When the Snow Falls...

Snow.

As many of my friends know, winter holds a special place in my heart, mostly because of snow. I'm not sure what it is, but when I see the snowflakes fall, I get so excited. A few weeks ago, the first snow fell in Hwacheon. My Thanksgiving post tells you all you need to know about that adventure. But about two weeks later, it started to snow during school. At about 10am, flakes fell from the sky, and because I was teaching, I didn't even notice until we left the classroom for lunch.

At our school, the students are given time to play after they finish their food, and since I didn't have any more classes that day, the other Fulbright teacher and I decided that we needed to go out and play in the snow with the students. So for the next hour, I had snowball fights, made a snowman, and was escorted around the playground by a bunch of my 4th-grade girls. I had a ball, and so did my students. I'm not sure the last time I played in the snow like that. It was a great day, and it makes me pumped for the winter ahead (and, of course, the Ice Fishing Festival in January!). It was also such a good bonding moment for me and the students that I didn't really get to talk to. Plus, it was fun for them to get revenge on the teacher by attacking me with snow. I loved it so much, and I can't wait for the snow to come back!

Although I still have not experienced a white Christmas, I am happy I am here where we have such beautiful snowy winters. And the snow on the mountains is breathtaking. 

How I Get Around Korea

As the winter break draws near, I get more and more excited about having time to travel around Korea and visit cities that I normally wouldn't get a chance to see. In America, it can be difficult and expensive to travel a lot around the country and take two or three days in a city and move on somewhere else, but in Korea, as it is only 1/6 the size of Texas, most places are quite close together. But the transportation system in Korea is something else completely.

Now I haven't gotten to travel too much yet, despite being here for almost 6 months. But when I do, I have to use the public transportation system. I don't and will not ever have an International license to drive in Korea. First off, they are crazy. Secondly, I don't have a car. But mostly, they are crazy.

The public transportation system is great. You can basically get anywhere in the country between the buses and the trains. The buses tend to be cheaper, and intercity buses are usually pretty nice. And if the trip is longer than three hours, there is a stop at a rest stop for about 20 minutes. Those trips can get really long though. When I took a bus to Jinju for the lantern festival, the bus ride was like 6 hours. That was after traveling the three it took to get to Seoul. I haven't taken the KTX train yet, but I have used the ITX train to Seoul before. The ITX was really nice. It used the same tracks as the subway system, just made fewer stops and had better seats. You do have to pay for tickets for the train, but it's not too expensive, and the trip is quicker than the bus. And it doesn't make me as nauseous.

There are also many apps that can help you get around too. The kakao apps are great with metro, taxi, bus, and maps. Naver also has a maps app. They can help you create a plan to get where you need to go that includes all of these different types of transportation. I am definitely going to miss this when I return to the US.

Introducing....(finally).... My Host Family!

One of the things that many people were warry about when I told them, but made me more excited was my host family. Not all Fulbright programs do this, but Fulbright Korea ETAs get placed in a homestay for their first year. There are several rules that the homestay has to comply with to make sure you are happy and comfortable, for example, ETAs get their own room with a bed, and they have to feed you twice a day. There are other rules, but those were definitely ones I was worried about when I first learned about my homestay. The family can be anyone from an old married couple, to a couple with kids, to a single person, etc. The one thing they usually have in common is that in one way or another they are connected to the school. The school is in charge of finding your homestay.

So, in the past, I briefly mentioned my host family, without going much into detail. By request, here is my introduction to the people who are housing me for the year!

