that were the most popular were Fuzzy Wuzzy and Hickory Dickory Dock.

It took me a little while to get attached to this class. In the beginning I was certain that they couldn't compare to my old class. They've wormed their way into my heart though, and I know I'll be sad to leave them in a little over a month. I can only imagine how they'll be speaking in a year's time. I'll attach some pictures of my class below. We went on a field trip to a zoo and there are some pictures from that too. (As a side note, one of the boys in the pictures left my class, and now I have two new boys not in the pictures that started last week). I have 11 kids in my class now.

Me and the Director's wife

The entire kindergarten program.

Namsan Tower

I'm sorry that I've been on such a hiatus. I've been doing a lot in the last few months and I want to bring you some of the highlights. First: Namsan Tower. Namsan Tower is the Seattle Space Needle of Seoul. It's a tall skinny building/structure on top of a hill in the middle of Seoul. It allows you 360 degree views of the city. It was on my list of places to visit and in mid-April I went with my friend/fellow teacher Laura.

To get to the base of the tower your options are taking the cable car, the bus, or hiking/walking up the mountain. Laura wanted to hike so we did. I'm using the word hike loosely here because it was more like sets and sets of stairs. Here's how it looked "hiking":



The weather was perfect for our adventure. When you finish climbing all the stairs (I definitely had to take a couple breaks) you get to the top where the tower is. Even without going up into the tower itself there are amazing views to be had from up there. Here's a picture of the tower from the platform:

Before we went up in the tower we walked around. At Namsan there's a long fence that couples attach locks too. It's a fun tradition; couples will go and "lock up" their love at Namsan. For all of the couple things that I think are over the top here, I thought this one was kind of sweet. It was overwhelming to see all of the locks. They even had a box to throw away the keys.

I liked that underneath the new plastic locks you could see old metal ones rusting with age.

Seoul in the background.



After we looked at all the locks we walked around the platform. In the gift shop there was a wall where couples could buy tiles to write on in addition to the locks.

Those pictures that you see on the tiles are big in Korea. There are little shops you can go into and take those pictures then doctor them with hearts, stars, cat whiskers, etc. So cute (Korea's motto). Finally, after a full dose of couples and love, we went up into the tower. Here are some pictures of Seoul from the top.

It was really amazing seeing Seoul from the top of the tower. I've visited so many neighborhoods in Seoul but I never really had an idea of where they were in relation to each other. It was cool being able to figure it out. Afterwards Laura and I were even confinent enough that we decided to walk down the mountain to a neighborhood called Itawon that we've been to many times. Itawon is the foreigners district. We definitely took the long way, but we successfully made it there. It was nice to end the day in a cute little bar drinking amazing drinks. Of course, I have to share those too :)

The bar was called Bermuda Triangle

 A mojito and Kiwi makgeolli (a Korean rice wine)