Parting is such sweet sorrow...

I am in the Seoul airport now waiting to board my plane. I have 30 minutes. Saying goodbye today was really sad and hard. We made some good friends from Missouri. Jeju was really fun even though it was really sad not being with Ian on our anniversary. We ended up going to this crazy night club.. It was huge and had this crazy stage with hydrolics. There were performers and they would be lowered down from above and dance and stuff. At one point the entire ceiling opened up to the night sky and they shot out bubble foam.
We had a couple nights in Seoul and it was awesome because they finally just let us go off on our own and have free time for real. A bunch of girls and I went shopping almost the entire day. You guys would have been really proud of me because I was able to navigate the subway system and was reading maps and showing them how to get places. I amaze myself sometimes. We did inevitably get on the train going to wrong direction a couple times though. hehe. The night before we went to the jim-jo-bong spa place. It was called Dragon Hill and is the biggest one in Seoul. It cost $12 to go in, they give you a key chain and a cotton outfit. Then the women and the men go to different floors since everyone is naked. At first it was really weird to be naked around each other but the Koreans do it all the time so we got over it pretty quickly. We joked that we would all imagine each other in purple sweaters. Inside it had all these different pools, they were all different temperatures so we started in the cooler one and then moved to the hotter ones. Some of them had bubble jets and some had water currant streams you could float around on. We went over to the body scrub area and for 20,000 won (~$20) I got a body scrub. An older lady in her panties and underwear used this mitt thing and scrubbed every single dead skin cell off my entire body. And I do mean everywhere. I am still soft. After that we wandered around. There are lots of different services you can get there like any spa but Aly and I ended up getting dressed and going down to the communal sauna room. They were amazing. We started in the hot one that looked like a big brick igloo. After that there were 5 more that all varied in temperactures. One of them was tiled completely in jade and shaped like a pyramid. Another was completely made out of salt. On the ground were salt rocks and canvas blankets on the ground. You lay on the blankets and put your head on a wooden log slice. It was so beautiful and calming. Afterwards we took a shower and did mud masks. The women there were all sitting in a train and scrubbing each other. It is amazing how well they take care of their skin. They were doing everything from clipping toenails to shaving, anything beauty related. Another interesting thing is that even at 1am the place was packed and it was not uncommon to see a very small child with her family. People were still coming in at 2am when we left. Before we left we got a chair massage and then almost all of us fell asleep in the taxi back to the hotel. It was so relaxing.
We have so many good memories and so many new friends. I hope we can meet up with our Missou buddies very soon! I keep thinking I am going to hear Linzay or Jessica or Danette's voice, it is sad when I realize everytime that I won't see them until they come visit us in Jan. (except Linzay who is a fellow Portlander)
See you all back in the USA. Thanks for being my Korea followers. I will try and post pics soon so you can check back if you like!

On tour

Well, I don't have much computer time so I won't be able to write eveything I've been doing or post pictures but I can highlight a few things I've done over the past couple days...
After camp got over we packed up our bags and headed to Youngam camp..which was really nice in comparison to all the other ones. We all got dressed up and went to a fancyish dinner with the governor of the Jeoalloanamdo province. We listed to some speeches (Gene came along to pass on some words of wisdom) and took pictures. It was great being re-united with everyone and listening to stories (some of them horror stories) about the other camps. After talking to several people Christine and I felt really thankful that we were in Mokpo! Dinner was fun and then we hung out with Korean Ian and made him laugh. He is so funny. The next morning we woke up bright and early to eat hamburgers and go to the ferry boat in Wando.
I slept through most of the ferry ride to Jeju but then I realized at the end how much cooler the upper deck was and hung out up there watching the jellyfish swim around under the water. Jeju island is about an hour or two ferry ride from Wando. This is the vacation "honeymooner" destination of Korea. It is sorta tropical and has beaches and casinos and other fun things to do. Today we went on a long tour of the island. I felt very touristy. We only had like 20-30min at each destination so we were constantly in a rush to see everything and make it to the gift shop. The last person on the bus had to sing a song. At the folk village today we outright sprinted back. Luckily Aly was a couple minutes behind us and had to sing Twinkle, Twinkle. All in all we saw a waterfall, folk villiage, this fancy resort garden, 2 restaurants, and this big cave. It was sweet. I would have liked to slow down however. Today is my 1 year wedding anniversary with Ian :( I miss him a lot and can't wait to see him in 3 days. I can't believe it has been 5 weeks already...yet at the same time so much has happened sometimes it feels longer. At dinner tonight they announced it was my anniversary and Joe sang me the Michelle song. It was sweet. Anyway, gotta go, will post pics and more details later!

"At first it was strange meeting you but now we are friendly..."

Wow, camp is officially over, the kids said goodbye and we are packing up and leaving Mokpo for youngam camp in a few minutes. Camp idol was amazing last night, my kids (and ALL of the kids) worked so hard on their performances. They are so wonderful and awesome and generous and loving and I can't say enough about how great this whole experience was. At the closing ceremonies today all of the teachers lined up in a row and all of the students had to walk by and shake our hands and say goodbye. They were playing the New Years eve song which instantly made almost all of the students start crying. It was so hard and sad seeing all of their tears and knowing that we will probably never see them again. My students who had the hardest time getting along this week and speaking English were the ones who were crying the hardest and had the hardest time saying goodbye. One girl, who I named Hanna, had to walk through the line twice and give me more hugs. It was soo sad. We watched a slideshow of all the cool things we did this week and then it was time to get our bags and get out. Gene made Christine get up and sing the girl scouts song about "A circle is round, it has no end, that's how long I want to be your friend." It was hard saying goodbye to my co-teacher, Ji Hye also. She was so great. Yeah, this blog is really mushy. I am so thankful that I came and had this experience. Ian's (Korean Ian) quote is the best: "Men don't appear the tears, only mind cry." He told us that when we asked him if he would cry when he leaves us tonight. So great.

