Goodbye to Friends & Uljin Snow Crab Festival

Our second term at CDI has ended, and the spring term started this week. We've been busy prepping new lessons, so I haven't had a chance to blog in awhile. My students gave me some cute birthday and goodbye gifts at the end of the winter term. You can see some pictures of my students and Danny's students on my Picasa photo page. This term I am teaching more upper-level classes than usual. I taught my first Par Reading class on Thursday and I felt a bit confused. The structure and material was so new to me compared to the simple lessons for the younger kids. I can't believe how smart these students are. They read these long passages and then pick out the thesis, major details, and minor details. They seem to understand the exercises better than most American high school students would. Hopefully the upper-level students will also be more well-behaved than my younger students in the past.

Last week we said goodbye to 3 of Danny's coworkers. Two of his Korean teachers were getting new teaching jobs and his coworker Daniel was returning back to the the U.S. It was sad to see them go, because we hung out with them a lot the past 2 terms. Danny's school had a farewell dinner for its 3 teachers, and I met up with them at a norebang after work. We sang karaoke there for nearly 2 hours. Afterwards, we went to a bar and the casino. Luckily I didn't have to teach the next day until 4pm. Three of the teachers from my school finished their contracts last week too, and my school had a farewell dinner too. Unfortunately, I couldn't join them because Danny and I had to wake up crazy early for another Adventure Korea trip.

Our second Adventure Korea trip was called "Uljin Snow Crab Festival & Wilderness Trekking." Uljin is a seaport town on the east coast of Korea. It took about 4-5 hours to drive there because we had to meander through small villages and around mountains. It seems that most terrain in Korea is mountainous, which is so different than what I'm used to back home. The town of Uljin was having an "international festival" for the snow crab that the region is famous for. There were markets, music and dancing shows, ferry rides, cooking shows, and of course restaurants and stalls everywhere offering tastes of fresh snow crab. First we went to the festival publicity building where we could touch, hold, and take pictures with the giant snow crab. If you've eaten king crab legs, the snow crab's legs look similar in size. After we got to explore the market. We stopped to witness a cross-dressing drum troupe dancing to Korean pop music. We eventually met up with our tour group to take part in a Guiness World Record attempt at making the longest kimbap. Kimbap is one of Korea's most famous foods. It looks similar to sushi rolls, but it tastes nothing like it. Instead, kimbap is made of salted, dried seaweed that is stuffed with seasoned white rice, pickled vegetables, ham, egg, and usually meat or fish. Naturally, the kimbap we made at the festival was stuffed with fresh snow crab. Since the festival was trying to attract international publicity, they allowed our mostly foreign tour group to stand right in front of the news cameras at the tables and roll the kimbap. We were given aprons, chef hats, and gloves and assisted by Korean staff in rolling the kimbap. I couldn't understand what the announcer was saying, but I'm guessing we beat last year's world record. The Korean visitors to the festival all lined up to taste the giant kimbap that we made, and of course we got first dibs on tasting. Next, we went on an hour-long ferry ride around the seaport. We boarded an older-looking ferry with life jackets that were too small for us foreigners. The first 15 minutes or so were exciting, because the boat kept jumping up and down from the waves. It was an overcast day, and although it didn't rain, the waves were pretty rough. For the remaining part of the trip, nearly everyone from our tour group felt seasick. Danny and I rested on the floor in an inner cabin to avoid getting sick. Afterwards we got a private tasting of fresh snow crab at the festival site. I couldn't even think of food after getting off the boat, but once I tasted the crab I felt a hundred times better. I've only really tasted king crab legs and bits of crab in sushi before. But this crab was incredibly fresh and full of flavor. We moved on to our hotel after, which featured bedding on the traditional heated floor again. We had barbecued pork belly for dinner. The past few months I've been trying to eat vegetarian, which is somewhat difficult because meat is so popular in Korea. Luckily there were tons of vegetarian side dishes that I feasted on. The next morning we woke up early to use the hotel's free spa facility. The Uljin area is famous for natural hot sulphur springs. The spa was indoors, but the water had a slightly sulphuric smell because I think they use the water from the nearby springs. Danny and I have never been to a "jimjilbang," the famous Korean bathhouses here. But we decided to try it while there were other foreigners around. At a jimjilbang, the men and women use separated facilities. The spa in the hotel was very tiny, consisting of just a hot, medium, and cold bath and a few saunas. I went into the women's locker room, stripped down to my birthday suit (which is necessary here to use the spa), showered, then took a dip in each of the three pools. I hadn't eaten anything because it was 7am, so I actually started to feel lightheaded in the hottest pool, and I left after maybe 20 minutes. I didn't realize there was a sauna room, so I didn't try that. Overall, being naked in front of a bunch of Koreans wasn't as scary as I thought. I will have to try one of the big, luxurious jimjilbangs in Seoul (where you can all day for only about $10!) After a PB&J breakfast (my favorite!), we headed to the mountains for a 2 hour hike. It had rained the week before, so our original trekking area in the Shinsun Valley was flooded. We instead followed a relaxing hiking course in the mountains. The area is famous for its pine trees, and you could smell them in the breeze as we hiked. We watched a really good Korean movie on the bus ride home called "Castaway on the Moon." It was the first Korean film I've ever seen. When we arrived at the bus station in Seoul, we tried an organic vegan buffet in Gangnam called "New Start." Everything was so fresh and tasty, and they served homemade bread and jams too.