My host parents are awesome. Neither of them speaks much English, but they try really hard to include me and make sure I'm comfortable. My host mom is really sweet. She is a dancer, and she has one younger sister, who lives next door with their dad, her husband, and three boys. You can imagine the craziness with all the kids together. My host dad is really kind with a big heart. He is rather shy about his English, so I really only get to talk to him when he has been drinking. He shows he cares in other ways, like installing a small washer on the second floor for me to use and giving me hand lotion on the way to school one day, and when I told them I wanted to learn Taekwondo, he immediately called his friend (who is an instructor) to set up lessons. I later learned that he did that while the instructor was teaching. One time, my host dad was telling me about a plant that was growing in boxes on the bridge into town, and he didn't know the name of the plant, so he looked up a Wikipedia article, in Korean, to show me a picture and to see what the name was exactly. In the article, there was one line of writing that wasn't in Korean. He hands me the phone, thinking that it would be the name in English. Well, it was a name, only it was the scientific name in Latin. Yeah, that really didn't help. For Christmas this year, I wanted to give him a Christmas tie, since he wears one every day, but it came late, so he decided to wear the tie the day after Christmas. To Seoul.


My family also has three kids. I was especially excited about this because I am the youngest in my family, so having younger siblings was really exciting.

The oldest is 시연 (Si Yeon). She is currently in 5th grade (moving on to 6th in March), and she is a lot of fun. She always has a smile and ready to dance. She told me she wants to be an idol when she grows up (A famous k-pop singer/dancer). She likes most things girls her age would like, and recently she has taken up drawing as well. She is also in my English class, so it is fun messing with her in class.

The middle child is 민준 (Min-Jun). He is in 2nd grade and is a stubborn little boy. Because he is the middle child, he is often fighting for attention. I don't get to bond with him much, because he is more interested in playing Battleground on his phone or watching cartoons, he is still fun. He likes when I help him with his English practice because when he is writing the alphabet, I draw the letters on his back. He does enjoy playing games with me, but he would much rather play with his cousins next door.

The youngest is 민찬 (Min Chan). He is by far the sassiest and the cutest of the bunch. He is 6 in international age, and in Kindergarten. He is definitely a brat since he always gets his way, but he's too cute not to. He also acts like some little tough guy "threatening" me when he doesn't get his way. He is also picking up English faster than anyone else. He definitely knows the phrase "Kristy Game" as he says it on almost a daily bases. He also has a tendency to say "mmh hmm" in the middle of sentences when he doesn't know the word in English. This is really common when he is saying "Kristy dinner mhh hmm game" Telling me we will play a game after dinner. He also tells me things instead of asking. Brat. But he's cute.

Well, there is my host family. We also have two pets. A dog that lives outside, and a stray cat we adopted and feed every day. She also lives outside.

Thanksgiving Dinner in Seoul

Since being in Korea, I have missed my family, but I've been able to deal with that during my weekly Skype calls home. So far, there have only been two days I have truly been homesick. The first was my birthday. Although it was a lot of fun, it was also really hard because I still didn't know the other ETAs very well. I just really wanted to spend that time around my friends.

The second day that was truly very difficult was Thanksgiving. I have never missed a Thanksgiving with my family. And when I was going to school on a day that I knew most people would be getting ready for their holiday.

Fulbright, knowing how much we would all be missing our family and Thanksgiving food, they held a dinner for all of the grantees in Seoul on a military base. It was complete with all the fixings. It was wonderful. Being around all of the other ETAs and eating food that reminded me of home, made it okay that I was so far from home. Though I never got my Nana's dumplings.

Spending the evening in the room with them was great. Director Shim spoke to the group for the last time before her retirement, and we had some performances by grantees. I even sang! It was so nervewracking. I hadn't done that in years.

After the dinner was over, a large group of us were staying in Itaewon (an area in Seoul commonly known as the foreigner district), so the party was not over. It was time to go back, change out of our business professional clothes, and spend the night away from kids, grading papers, writing lessons, and with the people who have been in the same boat as us for the last few months.

It was exactly what I needed. Though I almost didn't make it to Seoul. Mother nature decided to grace us with her presence with about 6 or 7 inches of snow on the morning I was leaving. I woke up to snow already on the ground, but I didn't think too much of it. I walked to the bus terminal and bought my ticket. About 5 minutes before my bus was supposed to arrive, a man announced something to everyone. I had no clue what he said, so I tried to ask someone around me. She told me that the bus couldn't get up a hill going to Chuncheon so the bus wasn't coming. I started to panic. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to come. I ended up sharing a taxi with another family and finally making it to Chuncheon Station. I definitely took the ITX train the rest of the way. And Survived! The snow was melted before I got home. I was sad that I missed the first snow of the year but I think it was worth it.