Almost finishee

Today is the last day I have to teach the hospital booth...I am currently teaching it for the 11th time (but I have a 20 min break right now). Needless to say it feels pretty redundant and boring at this point. I have Christine's class right now and they are great, just a little quiet. It is amazing to see the kids progress this week. At the very beginning I had to talk extremely slow and clear but I am now able to speed up and they understand almost everything (I think). We've been having a lot of fun here in Mokpo, I love being near a city (sorry people in Wando) because we get to go out and explore a little (With our chaperone/guardian/translator/bouncer Ian in tow). Two nights ago we went to a little music bar down the beach and hung out in big chairs listening to the saxaphone. The saxaphone player wore a bowlers hat and a little polka-dotted bow tie, he came and took pictures with us. I learned the word for beer in Korean: mak-ju and when you mix beer and soju it is called Su-mac.
Yesterday was a very long day, we are all exhausted and teaching the same thing over and over is very wearing. At lunch time my co-teacher, Ji Hye (Sophie) told me that the girls in my class were all very angry with another girl because she made our team lose the jump-roping challenge the night before. I guess she had been crying all night and was sitting by herself. We decided that we needed to have a class meeting during our camp idol practice. I had no idea it would turn into such a nightmare...to make a long story short I had a total of 4 girls crying and yelling (all in Korean) but it really came down to 2 of them that had the issue with each other. It ended up lasting the entire hour and a half we had allotted for practice so we are completely unprepared. They continued fighting once we got to the cafeteria to eat dinner and I saw them later on with the head teacher at the camp STILL fighting and crying. It just re-affirmed what I already knew about middle school girls. I miss 2nd graders. Tonight we have to perform something too (the native English teachers I mean), this guy here is really set on doing this Korean pop song called Nobody. We barely practiced and it is really going to suck. I don't want to. Tomorrow all we have is a scavenger hunt and the kids go home after lunch. Then we pack up our things and go to have dinner with the governor of the province. I can't wait to be re-united with all our other swine flu quarantine buddies! Saturday we head to Jeju island for a few days and then we spend a couple days in Seoul before we go home. I leave one week from today! I can't wait to see all of you!

oh yeah

I forgot to mention that Dan saved someone's life last night! He went out with Joe (to light more fireworks of all things) to the beach boardwalk. They found a nice Piano bar and were talking with some Korean people who were playing Rock, paper, scissors. If they lost then they would throw the loser into the ocean. At some point they all started screaming because one of the guys was being carried out to sea and swallowing water. Dan grabbed a rope and swam out to the man and rescued him! I guess the man was vomiting water and getting CPR and then the news came. Wow. Way to go Dan! I learned that he was on the swim team and was a lifeguard for 5 years. I am so amazed by our Mokpo hero!

For the very first time...

Whew, it is now the 5th day of camp and I am exhausted! I can't imagine doing 2 camps back to back! We are working (with breaks for lunch and dinner) from 8am-9pm every day. My group of kids (homeroom) happens to be an extremely hyper group of children who constantly yell and run around. It can be fun during games and things but gets very overwhelming when we are practicing for "Camp idol." We're going to perform the Cupid Shuffle and a Korean pop song called "Sorry, sorry." We have waay too much time allotted for idol practice so it gets really hard to constantly think of way to entertain them. I am officially really bored teaching the Hospital booth, only 5 more times to go, sigh. I am trying to still make it really exciting for the kids though so I hope they are having fun. Yesterday after lunch we got to go on board the ship docked here, it's used for training purposes (the university we are at is called Mokpo Maritime University and trains engineers).
Last night we went to the gym for our final activity and the school principal, Gene, taught us a funny dance, it includes the lightbulb, catching a fly, throwing a lasso and swimming. Then we learned a Folk dance and danced in a big circle to My Girl. After that we played a relay race with balloons. Two people ran down and popped a balloon by sitting on it and then they had to take another balloon and put it between them and hug to pop it. I was trying to sneak away when the discipline teacher, Henry found me and made me do it with Jun, a guy co-teacher. It was kinda embarrasing. Oh well...afterwards he came up to me and said. "That was a very different experience." hehe.
After our games we went to the teacher's lounge where Gene told us a long story about himself. He is 72 years old and says funny things all the time. He is full of funny idioms that he uses as much as possible, last night he told us: "Old soldiers never die, just fade away..." He clears his throat a lot when he speaks and says things very slowly. He also loves to say "For the very first time..." whenever possible. "For the very first time we will do a dance.." "For the very first time I go to the university..." etc. We got our $250 stipend and it was like none of us had ever seen money before. Pretty soon everyone was taking pictures with everyone's money to make it look like we had $1,000,000 won. We fanned it out and tried different poses. One of the ladies here laid down on the floor and spread the money out around her and tried to take sexy pictures. I was laughing hysterically as our (older lady who doesn't say things like that) head teacher told her to "work it." I think the principal was probably thinking we were really weird. This morning I woke up again to the loud obnoxious music that plays at a deafening volume at 7am and took a cold shower. It is rainy here today so they gave us big yellow plastic ponchos. Today we had a semi normal breakfast of toast, eggs, coffee, drinkable yogurt and soup. It was delicious. Have you guys ever seen the website Engrish.com? It is so funny. Great examples of the types of things we see on the signs and stuff in Asia. Anyway, wish me luck tonight as I somehow make it through 2 straight hours of camp idol practice. Maybe I can just wear my earplugs and hide in the corner...

