Jirisan National Park and Hwaeomsa Temple

I'm writing this while sitting on an express bus from Gurye to Busan. It's Sunday morning (May 3rd) and we've just don't two days in Jirisan National Park. We weren't really sure what to expect from this place, other than it's popular for hiking and is the biggest and oldest national park in Korea. It lived up to every expectation.

After researching our options for getting from Buyeo to Gurye, we decided to take a taxi. A very expensive taxi. It ended up being about 200,000 WON ($210 CAD) and was about 1:45 in duration. If we bussed or took a combination of buses and taxis, it would have easily taken 6 hours or so and would have been pretty pricey also. In hindsight we should have fired out how to rent a car. Our current commute is not too bad though. It was an $8 taxi ride to the bus terminal and then $16 each for the bus. 

As soon as we got to our motel (it's called a pension, but I don't quite understand it, so I'll just call it a motel) we dropped our stuff off and headed for the national park and the mountains. We were situated quite close, only about a 5 minute walk to get to the National Park, which had an entrance fee of 3500 won. We walked up along a River and past a resort and eventually hit the temple. It's a pretty big temple with many building and is actually quite touristy, but monks still live there and go about their business. After some time wandering around we found the trail that led up the mountain. We took this for about an hour. It's quite steep hiking and the trail is mostly made up of rocks and boulders that you scramble along. We eventually came across a random cafe and stopped for iced Americanos, as you do. Leaving the cafe, the trail gets quite steep and it's 5km to the top. We made it a little over half way and decided to turn back. It was just taking too long and we had started too late in the day to make it worthwhile. We hung out beside the River for a short snack break and to cool down and then started making our way down. We were in shorts and t-shirts and sweating like mad, while Korean hikers were ALL wearing long sleeved shirts and pants, so had gloves and some had warm hats. It just doesn't add up!!

We made our way back to the temple and then down and out of the park to some nearby restaurants. We had a meal at a restaurant and went back to our motel to clean up. We decided to head into Gurye and check it out. We caught a cab along the road while walking as we wouldn't be able to walk on some of the roads that take you into town. The kind taxi driver dropped us off in the middle of the town and refused to take our money! He called it 'service'. We wandered around the town, looking for another restaurant to eventually have dinner at. While walking, we saw a couple foreigners step out of a building and so we approached them. Turns out she lives in Gurye and was able to make some suggestions. We eventually found a good little place and had yet another bibimbap dinner (I also had kimbap). After dinner we caught a taxi back to our motel and passed out pretty easily!

Yesterday was a much more relaxing day. We got up and made our way back up to the national park and back to the cafe along the trail. Again we had Americanos and enjoyed the views. After this we wandered all along a dirt road back down (3.5k) to the temple where we hung out and watched the goings on. We eventually went to the resort that is in the national park and got some traditional Korean adult beverages that we enjoyed outside. While in the resort, we noticed some massage chairs. They looked good so we went back to test them out. $1 got us 10 minutes of glorious deep tissue massage, just what we needed to stay relaxed. The rest of the day was pretty laid back, another meal and then eventually back to our motel around 7:30 where we hung out outside until 9:00 or so and then off to bed...

And so now we are on our way to Busan and the second leg of this trip!

Our EPIK Life in Buyeo

This blog post is well overdue, and I’m a little worried about the daunting task ahead of me here. It’s been way too long, and way too much has happened since my last post. I’d love to be able to document all of the details, but so much happens each day that it would be impossible.

The Teaching:

The teaching has been great so far. We're teaching middle school, which here is grades 7 - 9. It's been fun so far, but we're really now just getting into the thick of it. I have a tricky little set-up though. We both teach at multiple school (Julia 3, me 4), but my situation is a bit more hectic. Julia teaches out of the standard textbook at all of her schools, so she'll be making 3 lessons per week on average. I have two schools that I teach from story books (right now it's Cat in the Hat and Big Fat Cat and the Mustard Pie). For those schools, we read a few pages and then I make up random activities and games to have them practice reading and using some language from the text. I can be pretty creative and do what I want here, but I also have to discuss the lessons with my co-teachers (I have 7 total). At another school (which is a 45 minute bus ride away) it's a totally different situation. I have no co-teacher, and I teach the same 11 students for 3 periods in a row. It's considered extra-curricular. I can do WHATEVER I want. Right now we're remaking the music Video for 'Friday' by Rebecca Black. An absolutely awful song, but it's hilarious, and pretty simple and the kids are digging it. These kids are great, and I know I’ll have a lot of fun with them this year. They chose to be in this class, so they're well behaved and motivated. At my 4th school, I teach from the textbook, so I'll likely be stealing Julia's lessons and tweaking for my class sizes. At my main school I have 11 classes per week, and then 3 at each of the others. I'm technically 2 short of where I should be (22) at the moment, but I'm okay with that. :) All in all though, the teaching is going well! We're both learning lots and just taking it all in as it comes. We have some pretty funny things that happen all the time. We’re told we’re handsome / pretty, have long noses, ‘special hair’ (Julia), I was told I have big muscles. The kids are hilarious. Classroom management is the trickiest at my main school because my class sizes are more than double my next largest (they’re ~32 – 35 each). We’re still working on perfecting our lesson planning and trying to become quicker at it, but it will take time to test things out in the classroom and see what works (in general and in our particular situations). This will all come with time though.

