Pohang (포항)

As of Monday, I moved into my new home in Pohang! We live in an apartment complex (one of many) 10 minutes from 포항대흥 Elementary School where I'll be teaching. My host dad drove my principal and co-teacher to Yonsei University in Seoul to pick me up. My host mom is an amazing cook and when I told her samgyeopsal (barbeque pork) is one of my favorite Korean dishes, my family took me out for a samgyeopsal picnic by the river in Yeongcheon. They have two sons who attend the elementary school I'll be teaching at. One of them is studying in the Philippines for the year so I won't be seeing much of him but my other host brother is home and is usually "studying and playing" (his response when I ask him what he did or will do for the day). His cousin is in middle school and is also staying at their place until school starts for her. Sometimes I play soccer with them at the elementary school. Classes don't start until September 1st so I won't be teaching until then. My co-teachers have been very welcoming. One of them took me around Pohang after I first went to visit the school and meet some of the administrative staff and the other teachers. Pohang is a suburb of about 500,000 people on the east coast of Korea. It's famous for POSCO the steel industry and POSTECH one of the top science and technology universities in Korea. (It's kind of like Bethlehem...) I still have a lot of exploring to do while I'm here. Unfortunately there won't be any pictures with this post because my laptop can't access the internet at my host family's house so I'm just using their computer for now. More pictures and stories to be posted later!

IETC, TKD, and the DMZ

Last weekend a bunch of us went on the IETC (Intensive English Training Camp) trip with KEY Club (I still have yet to find out what the place is called). It reminded me of times I went camping with Travel Club at Kansai Gaidai. We were divided into different groups of KEY Club members and ETAs and competed against each other in games like “I am a model.” One person is the “model” and the others are blindfolded. Each blindfolded person feels the person before him to figure out how he/ she is standing and tries to imitate it and so on. The next game was called “Suck and blow” where you get a piece of paper and pass it down the line mouth to mouth. Our team did pretty well with that one. They seem to like to line us up girl-guy in these kinds of games. You get some pretty awkward/ interesting pictures out of it.


After that, we got in the pool with all our clothes on (I learned that people don’t wear bathing suits in Korea) and played water polo, trying to knock down empty bottles on the side of the pool with a ball while holding hands with a partner so we could only use one hand to get the ball. After dinner, we had a Miss Key pageant where we dressed up one freshmen KEY Club guy and one male ETA from each group in drag. They came down the “walkway” and demonstrated a special talent (which was usually some kind of “sexy dance”) and the judges chose a KEY Club winner and an ETA winner. I don’t know the name of the KEY Club winner, but he made a better looking girl than I did!


This week was the last week of Taekwondo classes. On Monday we were tested for yellow belt which involved going over the moves we learned in group of five in front of the kwanjangnim and the rest of the class. Needless to say, everyone passed. The rest of the week involved learning a routine of twelve steps which goes along with getting the yellow belt.



On Tuesday I actually twisted my ankle pretty badly. I did it right in front of the kwanjangnim because we started sparring and I didn’t really know what I was doing so I was hopping around trying to kick and then back away and landed on my ankle. I’ve never twisted it that badly before, but it's in the process of getting better. I went back for the last class on Thursday though (and made a fool of myself messing up the form we learned in front of the class). After class, we went out for dinner and patbinsu (a dessert that is a mix of fruit, red bean, shaved ice and ice cream) with the kwanjangnim. It was pretty cool getting to know our teacher outside of Taekwondo. He told us if we want to continue at our placements, just give him a call and he will get us in contact with a Taekwondo academy in our area. Our translator told us the kwajangnim has a seventh level black belt. Every province has a Taekwondo "master" who is the best in the province and that's our kwanjangnim. He's also part of the Taekwondo Association! Talk about making connections...

Yesterday we went to the DMZ which was an outing hosted by Hwacheon’s county officials. On the way there we stopped by a tomato festival in Hwacheon and they gave us shirts and we joined in a random parade.


We took a boxes of tomatoes home with us and they actually taste pretty good, sweet, even though I usually don’t like eating tomatoes by themselves. At the DMZ, it’s actually really beautiful there because people aren’t allowed to go in there so there’s a lot of untouched nature and wildlife. One of the tour guides told us if we took one step into the DMZ, we would probably be shot. There were signs right outside the fence warning of mines. We weren't allowed to take pictures of most of the area.

Placements

We found out about our placements today! There was a lot of buildup to the moment so that even though I wasn't overly anxious about it at first, the atmosphere of anticipation and nervousness was kind of contagious. I didn't have too much of a preference though so I think I would be happy just about anywhere. So... (drumroll.......) I will be teaching at an elementary school in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do on the eastern coast of Seoul. The name of my school is 포항대흥초등학교. (Don't ask me how to romanize it... It's possibly something like Pohang Deheung Chodeung Hakyo.)