Holy S*&^

ummm....this was one of the quiz questions we were provided for the game tonight (we didn't use it OF COURSE)

AND I QUOTE:

"I don't understand why people call me another Satan.
I tried to build the Garden of Eden on the earth.
I had to pluck the weed out of the garden.
The Jew was the weed.
I send millions of Jew to the gas chambers."


The answer is Hitler obviously. Wow.

I love food toilets

Wow! I am almost finished with my 2nd day of teaching in Korea! I woke up yesterday feeling very sick and thought for a minute that somehow, after all this time, I still managed to get the swine flu. It was scary. The cold shower didn't help much either. As soon as I started teaching however I felt great and everything was fine. My first class was excellent. The students were absolute angels, they listened respectfully and even though many of them had very limited English they did all the assignments and waited patiently for all of their classmates to finish their work before moving on.
The second group was a little more difficult in terms of management but there were no major problems and during the breaks I got to talk to Ian over IM in my classroom. I was feeling super excited and ready for the evening activities after dinner. We went to the auditorium to play a game called "KABOOM" -it is like jeopardy only sometimes there is a bomb or a missile behind the paper. Our team won, they answered some pretty hard questions all by themselves. Afterwards they had waaay too much time to write in their journals (a very short fill-in-the-blank worksheet) and then we had to pick a song to perform for "Camp Idol." This is when things got frustrating. They wouldn't pick a song and finally I just had to decide for them. Then we had over and hour to practice and they got really bored and tired. Oh well.
After dinner we were finally granted permission by the camp principal to go out with our Korean buddy from quarantine, Ethan. He took us to a nice seafood restaurant in downtown Mokpo. As we entered there was a tank of live octopi, we took off our shoes and sat Kris cross at the tables. They ordered us a dish with many kinds of seafood mixed in with many small side dishes (several kinds of kimchi of course). Linzay is very brave and tries everything so I figured I might as well just go for it and not ask what things were until after I had tried them. I discovered that I really like to eat octopus and jellyfish (yeah, that's right, jellyfish!), the fish intestines were actually really good too...the only thing I had to spit out was this weird little clam-like blob. When I bit it juice squirted all the way across the table, it was hard and chewy and tasted TERRIBLE.
I am learning a lot about Korean manners. If you want to hand someone something you always have to use 2 hands...which can be very awkward when reaching far distances. Also you can never fill your own glass of alcohol, an older person with (usually the oldest man) has to notice and fill it for you (which you accept with both hands). When you cheers you have to touch glasses lower or higher that the other person depending on where they are in the hierarchy. It's all very confusing. There are so many times during the day when I'm not sure how to respond to something going on around me.
Afterward we went across the street to a bar, I guess it is famous in Mokpo because you can buy your beer in a glass made of ice, then when you are finished you throw it at a target and break it. I think if you hit the target you win another beer but I'm not sure. It was really fun to get out and see the city. I wish we could do things like that more often. I think Jeju island and Seoul will be very fun....I just hope they give us our stipend or I can find an atm that works...I am completely out of won! We got home at 1am and I passed out before my head hit the pillow.
They play really loud morning music here to wake up the kids so I woke up at 6:50 and took a cold shower. Teaching went well again. I am already bored teaching the hospital unit but at least it is easy, I barely have to think about what I am doing at this point. The lessons go by very fast. The students were great and we played another fun game in the gym today. Everyone had to tie a balloon around their ankles and then each team had to chase another team around trying to stomp on their balloons to pop them. My team won again. They are awesome. After that we played a relay game and went to dinner. The food here is really good, I think it is much better than Wando's food. We get lots of variety and the facilities are very nice.
The first day we were here I was fascinated by the food dumping machinery. First we dump our garbage and leave our spoons and chopsticks then you step up to a trough and water begins to shoot out down to a drain, you dump your food and the water carries it down. I think it is recycled or fed to animals or something. Anyway I named it the "Food Toilet." The girls liked that one. They made me do lots of cheers last night "To food toilets!"

culture shock

Wow...today was intense. I jumped out of bed and realized that the battery had come out of my clock, I scrambled to my ipod and breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that it was only 7:20. After my cold shower (no hot water here) we headed to breakfast and the opening ceremony. We found out that we would still be getting health checks because now they are really worried that the children will bring swine flu to the camp. Everything is so crazy. The schedule changes literally every 5 minutes and the Korean's English leaves something to be desired. I am in a constant state of confusion and I've been trying to ask as many clarifying questions as I can but the Korean culture is very indirect so they always say "maybe" before they answer our questions.After the meeting we headed outside and were greeted with a torrential downpour. We ran through the rain and I managed to get a 2 big blotches in the shapes of a sperm on my new white camp t-shirt. At lunch I sat with my class and they refused to speak to me despite my best efforts. I did get them to tell me their names but the rest of the time I listened to them giggle and wondered what they were saying. After lunch we met with our groups to play some icebreaker games. I have 6 girls and 4 boys in my class and at first they wouldn't stop talking. I had the same problem throughout the day, when the teacher talks here they students don't stop talking and no matter what I say they do not stop talking. It was very awkward for me. I even pulled out the evil stare. After playing some games they took a pre-test and we gave them a break. If you tell the children what time to be back they just leave and come back on their own. We don't need to supervise them at all. Weird. After the break we met again with the goal of creating a team poster and a team cheer. We played Duck, Duck, Goose and Down by the Banks and then the kids were in a good mood. Our team name is the "Shooting Stars" and our cheer was to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle little star. I feel like today was so overwhelming I am having a hard time even describing how odd and alien everything was teaching them. I have 2 boys that never listen or participate in anything that we do. They were playing fighting games the whole day and I had to keep taking away the things they were using to fight with (my hospital supplies, markers, chalk...). After dinner we had to go to the auditorium to describe the posters we made and perform our cheer. My group had the best cheer in my opinion :) At the end we were informed that the native teachers had to vote on the best team poster (the cheer didn't even count!) It was really awkward and I felt really bad voting because only the top teams would get a prize. They also informed us that we would be responsible for performing songs in front of everyone. On the spot we decided to sing "Take me back to the ballgame," and "Stand by me." It was so weird. I can't stop saying how weird it is here. Sorry I don't have a better adjective. Afterwards I noticed that most of the American teachers were not looking too happy. In the elevator the horror stories started to come out and I realized how lucky I was to have such a semi-cooperative homeroom class. Many of the students were completely unresponsive and negative the entire day...to say the least. Too bad, it makes me nervous to get all the other rooms if they hate being here. I hope I can get them excited. Tomorrow is the first day that I will teach my Hospital unit, I hope it is OK. It is definitely one of the hardest lessons in the whole book. I found out today that it was written by a middle school teacher. The students can barely speak as it is let alone describe their ailments and draw an entire hospital floor plan. Ummm, so even though it's 10pm I was just told that we have a meeting...

