I can. not. believe it's only been two months. Not even! We arrived around the 2nd of August, I think. The whirlwind of training, moving, and settling into our new routine is over, though, and it's time to settle in for the winter. Well, almost time- right now it's time to take advantage of what's left of summer and travel around this deceptively large country, meeting up with new friends and seeing what our lives are going to be like for the next year. Of course, there's fall as well, which I hear turns the rolling hills of green into hills of every shade of red, yellow, and orange. I can't wait. We've been living and working here in this relatively small town of Hapcheon for about three weeks now. It's not at all what I expected, and in a great way. We came expecting rural, whatever that means. To us it means few to no neighbors, little to no technology or utilities, etc. I should have realized, though, that being such a tiny peninsula to begin with, you can't really have all that much unused space. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely plenty of expanses of uninhabited land, but being basically a jungle, the less you have to hack away, the better. The amount of green here is overwhelming, I can't imagine all the work that went into making it traversable, much less inhabitable. We are living in a three-story building, Dunny's on the first, I'm right above, and there are about 5 other English teachers living here as well. That's our little red...
We're about a 15 minute walk from the bus station. From there it takes me about 10 minutes to get to my school, where I walk another 5 or so. Not bad, a little exercise and fresh air. Did I mention the lake?
They have outdoor workout equipment all over the place here. Koreans are avid health nuts, that is when they aren't downing soju (rice vodka) or maekju (beer). I guess it's a yin/yang thing.
We got really lucky. Some people in our program were placed in 50 story buildings in the city, with hour-long commutes to their schools. I would have cried. This is so perfect for us. Super quiet, but with everything we need, and there's a bus to take you into any of the cities on the weekends.
View from my window. That's a rice patty, and all along the sides of that road are gardens where people just set up shop. From flowers to gourds, and there's always some 98 year-old woman hacking away at them. Bless their hearts, the old women here are so intense. I ride the local bus to school (D gets the plush inter-city one with 5 people on it...) and sit squeezed or standing between these grannies and their ungodly amounts a produce. I have no idea how they carry it all. One day a single woman dragged eight huge trash bags full of peppers onto the bus. By the way, staring at people is not at all rude in this country. I've gotten pretty used to it, though. I think they're starting to get used to me, too. I even received a gift of socks from one of them the other day...
As we were exploring our new surroundings, we walked along the edge of the lake, and came across a temple/ resting pagoda.
We spotted a monk wandering about this house. He has Dish Network. Take that Time Warner.
See this is what I'm talking about. The jungle. We hiked the hill behind the temple, where we found the ever-present graves and exercise equipment (possible connection there? we would probably be in much better shape if we saw graves lining our streets), and we also found...
a hula hoop! Of course!
Then we have home. Pretty pretty princess wallpaper. In both of our rooms. Teehee. Turn around to tour the kitchen and laundry rooms...
As well as the 'butt room', as it is called here.
My personal favorite?
Why put Peter Rabbit on a cutting board? Why the hell not!
This delicious boiled dumpling and veggie stir-fry with rice concoction of D's had been our dinner every night for the first two weeks. Last week, we splurged and bought a bag of chicken. I made some garlic chicken sliders with slaw (homemade mayo is not an easy feat, btw) and pickles last night. We're getting along ok!
Continuing on with the tour, we have my classroom, also known as the library of Young-jun Elementary. Classes have been going alright, my schedule is all over the place, though, and often changes without any notification. I also have 3rd through 6th graders for 2 hours every Friday afternoon. Ha. The difference in English comprehension between those grades is just silly. At that point, it's just day care. So I turn on the tube and whoever can write the most English words from the show gets points. It's all about the reward system.
That about brings our tour to an end. I'll send a link to our Picasa album soon to whoever wants to see the rest of the pictures... so many pictures...
I'll end with a few pictures of flowers from around town. I've started fancying myself a floral fotog, as evidenced by about 50 random flower pictures in the album. There are so many amazing flowers here, though. These purple ones are about the size of your face.
I just thought these were purty.
These were at a traditional-style town D's head-teacher took us to during a day-long adventure around our province. This one was on what the teacher claimed was a cotton plant, and when he gave us the fruit to eat, I totally believe him. Like chewing a cotton ball dipped in water. The flower was dainty and lovely, though.
And these were blanketing the ground surrounding a temple we visited that same day. Just wonderful.
<3