Halloween in the Classroom

As excited as I was to spend Halloween with my host siblings, I was even more excited to teach my students about Halloween. Since they have had three previous ETAs at my school, I figured they didn't need a full-on history of Halloween. Instead, I decided to do a lesson all about monsters and talking about the different monsters in English. Where they lived, what they did, what they looked like, etc. 

So, I did a PowerPoint with different monsters like vampires, mummies, zombies, Big Foot, etc. So we spent about 20 minutes going through each monster and had a big discussion about them in English. I was really surprised how fantastic they were about coming up with the information about them. 

After we finished the PowerPoint, I had each of the students create their own monster. The monsters that the students created were so fun and awesome. They were very creative. Some of the monsters were cute, some were scary, some were real monsters, and some were completely out of their own minds. 

I also wore my own costume that day, and the kids absolutely loved it.

Fall Conference in Gyeongju

So as part of the Fulbright experience, every year there is a Fall conference and a Spring conference. The Fall conference held just before Halloween is in Gyeongju. Gyeongju is a beautiful city that used to be the capital of the Silla dynasty. It's because of this that the city has so much history and sites to visit. It was also nice because fall was in full swing up in Hwacheon, but as I went further south, it was like going back in time, it was warmer and the trees were greener.

The bus ride down was long and boring, though I did get to ride with two other Fulbrighters from my area, so it was nice not being the only one. It was especially nice when we left the bus terminal in Chuncheon and the three of us were the only people on the bus.

Once we arrived and joined the rest of the fulbrighters everything went crazy. After all, the majority of us haven't seen each other since orientation. That, coupled with the renewees reuniting, lead to one very energetic and crazy weekend.

The point of the fall conference is for all of us to attend workshops problem solve any issues we are having either in the classroom or at home. We had large group presentations and small group talks, all lead by other fulbrighters, that were very informative and helpful. We also had two presentations by educators in the field, who had tips and strategies for helping us reach all of our students. They also placed us in groups by our demographics to bounce ideas off of one another.

Outside of scheduling was just a party. We had huge meals in the restaurant of the hotel that we were staying in. We hung out after programming, catching up. There were a beautiful lake and a walking path outside of the hotel that I went for a walk one night, and ended up walking around for about two hours (mostly because I turned thinking it was a shortcut for the way back. It wasn't). We also had a trivia night, that was really fun, but my team lost. Not terribly, but we lost.

To complete the trip, they took us on a tour of some of the historical sights in the city, including the observatory, museums, temples and a tomb. The tombs in Korea look like giant lumps of land. It was so fascinating learning more about Korea's history. It was fantastic.

A Karate Girl in a Taekwondo World

Very early in orientation, taekwondo became one of my fourth points. If you are not a fulbrighter in Korea, you may not know what I am talking about. A fourth point is a thing that you do to keep your life balanced. The other three points are professional, personal and self. But your 4th point is something that is something you do that balances the rest of your life out. I have seen many peoples points being very different. Some do exercise, some volunteer, some travel and one even person does swing dance. It can be anything. My biggest and most important one is Taekwondo.

As many people know, I have studied karate since the age of 12. I have earned my way to my 2nd-degree black belt. For those who don't know, karate, in its origin, is Japan. Therefore in many ways is in direct confliction with taekwondo, despite having similar roots. When I decided to apply for my Fulbright grant, one of the ways that I wanted to really interact with the community around me is by taking taekwondo lessons. I just didn't realize how hard it was going to be when I actually started lessons.

Don't get me wrong, I have had experience with taekwondo before. The past two presidents of Martial Arts Club in college were black belts in it. Therefore, going in, I knew there were going to be some initial conflicts with what I did purely by habit after 10 years, and what the master was trying to teach me. I just didn't realize quite how not ready I was. 