Mokpo camp

We have finally arrived at our camp, Mokpo Maritime University. We are right on the ocean and surrounded by beautiful mountains. We were greeted very warmly off the bus by a group of Koreans who had even drawn us a sign with all of our names on it. We got our room assignments and discovered that Wando wasn't so bad after all. The rooms here are very small and don't have bathrooms attached, we were also informed that bedding is not provided here (THANK YOU SUSAN! -she gave me her sheet), oh and no pillows. We have a community shower room and toilets, the wash machine doesn't work and there is no dryer. As I went to use the bathroom I noticed a very interesting lever on the side of the toilet, "what is this?" I wondered aloud to Christine as I bent over and pushed it down...SQUIRT! Water came out in a large arc and got all over my leg. Now I know it is a bedae (I hate French spelling) On the plus side we do have air conditioning and internet in the rooms...
I finally got to meet my Korean co-teacher. Her name is Ji Hye and she is very nice and a little shy. We practiced our lesson and made the materials we will need to teach. She is basically my assistant and will help me act out the lessons and help the children if they cannot understand what to do. Christine's co-teacher is very nice also, his name is something hard so we just call him "Sik." He insisted on buying us ice cream, when we first said no he said "Please, it is for my happy" and then we couldn't say no to something that cute. After dinner the Koreans brought us beer and fried chicken and we had a little celebration to help us introduce the people of the camp. It was really funny when some of the head teachers and discipline teachers spoke because we couldn't understand anything they were saying. I guess I took for granted how good we had it with Sherry (a Korean-American girl who came from Mizzou and did all of the translating) around. Anyway what I think I am supposed to do is get up and go to breakfast at 8 and then he said a bunch of stuff I didn't understand so I will just see where everyone else goes. Ji Hye informed me that my suspicions were correct about parents getting wind of our swine flu quarantine and not sending their children to camp. She told me that our class size will now be about 9-10 children per class. I won't even know what to do with so few of them! She also told me that the Korean teachers were nervous about it too...I pretended to sneeze on her after she told me and she laughed but there was definitely some fear in her eyes, hehe. We got shirts so we can all be matching tomorrow for the "opening ceremonies" woo-hoo. The Korean couples are so funny because many of them will wear matching shirts to show that they are together. We were joking that now we are like couples. They also mark the time they have been together by counting the days. 100 days is a big anniversary for them and they thought it was very strange that we don't celebrate our 100th day together. I told her that Ian and I have 3,000 days and she laughed. I wonder how many days it has actually been. It is a full moon tonight and out my window I have a view of a big rocky mountain, it is completely lit up with light of different colors. Hopefully many pictures and funny stories to tell soon. We don't actually start teaching our units until Sat. but tomorrow we meet the kids and come up with a team name and a cheer, I can't wait to meet them, I hope they can understand what I am saying! We teach our units for 6 days in a row, 2 times a day. I think the days will feel really long and get boring pretty fast. The schedule is like this:
8am breakfast
8:40am meet w/ homeroom students
9am begin first block (3 hours--I teach the "Hospital" booth)
12pm lunch
1pm begin 2nd block
4pm practicing song/dance...then I get fuzzy on what we're doing but I don't think we finish working until 8 or 9pm. Whew. Better get some rest for tomorrow!

