It's amazing to me how fast my time in Korea is going. Sometimes I don't even realize how far I've come or how fast the time is going by. Take for instance my blog, it's been a month since my last update. I looked at it the other day and thought, "that can't be right I just updated it!" I went from updating every week to now forgetting about it and coming back to all this time that has gone by without an update for friends and family back home.
happiness....
A lot has been going on in the past month. From stuff at school to the weekends spent with good friends, they are all good memories that lucky I have lots of pictures to remind myself of those times. It has been quite some time since I've gotten out of Gwangju for a weekend. I guess I have been busy with celebrating friends birthdays, events in the city or just pure relaxation that there hasn't been much time to get out and explore more of Korea. The cabin fever is setting in and I'm ready for some weekend adventures elsewhere. Hopefully I'll remember to update about them when they happen.
The week of October 18th was the Kimchi Festival in Gwangju. It was the Festival that I was most excited to check before I even came to Korea. Kimchi is such a huge part of Korean culture. They eat it at every meal. I was really excited that the festival took place in the city I was going to be living in. There were concerns about the festival. The weather in Korea had ruined a lot of crops and there was the "Kimchi Crisis" going on. It didn't affect Gwangju as much as the Northern cities, though. I went on the weekend with a few friends to check out all the hype. It was about 10 minutes away from my apartment so it was easy to find. We walked up to see a huge stage with musicians playing. There were people and stands everywhere. We went straight to the tent where we could make kimchi ourselves. The foreigners go to one table where we had some friendly Koreans helping us and who spoke English. The Koreans were on the other side making their own kimchi. We were given a head of cabbage and the ingredients. We mixed the ingredients together and then began rubbing it on to the cabbage. It took us about 10 minutes after we put the ingredients on the cabbage we were given a taste of our own kimchi. It was pretty good, but not really spicy enough. They put it in a bag and then a container (kimchi is pretty rank smelling...). On we went around the area to check other things out. There was stand after stand after stand of different kinds of kimchi. There are so many different tastes and ways to make kimchi, you can use cabbage, lettuce, radish or cucumber. They are all tasty, sometimes you find ones that are better than others. We stopped at a little food stand, sat down and ordered kimchi soup and some other meat dish. It was definitely a great experience!
The weekends have been pretty low key lately. I'm going to skip the weekend night life stories and go to talking about school. I've already talked about how frustrating my school is with all the things going on. My school is turning into a Langcon, which could be a good switch. They have a set out curriculum to follow, which we definitely need! I have doubts that many of my students will be able to keep up with the new curriculum though. I have probably the rudest kids in the city and ones that don't care even the slightest. It's unfortunate really, for Dan and I, to be at such a poor academy. It kind of ruins the whole experience. But then again, we are over halfway finished and have managed to find ways to get through. Besides the afternoon classes, which really aren't fun or worth teaching. The kinders.... are little kids. What to say about them. 5 crazy kids that drive us nuts sometimes, they are whiny, fight all the time, don't listen, those 5 little kids are pretty awesome, to say the least. Dan and I both are really proud of our kinders. We have gone through several Korean teachers, for the last several months the only teachers they have had consistently have been Dan and I. They are forced to speak English, try to translate their problems to tell us. They do a great job at it, too. It's amazing to think back 6 months ago and realize how much they have truly learned in those months. Their speaking is better, reading is better, they still have trouble with spelling, their coloring skills have improved. It kind of makes up for the rest of the kids that haven't improved at all. Take for instance Samuel, I have been teaching him for about 5 months. His reading use to be really bad, his speaking not so great.... but now, his reading is really good and you can't get him to stop talking in English. He loves to tell me stories, they usually take a good 20 minutes to get out, but it really is a great feeling. My boss has actually been telling me how much Samuel has improved and his parents have complimented on it, too. He use to never want to sit down and study, it was almost impossible. Now he is actually excited. I think a lot has to do with the fact that he wants to catch up to his classmate, Brenda. Who is a smart little girl and is really far ahead of any 7 year old (and a lot of my 13 year olds too!!) We use to hide from the kids during our lunch breaks, lately we've been going into the big room with the kinders and playing soccer with them. They love it and it really makes for a fun 30 minutes.
I'm coming up on my 7 months in Korea. 5 more to go!
I lived in Gwangju two years and never once made it to the kimchi festival. It's a shame, because it looks like a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteThat is a shame! It was pretty fun, if you like smelling endless amounts of kimchi.
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