Wow so I realized I haven't blogged in over 3 weeks. Sorry to keep you all waiting! First of all, my school's Winter Intensives are finally over! It was only 9 days of 10am-1pm classes spread out over 5 weeks, but waking up early was killing me. Plus, the 16 kids in my classes started out cute and quiet and then got crazy! I guess it was because they were on winter vacation from school. When the morning class was over, I had a 3 hour break for lunch and lesson prepping until my regular classes started. So some days I was at work for over 13 hours! Over the past 2 months I have also been having the same foot problems that I had last spring. The problems seemed to start the week after the race that I won in Seoul. I've been seeing a nerve doctor who specializes in feet near my school to treat my feet. In Korea they don't have podiatrists, so you go to a bone, muscle, or nerve doctor for musculoskeletal problems. I've seen the doctor 4 times so far for "prolotherapy" injections, which are quite painful. He said my issues stem from a combination of genetic structural problems, overuse, bad shoes, and the way I walk. So I have been wearing sneakers and leopard-print Crocs to work every day.
Ok on a lighter note, let's talk about the fun things that have happened since I blogged last. I think about 3 weeks ago Danny and I checked out Insadong in Seoul. Insadong is a touristy neighborhood, but it is famous for traditional Korean buildings, food, and handicrafts. I walked around the area for a few hours while Danny was at school on a Saturday making up his snow day. I loved Insadong, and I want to go back to walk around its art galleries and shops in warmer weather. When I met up with Danny, we had a great Korean vegetarian meal at this cute restaurant called Sosim. It was actually a pescatarian meal because we had a small serving of perfectly grilled fish. Afterwards we went to see the popular Korean dance musical Sachoom. The title translates as "Dance When You're in Love" (yea I don't see how a two-syllable word means all of that either). There wasn't really much dialogue, but there was some narration displayed on a screen (that was unfortunately only translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Cambodian!?) Luckily the dancing was awesome, so there wasn't much need to understand the narration. After the show we went to one of the most popular traditional teahouses in Insadong. I ordered persimmon tea and they accidentally gave me flavorless green tea. So I took Danny's "five-taste tea" by accident thinking it was the persimmon tea, and he drank the green tea thinking it was what he ordered. I was wondering why my tea was a delicious blend of sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, and hmm I can't think of the fifth taste....
The following weekend we went to Dongdaemun Market, a huge area in Seoul famous for its fashion shops. Dongdaemun is made up dozens of massive shopping malls, buildings filled with tightly packed shops, underground shops, and open-air shops. We went in search of hiking gear for our upcoming trip to the Taebaek mountains with Adventure Korea. And we were also hoping to find some nice coats, because Koreans wear the most beautiful coats and they are fairly inexpensive (most of them have animal fur trim though...eeek!) Well Dongdaemun is in fact renowned for its fashion shops, so we were not lucky in the hiking department. We didn't find the perfect coats we imagined either. We finally found Danny a nice wool scarf though. And for me...I sadly came home empty-handed. I just got frustrated because the clothes are mostly one-size-fits-all and my arms and torso are apparently too long for them. And Korean shops usually have annoying overbearing owners and no fitting rooms. Boo. The only plus of the night was the amazing meal we had at a vegan Korean buffet before our shopping trip. It cost under $10 and was in Insadong, so I will definitely return more often.
So this past weekend was pretty eventful. Danny and I signed up for a trip to the Taebaek Snow Festival with Adventure Korea. AK is a well-known tour group among the English teacher and expat community in Korea. About $80 covered the tour bus, accommodation, meals, festival entrance fee, and tour guides. The only thing we had to buy were snow cleats (spikes to wear over your shoes) for our hike in the mountains. We had to wake up crazy early at 6am to get across Seoul to the bus station on Saturday though. About 30-40 people went on the trip, and almost all were English teachers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and South Africa. It was cool to meet other people and hear about their experiences in Korea. The bus trip to Gangwon province east of Seoul took about 4 hours. We slept most of the time and enjoyed the mountain scenery. We first stopped at Yongyeon, one of the largest caves in Korea. We had to wear helmets to protect our heads from the narrow parts of the cave. The cave was huge and the walkways inside covered about 1km. We saw the usual natural formations like stalactites and stalagmites, but nice color-changing light fountains were also installed. Thank god for the helmets, because my skull would have been beat up pretty badly. After we rode several minutes to the snow festival site in Taebaek city. The area we stayed in was more like a very small mountain village though. We were given 3 hours to explore the festival, so we bundled up as much as possible and headed out into the below 30 degree weather. The festival mostly featured snow and ice sculptures, and there was also sledding and a performance stage. Unfortunately we couldn't find the sledding and we did watch about 5 minutes of cute kids dancing on stage. We rushed through the sculpture area to take photos because we were freezing. We stopped to warm up with a delicious hot roasted sweet potato and headed back out to the festival area. So many families and hikers came out for the weekend (probably from Seoul) to enjoy the festival, so it was quite crowded. Once we couldn't take the cold any longer we popped in the coal museum nearby. The first floor featured rocks, minerals, and fossils, which were actually neat. We met up with our group around dinner time to head to our accommodations. We stayed in a hostel/empty youth camp building right on the festival grounds. I've never stayed in a hostel, so it was kind of cool to share a room with 5 other people. Danny and I stayed in a room with a German couple who was working for the German embassy in Seoul and 2 female English teachers. We slept Korean-style on mats on the heated "ondol" floor. We had dinner first in the basement on the building and it was actually delicious, mostly vegetarian Korean food. We didn't want to head to the room at 6pm, so we braved the cold in search of a bar or someplace to hang out with other roommates. We couldn't really find anything so we stopped in a convenience store to pick up some snacks and drinks and headed back to our room for card games and talking. We went to sleep at almost 2am and had to wake up at 7am or our hike up Mount Taebaek. To most people's dismay, we had PB&J for breakfast, but of course I was thrilled about having peanut butter! I had 2 whole sandwiches to give me energy for our 8km hike up one of Korea's tallest mountains. I have only been hiking once before (a relaxed 9 mile hike in Pennsylvania's Appalachian Trail with my cross-country team), but I don't think Danny ever hiked before. I wore about every layer I had brought with me (3 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, a jacket, 2 socks, 2 hats, and 2 gloves!) Thank god we bought the snow cleats, because we would have slid down the mountain in only our running sneakers. So the entire hike up to the 1,560m peak (almost 1 mile high) and back down took about 3 hours. The way up was so steep and snowy, but Danny and I were actually up front near our tour guides. With all the layers we were actually sweating. Within the first 1km my camera battery stopped functioning because of the cold, so luckily Danny's worked. As we neared the top, trees became sparse and the sky was so gray and it got colder and windy. We visited two shrines at the peak, where we made a wish and prayed to get down the mountain as soon as possible because it was freeeezing!! The trip down was also very steep, so we were grateful for the hand ropes on either side of the trail. Strangely, the trip down featured blue skies, no wind, no snow, and greener trees. We ended the hike back at the festival site and went back to our hostel for another good Korean vegetarian meal. The bus ride home took even longer because so many people were driving back to Seoul after a weekend in Gangwon province at ski resorts and snow festivals.
I am thrilled because my crazy intensive class is finally over and I got my new iPod Touch in the mail from my mom! My students are so jealous because it costs so much more in Korea. It's basically like a mini computer...you can surf the web, Skype, read books, watch movies and TV, oh and of course listen to music.!