I am a lotus flower

On the agenda today was breakfast at McDonald's, a trip to the beach, lunch at a Korean restaurant, Buddhist temple and Damyang camp. Christine and I woke up in our sexy motel with a loud obnoxious phone call. We rushed through our showers and got ready to go. At McDonald's Christine informed me that I had been talking in my sleep apparently I told her very frankly that she had just "grabbed my butt." "Sorry" she told me and went back to sleep. Hahaha, I guess the motel got to me a little. The Koreans warned us in advance that the beach had "black sand" but when we got there we discovered that that just means gravel and small rocks. We laid in the sun for a couple hours and moved on to our next destination. Lunch was pretty standard and then it was time to head to the Buddhist temple. To get to the temple we walked along a quiet river path with large trees and bamboo growing all around. The entire place (which had many buildings) was hand painted with designs of bright, vibrant colors. I cannot even imagine how much time it would take to complete one small board let alone entire huge buildings. Beautiful hillsides surrounded the temples and monks walked around with their shaved heads and baggy clothes. We learned some history from a tour guide and then had an hour or two on our own to explore. We entered the main temple. It had several very large Buddhas in front, we took off our shoes, grabbed a mat and sat quietly while people came in and out to offer money and do their bows and prayers. It was so peaceful and beautiful to look at. We ate at one of the many restaurants down by the parking lot (all vegetarian!) bim bim bop (it is a rice dish with lots of stuff added it). After dinner we headed to one of the other camps called Damyang. There are community bathrooms here and community showers, I think this is the camp we heard about that the teachers had to sneak around when the kids weren't around to shower. Glad I'm not staying! Today we meet with our Korean co-teachers and then head to our own camps at noon. I'm excited to see where I will be teaching but kinda nervous to teach my lessons! I guess the first time through will be a little spotty but will be great by the 8th time! I'm supposed to teach the Hospital booth and there is a lot of vocabulary involved...Kinda wishing I picked a different topic. Sigh.

Out and about in Korea

Freedom at last! We finally escaped our quarantine in Wando and made it out to see some of the country. It was the first time in a while that I had to wake up early in what seems like a long time. Nevertheless I was up and ready to go in time to eat breakfast and hit the road by 9am. We all got on to our respective buses (there are 3). Our bus is purple inside and out with little dangles everywhere and a big flat screen tv. It made me really happy. After only about an hour drive we stopped at the DaehanDawon green tea farm. The farm spread out over all of the visible hillsides in long green rows. We climbed to the top of the largest hill where we had an amazing view of all the nearby hillsides and the ocean. There were many Koreans there as well, it is fun to say hello to them and they try to say the things they know in English like "See you tomorrow, hehehe." After some great photo opps we hiked around a little and ended up in the gift shop. I found a really cool ceramic mug that has a little insert that filters tea leaves. I also bought some of their most famous green tea and got a green tea latte, mmmm. After that we rounded up all 70 of us back on the buses (I feel like a big time tourist on this trip!) and drove another half hour to eat at a Chinese food restaurant. It had some interesting options including raw octopus (a lot of sashimi) and grape doughnuts. I got a few really questionable items that I ended up having to spit out but most of what I got (it was a buffet) was edible. The next stop on the tour was at a traditional Korean folk village. It remained intact after the Japanese invasion and many Koreans were there visiting as well. We had a small tour and then we had a couple hours to wander around on our own. It was very beautiful in its simplicity. Only grass roofs are allowed with stones and mortar holding up the walls. They are not allowed to have televisions but telephone wires have been placed under the ground for the many people who still live there in the traditional style. Many of them are farmers or do a craft such as ceramics or a blacksmith. The wooden bridges were hand painted and maintained with the utmost care.
At one point Christine and I found an area (probably for children) that had a teeter totter-like board so each of us got on and rocked back and forth slowly (standing up). Finally after staring at us a gentleman came over with the intention of helping us play the game correctly. He stepped on my end and tried to get us to jump up and down. It was so funny because every time I jumped Christine would "WoooooP!" and get really scared. I guess we're not meant to master the game. It was funny though. The Koreans are all so helpful and interesting. There have been people all day who just want to talk with us and help us in any way they can. I ended up accidentally stealing Aly's parasol and felt like a Korean princess, hehe. I got to hold a tiny puppy--soooo cute!
As we were wandering through the beautiful ceramic crafts tables and admiring the vases and bowls and things we came upon a table filled with ceramic penises. Each one was a little different in size and shape. It was odd. I thought they would at least be salt shakers or something. We also saw another table in a different area that had little people with very enlarged organs. Seems like you see the same types of things when travelling to Mexico or Hawaii. Interesting. After a couple hours we were all very ready to leave and got back on our bus to head to dinner. Dinner was the best meal I've had in Korea so far, we all had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor. The waiters brought out several different bowls of kimchi and other items. They then turned on a little grill in the middle of the table and a large plate of sliced pork (it looked like bacon). We cooked our own food with onion and garlic and then put all the sauces and pork into a leaf of lettuce like a taco. It was sooo yummy. Afterwards, smelling of cooked bacon, we all checking into our motel rooms and went out on the town. I have to pause here to explain what the motel situation is like. It's called Motel Lexus (yes, like the car). It was all very dark and mysterious as we walked down the hallway entrance. The place where you pick up the keys is a small window where one can remain anonymous and the elevator is filled with mirrors. As Christine and I entered into the room everything was dark and obviously placed with a couple in mind. In the other rooms condoms were left on the table next to the bed. On the floor above us there is a vending machine selling paraphernalia. Margaret informed us shortly thereafter that we are staying in a hotel that charges "by the hour." The lights are very low and remote controlled, as we walked in we placed out key in a slot which automatically controls the mood lighting and turns on the tv (naughty channel). We cracked up laughing and are now sitting in the room thinking about how gross and uncomfortable it is to stay here. Oh well, it's all part of the experience, right? Btw there are only rooms with queen sized beds so we all are sharing...which is fine and dandy with me but makes me giggle that all the boys are in the same situation.
We got free time to explore the city and go shopping so we made our way to the "home plus" store where I finally got to buy the hairdryer I've been dreaming about. I also got to buy some t-shirts with nonsense English phrases on them. We've all been laughing about some of the shirts we've seen since they don't make any sense. I bought two, one of them says "Peaseful world" and the other says "American tourister: You make a fabulous jack." On the downside I tried to use 3 different ATMs and none of them are accepting my debit card. Uh-oh! Hopefully we can stop at a bank soon. I really wanted to buy some sunglasses but the cheap ones cost $50 USD! No way! The only pair I brought was a cheap pair someone left in my car once and I accidentally stepped on them and broke the temple. Bummer.
We ran into Quinlin and our Korean hosts afterwards drinking a traditional rice wine and so we joined them for a small snack (egg/fish omelet style dish) and some of the drink (I wish I could remember the name, it was milky in color and tasted somewhat like saki). After an hour or so they headed out to sing at a karaoke bar and Christine and I decided to head back to our motel (not hotel) room to try and sleep. We found some English tv channels which helped make us feel a little less uncomfortable. I am going to try and sleep while imagining I am somewhere else. Oh well...this will be funny later. Christine pointed out how odd that they are such a reserved culture in terms of their dress and actions yet it is perfectly acceptable to bring a group of tourists who've never seen Korea to a "by-the-hour" hotel the first time they go out to a city. Tomorrow we go to the beach and to visit a temple. Then we stay over at one of the other camps called Damyang. Hope all is well back in OR. Hugs to you all!

