So, I have been slack in my posting the past week. The previous week was another cold and rainy one, and just overall depressing. Most of you know that I can't stand to be cold and was secretly a lizard living on a hot rock in my former life. They don't have Groundhog Day here, but apparently, Spring just wasn't ready to come on down. Finally, this past Saturday, we had a nice day with no rain and temperatures up in the mid 60s. We chose that day to go on our first hike here in Seoul. Seoul is surrounded by mountains, and hiking is huge here. On the weekends, you will see tons of older people with all their hiking attire on riding the subways to go climb a mountain. Koreans are nothing if not healthy. So, Saturday we decided to do a mountain called Surak. It was unlike any other hiking experience I have had in that you basically go up in a line of people. We heard in the summer the lines are like Disney World. It wasn't quite that bad Saturday, but there were no moments of silence. We got to the top and found a small "restaurant" where they served snacks and water. Of course, everyone is fascinated by the white people. So, no sooner had we sat down to take in the scenery, than we were approached by a sweet woman who wanted to have a conversation to practice her English. Most Koreans learn English up until they have to take a proficiency exam in High School. (I believe it is a listening test) After that- they really don't have much opportunity to engage in conversation, and lose most of the English they have learned. This woman, named Yoon, told me a little about her travels to India and spoke quite well. She was so thankful she wanted to offer me and my friends some traditional Korean rice wine before we headed down. We graciously accepted and sat down to a 4 oz. serving of a white liquid. She was serving it out of a big 10 gallon jug- so it was obviously made at home. It tasted like beer and cider mixed together. Not something I would order, but not horrendous. Anyway- you could tell it was pretty potent stuff. We had to laugh because when Koreans sat down, they would be served a big BOWL of this wine to drink. I don't know how in the world people climb a mountain, drink a BOWL of alcohol and then manage to get down. This was a fairly steep climb. Crazy. Anyway- we made it down safely and I can't tell you how nice it was to have spent the day outside of the city.
Saturday night we went to a cultural performance. Traditional instruments, singing and dance. After our long hike, some of the music was enough to put you right to sleep, but the dancing was pretty neat. It is cool to see these traditions from 1000s of years ago still being performed and respected.
This week, we are back to lesson plan development in the hopes that the camp will open on time (May 6). I am really hopeful that it does. We are all just ready to get started and the delay with all the time on our hands just makes us more frustrated. (which causes more irritation with each other) You can imagine.
They moved the Cherry Blossom festival from this weekend to next weekend in the hopes that they will be in full bloom then. I will be there for sure. The bad news is, my NEW camera, has a busted LCD screen. So, hopefully I can get it repaired this week. If not, I will be at the mercy of my friends to share pics with me to put up here on the blog. Wish me luck trying to communicate with the workers in the Kodak store. I can't say I am too advanced in my Korean lessons. I don't think that "It's Delicious" will get me too far with them.
Send me email when you have time- I love hearing your news. I will do better about blogging more frequently. Take care!
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