Teachers Overnight Retreat

So last weekend I went on a teachers trip. About half of the teachers, the principal, vice principal, and the two handymen loaded up on a bus and off we went. I realized that this was not going to be what I expected when I saw the case of beer and the teachers offered me glasses of rasberry and strawberry wine. The wine was so sweet and wonderful. I had never tasted wine like that. I wish I could remember the name of the town we went to first. It was a town right on the Pacific Ocean. When we got in town the first thing that we did was go to a resteraunt that is famous for its tof because it is made with seawater. Tof is made from beans and I really did not like it. Now I have had no problems eating Korean food, but this trip was a different story. It started with the tof and progressed from there. After we ate (well, they ate-lol) we had this traditional corn liquor. The liquor is usually made from rice so it is special when it is made from corn. It was actually pretty good but it smelled just like cooked corn. After lunch we went to an old Korean house where the man from the 5,000 won and the woman from the 50,000 won lived. The man was a philospher and the woman was his mother. She was special because she is known for her paintings and for her mothering abilities. She is special becuase not many women are honored in Korea. For her to be placed on the new 50,000 won was a very big deal. From there we headed to Naksan Buddhist Temple. I had been wanting to go to a Buddhist temple so I was thrilled when they said that we were going. It was honestly the most spectectular thing I had ever seen. I had such a peace being there. Looking at the giant Buddha gave me such an awe. Now Buddhists are big on wishes so I probally made 5 wishes there. The first was walking down a wish path.The second is standing in front of the giant Buddha. The third was at the Wishing Pond. The fourth was making a donation and staring at the giant Buddha through a pane of glass in a shrine. The fifth was at a different shrine. I should have so much luck from this!! There were people lighting candles and giving food to the Giant Buddha and in the shrines. It was really neat to see how much these people beleived in their faith. The temple is high up on a mountain because one of the kings did not like buddhism so he made them put the temples out of the way and hidden. Now even though the temple is a long and steep walk, there were so many old people coming to pray. It was amazing.
Now being on the sea, in the town there were dried squid shops everywhere. They sold dried squid, octopus, shrimp, sting-ray, and who knows what else. Koreans love to eat this. Now I have a fairly strong stomach when it comes to food, but these stores had the strongest grossest smell I had ever smelled. It litterally smelled like burning bodies. The teachers told me that many of the older people that were around during the Korean war can not eat this because it reminds them of the bodies. The smell is that strong. I tried the squid and the octopus and the taste was not horrible, but I could not eat it because of the smell. I got to the point that every store we walked by I held my breath. It was horrible. For dinner, we went to a sashimi resteraunt. Now on an ordinary day, I love sashimi. It is one of my favorite foods. Not this day. Everything I tasted, tasted like the way the squid smelled. I was sick from it and couldn't eat. Luckily when my coteachers finished their meal, they took me for a walk on the beach. I could not even go back in the resteraunt. Talk about embarassing. Following dinner, we went to a bar that had a karokee room. Koreans love karokee, singing and dancing. It was a lot of fun. They made me sing though-- Finally we went to our hotel. I roomed with 4 other teachers. Now Korean hotel rooms are different. There are no beds. There were blankets in the closet that we put on the floor. My pictures show this. Suprisingly, even though I was sleeping on the floor, I slept great.
The next day we went to Mt. Seorak. This place was absolutley breathtaking. The mountains were so green and so high. Very beautiful. We rode a cable car to the top of the mountain where there was an amzing view. It was foggy so I didn't even get how beautiful it really could be. After that we went to Shinhung Temple. This temple was neat because their was a prayer ceremony going on. 49 days after a buddhist dies, they do a special ceremony where the guests offfer gifts to Buddha and to the dead. They then burn all the dead's belongings. They were in one of the shrines and one monk was banging on this drum and the other was doing the most amazing chanting. Very spirtual. The people were all bowing. After they had been in there awhile, they left the the shrine and marched over to the furnace thing where they burned the dead man's beloingings. It was very neat. Another cool thing I did there was to write my wishes on a cement shingle. It is believed that if you write your wishes on here, they will come true. The shingles are used to roof the temples. The temples roofs are many layers high of these things. I wished for a happy marriage, beautiful children, and the health and happiness of my friends and family. My other wish that i made while I was there was made by stacking small rocks on top of each other. Stack rocks, make a wish. There were stacks of rocks everywhere! After that we went and stuck our feet in the river for awhile to cool off. We then went to lunch where we had my favorite Korean meal- Bibimbab (or however you spell it). This is rice with vegtables put on top. The vegetables are always so good and these especially because they were mountain vegetables. The only thing I can recognize is bean sprouts and mushrooms. The others are a mystery to me. We headed home after that.
I really enjoyed this trip because it gave me such a cuture and history study. Buddhism has always been this fascinating religion to me but I had never known much about it. Now I feel like I have a decent grasp on it. It was also neat to see some of the historical artifacts at the people's house that we went to. Some of thier artifacts resembled ours, but many of them were unfamilar to me. It was nice having my co-teachers there to explain everything to me. It was also nice to completely leave my comfort zone on this trip. I had no idea what to expect but I went anyways. I may not have liked most of the food, but at least I tried it. I slept on the floor. I tried to emerse myself in the Korean traditions and whether I achieved it or not at least I tried. I think that being here in Korea is helping me figure out so many different things about myself. To think it was such a huge suprise that I agreed to go to Korea- I would not have done it without Corey. But now, I took this trip alone. I am teaching alone. Half the time I am living alone. Korea is helping me figure out how strong I am.

