Hello World Pt. 2

So I left off on the fieldtrip. Monday morning I woke up feeling okay, not great but not like death. We ate breakfast and then boarded the buses to head out. We left about 9am and headed to the Traditional Culture Center about 30 minutes away or so. There we got to see and do traditional Korean dance, then we went into the craft room and made traditional Korean paper fans , then finished off with some really awesome Korean drumming called Samulnori http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-q9tvKrZcQ go to 3:00 to hear what it really sounds like. It's really awesome. After that we went to a restaurant called Han-byuk-roo and had bibimbop, a traditional Korean dish, and some other small dishes, for lunch. Bibimbop is... not my favorite dish but it's also not the worst thing I've ever eaten and it's very filling. But not really my thing. Then we got to take a walking tour through a historic area called Hyang-gyo and then spend some time in historic Hanok Village. After that we got on the buses and rode for an hour and a half up a mountain to the Keumsan Temple. It was beautiful. We walked down a path covered by great big old trees and then crossed a bridge over a beautiful stream splashing down over rocks and then climbed the mountain the rest of the way to the top where the temples sat. Inside the temples were lots of huge, like 10-15 feet tall, gold covered Buddha and their smaller female counterparts. It was really beautiful and it was really cool to get to see and experience a part of the asian, particularly Korean, culture but while I was standing at the temple looking at everything all I could hear was Satan whispering "Don't you wanna try it? Don't you just wanna bow before the statue?" At which point I got nauseous and promptly exited the temple stage left and set into a very thorough prayer for protection and guidance and the wisdom to know where to go and how far is too far into the culture. Then I went up the rest of the way to the veerrryy top of the mountain, saw the rest of the sights to see, appreciated the beauty and the difference and what it all lent to the culture and went back down. Then my stomach started cramping so bad I just sat down til we went back down the mountain. Back down by the buses we went over to the water and the rocks and got to splash around or sit on the rocks or whatever. Some of the boys found a rock that worked as a water slide and since they didn't mind getting wet they jumped in and did the "look at me I'm so cool" boy thing haha. So we sat around and did that for a while, then got back on the buses and headed back to the dorms. Felt worse and worse all day, really awful when we got back so I crashed in my room. Missed dinner, when I woke up I was super dizzy and my throat was dramatically worse so I went down and saw the nurse and she gave me a pill for my dizziness and 3 sets of 2 for my throat, 1 for that night, and 2 for the next day to be taken after eating. So I ate some crackers left over from the flight and took the pills and crashed again. Tuesday I woke still feeling really awful, full day of classes, early to bed, classes all day Wednesday and then working on my lesson plan then bed.

Which brings me to today, Thursday. :] Today we watched and presented our lesson plans all day and then gave feedback on everything. THEN FINALLLLLLLY, we had our meetings with our POEs (basically our managers) to sign our final contract and find out where we're going and what we're teaching and everything. Soooo, drumroll pleaseeeee..... I am going to be living in a very small... village, for lack of a better word, called Yeongdeok, pronounced more like Yengdek than Youngduck but really somewhere in between the two haha. Anyway, it's a tiny fishing village on the east coast. And I'm teaching middle and high school but it's in the same school so hopefully in the same building. So maybe not that many kids? I don't know. The hardest part is going to be teaching to that level... But, God put me where he wants me so Yeongdeok it is :]

Tomorrow morning we get on the bus at 8 am for a 3-4 hour bus ride and then our co-teachers pick us up and from there another 2-3 hour car ride to my province where I will start getting everything set up and hopefully I will have a nice co-teacher who is willing to help me do stuff like get food and cleaning supplies for my apartment, my Alien Registration car next week, and then my phone and internet ASAP. Which means that I will not have internet in my apartment for at least a week, probably more like 2, hopefully not anymore than that. I might die. But I will have it at work and they have places over here called PC bangs, which are basically internet cafes where I can pay a super cheap amount and use the wifi til I get mine set up in my apartment. But I will continue to keep everyone as updated as possible and will take as many pictures with my laptop as I can until I get my camera. Anyway, off to pack and get ready for tomorrow. Til next time.
 Rose

PS. Pictures!! :]

The fan we made on our fieldtrip!
 My first professional outfit!! :] For our lesson demonstrations in front of our POEs today

  A map of my location in reference to Daegu - a big city over here. It's about the middle of the country north to south. And on the east coast obviously :]