For one, taekwondo is very kick heavy and they rely a lot on kicking high and kicking fast, which I have difficulty doing since I lost a lot of my flexibility and my stamina during college. But that is not the problem; I can improve that in time. What gets me are the things that I have been doing a certain way for 10 years, and now I am being told to do things I have never been allowed to do before, like short stances or dropping my hands when I kick. 

This is still going to be something I stick with, however. I really want to, and it makes you a better martial artist to know multiple forms, even if one will be your main. I definitely think I will go back to Shotokan when I get back to the states, but for now, I a working on breaking my habits, improving my speed and flexibility, and working towards my black belt test in March. We'll see what happens. Wish me luck!

Jinju Lantern Festival

My first big adventure away from Hwacheon was the Jinju Lantern Festival. I spent over 6 hours on buses. It was not a very fun ride. It was long and tedious and may not have been worth the actual total time I spent in Jinju.

The festival is another story. When I first arrived, I walked about 30 minutes from the bus terminal to the cafe that the other fulbrighters were hanging out at. I was so happy to see some familiar faces, especially since I hadn't seen most of them since we left orientation. In the small group, it was nice, catching up and just being able to speak English with someone else whose native language is also English.

The festival itself was a blur of beautiful sights, sounds, and smells. The lanterns lived up to the hype with the hall of a thousand wishes and the lanterns in the water as well as up by the fortress. There was even a water show set to music!


There was so much to see, I wish I lived closer to go more than a few hours just so I could see all that the place had to offer. There was so much to it. It is just so hard to describe everything that there was to see.

When we finished going around the festival, a few of us decided to break off from the main group and get some hot chocolate at a local cafe. It was a perfect end to a perfect night. It was exactly what I needed at the end of such an exhausting day, especially since I had to get up the next morning and take the 6ish hours on the bus back to Hwacheon. Though this time the first bus had a USB plug for my phone!

My Students are Such Actors

At the end of chapter 8 in the textbook that I use for my lessons has a roleplay/acting activity. I didn't include any pictures or videos because my students are minors and I do not have parental permission.

For 4th grade,   we had just finished a unit on "Let's play Soccer" and "It's on the desk." These two units influenced the textbook to write a script about The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf., which was one of my favorite books from when I was a kid. This lesson took two classes to complete.

For the first class, we just read through the script and practiced. We played with voices, and the students rehearsed their roles. For the second class, the students were given a few minutes to practice, and then they took turns performing them in front of the class. Before they did this, we surprised them with a video we recorded of my Co-teacher, the other Fulbrighter at my school, and I performing the script. We even had a special guest performance by one of my 4th graders to play the big bad wolf. The kids loved it. It was a lot of fun watching my students come alive with this project. Especially the ones that never talk. And they are apparently much better actors than my 5th graders.

In 5th grade, we had a bit more fun.  For their storytime script, we played a variation on "The Giving Tree" We had previously covered the units "What did you do during summer vacation?" and "Can I take a picture?"

We had started the class by reading the four "mini-scripts" which was about two or three lines each. We borrowed from tablets from another teacher and had the students pick one of the mini-scripts and with their small groups and record it. It was actually the best day to watch the kids just really get into this project. Some groups made props out of paper, others grabbed things to be props in the classroom, and one group went all the way downstairs to the mural of the Giving Tree to film in front of them.

Also, let's just say that my 5th  graders really do not understand that the tree and the boy were friends. I had multiple groups finish out the final mini-script (the one where the old man was just talking to the tree and thanking it) by attacking each other. Afterward, each of the groups showed their videos to the class while the rest of the class commented on their performances.

Everland!

So this is a bit late, but last Tuesday was National Foundation Day here in Korea. So, of course, I had to take advantage of my day off.

I spent my day in the one and only...Everland! Everland is a very famous amusement park here. It was such a fun day. I met up with two other Fulbrighters while there, and it was actually exactly what I needed at this point. By the time October rolled around, I was beginning to need a break. I am so glad that is precisely what I got.

Getting there was another story. It took about 4 1/2 hours because I first had to go to Seoul and then I got on a bus to the park. It was such a long ride. But I got there. I survived. While we were there, we rode only a few rides, but the rides that we got on were well worth it. We rode the T Express, which is a really long roller coaster. We also rode a few others, which was fun because one of the people I was there with was scared of riding them.

