Fireworks Festival in Busan :)

We went to Busan for their annual fireworks festival. We'd heard great things about the fireworks here and specifically about this show they put on in Busan. The festival was this past weekend, October 23rd and 24th. We left early Saturday morning by bus, which was extremely crowded. It took about 3 hours to get in to Busan and then we had to take the subway for a bit to get to the place we were staying, Connie has a friend in Busan so we stayed there. Everyone else got a few rooms to share. After we all got settled, we met at this bar called Fuzzy Navel around lunchtime. They serve the BEST Mexican food I've ever had, or maybe I just think it's that good because I've been totally deprived of Mexican food since getting to Korea. Anyway, I had tacos and they were fantastic. :)

Kelly and Bert met us here so that was pretty great to be able to see them, catch up a bit and exchange oddities about Korea. After lunch, we all broke off our own ways. There were about 15 of us at lunch. Kelly, Bert, Connie, Kate and I went shopping. We had to take a taxi to get there, and then we had to walk a bit because we told the taxi the wrong place but we finally made it. This is the mall we went to. They call it the largest department store in the world but it's clearly a mall. I should have taken pictures of this place. It's massive, at least 9 stories tall and it has all kinds of stores I recognize from home as well as other foreign stores and Korean stores. As you might imagine, most of this place is pretty high-end. They had all the big big brands there, like Coach, Chanel, Louis Vitton, and so many many more.

After shopping, we went to the beach they were shooting fireworks off at. We were supposed to meet everyone there because they were saving us a seat, however, we got there at 8:04pm. The fireworks started at 8pm and let's just say, EVERYONE comes to this festival. There were tons of people packed on this beach like sardines in a can. It was truly astonishing. If I wasn't so scared about being separated from the people I came there with, I would have taken pictures of the masses, not to mention the fireworks, but I was a little preoccupied being freaked out.

Don't get me wrong. I definitely enjoyed the show. The fireworks were absolutely incredible- much better than anything I've ever seen at home. They had colors, shapes, sounds and designs in their show I've never seen in fireworks and they had some that just stayed in the air, without fizzling out, for a good couple minutes. Best of all, they lasted a solid 45 minutes. About midway through the show, I managed to see the top of Kate's head and I began to call her and shove as best I could to reach her and when I finally did, I did not let go. I think we may have gained a new appreciation for each other that night haha

This is Connie and I after the fireworks show. There are a lot less people around now. Thankfully.

Daejeon Rock Festival

So a bunch of us went to the Rock Festival in Daejeon a few weekends ago. In Korea there are lots of festivals going on all the time. Daejeon had the rock festival, an international food festival, and some other cultural ones all going on the same weekend. There was food from a bunch of Asian countries and Mexico and Spain (that somehow makes it international) which we could pick from when we got there. I got some Indian curry which was pretty good but the meat I had was really bony and hard to eat. The rock bands were mostly "screamy" Korean groups but there were some foreigners singing too. The festival was supposed to play music until 5am but the police came and shut it down around 2 due to noise- makes no sense. Obviously a rock festival will be loud, but whatever. Here is one of the Korean groups on stage (not even sure if you can see anyone on stage in this picture though).They had this hot air balloon going next to the river, across the street from the rock festival. This was part of some other festival. All those dots in the sky are paper lanterns lit up. See my next picture for a group of people I don't know setting one off.

After things got shut down, we went to a couple bars and a Japanese restaurant before heading off to bed. Sorry this post is so lame. The Internet has been only letting me on for 10 minutes at a time, unless it's Skype, so I'm trying to crank this out quickly so Andrew has something to read. Next, I'll talk about this past weekend where I went to Busan for another festival. Try to enjoy!

Lisa Leaves, Ivy Takes us to the Lantern Festival and the Rest..

So not too much has happened since my last post. After hiking, I stayed in Gwangyang for the rest of my break from Chuseok and I got back into working. However a few weekends ago was a happy/sad time because another person went home, Lisa. She was part of the group who went hiking in Songnisan.

