The past month in Recap

This past month has been busy and has given me less time to update this blog, so here's a summary of the last month:

I've met some people in Seoul and so have been making the 2 1/2 hour trip between Hongseong and Seoul every other week or so to hang out. There I've gotten lost in a miles long auto tunnel, explored the "hip" districts around Sinchon and Hongik University, gone dancing at hip hop clubs, visited the interesting but ultimately bad Computer music festival at the Seoul arts center, and eaten some decent (at least for Korea) international cuisine around Hongik and Itaewon. Come January Korean schools go on a 2 month winter break and so I will be moving to Seoul during that time to take more Korean classes and, possibly, do an internship so I'm interested in exploring the city a little more. Seoul isn't a very appealing place to live long-term, but two months will be great to get involved in some stuff that isn't available in my small town. Also: the sort of youth culture that I am constantly missing being away from America has a bit more of a presence in Seoul.

The 19th-21rst F-bright held their fall conference in Gyeongju -- the capital of the Shilla dynasty for 1000 years. Called the "Kyoto of Korea" it has the largest collection of historical structures in any one place in Korea. We had two days of lectures and meetings, sharing our experiences, catching up, and discussing how we can improve our teaching methods. That Sunday we spent the entire day visiting historical sites and I have pictures for about half of them, but my camera was dropped and so they are stuck on there until I either fix it or get a new camera. We visited Seokguram, Bulguksa, Goeneung, Bunhwangsa, Anapji, Gyeongju National Museum, Cheomseongdae Observatory, and the Cheonmachong tombs. When I get the pictures off of my camera I'll post pictures of this stuff and explanations of what they are. Monday I went on a hike with some other ETAs in a provincial park just outside of the city. The landscape was pretty diverse -- ranging from rocky peaks to green valleys cut by pebble-lined streams.

On Friday last weekend the three other ETAs that teach in Hongseong and I held a halloween party for our host siblings. Everyone wore costumes and we bobbed for apples, carved pumpkins, gave out candy, and played a whole slew of games. It was interesting to watch the kids do these activities that I've done every year for the first time ever and to see how weird/ funny our Halloween traditions are. On Saturday of last week I went to a wedding reception dinner for a member of my host-family's family and then my host-family got in the car and drove to Naimjangsan -- a national park two hours south of our town. The park is one of the most popular in Korea for Tampoong -- the word Koreans use to describe the process of the leaves changing each fall. Koreans are obsessed with seeing the leaves beginning to change -- every hotel and motel around Naimjangsan were booked and so we stayed in a jimjillbang with so many people crowded in that dozens of people had to sleep on the floor of the changing/ lockers rooms and people had to be moved so that people could just open their lockers!!! We had to wake up at 4 in the morning just so that we'd have a chance of getting a parking spot in the park and already at that time the parks lots were almost filled and large groups had begun hiking up to the peak. We finished hiking and look around by 10 in the morning and by that time the park was closed because it had become filled over capacity. I'll write a longer entry on all this in the future.

My weekends are almost all planned until the end of December which is crazy for me. I'll be in Seoul alot through November -- attending a f-bright and us embassy thanksgiving meal and proctoring english tests at the end of the month. I'll also be helping my host-family make Kimchi which I am very excited for.