We also got to experience the park's take on Holloween. They had decorations everywhere, including a Zombieland area and even a parade. It was actually pretty impressive, though we did notice that in the parade, all of the people seemed to be foreigners.

Although the time spent at the park was significantly less than the total time it took to get there (9hours), it was still worth it.

Chuseok 추석

Over the past week and a half, I have been fortunate enough to get to celebrate Chuseok (추석) with my host family. Chuseok is basically Korean Thanksgiving. It is celebrated at harvest time, where the family all gets together, they do their ancestral rituals then they eat a big meal. But beyond that, there are many other traditions and things that go along with it.

The festivities began for me on Saturday. Another Fulbrighter's host mom invited us all to an event at the Children's Library. Going into it, I had no clue what was going to happen or why I was there. All I knew was I was getting to wear hanbok(한복). This is the traditional Korean clothing. I had gotten to try on some previously, during orientation, but this was completely different. The hanbok that I got to wear was my size and it had so many more components. It was beautiful. In addition to the dress and jacket part, I also had a full petticoat complete with a hoop skirt as well as pants to wear underneath everything. It was also so beautiful. I enjoyed wearing it so much. The event turned out to be an event for kids where they come and make songpyeon (송편). Songpyeon is a rice cake that is made during Chuseok. It was a lot of fun, and I got to do it with other Fulbrighters, so that is always great. There was also more to the even than just making the songpyeon. The governor of Hwacheon came and read the children a story, and then there was a magic show at the end. It was a lot of fun, even as an adult.

Sunday was filled with mostly relaxation (for me at least). My host mom was busy making all of the different dishes that they eat during Chuseok. The house smelled good all day.
Because of the holiday, I didn't have school Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. The actual day for Chuseok, however, was on Monday. That was when my host dad's parents and sisters came over to the house. They did their ancestral ritual first, at about 8:30am, then we had our big meal, at about 9:30am. I was kinda surprised how early everyone ate this huge meal.

We spent a few hours afterwards just hanging out, and then we went on this beautiful bike ride. It was so much fun. And I was surprised at how easy it was for me. When we got back to the house, the whole family ended up playing badminton in front of the house. Let's just say, I was ready for bed that night.

Tuesday was uneventful. I took a bus to Chuncheon to go shopping for some things that I needed and it was actually really nice. I was the first time that I really went somewhere and did something completely on my own. I even got to go to McDonald's. Usually, I don't eat McDonald's, even at home, but for some reason, I really wanted to go. I ended up getting some of my favourites (instead of being adventurous and trying a Korean burger) but it was what I needed. I even tried the little soft served ice cream cones for 700 won ($0.50). Wednesday was the last day of my break and it was spent well. I had previously offered to cook spaghetti for them, and they took me to the store to get the ingredients. It turned out so well. The spaghetti tasted delicious and the homemade garlic bread was a little overcooked but still good. My youngest host brother didn't even eat the spaghetti, he just ate the bread. In the end, the bowl was empty and my host family was happy. That's all I could ask for.

This holiday may be new and I still may not know what I'm supposed to do, but I enjoyed being able to have the experience.

Labor Day Weekend in Jeongseon

Somehow I ended up getting to do more in South Korea for Labor Day weekend than I ever do while at home. When I first arrived, my host mom asked me if I liked waterparks and if I had a bathing suit, which made me very glad I had bought a conservative bathing suit before I left the states. The vacation, however, ended up way more than just a waterpark and gave me a weekend of adventures and new experiences.

