South Korean Sojourn: April 2010

Spring fun with my students

Spring is a big deal in Korea.

And rightly so: the winter here is terribly long. Long, cold, ugly and grey. When spring finally arrives it certainly is time to celebrate life!

This year we had a particularly long and cold winter, as did most of the northern hemisphere, with record snow falls in many parts of the country. But no amount of pretty snow can help improve matters when winter started in November and Spring only comes in April, that is 6 months, HALF THE YEAR in winter! Argh, I will NOT miss Korea's weather!

So, when spring finally made its appearance, and this was confirmed by the cherry blossoms showing off, I decided to take my students out to enjoy it. What a good idea! I am not bound by curriculums or textbooks I have to finish teaching, so at times it is nice to be able to give the students a break from their incredibly intense schedules.

Fortunately I seem to have earned some respect at my high school, where Mr. Kang, my bestest estest co-teacher is the head of English, and the vice principal likes me (he even greets me with 'Good Morning' which is a big thing for a non-English 'teacher'). Anyway, so I managed to get permission to take my classes out to enjoy the cherry blossoms and take photos. The students loved it, my co-teachers loved it, I loved it, and all in all I think it was a very apt way of celebrating spring. Who wouldn't be happy about 12 lessons outdoors in amongst the flowers!

Enjoy the photos and my darling girls!

with Mr. Kang!

I bribed these girls with ice-creams to come up into the tree for a photo!

I love my MOM and DAD!

Families group photo (+ David) at Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul.

IT'S OFFICIAL: I have the most wonderful parents ever. I mean, they came all the way to KOREA to visit me! They could have gone to the Serengeti, the Amazon, London, any other possibly more 'appealing' destination. But No, they came to Korea! Thank you Mom and Dad, for such a truly generous and loving gesture. I'm so blessed!

Mom and Dad and Gordon and Kay (Julian's parents) came to visit us in South Korea for 2 weeks in March-April.

It was really special to see them again and to show them 'our places'. By the sounds of it, they had a wonderful time. It was a whirlwind trip, and pretty exhausting for Jules and I, as we'd have our normal 8 hour school day and then come home in the evenings to our eagerly waiting parents, bless them! Having them here made me realise all over again how helpless one is when one first arrives in Korea and, actually, how traveller-unfriendly Korea is - well, from a language perspective at least!

Mom and Dad were in Sangju for two weeks, and Gordon and Kay were here for a week and in Seocheon, with Simon for a week. At the weekends we tried to arrange trips for us all to be together. We basically spent our two weekends all together in Seoul, being real tourists. An adventure of note: leading 7 people through the massive metropolis of Seoul!

On Mom and Dad's last weekend here we hired a car, and Jules and I went to Gunsan with them. There is an estuary there which has been proclaimed a sanctuary for migratory birds and we had agreat time bird-watching there and just bumbling along country roads exploring and enjoying the freedom and flexibity of having 'our own wheels.'

I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

(Mostly my photos and also some from the Barker's camera).

At a 'Sujebi' (dough flakes soup) restaurant in Insadong, Seoul.

The 'gents' reading their newspapers while we waited an hour and a half at the bus terminal in Seoul to catch our bus back to Sangju.

Our fancy car for the weekend in Gunsan. Not bad for a 'first car' eh?

In Buyeo: we had a lovely walk through the forest.

Dad at it: with as many accessories as he could manage around his neck: binoculars, camera, compass, sunglasses....that compass DID come in useful! As did his 'built-in' compass: like the time when the taxi driver took a wrong turn on Seoul and only noticed after Dad had...

Jules 'getting lost' in the VAAAAST reed beds near Seocheon, one of those hyped-up tourist detsinations in Korea which is a huge let down once you get there!

Our picnic breakfast at the reed beds.

Dad cooking up a storm in our apartment. Thanks Dad!

With Mom on a boat cruise on the Han River. Mom made me feel so very loved on this trip: just always telling me how wonderful to be with us. And just being so relaxed about everything. Thanks Mom, for being such a gracious guest!

Dinner with the Barkers and Julian's co-teachers.

All of us at Incheon International Airport.

Birdwatching at the Geum estuary in Gunsan.

Missing INGI! The three of us at Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Simon: welcome to Korea

Simon, Julian's brother, arrived in Korea at the beginning of March. He was placed in a rather small town on the west coast of Korea. It's been a bit of a tough start for him: he seems to have blessed with an even crazier complement of co-teachers than either Jules or I have, which is saying a lot, i.e. they are a pretty rotten bunch. That, combined with being in 'the sticks' and away from home for the first time has been a bit challenging.

It's been really cool for Jules to have his brother here, and helping Si out with his teething problems has been quite a nice for us to see how far we've come. The things that drive him nuts about Korea and working here used to drive us nuts too, but we've grown to accept, even if not to understand, that we must just 'go with the flow' and that things are just different. Kicking and screaming doesn't really help! It's of course easier said than done this far down the line, but at least we can be a sounding board for Simon's frustrations and help with with the little daily challenges which one faces. Paying bills, getting a cellphone, navigating the public transport etc.