Tonights gonna be a good night....

It is officially our last night in Wando! It feels good to know we are getting out of here but on the other hand it will be hard to leave some people behind as we all split up into our 5 prospective camps. Even though there have been many ups and downs during our 2 week stay here in close quarters we have grown into somewhat of a "quarantine family."
Yesterday we went on our big hike to the top of the mountain. Christine was a trooper, it was the first time she'd really had a chance to get out and exercise since her 5 day stint in a quarantined hospital room. At one point she mumbled "this sucks" but seemed really happy once we made it to the top and we had a view of the entire island. It made me giggle. We got to hike with Kristen our head teacher and Eric, both are teachers in Oregon. It was really fun being with them as we didn't get a ton of time to get to know each other before. We got to tell stories about our funny experiences as teachers which are always fun and entertaining to other teachers :) Another plus is that Shannon didn't get lost this time, hehe.
Our activities coordinators, Erica and Laura mostly I think, organized a "Farewell Formal" dance. It was very prom-esque. At first I really didn't want to go but then felt like a party pooper when I realized everyone else was going. Christine's awesome roomie/quarantine buddy Megan was nice enough to let me borrow a cute shirt as all I brought were very "teachery" (dare-I-say matronly) outfits. It was the closest thing to an asian princess outfit as I am going to get I think. They organized superlatives (awards) for everyone, I got "the most dependable for when your bff is stuck in quarantine" and Christine got "best hula hooper." When Christine accepted her award she made sure to announce that she "just learned how yesterday." It was funny. After that we danced to some really interesting songs (I'm blue, Barbie girl...among some classics like Sweet Caroline) and drank soju with grape drink. It was a good time and a good way to cut loose before we head out of Wando.
Today was a lazy day. Not a whole lot to tell except that we had to have a big group discussion about an incident that occurred last night...it involved lighting off fireworks in the hallway in the middle of the night. Not the best decision. I'm pretty glad I was on a different floor and dead to the world with my earplugs in. It was a big problem for a lot of people though which I totally understand. Two of the people who did it are going with Christine and I to Mokpo camp...I think we might need to have a camp meeting about appropriate behaviors. We'll see. It seems like people are still upset. I just hope they don't plan on continuing the party once we get around the children.
On a really happy exciting note, Ian and I got to pick out the puppy we want. We had to choose between 6 females. It was really hard without meeting them but we ended up going with the smallest one, she has really pretty coloring with a cute little swiss kiss on the back of her neck. I can't wait to meet her! The breeder named her Annie but no worries, so far I like Bella or Nena. I think we need to meet her before we make any final decisions. Any other ideas?
We go on our cultural tour tomorrow for 2 days and go to our camps on Thursday night. We begin teaching Friday. So for you, my faithful blog followers, this means I will no longer have such a large amount of time to dedicate to writing long drawn-out blogs detailing every moment I spend in Korea. Much love to you all! I'll write as soon as I have internet!