Saturday

So we left home on Saturday morning and met up with the other family we were going to be travelling with at a rest stop. Let the three-hour drive commence. After stopping at a rest stop for lunch, we ended up at our destination by mid-afternoon. Our trip started in Jeongseon (정선). We went to a museum that was all about the history of the area, and then the real fun began. We took a monorail up the mountain, which gave us a beautiful view of the area, to a Hwaamdonggul cave entrance. So the cave had two parts. The first part was all about the history of gold mining in the area and the second part was more cutesy have animated goblins and stuff, but the beauty of the cave was magnificent. At one point you go into this room that is huge and you are surrounded by these natural rock creations. It was very cold and very wet, but it was so worth it. Even the stairs. There were probably 15 or 20 flights of stairs we had to walk down at one point. We had a nice Korean dinner that night where we sat on the floor. Then we went to the condo, where we ate chicken and watched Korea's triumph over Japan in the Asian Games final soccer game. That night, I had my first experience sleeping on a mat on the floor.

Sunday

The second day of the trip was so much fun. I didn't get any picture because I was at a waterpark with my host family. I convinced the kids to go on the waterslides with me, where they had so much fun, and we swam in the lazy river and a wave pool. I was so exhausted by the end of the day. It was so much fun though. I loved everything about the day. It was perfect. That night we went out for dinner again. This time we had beef, and went back to the condo, eating more chicken and talking well into the night (or listening in my case since I don't speak Korean...yet).
The scenery of the trip was hard to beat. We spent so much time going up and down in the mountains that there were too many really beautiful sights of nature.

Monday

Memorial to Danjong of Joseon in place of where his house used to stand. 

On Monday, we made our way home. But that didn't stop the adventure. On the way, we stopped at Yeongwol County and visited the historical site where the 6th King of the Joseon Dynasty was exiled to by his uncle and later executed. It was a piece of Korean history that I didn't know about and I was very happy that my host family wanted to share it with me. After that, we headed back, stopping to eat lunch in a traditional Korean market and making the long journey home.

This was such a great way to spend time with my host family as well as learn more about Korea and all it has to offer. I hope that I get to take more trips like this in the future around Korea. It has so much to offer and with such little time here, I want to learn it all. 

My First K-POP Concert!

This post is going to be short and sweet. Over the weekend I went to the Leasure Sports Festival in Chuncheon and it was actually a lot of fun. I saw Taekwondo demonstrations, people climbing up a rock wall and falling into the water when they couldn't make it to the top, and these really talented BMX riders from several different countries like Japan, China, and the Philippines. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be and I actually wish I had been able to stay longer than a few hours.

That evening there was a K-pop concert to kick-off the opening night of the festival. There were so many bands there ranging from very new to huge fan bases. I will definitely be looking up a few bands that were there in order to learn more about their music. I enjoyed their songs. I also got to go with one of my other Fulbright teachers and a few EPIK teachers. It was really fun talking to other native English speakers, especially after a full week with my host family.

My Birthday! Plus A Cooking Class

Holidays away from your family can be hard. Especially the first one away from your family after moving to another country 13 hours ahead. My birthday was hard this year. It was the first one that I didn't celebrate with my parents and the first one where I wasn't around any of my family or close friends around. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't totally alone. I did get to spend the birthday with 80 other fulbrighters, and as nice as that was, it wasn't really the same.

To start out my birthday celebrations, I went out with my dynasty the day before. We went to a park not far from campus and just spent a few hours exploring. It was actually really nice. It was lowkey and just about getting out and looking around at what Korea had to see.

On my birthday, ironically, Fulbright had scheduled an extracurricular activity. A cooking class. In Seoul! It was so cool. I love cooking and so I ended up literally spending my birthday in a hot room making kimbap and japchae. It tasted so good when we finished. They also sang me happy birthday in Korean and I got to wear the birthday crown. Although it wasn't how I would have wanted to spend my birhtday, it was still a lot of fun and I'm glad to have gotten the experience of spending it in Korea.

When I moved in with my host family, they asked me when my birthday was, I told them that they had just missed it. They later surprised me with cake and told me that even though they missed it, they still wanted to celebrate it. I'm so thankful for them making the effort to make me feel like I really belonged there.





(Sorry for the short post. This post is predated back to original posting time, however, my original post got deleted somehow and this is a replacement from memory 6 months later)

Last Week of Orientation

My last week of orientations was...well, a tearful one. As I knew everything was coming to a close and that we were all moving on to the reason we all began this adventure, I couldn't help but think about everything that we were leaving. Between the 85 new friends that I have made to the nightly walks around Campus Town, or even just the familiarity of speaking with another native English speaker, I knew that the last six weeks were going to be something I will miss, and the memories I will cherish.