Everything Else

We finally got gym memberships. We’re at Gangnam fitness (yes, Gangnam). It’s not a huge gym, but it’s got the basics and isn’t terribly busy. So far so good. It’s about a 10 minute walk from home. Only drawback so far, which we found out this morning, is that they’re not open on Sundays. Very disappointing! Instead of working out, we walked about 17.5km.

Right across from where we live is Busosaeng Mountain. It’s amazing up there. It’s a big park with trails and monuments and all sorts of stuff. It’s not a hill, but not a mountain. You can walk to the top in about 30 minutes or less. There’s lots of trail to keep busy in there and we’ll be spending a lot of time in the park this year. 

We found that we can go out on the roof of our building. This excite us because we’ll bring some basic gym stuff out there and do workouts. We can bring stuff like a skipping rope, kettlebell, maybe even a box for box jumps, and get in workouts more conveniently. 

We got our bank account last week. We just need to figure out how to send money home to Canada. We do have mortgage payments to make still! We’re with NH Bank. 

We got cell phone plans this past week also, pumped for that! We’re with SKT. 

On Friday we had a couch delivered. We ordered and paid for it ourselves. Julia is sleeping on it until the mattress shows up. After 3 weeks of sleeping on the floor, our bed frame arrived on Saturday, but no mattress just yet. Hopefully in a few days. 

We have 3 restaurants that are our favourites. One we go to for Bibimbap, one for Ssambap and one for Wallamssam.  They already know us well at all of these establishments. Meals are $6, $7 and $12 respectively.

Next weekend will be our first weekend vacation of sorts. We’re going to Seoul. We’re going to meet up with another couple from Tennessee that we met at orientation and hang out with them for part of the weekend. At some point we’ll meet up with John (Julia’s cousin) also, if he’s available. 

Random points:

-        We love rice cakes. Here they are not diet food, they are dessert, and they are fantastic.

-        Non-Koreans are few and far between. We’ve seen 4 – 5 in 3 weeks. 

-        We get 4 English channels on TV: Euro-Sport, BBC Knowledge, Nat Geo Wild, History Channel

-        We’re ever so slowly learning the bus system around here. We need to bus to our other schools, so we take the busses 3 days a week. 

-        We found an amazing network of bike paths that, when joined, we can travel all over the country! I want to plan a long distance trip.

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Settling in, in Buyeo

It’s been a few days and much has happened. It feels like it’s been a month already and we haven’t even officially started teaching! 

We’re in our new apartment. It’s (expletive) incredible. Brand new, amazing location, everything we could ask for and then some. We weren’t expecting the first place to be so bad, and we certainly weren’t expecting this place to be so friggin’ amazing. We got very lucky. It must have been a sight to see us carrying the big ole bike box from one apartment to the other (about 1.5km). That bike box travelled in 1 SUV, 2 Airplanes, 2 Busses, 1 Car and then by hand. It’s finally in its final resting place. I’m excited to get the bike built and get some riding in!

This week we’ll be getting a lot of stuff figured out with setting up our life here. First is the alien registration card, then bank accounts, cell phones, gym memberships and taekwondo classes. We need to buy a bunch of stuff for the apartment including a table, armoire, chairs, kitchen utensils, couch etc. A fridge, washing machine, bed and TV are provided and all will be brand new. So far we have a fridge. Our sleeps have been lackluster, but we are by no means complaining!

 

 

I had a welcome dinner with my school to kick off the new year and it was awesome. I love watching and learning. I drank a bunch of soju until I felt pretty comfortable. Korean drinking culture is great. People will walk up to you with a shot glass and bottle of something, give you the shot glass and pour you a drink. You drink and then return the favour. I did this a bunch and worked up the nerve to do it with the principal, vice principal and head of administration. I was told it made a very, very good first impression. The whole evening was awesome. I feel more like a part of this team, even though I can only speak to a handful of people (still more than Julia… which is totally minimal). 

We’re exploring our area and finding our favourite restaurants. So far Ssambap and bibimbap and great options for Julia, and I’m pretty open to anything. Yesterday I ate pork belly and larvae of some sort, but likely won’t make a habit of it. We also have a nice coffee shop right behind our place. We can walk there in roughly 1 minute, door to door. Dangerous. 

It’s true, wifi here is next level. Even in a rural area like ours, we can find it just about anywhere while walking down the street.