Ambling Over Rocks and Clods of Earth

Sorry for the long delay on this post, and sorry in advance for its length! Its been a busy week in Korea, and this post may seem a little scattered brained. The title is a refernce to my favorite Neruda poem, which ahs been running through my mind a lot lately. You can find the rest fo the poem

First of all, I moved into my apartment! Yay! Its not perfect, although from what I have heard it is quite spacious as far as Korean apartments go. It has two bedrooms (one is for the next instructor who will arrive in November) with a kitchen/living area (there is room for a table and to move around, but no couch) and a Korean style bathroom (which simply means it is one tiled room where everything gets wet, but not a squat toilet!). I'm still cleaning and setting everything up, but it feels great to have my own space. I live in a residential neighborhood, right next to a park and a middle school. It takes less than 5 minutes to get to the restaurant/late night area and a quick bus ride to both work and the Seoul Metro.

Wednesday night I went to a basketball game with the Anyang Meetup group. While I'm not really a basketball fan, it was nice to get out and show some Anyang pride for our championship team KGC. The fans are really intense and it was fun shouting cheers and jumping up and down. After we went for "chicken and hof" or fried chicken and beer. Fried chicken if big over here, but you DO NOT eat it with your hands, or even a knife. You take two forks and kind of pull at the chicken until a mouthful comes off the bone. It was harder than learning to use Korean style chopsticks. (In case you were wondering, there is a difference between chopsticks, this explains it all.)

Part of the Anyang group at the basketball game.

We won!

We started having some "open classes" on Friday and Saturday in advance of our Grand Opening on Tuesday. It was great to finally be around children and goof off and have a blast! So far, the kids have been awesome, but I have to say that 5 year old Korean boys have about twice the energy as American ones. They were bouncing off the walls and working up a sweat! After they finished playing their moms were wiping them all down with baby wipes. I have learned that Korean really dislike sweat.

My next adventure was hiking again with the Climbing in Korea group. We went to Buramsan mountain just outside Seoul to celebrate one of the organizers birthdays. This hike was way different than last weekend, which was really just walking a paved path up a hill. This weekend was Korean style hiking, which basically means taking the most direct path to the summit, climbing whatever rocks are in your way. After some google searches, I have determined we were scrambling, a mix between hill walking and rock climbing. I have never done hiking like this before, and I had so much fun! It was all about trusting your instincts and committing to every move you made. You simply had to trust that the person holding your foot in place wasn't going to falter, and you couldn't hesitate when you were helping some one else.

Typical Korean hiking adventures.

Taking a rest and enjoying the view. We were about halfway to the summit.

A little higher up, catching our breath.

The final part of the climb to the summit, no ropes involved.

At the summit with some new friends!

I accidentally looked down halfway up this rock. That was a bad idea.

I'm really thankful I was able to do this hike. Its something I never could have managed a year ago, and something I never would have never tried on my own. I now know that I am strong and I can crawl and climb and pull myself up a mountain. It was completely exhilarating (and slightly terrifying) to look down once I finished each section and see how high I was. I'm really proud of myself for choosing to stay with the hard group and I felt even more accomplished at the summit.

After taking a much easier route down, my shaking legs were thankful for some delicious Korean barbecue and some (not so delicious) soju consumed sitting on a toasty warm ondol. The food was delicious and the company even better. After dinner we enjoyed some Korean game that is some kind of mix between volleyball and soccer where I discovered my 5th grade goalie punting skills are still in good shape. All in all, it was probably the best day I've had in Korea so far and I'm looking forward to many more hikes to come!

This week we open our first center and begin our preview classes! Can't wait to meet all the Korean kiddos!

xo Julie