Hoop-dee-doo

Alright, it's been a couple days since I posted anything so I will try to remember what has happened. I have lost all track of time here...
The day before yesterday was spent being lazy. Susan (and the other 4 to go home) found out they would be leaving the next morning so she packed her things and got really excited to go home (I am now without a room-mate). I decided that I was going to re-teach myself how to do cartwheels and round-offs and as a result I am really sore. Too old for those things I guess. After dinner was the highlight of my day, I brought a hula hoop outside and was happily hooping when Linzay came out with a whole bunch of hoops and joined me! Since then it has been a hoop-a-thon and even a lot of the guys can keep it going. Mike came up with the brilliant idea to make a game of tag using the hula hoops and he named it Hoop-dee-doo. I guess that's just what happens after 2 weeks of quarantine with nothing to do and nowhere to go. To start the game we all have to scream "HOOP-DEE-DOOOO" and run at each other with our hoops trying to hoop our opponents.
Just as it was getting dark a van pulled up and stopped in front of the building. We all squinted in that direction until someone screamed "The girls are back!" I sprinted over to the van and saw Christine, we did the movie style run and hugged each other. It was a magical moment. It was so good to see all of them. I am really glad that they are back and are relatively unscathed from the experience. I still can't really imagine how alien it all must have felt. I'm glad they had each other.
Yesterday we finished our last doses of Tamiflu and are officially "un-quarantined" HOWEVER we are still stuck at Wando until Tuesday morning so things are basically the same minus the mass hysteria and mask wearing. Some of the villagers found out about our situation and were protesting at the bottom of the hill (damn foreigners bringing swine flu into their country!). That means that we're still not able to go down to the village. Sigh. After sleeping in and eating lunch we geared up to hike to the arboretum again. It was packed with families who were all very friendly, the little children are SO cute! We saw a group of guys playing a really interesting game, it had a net like in tennis and was basically volleyball only they touched the ball only with their feet. So soccer-volleyball. It looked fun. I had to use the bathroom and the only style of toilets they had were the squatty kind! I can now say that I've had a real Korean experience peeing into a squat toilet. Yay! Actually I don't like public toilets and hope I don't have to do that again.
After that we brought Christine back to the waterfall you can sit under and we all swam. It was cloudy and started to rain but still felt really refreshing and nice after our hike. When we got back a barbecue was already underway (it was Seth Goldman's bday after all). We showered and headed down to be greeted with Korean style potato salad, corn, rolls, shish kabobs (sp?), hot dogs, these cool rice tube things, shrimp on a stick, beer and soju. After eating, in true Korean style, they brought the karaoke machine outside and went out to buy fireworks. I spent most of the evening hula hooping with everyone, I can now go from my neck down to my waist and hoop with multiple hoops at the same time. I love it! I jokingly suggested that I should sing Super Freak since a lot of the people here think I am really shy and polite. So of course they wouldn't let me get away with not doing it. It was really funny since I don't actually know how the song goes except for the beginning and the chorus. I hula hooped throughout the entire song I might add :) I think it shocked a few people. Nice.
Today I think we will go on a long hike after lunch, tomorrow is our last day here and then we leave for our tour at 9am on Tuesday morning. I don't think I will have access to the internet during that time but I'm not sure. We get to go visit a green tea farm and do some shopping among other things. On Thursday we get to meet our Korean co-teachers to prepare for teaching which begins Friday! Once we get going this whole trip will go by super fast. We teach for 8 days (it's the elementary school group) and then we go on another cultural tour to Jeju island and Seoul. That is also when we will be having a farewell dinner with the governor of the province. Fun stuff. For those of you still reading: The Bridge of Apollodorus over the Danube was a roman bridge, the first to be built over the lower Danube. For more than a thousand years, it was the longest arch bridge in the world to have been built, in terms of both total and span length. The bridge was constructed by the Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Good news! Since the spread of swine flu is so fast (over 1,000 Koreans are infected every day) they finally realized that there was nothing they could do about it and they changed the law 2 days ago. It is no longer required to quarantine anyone with swine flu. They are just stocking up on tamiflu and goin' with it I guess. We finish with our tamiflu tomorrow and then we don't even need a test to make sure we're negative. Our second camp is a go and will most likely be the middle school group. No worries if anyone else gets sick, they will just refrain from teaching and in the kids case they will just be sent home as if it were any other illness. Yay! Since the other camp was not scheduled for another week the Koreans are going to take us on a 3 day cultural tour and then we'll get a chance to meet with our Korean co-teachers to prepare for the camp. I am really happy I decided to stay. We still get to go on a tour of Jeju island and Seoul at the end as well.
Today was really hot and sunny so a few of us got our swimsuits on and hiked down the stream to see if we could find a place deep enough to swim. The water felt really good, it was cold and clean. It actually looked a lot like an Oregon stream. We hiked downstream to a small waterfall that you could sit behind. It was scary going in the first time because the water was coming so fast but you just had to sit down and close your eyes and suddenly it was right in front of my face. Shannon scared us really bad again, she slipped and fell down head first....but got right back up again and is fine apparently. I am still not going to let her fall asleep just in case. I think I got some sun today, my face feels warm.
Susan, my roommate, gets to leave and is very happy about it. She was cheerful and fun again which was nice, but I will miss her a lot. Christine comes back from the hospital tomorrow afternoon, I am really excited to see her! My other room mate Aly decided to stay which also makes me really happy.
So I am really happy I decided to stay. Now that all the stress of not ever getting out of quarantine is gone it's actually pretty fun here. Everyone is pretty much friends now and this really is a beautiful place. After dinner a whole bunch of us hula hooped for a really long time. It pretty much made my day :) The Korean way to say hula hoop is "hula hoopoo"
k, Love you all lots! Now you can sleep well and not worry about me, things are good here in SK.

I hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass...

Alright, so last night we had to decide for sure whether or not to stay or go and I decided to stay. I think it would be sad to get all the way here and never see anything. The Koreans really don't want us to leave with such a bad impression of their country and are doing their best to make us comfortable. Right now there are 2 possibilities...we should know the final decision this afternoon. 1) Go on a cultural tour of the country for a week and fly home early 2) camp will continue as planned, we will pick up where we left off and only teach 1 camp and then do the same cultural tours as previously planned (temple stay and tour of Jeju island and Seoul).
I decided this after talking to Christine who, even after the worst possible experience here wants to stay and teach. She is totally gung-ho and after some thought I decided it would be pretty lame for ME to be the one to go home after all that. SO more info to come about what I'm doing and when I'm coming home. She is coming back to Wando tomorrow afternoon with all the other swine flu-ees! Yay! They have been in the hospital in a clean room, the doctors even wear their little space suit things when they go in their room!
Our head teacher Kristen made the point that next time we're in an interview and they ask us how we cope in difficult situations...
Anyway, things are fine and I miss and love you all!