The week started off with preparations for our Korean Language Instruction Graduation. I even now have a paper that tells me I completed 110 hours of instruction in the Korean language, though it doesn't feel like it. I was terrified because it meant that my class and I would have to speak in front of Director Shim, all the Korean teachers, and the rest of the cohort. In Korean. I am so thankful for the rest of my class. They really helped me through it. After our mini-skits, we sang "Remember Me" from the movie COCO, in Korean. I actually really enjoyed that part. My 선상님s (Teachers) were all crying as they gave us hugs and took pictures with us. I may not remember much about the Korean language, I did learn a lot about the culture and gained five more people I could turn to for help.

After that was our farewell from Taekwondo. It was a lot of fun those eight classes, and the master even took us out to dinner to celebrate our time there and to new adventures. Each of the kids was also assigned to give us each a note. Mine was so adorable. The boy called me a 외국인누나 (Foreigner older sister) which was too cute.

We also had our talent show, which I talked about in a previous post. That was so much fun finding out about people's talents I didn't know they had. Like singing, spoken poetry, and so many ukeleles. It was great. There was also a spoof on the OCTs which was spot on and hilarious. I am so proud of the people that wrote it.

Flowers from my Co-teacher

The next day we finally got our ARCs and our homestay information. I am staying with a lovely family with three kids. A girl 시연, who is in my fifth-grade class, a boy 민준 who is in second grade and a little boy 민찬 who is 7 and will start school in March. They are all so adorable, but more on them later.

Friday was the day. It was the day that we all go our separate ways. It was a tearful and exhausting day. I met my co-teacher, who I think I will get along with very nicely, and I traveled all the way to Hwacheon, my home for the next year.

I am grateful the Fulbright Korea gives us those six weeks to learn and create the support system that exists now.

Dynasty Bonding

So as orientation came to a close, so did Dynasty Bonding. Dynasty bonding is essentially the OCTs putting us into smaller groups so that we can get to know some people we wouldn't otherwise talk to, after all, there is 80 of us. So they split us into 8 groups of 10. Each group was named after one of the Korean dynasties.
My group was named after the 가야(Gaya) dynasty. It was a lot of fun getting to know some people that I hadn't really talked to yet. So throughout orientation, they held several events and chances for us all to get to know each other, but more than that, it was a competition. There were challenges and games for us to play to earn points for our dynasties. My dynasty did really good. The biggest of the challenges was pictures.
There were so many photo challenges each week. Pictures hanging out in Sokcho, in every color of the rainbow, hanging out in Songdo, forming human words, dancing to K-Pop, etc. We did a bunch of them. I had so much fun getting to know the 9 others in my group. We went to Central Park together, went out for ice cream, and really supported each other throughout the 6 weeks.

To end it all was the Talent show. Where all of my new friends came out and showed off their awesome talents. At the end of the show, they totaled the dynasty points and we got 3rd place! Which I think was pretty good. They gave us chocopies and cute things as prizes. It was a fun time.

Fulbright English Program

These last two weeks have been insane! Every year Fulbright hosts am English Camp for Korean students to come and have an immersive English learning experience. It is hosted with us because it is also an opportunity for us to teach the students in the classroom before we are sent out into our field placements. It was awesome. I taught two lessons with a co-teachers. The first lesson, I thought, went fantastically well. I was really proud of the lesson. The second one was just a bit disorganized, but it was still a lot of fun and I feel like the kids did learn something from both lessons.

Outside of class, the ETAs were able to participate in Night Fun, which is just a few hours of different activities to hang out with the students, and Activity Weekend, which is just us trying to keep the students entertained throughout the weekend. Both of these events were so much fun. The students were anywhere from 10 to 17 years old so the dynamic was really interesting, but their English levels were fantastic, even for the "low beginners" which really weren't. I was so impressed with them. They were so entertaining to talk to.

