Climbing Mt. Apsan!

Alrighty….as promised, here is another post!

Wednesday’s are always fairly slow at work. I currently only teach 2 classes and the are not until 8:35 so I have like 5 hours of planning! I will be getting two more classes on Wednesday next week though. After work on Wednesday I grabbed a bite to eat with Brendan. They have these places here referred to as “toasty” places and it’s where you can go in and get a toasted sandwich with a variety of different toppings. Now, it’s not like a deli sandwich, it usually has egg on it and is nothing like sandwiches back home. It was pretty good but I was also starving at the time.

Thursday – I had to get up fairly early to do some shopping and cleaning because everyone was coming over to my house for TND or Thursday Night Dinner. Work was good, exhausting, I did a lot for my 80 minute class and they were a handful! I also had to punish 4 of my students in my last class because they didn’t do their homework so I had to raise their dictation test! After work I took the bus home and then shortly after I got home everyone arrived. It was a great success. I made spaghetti, Chanel made curry, Karissa did cheese and cracker appetizers, Palmer rolled gimbap, and Andrew and Brendan brought desserts. After we ate we watched funny videos on Youtube and just chilled. Everyone left around 4:30. ß--This is another reason that I love working in the evenings! I can stay up late! I accidentally ended up staying up until almost 8 o’clock in the morning too on the internet talking to people!

Friday – I was excited that the weekend was almost upon us. Work was surprisingly boring and I was tired from being up so late. I had a lot of questions this day from the Korean teachers. Like I said, the Korean teachers or our co-teachers teach the students reading and grammar while we teach them listening, speaking, and writing. So whenever the Korean teachers have a question about the grammar or something in their books that they aren’t quite sure about they will always ask me or one of the other English teachers. I love this! It’s pretty cool to be such an expert at something! haha When 10:30 rolled around I was pretty excited that it was the weekend. I headed home and relaxed for the most part. Some people went downtown but I am trying to save money so I passed up the invitation. Plus we had planned to go hiking the next morning so I didn’t want to be too tired.

Saturday – I had to get up around 10 to meet everyone. We met up at the subway and took the subway to the mountain! We climbed Mt. Apsan. It was I think 770 km? Anyways, long story short, I almost died!!! AH!! I haven’t had any serious physical exercise or movement since last august, I did some walking while I was home but I haven’t done any cardio or anything serious since august. Needless to say, I’m a little disappointed in myself because I used to be really healthy. Yesterday was a serious wake-up call for me and I’ve been wanting to join a gym or a yoga place here anyways so I’m just going to do it! I think that it’s worth it, I need some exercise and I need to get back into shape! It’s pathetic!

Back to the hike though, more like mountain climb – the ascent was difficult, it was very steep compared to other hiking that I have done but when we finally made it to the top you could see all of Daegu, it was a beautiful view. Daegu is a city of 2.5 million people and it’s surrounded on all sides by mountains so hiking and mountain climbing is very popular here because the Koreans are crazy about their fitness the way it is. I was told that the reason they hike so often is because they want to get out of the busy city and get some exercise while enjoying nature. This helps them to clear their heads so that they can focus on their studies and when they get to the top of the mountain they scream to let all of their frustrations out. Just a fun fact for you! I also had no idea how spread out the city was! I took lots of pictures on top of the mountain and I will post those sometime this week along with my other photos. The descent was pretty quick; it was so steep that we practically had to run down the mountain to avoid sliding on our butts! We also stopped at a Buddhist temple on the way down the mountain. We didn’t go inside but we took lots of pictures and walked around the grounds.

So after we got back to the city we were walking around trying to find the subway when all of sudden we walk past this restaurant and this guy comes out and starts talking to us asking us to come back. His English was very good and then he invited us in for a drink! We agreed and went inside. He was there with his friends, about 4 other older men, probably in their 40s and 50s and they were all shit faced at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon! I’m telling you…the Koreans could drink the Russian’s under the table. After seeing the way they drink here and knowing a couple of girls from Russia, I have no doubt in my mind the Koreans would take home the prize for this one! They drink all day every day here! So we go inside and they break out the Macali – rice wine. He said this was to celebrate us coming to Korea. He kept saying, “Welcome to Korea” even after everyone had told him that they had been here for 6 months! After the Macali they also brought out 3 40’s of beer and of course, no Korean meal would be complete without some Soju! So we had beer, liquor, and wine all within like an hour. They also brought out a few Korean snacks, all of which were fire spicy, I could only eat these kimchi pancakes, which were actually pretty tasty! It was quite the cultural experience. These guys were hammered so it was pretty funny at times. After all this excitement on my Saturday we headed home to shower and relax.

Sunday – Today, after realizing how poorly out of shape I am, I went for a run around my neighborhood. I’m trying to get to know the area a little better so I figured that a nice jog around town would help! It did! I also finally located a flower shop so I think I might check that out tomorrow. I got one plant for my house already but I’d like to get a few more. After my jog I had some lunch, showered and got ready to play ping-pong with everyone. We had a ping-pong tournament tonight Canada vs. USA. It ended up being an even tie. I had no idea how crazy there are about ping-pong over here though. It’s intense. I wish you could have seen the way these Koreans were playing! The ball was moving so fast that I couldn’t even see it and they have ping-pong places on every corner! It’s pretty cool. After that we had some Indian food, now I’ve never really experienced Indian food but I’d have to say that it’s not bad! I actually kind of enjoyed it even though it was a little too spicy for my taste buds. After that I had to run to catch the bus home.

This week we are doing level testing for 3 days at school so it should be a fairly relaxed week and then next week I will get more classes. I have also made it my goal to find a gym this week and a tailor so that I can get my pants hemmed!

Things I have realized this week…

• I might never learn as much Korean as I’d like. I have asked everyone, even my boss about taking some classes to learn Korean and no one seems to be able to tell me where to go to learn this crazy language…
• The Koreans have no sense of personal space whatsoever. I know some people think that this is an issue in Europe, I didn’t seem to notice it as much but people always tell me that I sometimes don’t keep a safe personal space “distance.” Well just a warning, they will literally stand on top of you, I mean shoulder to shoulder here when there is probably 4 feet of space on either side of you and they also don’t seem to think that it is weird to touch other people. (not in a bad way) They are a very touchy-feely culture I’ve noticed. It’s like they don’t mind other people getting in their way or running into them and none of this is because it’s crowded over here because it’s not!
• I also got my health insurance card this week. Everyone was telling me at dinner tonight that most of them got sick about their 3^rd week here and now I’m a little worried about getting sick, but hopefully I’ll be fine..
• Whatever is going on between the North and the South they need to work it out because I'm not ready to go back to the US just yet...

I’ll keep you posted….