In the crazy house

So we're up to 8 confirmed cases of the swine. I am still feeling good, only 3 more days of meds to go and then I can get out of here. I think I'd like to see the country a bit but I am so afraid of being re-quarantined that I think I will do my best to escape the group and go off on my own for a while. I'd still like to see if I can get an earlier flight out of here. We find out in a couple days if they decide to still continue with the second camp (I can't believe anyone still wants to teach).
It really does feel like being in a mental hospital...we get our meds served to us twice, morning and night. 3 healthy meals at 8, 12:30 and 6. We have planned "activities" and classes during the day and the only things we can do are use the computer or get outside and do healthy things like hiking or team sports.
I am so thankful that I have an awesome room mate Susan (Su-Chen) who is fun to talk to and downloads funny movies on her computer :) I am also going to see if Shannon will escape with me and travel around the country so I don't have to go alone...I hope I can get ahold of Christine and see if she will come too! They are doing well but still don't have internet access. Much love to all!

RELIEF

I DON'T HAVE SWINE FLU! 5 DAYS AND I'M OUTTA HERE!

Still waiting...

Thanks for all the emails. I am doing fine. We still haven't gotten the test results back from the swab test yesterday, I guess they sorta dropped the ball but they should be here by tonight. I had a dream last night that the results came back and I was the only one positive. Scary! I already mentioned to a few people that I have been around swine flu (I only told them so they wouldn't worry too much about it--it's not really that bad after all) so one guy decided that it was all my fault and I have been carrying it around and infected everyone. sigh. I really am fine though. My roommate has stopped freaking out so much so that is nice. I have mostly just stayed in my room today and slept. It is getting much more difficult to use the computer because there are very few of them now that people are willing to share (too many germs apparently).Christine's test results came back for the more accurate swine flu test and she is positive. Weird because she was only feeling sick for a few hours. So she will stay in the hospital until she tests negative. I do have some good news! They brought us all tamaflu (an antiviral that helps our immune systems to fight off viruses). We started taking it last night and we have to take it twice a day (they are assuming we all have it and are being treated thus, for prevention you take it once a day for 10 days). So that means that after 5 days of tamaflu we are ALL going to get a swab test and those of us that test negative are going to be allowed to leave! If we're not negative we'll have to stay in quarantine but I am assuming we will be taken to the hospital and no longer be stuck in this icky building.
Some people decided not to take the tamaflu (we miss you Aly!). They are being quarantined to the 4th floor and are to have no contact with the rest of us. They have to be swabbed after 7 days and their quarantine will restart if anyone gets sick during that time. Hopefully they all stay healthy and can leave after a week...
I am having a bit of a dilemma with what to do after quarantine. I think I might change my mind about it several times. The Koreans are still considering doing the second camp (it wasn't set to start until the 7th anyway) so there may be that option...that would probably be the only way that I could get the 4 credits I came for. We are being given the option to come home as soon as possible but we don't even know how long that would take since it isn't always the easiest thing to find last minute flights for everyone.
My fear is that if I stay with the group there is a chance that someone else will get swine flu and this whole nightmare will start over again. So my thrid option I was thinking about was to see if it is possible to leave the group and see Korea a bit on my own for a week or something and still fly home early. I keep flip flopping back and forth. All I know is I want out of here and to get away from the group. It would suck to go through all this and not get any credits though also. I don't know.
Today the Koreans supplied us with a fridge and a whole convenience store's amount of snacks! We have chocolate and crackers and all sorts of yummy snacks! It made my whole day. Plus they are doing their best to cook us food we like. 2 people here are massage therapists and are giving us chair massages later tonight! So at least I've got that goin' for me.
Alright, I will get on the computer as much as I can but it might not be every day anymore. Love and hugs! Can't wait to be home!

Swine '09

So we have 2 more "confirmed" cases of swine flu. There are a lot more people getting tested today, I demanded a test. The sooner I can get it and get out of here the better...alright so they just swabbed my throat. I should know by tonight what the test results are. The preliminary test isn't very accurate. Apparently it can give a false positive but not a false negative. So if I do test positive they will do a more accurate test to see if I really have it. I am hoping that if I have to go to the hospital once I test negative I can demand to be send home instead of sent back to this shithole.

Quarantine forever

Well, I guess I'm stuck here for another week. Things are fine, I don't want to make anyone overly concerned. While everything about this situation totally blows. I am safe and sound and Christine will be as well. She is feeling fine and has been taken to a hospital where she will have access to internet and phone and also her international insurance will cover a second opinion, there will also be English speaking doctors there. They are doing a more accurate version of the swine flu test now (the one that takes 24 hrs) and I will know the results tomorrow. Sorry if I freaked anyone out with my last email. This experience has truly tested my abilities to withstand high amounts of stress so maybe I will come back a much more calm and patient person...Wearing the masks is awkward and I feel like some people are taking them waaay too seriously. Oh, we also have a case worker at the US embassy helping us out as much as they can.

We went on a really amazing hike up to a view point. To get there we had to rock climb a little (there was already a rope there for us). It looked like we were on one of the highest peaks on the whole island. We could see everything. There are so many tiny islands all over and the rice paddies were like big quilt patches. On the way back our friend Shannon went ahead of us on the wrong trail. We thought we lost her, just when we thought this whole experience couldn't get any worse...just as we began organizing a search party we heard she had come back! It was the best news all day!
The Koreans are trying to make us as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. They are getting us internet in our rooms and dryers (our clothes are not really drying due to the large amounts of rain and humidity). They even made us french fries for dinner. We are organizing things to do...there is actually a bonfire outside right now. We're having "Wandolympics" on Tuesday, we had a talent show last night and now we're organizing nightly movies. I think though that if I have the option to go home after quaratine I will take it. I have had about all I can take at this point and I really truly just want to come home. I am hoping this is one of those experiences that I can look back on someday and laugh. I am making some really good friends doing this so I guess I have that to be thankful for as well. Thanks for all your thoughts and emails, please keep them coming as I don't have a whole lot else to do!