It's Almost Over

Two-and-a-half weeks. That's all that remains of my year-long Korean adventure. Having returned from my trip to China just a little over a month ago, I figured I'd fill you in on what's been happening in these final weeks as I prepare to come home.

Winter English Camp has come and gone. It was three weeks of playing games, watching movies and some English education thrown in there too. I felt a little more prepared for this camp session as opposed to the summer camp, and I think it all went really well. We had more students this time around and the more structured set-up I used seemed to make everyone, including myself, happier. We did activity book English on Mondays, storybooks and singing on Tuesdays, games on Wednesdays, Rosetta Stone English on Thursdays and then English movies on Fridays. The movies on Fridays were especially beneficial for me, because it allowed me to get rid of a bunch of popcorn that I had purchased from Costco months ago. I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought 32 bags of popcorn. Did I really think I was going to eat all that?! Anyway, I'll still be bringing home around 10-15 bags or so, but I feel pretty good about what I was able to get rid of. I actually got really lucky with my English camp, because it was only three weeks long. Technically, I was only supposed to have 11 days off during the winter break period, but I ended up with three full weeks off! While other schools found work for their EPIK teachers, (sorry Brent) I was allowed to take that extra time off. So after camp ended, that gave me two weeks to use as I pleased.

The first week, I spent most of my time a) packing up boxes and shipping them back home, and b) looking for jobs. Job searching can really be tiring. I know it doesn't seem like much, since you're just sitting there browsing websites, but the problem is, the more you hunt, the more websites you find that have job listings in the area you're looking for. While some jobs are repeated on these sites, a lot of them have unique jobs that you wouldn't have found on another site. Scour these sites for hours upon hours and then tell me how you feel after. Ugh! The packing part of that first week I really enjoyed though. It was nice to start the clean out process of my apartment and definitely made the imminent departure more real. I think I mentioned in a previous post how I was practically out of places to store things in my apartment. It was really nice to clean out underneath my bed and in my wardrobe. I think I'm set now to fit everything I have left in my suitcases. We'll see.

The second free week I had, I ended up taking a couple trips. The first was to Gyeongju, which is located about an hour or so north of Busan. It's the former capital of the Silla Kingdom, which once ruled over all of Korea. This place was littered with ancient temples and tombs of which were thousands of years old. The tombs had very interesting designs. Egyptian pyramids there are not. They actually just look like hills. I've included some pictures below so you can see what I'm talking about. Had I not been there with my co-teacher, but with some friends instead, I'm sure we would have run up and slid down these things, because that's all I could really think about doing. They just looked like they would be so much fun to slide down on, especially if we had some cardboard boxes. They weren't guarded or anything, so I think we would have been okay. Unless there's some ancient Korean curse on them that would have somehow forced me to eat kimchi or something. Anyway, one of the interesting things about the many tombs, is that they don't know who are buried in all of them. The tombs aren't marked and only a couple have been excavated, so it's mostly assumed that they are of kings and queens from the past. We ended the day there by getting some local bread that apparently is pretty famous in Korea. It was basically just like a red bean paste wrapped in a thin layer of bread. It tasted good when we first bought it, but upon reheating a couple days later, it did not. Somehow, it had a fishy taste to it when I reheated it. Weird. To be honest, I really wasn't looking forward to this trip, because I just knew it would be kind of boring, and it was a little, but my co-teacher really wanted to take me, so I went. She's become really attached to me over our time here, even referring to me as her American son. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it's a bad thing. Like when she treats me like I'm still a child. Yeah, that's not fun. But when she gives me two extra weeks off during winter camp, that's fun. Anyway, while it was a little boring, it was definitely tolerable and provided a break from the job searching that would consume most of the rest of the week.

This past weekend Brent and I went to Seoul for what could be the last time in decades, if not ever. When we returned from China, I was up late one night (putting together that China video blog I think) and I saw a commercial on TV about the Killers playing a show in Seoul. I immediately looked for more info on the Internet and found the site that was selling tickets. I e-mailed Brent right away to see if he was interested. By about 10:30 a.m. the next day we had our tickets and hotel room booked. It was so cool how quickly it came together. We got our train tickets later that day and were set for one last weekend in Seoul with the Killers. Until about a week before the show, when Brent received a phone call saying the show had been canceled. Apparently a family member of one of the band members was seriously ill and it caused them to cancel all their Asian tour dates. That left us both pretty bummed, especially when I tried to cancel the hotel reservation, but couldn't because of the special price we got on the room for booking in advance. So we decided to make the best of it and just go to Seoul for one last time, because at worst, we'd get to eat good food and take uniterrupted hot showers.

I had actually been in contact with my co-teacher's daughter who lives in Seoul, because she was going to be attending the Killers concert too. When my co-teacher told her that Brent and I were still going to Seoul, she offered to take us out that night to see some indy Korean bands play at a local little venue. We ended up having a pretty good time and seeing some polished bands play fun, upbeat music. That actually ended up being the second show we saw in three days after not having seen any all year. Back in Busan we saw a couple Korean groups and a Chinese band called Carsick Cars. The Busan show was fun, but the Seoul show was much better. It was a nice change of scenery from the doldrums of Busan, where everyone looks, talks and acts the same. This last trip definitely solidified that if you're ever going to come to Korea, Seoul is the place to be! There is a revolution brewing up there. You can see and feel it. The ancient mindset that has so many Koreans trapped in ignorant and naive bubbles, is slowly evolving in Seoul.

I'm sure Brent would also like me to mention the shilacking I took during our trip-long rummy game. For anyone who doesn't know how to play rummy, you basically rack up points by making sets of threes with the cards and usually the first person to 500 wins. Well back when we went to China, I suggested we play a trip-long game and whoever had the most points at the end of the trip would win. This gave us a great time-killer while on our many flights, layovers and train rides. Well, I beat him pretty good on that trip, leading by 990 points before finally winning by around 820 points or so. This trip to Seoul however, the tables were turned. He got a lead of up to around 600 points or so and ended up beating me by a little over 200. I only mention this, because I know how happy he felt to get that redemption and I'm sure would like all of you to know.

That takes me right up to today, where I'm back at school for the final two weeks of regular instruction, or so I think. You never when plans will change on you at the last second. Today is a great example, when I expected to have a full slate of regular classes only to have one class, which only came, because I bought them an ice cream cake for winning the classroom behavior contest. You just never know.

See you all soon!!!

An actual coffee place in Busan. Awesome.

Which one of these is not like the other?

Don't you want to just run up it and slide down?!

They were scattered all over the place like this.

Something ancient and traditional in Gyeongju.