This morning was Graduation day and we had to say goodbye to the students as they were all going home, and it was surprising the amount of emotion from the ETAs. The actual graduation was hilarious. The students put on little skits and presentations and it was so cute. I was so proud of them as they had improved so much in two weeks and they were so proud of their everything they did.

Sokcho Weekend

Last weekend KAEC took all of the ETAs to Sokcho for a three day weekend of Korean history and culture, with a little vacation sprinkled in. It was such a fantastic adventure. Sokcho is on the opposite coast from where we are now. Which means we crossed the boundary line of the river! I don't know why but everyone got really excited when we crossed over. I even took a picture. It is on the eastern coast in the northern part of the country. The trip there was beautiful. The landscape is very similar to the surroundings of my town. The tall green mountains and the wide blue rivers. It is inspiring to get that little taste of my grant year on the long bus ride to and from Sokcho.
Though the bus ride was uneventful, the rest stop wasn't. If you are ever in South Korea, one of the things you have to experience is the rest stops. They aren't like what they are in the US. They are an adventure in of themselves. First thing is they are larger than you would think, with some inside and some outside areas. While there is a bathroom, the main focus of these rest stops is the shops and the food. There are shops (including a clothing store) and all of these places to get the iconic Korean food that you can only get at rest stops. You might be able to get them elsewhere, but that is what our teacher told us in Korean class. It was still early, so I didn't get any food, but a lot of the other ETAs did, and they were so happy with their choices.

Once we got there, we were treated to lunch with a view of the ocean. We all wanted so bad to get in. The temperatures outside all weekend were in the upper 90s

. After lunch, we listened to a lecture about Buddhism by oddly enough, a monk who thirty or forty years prior was a Jewish guy from Philly. But it was fascinating the things that he talked about. The different ideas of what Buddhism represents, where it comes from and the history of Buddhism in context through India, China, Korea and Japan. We went to Naksan Temple (낙산사) afterward to explore and to watch a nightly ritual. We even ate dinner there. It was surprisingly good. I also helped do the dishes for all 80 of us. The Temple was beautiful. The flowers, the stones, the buildings and the statues are all so beautiful. After the temple, some of us decided to go down to the beach and hand out. It was a beautiful night, and so many people were out just having fun and hanging out. There were even some fireworks. Apparently, this is a regular thing. 

Day two we a lot less hectic. I spent the day enjoying the beach (though I did manage to get a bit burned). It was wonderful. The water was cold and refreshing, and I was surrounded by my new friends. It was very relaxing. I also got to take note of how Koreans do the beach. Many of them are in more clothing than I am used to, like swim shirts and shorts, as well as hats and even on floats. I don't think I had ever seen so many floats in the ocean before. That night for dinner, we were taken to a Korean meal, only we didn't have to sit on the floor. But it was so delicious, and it was so cool. After dinner, a small group of us decided to walk to the North Korean Refugee Village. This is a tiny little island that is inhabited by refugees from North Korea who settled there after the Korean war when they weren't allowed to return home. It was a cute little town with lots of shops and adorable ajummas trying to sell you their food. One was so sweet. We were taking a selfie, and she asked if she could take the picture for us. I'm pretty sure she really just wanted to reposition us in front of her restaurant, but it was adorable and sweet.

On Sunday, we had to check out early and head home. On the way home, we stopped at Ojukheon (오죽헌) and Seongyojang (선교장). These are estates of significant people in Korean history. Ojukheon is the home of a mother and son who are both on Korean money. These places were so beautiful, but it was so hot that I didn't take very many photos. I was very thankful for the inside portions of the museums, but I did love looking at the old Korean architecture. It was so much fun. We finished our weekend out with yet another traditional Korean meal, except this time we went all out. We sat on the floor and had to take our shoes off. It was really cool, and I tried a bunch of food that I have no idea what I ate. Some of it was good, and some weren't. But it was fun attempting to eat it. We then proceeded to spend several hours on the bus on the ride home because we kept hitting traffic.



The whole cohort of ETAs, 80 strong, plus our 6 awesome OCTs on the misterablely hot day.