To send her off, we went out to dinner and then drinking after. The picture below shows Kate and I at the Indian restaurant in Suncheon that Lisa chose. Behind us you can see the big group of people we were with. Kate, Lizzie, Pete and I got there a little late so we had our own table.

After dinner most of the group went back to their apartments (most live in Suncheon) to get ready. We were already ready so we headed to a bar to kill some time. None of us had been here before and I forgot the name of this bar but it was really trendy and had these awesome beer towers. We enjoyed this :)
The party was supposed to be James Bond themed but I am not good at dressing up... In this picture is me, Lisa :), Kate, Shari, Sheba and Meghan. This is at San Antonio's where we went after the beer tower place and then after here we headed to a noraebong. It was late night but I think Lisa had fun!
During that next week, Ivy, the Korean teacher at our school, took us to the Jinju Lantern Festival. Jinju is about 45 minutes from Gwangyang. It was incredible! Here is a picture of Kate and me with two Korean girls who came up to us asking to get a picture with us. Under that is one of the sweet floats that was on the water. There are many more pictures on Facebook of this too. While here, we looked at all the floats in the water. They all lit up and some of them moved too. We also got paper lanterns which we wrote our hopes for the future on and then sent down the river. After this we had some pork and sting ray. Not a fan of sting ray. This was on a Thursday night and Ivy told us to make sure Jasmine didn't find out we were going because she would flip if she knew we went out drinking on a work night. We got home around 11:30 and we were all a little tired the next day but it was totally worth it!

Since this, there has only been one other weekend and a bunch of us met at a girl's high school in Suncheon for a softball game. I didn't take any pictures at it but there were at least 40 of us and most everyone played. Of course I didn't :) Haha

Also, Monday night there were some very loud, unexpected fireworks that scared the crap out of Kate and I who thought we might be getting bombed.. If you want, look at the videos of the fireworks I put on Facebook. Kate and I are talking nonsense throughout them but some of them are pretty cool.

As for this weekend, I think we are going to a rock festival in Daejeon. It is going on Saturday in a park and then Ivy wants to take us to some folk village Sunday so we'll see if that happens..

Until next time :)

Hiking at 속리산 (Songnisan) National Park

Over Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, Kate and I went hiking with some friends at a National Park that is about 3 and a half hours from Gwangyang. We went up Tuesday night so that we could leave early to eat and start hiking. We stayed a hotel in the middle of nowhere and the rooms where 30,000 Won each, which is about $26. That's crazy cheap and the room wasn't even that bad! There were no bugs, except Pete had a spider above his bed haha, and it was clean, except for some dust and cobwebs. Overall, totally worth it. It had a/c and free Internet. The Internet was spotty but still better than some places at home.

Anyway, we left there around 8am and then headed to the village outside the mountain we were going to hike, ate, bought the awesome rain ponchos you see below, and started hiking just after 10am. It cost 3,000 Won to hike all day. We were there for about 7 hours and it was rough. This was my first ever hiking experience and when you see a sign that read "Danger District" you can't help but get nervous.. Haha

Still, it was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I went. We we did get up to the top, were we up in the cloud bank and it was really foggy so we didn't see the view we were supposed to, but it was still a great experience and I want to go again soon because everyone says fall is the best time to go and it's getting much cooler. We hiked about 16km which is almost 10 miles. Special thanks to PETE. I never would have made it if you haven't carried my backpack over half of the way... Thanks :)

This is from the Boyeopsa Temple which we went to visit after hiking. It was in the park on the way out. There was a GIANT Buddha too.

On our way home, we stopped for food at TGI Fridays. We each got a 3 course meal for about $20. Here is the dessert we all picked!

Eel is Delish! :)

So this past Thursday night my boss took us out for dinner. We went to the restaurant in the picture below. While there we ate a lot of different things including kimchi, ginger, radish, rice, shrimp, a spicy soup that I didn't even realize was spicy (see bottom picture), and eel. I was very excited about trying this, ever since seeing it on TV back home. I was a little grossed out at first because when they brought it out, it was still moving. Check out my other pictures and videos of this on Facebook. However, once the shock of this wore off, I really got into it. Plus they gave us some free eel for being American, or at least foreign.