American and Korean Culture

I have been working on a culture study for my classes and the more I think about the differences in Western and Korean culture, the more differences that I notice. Korean children and American children have many differences. In Korea, the kids do not have a lunch room and lunch is served in thier classrooms. This is not your average school lunch either. Everyday there is rice, soup, kimchi, 2-3 other dishes, and fresh fruit for dessert. And the funny thing is that the food is wonderful! In America, many kids eat school breakfast and ride a bus to school. Here breakfast is not offered and there is no such thing as school buses. Since everyone lives in apartment buildings, the children are close to their school. In the mornings, you see lines of Korean children walking to school. This includes even the little kindergardener's. In America, you don't usually see kindergardeners walking on busy roads by themselves. Even though the parents allow their kids to walk by themselves, parents are much more involved in their childrens lives here. All parents want their kids to go to school to be a teacher. The reason for this is, in most professions the workers are fired at age 45. They have to then go find a lower paying job. Teachers are not fired for their age and recieve the best pension when they retire. Teachers are expected to be the most moral people in Korea. They also are paid in the upper payscale range. This is extremely different from our teachers who make next to nothing! Parents send thier children to Academy afterschool. Basically, this is just more school. There is English Academy, Math Academy, and so on. Most children do not get home till 10-11 pm and bed times are usually 12. For high schoolers, they do not get home till 1:00. This is dedication at it's highest. High Schoolers spend their whole time in high school preparing for the SAT. The material on the exam is what is taught, and then the students spend the rest of their time in the library studying. This is every highschooler-not just a select few. This is amazing to me considering when I was in high school, I didn't even have to study and got A's. When 3:00 hit, I was done with school as were most of you, I know!! In Korea, the husbands do not usually get home till 11:00. They work extremely long hours. It just seems that these people have a much better work ethic than most Americans. They work and study long hours, and that is just normal for them. Another interesting thing is that Korean's do not like the number 4. All of the Elevators have an F instead of 4. 4 is a Chinese symbol for death and Korean's use many Chinese symbols. They believe that f they live on the fourth floor then they are likely to die. Probally the wierdest thing to me here is the fans. The fans have an automatic shutoff after 2 hours. Korean's believe that leaving a fan on all night will cause hypothermia and death. I read an article saying that many deaths are attributed to fans and autospys are not performed. There has been alot of controversy because these "fan deaths" have other orgins. Another thing is that they do not have guns here (well- excluding the black market of course). The biggest difference in culture is that America is such a sports based country where here sports are secondary to academics. Soccer, baseball, and Takewondo are the biggest sports here. These are just some of the differences. As I discover or remember more, I will write more.