Today, Danny and I are going to the wedding of one of my Korean coworkers. He invited all of the teachers at my school too. Coincidentally, Danny was invited to one of his Korean coworker's weddings too. Hers is next weekend though. I have still never been to a wedding in America, yet I have been to 2 in Italy and now I will have been to 2 in Korea. I will let you know what a Korean wedding is like in my next blog entry, although I think they are similar to Western style weddings today. Tomorrow we are going on an Adventure Korea day trip to a big lake in central Korea, where we will go on a ferry ride and explore caves.

It's been a longgg Saturday!

So before we get to Saturday, let me debrief about this week. Not much happened except that I didn't have to teach night classes yet. So Danny and I were able to go out to eat with his coworkers most nights this week. On Monday I tried a new Korean food. I had chamchi kimchi jiggae (which translates as tuna and spicy fermented cabbage stew). I'll admit that I was a bit hesitant to try it at first, and I was disappointed that they didn't serve a tofu stew instead (sundubu jiggae). But it was actually delicious! And it came with many side dishes and rice (and for under $5 it's an amazing deal). Danny and I also successfully mailed a package on Monday. We were clueless when we walked into the post office, but the security guard spoke a few words of English and he helped us wrap our package and everything. We mailed home some Christmas gifts, which was costly to ship by air (but it got home in under 4 days!) I also received a huge package from my mom with some Christmas gifts, but hers took 10 days to get here (I guess the US Postal Service is not nearly as efficient as KPost).

Saturday morning Danny had to wake up early and go to his school. Not for work, but for "Market Day." For 4 hours the students came in to his school to trade in their "dollars" for prizes and play games with their teachers. The students are rewarded during the term with dollars for good grades and excellent group projects. My school has the same reward system, but we don't have a market day. Instead, the students at my school just turn in the points to the Korean desk staff for prizes anytime they want. I decided to pass by Danny's school for market day because I heard there was face painting, and I had to show off my painting skills. Actually I was pretty bad, but I was doing a lot better than Danny. So the students flocked around me, and they all avoided "bad Danny teacher." The favorite design was a swan, which Danny modeled on his hand. At the market day, there was also a game room, a movie room, and a snack bar. It was cool because I got to meet some of Danny's students.

After market day, we went to Gwanghawmun Plaza in Seoul. It's a huge square that was just remodeled this year, and a 100 foot high fake snow ramp was constructed in the area for the Big Air Snowboard World Cup. At night there would be a competition on the snowboard ramp, so we got there early and walked around the square. There were thousands of people in the square for the event. A huge ice skating rink was also placed in the square for the winter. The grand opening of the rink was this weekend, so I wanted to ice skate but the wait line was ridiculously long. The weather was pretty comfortable out until the snowboard exhibition started, and by that time my toes were beyond frozen. So I could only watch 3 jumps and then I escaped to the warmth under the Sejong Art Center. It's a museum and art center, but in the basement there was an exhibition on King Sejong (one of Korea's most notable historical figures, from the 14th century). So I walked around that for awhile and met up with Danny after. Danny's roommate from college, Lee, teaches in a CDI April school south of Seoul, but he came into Seoul for the night. So we took the subway with him and his girlfriend to Itaewon. Itaewon is the "foreigner-friendly" area of Seoul, so we found a good Mexican restaurant for dinner. It felt so good to eat a veggie fajita and some black beans and nachos. Afterwards we met up with some of Danny's coworkers at a hip-hop club that was hosting a bellydancing show. Unfortunately, we showed up towards the end so we didn't get to see much. What we did see was really awesome though. After that we walked into a handful of different bars to find a place to hang out, but most were way too crowded and didn't suit our taste. I guess Hongdae is better for a night out. Just as we were about to leave Itaewon, we ran into Danny's head instructor. We wanted to take her out for a drink and the only place we could find was a posh club with thumping techno beats. It was fun though, and we ended up dancing a bit.

By 1am Danny and his coworker persuaded me to accompany them at the casino. Gambling is illegal in Korea, so Danny's head instructor couldn't join us. Casinos in Korea are purely for tourists, and are usually attached to hotels. We went to Seven Luck Casino in Gangnam, near COEX mall. Most of the people in the casino are Japanese, Chinese, and American tourists. I don't know how to play any card games, but I watched the guys play blackjack for a few hours, and I caught on. I also watched roulette, but I didn't find it that interesting. Danny actually did pretty well in his casino debut. But don't worry, we aren't becoming serious gamblers. I am super frugal, so I was extremely strict about his budget. We are so cheap that we waited to catch the first subway train home at 5:30am instead of paying the expensive cab ride home.