Folksy!

Today we went to a Korean Folk Village, which is akin to Colonial Williamsburg or something similar. I've attached some photos if you're interested at all. It was definitely interesting to walk around and sort of experience a bit of Korean history and culture. The only frustrating thing was that it was so difficult to understand our tour guide. Really it's no fault of her own. She was obviously doing the best she could. I've noticed that most Koreans here who speak English struggle to get across what they're wanting to say. It's actually pretty funny, because almost all of us are left pretty confused after we're given directions or have something explained to us.

Anyway, we had a chance to see some traditional Korean housing and architecture, and also watched some traditional performances. To be honest, the performances really weren't that exciting. The first one was a musical/dance number consisting of drums and gongs. The cool thing about this performance was that some of the guys wore those long ribbon things on their head and made designs with them by moving their heads around, which I've never seen before. Usually you see stuff like that in the Olympics when the female gymnasts do a dance routine or something, but they don't wear the freaking ribbon on their head. One of the guys actually changed hats to one with a huge ribbon and did some cool moves with that, including break dancing. I'm not sure how traditional the break dancing was, but it was still cool to see nonetheless.

After that we saw a couple girls fling each other into their using a teeter-totter, then an old man do some tricks on a tight rope. Finally, we watched some guys ride horses around in a circle while they did little tricks like jumping on and off them, standing on them, etc. Like I said, all in all it was just okay. Sorry if you're offended Roy.

The funny thing about the folk village was that off in the corner there was a kid's amusement area, which looked like any old carnival. Brent and I found this on our own after we ate lunch and agreed it was probably the coolest part of the village. It included such favorites as bumper cars, the swinging dragon, cotton candy and a simulator ride that didn't explain what it simulated. Literally, on the outside hull it just said "Simulator." If we had more time, we may have actually gone on to see what it was. I'm going to be really pissed if I find out later that it is some sort of American fighter jet mission during the Korean War, where you get to save a South Korean village from the villainous northerners!

Speaking of our lunch, we were given 10,000 won  by EPIK to order food from the food court-type area they had and luckily everything was written in English. EPIK also gave us a sheet beforehand with some recommended dishes for foreigners and instructions on how to order. We both opted for a pork skewer and potato pancake. The pork skewer pretty much tasted exactly what it sounds like. The potato pancake, we found out, was basically hash browns, which was totally cool and filling. The pork skewer was definitely not enough to feed a grown American male.

On the bus ride back from the Korean Folk Village, our class leaders explained to us in their best broken English that the head honchos of EPIK were getting upset about a lot of things that were going wrong with the teachers. See, they laid out some pretty solid rules for us when we got here. Guys aren't allowed in girls dorms and vice versa. You're allowed to go into the city, but you have to be back by 1 a.m. No alcohol in the dorms. Things like that. Well, apparently there's been some people here just flat out ignoring everything. The dorms that we are in are brand new, having just been built in November, so we're the first tenants and understandably they don't want these rooms trashed. I guess some people are just tearing up their rooms, including a guy and a girl who pushed the two beds together for a little adult fun and scratched the floor! They also said that there was a group of people who went to a bar last night, came back completely wasted, didn't get back until after curfew and stood outside banging on the door to be let back in. It was so lame to hear all this stuff and to have to be told all these rules again on the bus. Some of the people here really do seem like they came to party, and it's just so strange. From day one, I've come across certain people and have wondered, "Why are you here?" or "How did they let you come here?" It was just sad to hear and I think it sucks that those people are making us all look bad. They're probably the Americans that are here too, which sucks even worse.

Oh, I've got kind of a funny story. Yesterday I finally received my piece of luggage that was delayed getting here. One of my class leaders is Stella (That's her English name, which most Koreans have and choose) and she was basically the main one helping me to get my luggage. She was the one calling the airport and the airlines and arranging everything. On our first day, we learned that Koreans are big on gifts. They like to receive them and they like to give them. For everything and anything. So, I thought it would be a nice gesture to get something for Stella as a thank you for everything she did in helping me get my luggage. There's a little convenience store on the first floor of our dorms, so I went there and bought her a Snickers candy bar and another Korean candy bar that the cashier recommended. Right next to the store is the cafeteria where we have all our meals and I saw that she was sitting in there with all the other class leaders, so I was like, perfect I can give this to her now. Well, I walked up to her and handed her the candy bars and said thank you for all your help with getting me my luggage back. Holy crap was that the wrong place and time to do it. The whole table of mostly Korean females erupted in "Ooooooooohhhhs," causing the entire cafeteria to look over at the table to see what was going on, and poor Stella is trying to explain to them I'm not like hitting on her or something. Oh my gosh, it was so embarrassing, but I could tell even more so for her. I pretty much got the hell out of there as quickly as possible, basically leaving her embarrassed with a table that no doubt continued to make jokes. You try to do something nice and boy oh boy.

Anyway, tomorrow starts the first of a few days where things get pretty serious. We've got full days of lectures coming and then have to prepare our first lesson presentation, which I'm pretty sure we have to present to our class. I'll be sure to let you guys know how that goes.