Here are a few pics from Simon's first weekend visiting us in Sangju. We gathered some friends round for a braai and also had a meal out in a Korean restaurant: we had 'dweji galbi': pork rib BBQ. Unfortunately Seocheon is 5 hours from Sangju by public transport so it's a bit of a trek!

SEOUL fun

BIG BRAAI and a memorable farewell

In March we had a 'party weekend' of note. Two of our good friends were leaving Sangju and had organised a farewell bash at Sangju's only, and barely-functioning, night club, and Jules and I organised a fundraiser-braai for the day.

We have found a supplier of SA Braai meat in Seoul - it is delicious, albeit it pricey, meat (boerewors and lamb chops) and everytime we invite friends to join us for a braai there are 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' about the meat. So we decided to capitalise on our good braai-reputation and arrange a braai to raise funds for a project my Mom runs at Hermannsburg. (See pic below).

It was pretty stressful to organise: for some reasons we've found it incredibly difficult to get people to commit to events: whether these are purely social, or in this case, a fundraiser. We had asked people to RSVP by 4 datys before so we could order the meat, but by the night before our RSVP list was still changing, rather stressful! This was also the first time either of us had 'single-handedly' organised an event with food where people would be paying - which of course makes it imperative that there is enough food, but since we were trying to raise funds, not too much food and not enough people to pay for and eat it. Fortunately it went really well, everyone had a good time and enjoyed the food, and we managed to raise around R800. Yey!

The group photo we took at our braai venue, under a bridge at the river, is rather amusing and indicative of our ignorance as foreigners in Korea: the sign behind us reads 'no cooking'. Our Korean friends only told us this as we were packing up.

Faux-pas of note! Haha!

No Cooking?!

Marize, Marg and I. Marize is South African and Marg Australian. Two lovely ladies I feel lucky to have met in Korea.

Inga from Umtata, Whee the master braaier, and Kelsey, whose farewell we were going to 'celebrate'.

The festivities then continued at 'Shampoo' the possibly dodgy night club in Sangju. Some of our friends interpreted the name of the club as a dress-up theme, and arrived in bath robes: classic! We also managed to pick up a new friend from the rubbish dump: Chuck The Commissioner: he is now a firm favourite on facebook and accompanies us on weekend outings.

Shampoo? And the ernest Mr. Barker.

The 'Dong-Crew' with our new friend, The Commissioner.

('Dong-Crew' = our friends who live in Dongducheon, north of Seoul.)

An exciting Hike: Lunar New Year, snow, darkness, COLD!

The hike we did on Lunar New Years is high up there with the most exciting and memorable of my experiences in Korea. It is an old Korean belief that if one watches the sun rise from a mountain peak on Lunar New Year, the year will be a lucky one!

Lunar New Year is usually a long weekend in Korea, and one is advised not to travel long distances as the roads and trains are chock-a-block with people travelling home across the country to be with their families. So many Koreans work away from their families, and national holidays are often the only opportunities for them to see each other, especially as most people work weekends as well.

So we decided to plan some 'local fun' for ourselves. There is a National Park near Sangju, Songnisan National Park, which takes just over an hour to get to. We headed over there and spent the night in a fantastic little 'mountain hut' in the park - 'Birosanjang'. It's one of my favourite places in Korea: it's really rustic, with long drops and tiny little Korean style 'ondol' (heated floor, sleep on a mat) rooms and genuine hospitality. One is surrounded by mountains and forests, and the only sounds are birds and the gushing river. We had a hearty Korean dinner and then an early night.

We woke up at 4 am and by 4:30 we were ready to go. It was pitch dark and snowy all around: it was not snowing at the time, which is fortunate, but there had been a good snowfall during the week. The plan was to hike to the top of the nearest mountain peak, from where we'd watch the sunrise. It took us, as planned, just over two hours. Walking up that mountain was so peaceful: the forest was as still as only a forest covered in snow can be, and there was not a soul to be seen. So quiet.

It was, by far, the coldest, darkest hike I've ever done! I'm willing to be the temperatures on the way up were hovering between -3 and -5 degrees celsius. Once we were up on the exposed peak, the temperature dropped dramatically, I think it may even have reached -10 degrees. Incredibly cold! It was so cold, in fact, that we couldn't stay up for the sunset, we saw the sky redden in the east, it was just pink enough to confirm that indeed that day, the sun would rise, and then we were off, down the other side of the mountain. We have been skiing in Korea, but the cold we experienced up there on that mountain was by far the coldest I have been in my life! But it was a thrilling, unforgettable adventure with a great bunch of people!

On our way down again, with a dear friend of mine, Lina, the ice angel! She is an outdoor enthusiast of note, a snowboard instructor and a lovely lady!