What You've All Been Waiting For... and More

An to the nyeong chingoos.

How is everyone? I hope you're well. Sorry it's been a hot second since I updated, but we've been having quite the hopping time here at Jungwon. Today will be another long and unorganized blog, but it's gonna have some good information so get yourself a Dr. Pepper and stick around.

Let's start with the most exciting news so you can stop reading after if you want.

The Big News

My Placement

Last Tuesday we had our placement ceremony in which all us ETAs found out where in Korea we will be teaching! I will be at... 선덕여자고등학교 Seondeok All Girls High School (pronounced sun-duck) in the city of 경주시 GyeongJu (pronounced kyung-ju)! That's right, not only will I not be at an elementary school as I told you last week, but I will be at an ALL GIRLS high school! The more I've been thinking about it, the more excited I've been getting! I am still adjusting to and reflecting on the idea of teaching older students, but I am looking forward to being able to connect with my girls at Seondeok!

Don't have a good picture of 선덕 Seondeok, but in the meantime settle for this picture of my roommate Jason and I at the placement ceremony. I'm looking sweaty and extra large but we good

The city I will be placed in, Gyeongju, is directly east of  대구 Daegu and north of 부산 Busan, the second and third biggest cities in Korea. I am probably less than an hour from each. Fun fact: I am the furthest east ETA in our program. Gyeongju is home of a world famous tap dancing museum, so basically I'll have plenty to do. But actually, it was the capital of Korea's ancient Silla kingdom and is home of 4 Unesco World Heritage Sites. The "museum without walls" should be a fun and unique city to explore for a year!

Find Gyeonju... that's me!

Other Goings On

1. 속초 Sokcho

This past weekend we took a field trip to 속초 Sokcho, a beach city in 강원도 Gangwon Province. It was a great time to relax and get away from our hectic schedules at Jungwon University, although they had scheduled activities for us as well. 속초 Sokcho probably deserves an entire blogpost to itself, but I'm afraid I'm not dedicated enough so you will have to settle for a recap and pictures. 

속초 Sokcho

Probably the best part of the trip was the food! Our first meal there was a delicious bulgogi soup, and being able to eat real, non-cafeteria kimchi was amazing! I never thought I would like kimchi as much as I liked that hotel's. We also went to a fantastic 삼겹살 Samgyupsal restaurant, which is pork belly that you grill right at the table. 

불곡기 Bulgogi Soup ft. Ivy

삼겹살 Sampgyupsal!

Two of our Orientation Counselors

On Friday, we went to 낙산사 Naksan Temple, a famous Buddhist temple in the city. The trip to the temple was preempted with a talk given by a white monk in the Korean sect of Buddhism who had been living in Korea for some time. To be quite honest the talk was a mess and the monk seemed to be slightly racist an ill-informed about some other religions. That being said, the temple itself was beautiful. This was actually my second time to the temple, which I didn't realize until I got there. When I was in Korea last, all of the names ran together in my head and I didn't keep a good record! 

Statue of Buddha at 낙산사 Naksan Temple

Saturday we had the entire day free, and I ended up going to 설악산 Seorak Mountain (pronounced suh-rock) with my friends. We hiked a trail and were treated at the end to a beautiful waterfall and some beautiful 아주마 ajummas (older Korean women) dipping their feet in the water. It was quite the party. (As an aside, 속초 Sokcho is famous in Korea for being the only city where Pokemon Go can be played. We went to the beach on Saturday after hiking, and it was actually ridiculous how many people were playing!)

Entrance to 설악산 Seorak Mt.

The Waterfall! ft. Maggie

Ajummas and us putting our feet in the water

Oh hey look who it is

Statue of a Black Bear at the entrance of the hiking trails

Some idiots (aka my friends) playing Pokemon Go on the beach in 속초 Sokcho

This is from another temple in 속초 Sokcho but Mama 신사임당 Shin Sa Im Dang's hair was looking on point so I took ap picture. Soak in the history 

2. FEP

The week we got back from 속초 Sokcho, the Fulbright English Program began (and is continuing as I write this). This program, shortened to FEP ("feep"), is a camp for Korean middle schoolers from all over the country to come and partake in an intensive English immersion camp for a week. Previous year's ETAs serve as the main teachers for the students, but us current ETAs also get the opportunity to teach and hang out with the kids.

I partook in "night fun," which is basically an amalgamation of activities led by current ETAs. My roommate Jason and I led kickball with some kids, and it was very entertaining.

Yesterday I taught my first class! It was an amazing experience, and my first time teaching in a real teaching environment. My class was only 8 students (5 girls and 3 boys) and I only had them for 45 minutes, but it was fun. I taught a lesson on bad habits and how to break them. At the end, the students invented their own creative products to break some bad habits. I wish I had pictures, but I couldn't take any since I was the teacher!! (In case you want to try and learn some Korean names, my student's names were girls: 채린 Chaerin, 진 Jin, 혜례 HyeRae, 수연 SuYeon, 인아 InA, and boys: 숭준 SeungJun, 보우 BoWu, and 수빈 SooBin)

Kids playing a charades game

Sassy-pants 유민 YuMin in the green is pretty darn cute

These are bad pictures but they're all I've got so work with me 

The kids are cute, just trust me

3. Dumplings

Just tonight I had another fun experience. Apparently there is a group of Chinese students partaking in a Korean immersion camp at Jungwon, and they invited a few ETAs to come make food with them tonight! We made dumplings, and not just a few! It was pretty much all girls, and they were adorable! They didn't speak much English and we didn't speak much Chinese, but it was fun nonetheless. They all wanted to take pictures with us as well since we were foreigners!

Dumpling making time!

If you look closely, you can see my skinny white head sticking out like the Loch Ness monster

Well that's all for now! Sorry it was a lot again, but thank you so much for reading! It means the world to me to know some of you back home are keeping up with my adventure. Talk to you soon!

Annyeong Y'all