Ok. So I must have blinked. What happened to October? With November now upon us (and Christmas not too far around the corner) it is hard to believe that 2010 is quickly disappearing. What a year!The 15th October marked the 7 month mark in our teaching contract in South Korea. CRAZY! Although the purpose of this particular blog post is not to give an analysis of the teaching side of our Korean lives, I can happily report that all is going well. Some days are diamond, some are just plain infuriating, but the balance is still in favour of the earlier.
Given that teaching takes up a significant part of our Monday to Friday, it is the weekend that really gives us the chance to explore and after returning from a great 2 weeks in Greece and Germany, we were looking to get back into the exploring frame of mind. So explore we have! A couple of weekends ago, a group of us headed out on a long walk out of our town to check out one of the biggest tourist drawcards in our area, the limestone cave Seongnyu-gul. It was a stunning autumn day in Korea - cool but clear skies - which made for a beautiful walk out through the fields and along the river. I think I enjoyed the leisurely stroll out to the cave almost as much as the cave itself, which should not be taken as a criticism of the cave by any means. While the cave isn't the biggest one in Korea, it is in pretty good condition and was a lot of fun squeezing and crawling through the often narrow and low hanging passage ways. As we emerged huffing and puffing and glad to extend our oversized western bodies, it was a little humiliating to watch Korean women in 4 inch heels and mini-skirts emerge looking like they just stepped off the page of a vogue magazine. They just walked through that cave wearing that? How do they do that?
Two weekends ago we jumped on a bus and headed to the mountain city of Taebaek. It is apparently one of Korea's smallest cities - once a bustling coal town with nearly half a million residences, the city of Taebaek can now barely call itself a city with a population just over 50 000. What a nice place. Taebaek really showed off the beauty of Autumn in Korea being surrounded by mountains with trees shedding their red, orange and yellow leaves. Around Uljin the majority of the trees are evergreens so the change from Summer to Autumn has not been as obvious. It was really nice to go for a few small hikes around the area and Brendan reconnected with his not-so-inner-child having a fantastic time shaking the shedding trees and creating "leaf snow". Always stay young at heart my love!
We also made contact with a few English Teachers in the area and were invited out on the Korean version of a pub crawl - a 'Mart crawl'. I should clarify that this isn't quite as 'hoboish' as it might sound. Well, ok, perhaps it is. Over here pubs don't really exist in the form we know it back home. You have the choice of drinking at a restaurant or drinking at a Hof - probably the closest think to a pub, but just not as relaxed and you really only have the choice of beer or soju. The alternative is to take advantage of Korea's more relaxed alcohol laws that allow EVERY market of any size to sell alcohol. In summer, the popular and cheap choice is the Family Marts that conveniently provide table and chairs for us all to sit around on the street and enjoy a quiet beverage or 3 while sucking in the tasty fumes of cars rolling by. So we rocked up for the mart crawl expecting it to follow the usual etiquette - a leisurely drink at each Supermarket or Family Mart until the last person falls over etc. But no.....they do things a little different in Taebaek. It turned out to be a race - how many marts could each team visit in 1 1/2 hours (with a minimum 6 drinks consumed at each Mart). Fantastic idea to drink quickly then run - good times :)
Other news - Uljin elementary had its annual sports carnival recently. These things are taken pretty serious over here with the days leading up to the event consisting of dress rehearsals and practice after practice. You could imagine my surprise when I rocked up on the day and there was not a ball, high jump or shot put to be seen. What transpired was a serious of fun games, running races and choreographed dances mostly put on as a cute little show for the parents. I had to contain my laughter for 2 events in particular - the fishing game which invited the grandparents to throw a fishing rod into a big box containing a student who then hooked a parcel onto the line for the grandparent and the bizarre mothers dance off - this involved about 6 mothers at a time running up to 6 of the "most eligible" of the male teachers and dancing with them in a hola hoop until the music stopped and then they had to run to 
the end of the track. Who came up with this concept and thought...yes....that's genius? Some of the mothers got just a little too excited...poor kids.Busy Busy times. I think we have something planned for every weekend between now and Christmas which is just how we like it. So stay tuned for more exciting and wacky adventures by Brendan and Kate in Korea.
//Kate
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