This is our group, minus me. The lady in black is our new secretary lady and we call her Big Mama. In the white is Michelle. She is our cook. She doesn't know a lot of English but she's really sweet. Across from her is our boss, Jasmine. She speaks good English. Next to her is Kate and then Ivy, our Korean co-teacher.

I added this picture just to show how they cut meat. They never use knives, always scissors and tongs or chopsticks. So here Ivy is cutting the eel while its still cooking over the grill. The other picture right before I tried eel for the first time! It was really very good!!

This is said to be the hottest chili pepper in Korea. I ate it. My mouth was on fire for at least 20 minutes! haha Still worth it. Notice the leaf with eel in my right hand ready to ball up and shove in my mouth after eating the pepper! haha After eating that I chugged some Coke, which didn't help at all, and then we served the spicy soup. I didn't even notice the spice because I just thought my mouth was still not happy about the pepper.. Good times :)

Kindergarten Classes

So, not much has happened really in the past few weeks. During the week I am in school from 9:30am until 6:15 or 7pm depending on the night. Classes are going well. For this month, I teach Kindergarten first (at 10am) for a class called Phonics Vowels which is just the name of the book that I teach them with. Then I teach again every day right after lunch. On Monday's I teach Manners. Let me just say, Korean kids do not have very good manners. So far I've taught them how to introduce themselves and how and when to say "thank you" and "I'm sorry." Alongside that, I have to fill out a Manner's Checklist every day on each student's progress. I have the same checklist for a month. Let's just say, they still haven't mastered what to do yet.
On Tuesday's and Thursday I teach a class called Show & Tell. This is not what you think of as Show & Tell at home however. It's really just meant to get the students speaking in front of each other. We've talked about colors, numbers through 10 and body parts so far. On Wednesdays, I teach Art and on Friday's I teach Blocks. The Blocks class is just about using various manipulates with the students to teach them about different concepts. The one I am teaching them now is time and they are learning to use and read an analog clock. Both of these classes are going pretty well. On Monday's and Wednesday I also teach Yoga. As most of you know, I love Yoga, but I've only done it using Wii Fit Plus. Although you make fun of me (and I love you all for it :)) I still think Wii Fit Yoga is real. Haha I teach my kids the poses I've learned from that and also some other ones I found on YouTube. It's a lot of fun and it gets some of the kids to focus better. Others.. Peter.. I'm still working on.
Tonight after work we are going out for eel with our boss. I have been looking forward to trying this ever since I saw a Food Network or Travel Channel show that Andrew saved for me (I think it was Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman?)! The episode I saw focused on Korean foods and at first the eel thing freaked me out but after they cooked it, it looked really delicious. I hope I'm not disappointed! I'll let you know how that goes, hopefully with pictures soon!

Rugby in Changwon

So two weekends ago I went to Changwon with some friends to watch Rugby. A lot of the guys we've met here play so a bunch of us made the trip out to see them and hang out that night. I didn't take that many pictures but you can see some of the guys below.

The trip there took about an hour and half, the farthest we'd travel since getting to Gwang yang. That was an adventure.. Pete drives like a maniac. :) I don't want to give too many pointless details, so let's just say it was a scary drive. Once we got to the field, it was ridiculously HOT! I felt soooo bad for the guys playing. We were sitting under tents in the shade but even that was hot. We were there at least a few hours and then we went to a hotel to shower and nap before dinner.

We ate at this foreigner bar where we had some Indian curry dish. It was spicy but good. We left the bar for a few hours to drink in one of the hotel rooms we got and then we went back down to the bar when it was cheaper. It was a fun night. I discovered that night that McDonald's delivers.. even at 6am, and right to the hotel room. :) Too bad we don't have one in Gwang yang.