My brother came to visit me! He was here during the first two weeks of October, when I had almost a week off work because of holidays.
Last week was Chuseok, which is a holiday known as Korean Thanksgiving. Chuseok fell on Wednesday this year, which meant that we got an extra long break - 10 days off. My mom came to visit!
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At the beginning of the month I went to Pyeongtaek for a Native English Teacher workshop. There were about 80 other foreign teachers and we spent 2 days discussing EFL teaching and learning new techniques. We stayed overnight in dorm rooms and it was actually a lot of fun - except that I had a headache from speaking so much English. There was also a cafeteria there and the food was surprisingly good.
At the end of the first day they had a performance for us, and it was a band playing traditional Korean instruments as well as a pansori singer. I'm actually really interested in pansori, which is a form of musical storytelling which originated in the 1600s. I've been trying to compile the pansori madang but it's difficult because they aren't very accessible to non-Korean speakers. Even though I can't understand the stories, I still think it's nice to listen to and I appreciate how complex it is to sing pansori. The singer who performed for us was lovely.
I think I have a new favorite restaurant in my town. They have real pizza! And pasta! With an alfredo sauce that isn't terrible! However, I went to this restaurant three times with three different friends in the same week and the same employee took my order all three times, so I need to not show my face there for a while.
After lunch we went to a cafe which is owned by a famous actor (I've never seen any of his movies or TV shows, though). It was on a lake and there were gardens to walk through. It was pretty. We were there for maybe an hour and I spent a good amount of that time trying to get the attention of a German Shepard that was sleeping on the porch. I was mostly unsuccessful.
I'm desk-warming all this week, then next week I'll be in Jeju-do!
In early June, my friend Leigh and I went to the Korean Folk Village which is in our province. It's set up to look like a traditional Korean village with replicas of how towns and buildings used to look. They use the village as a filming location for historical dramas and movies. Here's me with saeguk Kim Soohyun. The fact that it looks like I'm holding his hand was totally unintentional and it's great.
Last time I was at COEX Mall this area was under construction, but it's open now and it's a giant library! What a great idea. I could spend a whole day here, so I'll have to go back some other time.
On Friday my coteacher and I left school right after lunch and went to an elementary school in my province for an open class. I had my open class a few weeks ago, where people from the Ministry of Education and other native English teachers came to my class to essentially evaluate me. We sat in on the class and then had a meeting where we talked about what we thought of it. Afterwards, all of the teachers at my school went out for dinner as a going away party for two ladies from administration who are moving to new schools. It turned out to be quite an evening.
Round 2 was at a sul-jib - "alcohol house" - a few blocks away. The art on the walls of the sul-jib was amazing, but by far the best picture was this one of Bob Ross. I was laughing at it and got up to take a picture and my coworkers wanted to know why. I was like, do you know who he is? No one knew, so the picture wasn't funny to them.
Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Seoul for a concert. It was a Japanese and Korean rock festival with 5 bands. I was there to see Miyavi and FTIsland, but the other 3 bands were certainly interesting. Like, I used to listen to a few Japanese rock bands who did visual kei, but that was almost 10 years ago. I didn't know Japan was still doing it. Then one of the groups, Codomo Dragon, came out and I realized I was wrong. The normal-looking guy in the middle is my guy, Miyavi. All the other guys are doing the visual kei look, and I seriously spent their whole performance watching the drummer because he was sitting all stiff like he didn't want his headgear to fall off. I was into their music though.
Bonus Namsan Tower in the background if you squint.
Soooo Miyavi was the third act and up until then I hadn't seen anyone with their phones out, so I assumed this concert was also no-photos-allowed and didn't take any photos or video of Miyavi's performance. Then when the next band came out, everyone got their phones out and started taking pictures. I was so salty about it. I could have gotten video of Miyavi's performance of The Others! A missed opportunity. He also performed Horizon, which is my favorite song of his. I went crazy. His 45-minute set was not enough and he needs to come back for a solo concert immediately. With Bobo on drums next time.
I did take a short video of FTIsland, the other band I was there to see. I saw them in New York in 2015 and I was in the second row, literally so close to the stage that it was awkward to look them in the eye. Clearly nothing tops that, but this was still a great show. Hongki is, in my opinion, one of the best singers (ever). I'll definitely be seeing them again before I leave Korea.
Hello~ Nothing too exciting to report today. I've been taking it easy all month - May started out with midterms for the kids, which meant no teaching for me, then we had a week off for holidays. That was followed by a day off for the presidential election and then my birthday. I had plenty of time to get ahead with lesson planning and make some games for the kids to fit into future lessons.
After exams were finished all of the teachers went to a nearby agricultural park for a few hours then we had dinner together in the evening.
We had off on May 3rd for Buddha's birthday, so I went to Seoul for the day to see the lantern displays while they were still up. I was glad that the holiday fell on a Wednesday because one of the things I wanted to do while I'm here was join a Wednesday demonstration. These demonstrations have taken place every week since January 1992. People gather in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul demanding that Japan acknowledge and apologize for war crimes - specifically the sexual slavery of Korean women during WWII. There are about 40 victims still alive today, so it was meaningful for me to be able to attend a protest for the women who survived.
I included a picture in my week 6 post of Gwanghwamun gate in front of the palace. This time I actually went inside and walked around Gyeongbukgung. The complex is huge and my time was limited, so I'll have to go back again and walk through a different section next time.
There were many people dressed in hanbok - traditional Korean clothing. I snapped this photo of two ladies having their own photoshoot:
"Radish" in Korean is 무 (moo). As soon as I spotted this, I turned to my friend like, "It's a 무! Why is there a 무?!" I don't know why there was a giant radish, but I had to get a picture with it.
In the evening I spent hours walking along the Cheonggyecheon, a stream that cuts right through Seoul. The mouth of the stream was crowded with people for the lantern festival, but further downstream there were few people and it was quite serene - there were parts that made it easy to forget that you're literally in the middle of the city. I'm not sure how long the stream is, but there are 22 unique bridges which cross overhead and I saw maybe half of them. I also stopped at Palseokdam and attempted to throw a coin in the well for good luck.
I celebrated my birthday by going out for Korean BBQ with a friend of mine who is also a native English teacher, then we met up with one of my coworkers and the three of us went to a Korean dessert cafe. Dessert was amazing but we dug right in and I forgot to take a picture first :(
