My busy weekend...hiking, shopping, etc
February 7, 11:39 pm
This week was pretty eventful. We had testing week this past week, so it was a nice, calm week for me. From Monday to Wednesday we had studying for tests, and then Thursday and Friday were actual test days. They merged my last class with another class, so I got Friday night off, which was actually pretty nice.
Saturday I got up at 8 am to go hiking. We went up a local mountain. They have a path there that’s half man-made, half natural. It was a bit of a hike, but it wasn’t too bad. One the way there were peddlers selling hats, water, and even food.
I went with Yuri, Joy, and Charles, all of which knew Korean, so I felt a little left out when they were speaking Korean to each other. But I got to amuse them with my poor Korean pronunciation, which Joy thought was “cute” and Charles and Yuri just laughed at. Yuri’s been my friend for some time (we met at Mcdonald’s) and Charles is a friend and co-worker, but Joy is a new friend. Yuri and I met him at church last week, and when I mentioned we were thinking of going hiking he jumped at the opportunity. He wound up spending nearly the entire day with us.
from left to right: Joy, Yuri, and Charles
We reached the halfway point where they had a little “gym” set up, as if you didn’t get enough exercise. One of the equipment was a hula hoop. Koreans are really big into hula hoops. I’ve seen huge hula hoops being sold for about 40 USD at the local department stores in the sports section. It’s pretty weird. I haven’t hula hooped for years, but I was encouraged to try. So I did. Aaaand I failed. It seems that no practice and huge, heavy hula hoops do not work well together.
We climbed a bit further until we reached the top, and the view just took my breath away. We were looking down at my town. I could almost spot the buildings I was familiar with. It was pretty exciting.
To the far right, there was a pavilion made in the traditional Korean style, which is pretty similar to Japanese style, but more colorful. I’m a sucker for architecture, particularly Asian architecture, so I had to take a look.
You could sit inside the pavilion and look out over the towns and see other mountains. And the actual pavilion itself was really pretty.
Ceiling of the pavilion
On the way down from the mountain we ran into a spring where you could actually drink the water. The water here isn’t really safe to drink unless you have a purifier, especially for Americans who are used to clean water. So mostly we buy bottled water or use purifiers. But the water from the spring is pure enough to drink. They have a well you can draw water from and pour into bowls and drink.
Charles pouring us some water
At the bottom of the mountain was a Korean shrine. We couldn’t go into the shrine, but I made sure to take a lot of pictures because I thought it was really cool looking. There were fences keeping people out, but no one discouraged us to take photos, so we all took photos of the shrine.
After the hike we all headed out for some lunch. Joy wanted us to eat some traditional Korean food, but nothing too spicy since I can’t handle spicy food. So we had his favorite. I cannot remember the name of the food, but I will definitely let you know once I do.
Kimchi, the most popular food in Korea. They eat this food with every meal. When you take pictures you say “kimchi” instead of “cheese” in Korea.
Anyway, it’s sort of a soup, or a stew. There are three rounds. The first round is vegetables, mostly greens and mushrooms. The second round is beef, and the third is noodles. At the end you put some rice in the empty bowl and eat that. The rice tastes soft and kind of sweet. It was pretty good.
After lunch we headed to Seoul to do some book shopping. I ended up getting a few manga (Japanese comic books) and the book War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card. I was excited because I hadn’t seen that book outside of the library, despite the fact that the book wasn’t that old. The book is kind of short, but I really liked it, so I was happy to be able to pick it up. And it wasn’t even that expensive! Most English books are $13 and up, but this copy was only $8. The fun thing is that you can get the British editions of some books, like the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. So if you like the British covers better, you can get them instead. Sometimes they’re even cheaper than the American ones.
We didn’t get home till around 10:30, and I went to bed nearly right away.
The next morning was church day. I headed off to church with Charles, who decided to join us at the English church (usually he goes to the Korean one) and Heather, who was going to the English church for the first time. We took the bus there, which was not good for my stomach (I often get car sick on the buses here). Anyway, the service was nice. I really like this church because no one is pushy. They act like they WANT you to be involved, not that you have to.
I met one guy who speaks some Japanese, which was really fun. He’s from the UK and uses Japanese comic books to study Japanese. Heather was hinting on the way home that I should become interested in him since he’s cute (according to her), has a British accent, and is into the same stuff as I am. It sounds great, but dating someone from a different country doesn’t really seem like a good idea, especially since I have no desire to live in the UK...
Anyway, tomorrow starts the beginning of another work week. We have three more weeks until the end of the term. This is the worst part when the kids stop caring and demand to know if they’ve leveled up or not (if they passed the test and can go to the next level of the program). They also want to know what classes we’ll be teaching next term. We’re not supposed to tell them any of this, and we don’t even know most of the information.
But first is Korean class; which reminds me, I’ve got a test tomorrow!!!