Songnisan 속리산

This weekend, we went to Songnisan (속리산), a mountain about a 3-4 hour bus ride away from Chuncheon.



We had our first experience with squatter toilets which we were warned about in a previous workshop...


(I actually took this picture from somewhere on the internet.) For those who have not traveled to Asia before, you squat facing the dome part and do whatever you need to do into this toilet. (The proper way of squatting was also previously demonstrated in the workshop.) You also do not throw toilet paper into the toilet but into the waste basket usually conveniently provided as shown. In the restaurant where most of us first encountered these types of toilets, it was a unisex bathroom so some of us (i.e. me) ran into guys using the urinals strategically placed right outside the toilet stalls. (The urinals are basically normal urinals as far as I know.)

Anyway, back to Songnisan and the more refined cultural differences between South Korea and the U.S... Besides the toilets, we also got to eat actual Korean food (not the kind we are usually served at the university cafeteria)





We checked into our hotel a couple blocks down from the restaurant, and after listening to a speech about Buddhism given by an American monk,

we went to visit a temple




where there were not-so-American monks.


The executive director of the South Korea program (far right), gave a speech at the hotel and told us to forget about work, Korean homework, the practice teaching at the summer camp coming up and to just enjoy and relax at Songnisan.


We were originally planning on going hiking, but it rained all day Saturday so we spent the majority of the afternoon in the hotel playing cards.


It was still a good way to spend the weekend relaxing and getting to know each other. Ironically, Bethany taught us a game called "shit on your neighbor" or "fuck your friends" (a variation on spades if you've ever played that before).

On the last day, the weather cleared up and got hot and humid again. There were ajummas on the side of the street selling mushrooms or corn to passersby.


We're back at Kangwon University and orientation life now. We jumped back into the swing of things in the customary way: pretty much right after getting off the bus we had a placement workshop on our (very marginal) say in where we want to teach after the next 4 weeks.

Unfortunately, on the last night in Songnisan, a mosquito bit up my arms/ hand so my right elbow and one of the knuckles on my right hand is all swollen. I can't make a proper fist with my right hand (which should make Taekwondo difficult later today)...

Surviving the First Week

I've only been in Korea for a week but it feels like so much longer! I'm sure time is only going to fly by from here though... Korean language classes started on Wednesday and it's so much more intense than Japanese courses when I was studying abroad in Japan - Korean class every morning for 3-4 hours straight. Our first quiz is on Monday! In the afternoon, we have workshops on adjusting to Korean culture, teaching, etc. Friday, we went out to dinner with one of the speakers, Michael Hurt. We had Dakgalbi which is chunks of chicken breast cooked with vegetables and dukbokki (rice cake-ish things) in gochujang (a spicy chili sauce).


It gets a little messy because you wrap everything in a leaf of lettuce and eat it with your hands like a sandwich. So they gave us aprons to wear while we were eating it!


Yesterday we took a trip to Seoul. There were about 30 of us at the train station taking up a lot of space and getting in everyone's way! When we got to Seoul, I broke off from the group to meet with KB, a friend I met studying abroad at Kansai Gaidai in Japan. Ended up taking the wrong subway line and went in a roundabout way that took an extra 20 minutes. (Maybe I should have traveled with the group after all...) We finally found each other an hour later and had lunch at a Japanese restaurant (which was kind of 懐かしい). We both had places to go/ people to meet though, so after lunch, we went around the National Museum for 20 minutes before we had to split. A lot of people were asking me why I don't have any pictures of myself (which would be because I'm the one taking them..) so I asked KB to take this at the National Museum:

Me in Korea!
(Korea is circled in red where the guy is pointing)

KB

After lunch and the National Museum, I went to Samgakgi, a station away, and met with Rachel who is modeling in Seoul. It's ironic because we grew up in the same neighborhood since we were 2, went to college (although we didn't really keep in touch) and while I was studying abroad in Japan two years ago, by coincidence, I ran into her on a train platform in Osaka! It turned out that she was there for about 2 months modeling. Now, two years later, we're in the same country again on the other side of the world!

Duho, from Lehigh, also joined us for dinner in the southern part of Seoul. We had some kind of pork barbecue. I didn't take pictures of the food (it was delicious, basically eaten the same way as dakgalbi) but Rachel and I found the women's restroom interesting...

Girls, now you can really have a bathroom party! And they wonder why girls go to the bathroom in groups... But when you're in there by yourself, which one to use?

To make for another interesting photo, on our way back to the station, we saw this outside a seafood restaurant:


Yummy...