Hello!
So a lot has
happened since my trip to Japan in January. I wasn't happy at my school and was
getting constant negative feedback from my boss. She actually gave me an
official warning of poor performance because students complained that my
classes were boring…. So I quit in March and found a new school to work at
starting in April! I've been working at my new school for just over a month now
and it's been great!! The kids are lovely and my co-workers are very nice.
It's a more established academy and has
more advanced students and more middle school classes, which I love to teach.
Younger kids are cute and can be fun… but I really love it when they get to the
age where you can tease them and if you leave them alone in the room for more
than 30 seconds, you don’t find them hiding under desks or running wild around
the room!!
I have one middle
school student who tries to secretly study vocabulary under his desk while I
teach… I have to CONFISCATE HIS VOCABULARY BOOK EVERY CLASS because we won't
stop studying… rebel…
The new school is
located in a more centralised area of Busan, so I can go places before work and
I run into other foreigners!! I also live closer to my Korean friend SeongJune, so we
meet for coffee or food before or after work. This has made me feel way less
isolated and alone over here :) Things are looking up!
Last
week was Buddha's birthday and Children's day, so I had a few days off
work! SeongJune and I took a trip
up to Mount Jiri for a few days. On the way up, we stopped in at Ssanggyesa
temple 쌍계사 and the Choi
Champandaek 최참판댁 property.
Ssanggyesa temple
was colorfully decorated for Buddha's birthday and there were a fair amount of
people there for the celebration! You could pay to hang a lantern with your
name on it, either for a day or for a year. I'm assuming it's supposed to give
you good luck.
The temple was
originally constructed in the Silla Era, but was burnt down during the Japanese
invasion in the 1500s and was later rebuilt. The temple area is made up of many
separate buildings. After entering through the main gate, there are many different
staircases that lead to different temple buildings. Most of the buildings look
pretty much the same, with similar designs painted on the outside and the
interior. I don't know if each building has a unique purpose, or if you just
get to choose where you want to pray that day… The temples don't usually come
with instructions (at least not in English).
The Choi Champandaek
property used to be owned by one of the wealthier Korean families (the Choi
family, in case that wasn't obvious from the name). The property, like the
temple, was also made up of many out-laying buildings, each with its own
purpose. It's all located on a mountain side and has a beautiful view of the
surrounding area. On one section of the property, they had live chickens and a
cow. Apparently Koreans are a little
skittish around farm animals. A few people were carefully holding up long
pieces of grass for the cow to eat, but were being careful not to let it get
too close to their hands. To SeongJune's surprise, I casually started petting
the cow's face and talking to it as if it were a dog… He later told me that
that was a very Canadian thing for me to do.
We then drove up to
Uisin 의신 and stayed in a MinBak 민박 which is a small, one-room accommodation. We had
one room with a heated floor to sleep on. The Minbak provides sleeping mats,
pillows and blankets to lay out on the floor. We also had a kitchenette with a gas
stove top, sink, rice cooker (of course) and mini-fridge.
The first night we
had them set up a Korean BBQ grill for us and we cooked pork and vegetables for
our dinner :) We soon noticed that our dinner was attracting the resident cats…
so we tried to make friends with them by throwing small pieces of meat to them.
They were quite wary of us and wouldn't get close enough to touch. We had to
re-throw a few pieces of meat that were apparently too close to the door for
them to risk grabbing.
The next day, we
drove to the entrance to a hiking trail on Mount Jiri 지리산. We hiked 5 km up and 5 km down the side of
the mountain (It took us about 5 hours. At the turn-around point at the top,
there was a meeting area where multiple trails merged together. The meeting
area had a building with a resting room, washrooms and a picnic area where you
could sit and rest. As we sat eating our sandwiches ( my friend had never made
sandwiches before and photographed the process), I watched as many different
groups of hikers pulled out their camp stoves and their instant ramyeon
packages. I thought this was a strange choice, since they were all day hikers…
Who brings a stove on a day hike?! There
are so many more convenient foods to bring for lunch that don't involve boiling
water!!!! Most of the people hiking had large packs with them (the kind you
would take if you were planning on backpacking for a month)… What was in them
aside from their instant noodles and their stove, I can only guess. My friend
says that it is normal for Koreans to always carry large hiking bags with them
when they hike… maybe half of it is full of kimchi… in case they get lost in the
woods and need something to survive on. Hahahahahahaha.
The only wildlife we
saw on our hike were chipmunks… We were warned of a bear and they had bear
signs posted along the trail… but no such luck. SeongJune was concerned about a
bear and asked me if I knew how to "fight off the bear"… so maybe it
was a good thing we didn't run into the bear, because apparently my friends
thought we should engage it in hand-to-paw combat to save our lives.
That night, we chose
to watch Revenant, which seemed fitting for the end of our day of hiking.
All-in-all a great long weekend :)
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