April and May in a Nutshell...

I am clearly not very good at this whole blogging business... buuuut, in my defense, my school decided to give me both a month long illness (April was therefore, not very fun) as well as legitimate work that keeps me occupied for 7.5 out of the 8 hours I'm at school. So, with that said, this is going to be bits and pieces from my travels around Korea over the last two months.
The 6th of this month marked my 7 month here! While I can't believe I'm over the half-way point, let's just say that I've been here long enough to:
1.Wear through my first pair of house slippers.
2. Learn how to read and write Hangul (the Korean Alphabet).
3. Eat Kimchi with breakfast on more than one occasion
4. Become skilled at sharing my food with co-teachers (a big custom in Korea)... this sometimes entails cutting a muffin into 6 equal parts which isn't always easy!
5. Embrace the local custom of holding strange women's purses on my lap whilst seated on the bus. (This is a friendly way to help people out who have to stand while you sit...and since theft isn't really a problem around here, it's seen as totally normal and acceptable.)
I've been told by my co-teachers that "I'm so Korean" because in their eyes, I've learned just enough of the language and have embraced just enough of their customs so, really, after 7 months, I'm practically a local!
Apart from the Korean ways that I've embraced, I've also embraced the rich Expat (Expatriate) life Busan has to offer! After three months of having a whole lot of fun with the night life, I decided that it was high time to branch out a bit. You'll be happy to know that I'm now an active member of a book club, writers group and chess club. Ha! Dorky I know, but I've met some quality expats and locals along the way. Also, because the weather has been warming considerably, I've been playing a lot of
volleyball as well. A group of 30 or so meet at a beach called Gwangalli every Saturday and Sunday for hours (and I mean 6 or 7 hours) of non-stop games. Aaaand finally, also with warm weather, comes much more rock-climbing and hiking. This last weekend, a fairly large group from all over S. Korea met for a massive bouldering session in the Geamjeong Mountains. I'm piss-poor at bouldering (which my body reminded me of with 4 days of incredible sore-ness) but it was still great being out with quality people.
My travels outside of Busan have been limited to little weekend getaways, though there have been some mid-week adventures due to a few random Wednesdays off. I'm also lucky enough to be apart of the public school system because the BMOE (Busan Metropolitan Office of Education) periodically offers free cultural day trips.
The first of these cultural day trips happened on the first of May and was to a historic town called Hadong for their annual "Green Tea Festival." I loaded onto the bus and randomly sat next to an awesome girl from South Africa named Marie. Though it was lovely hanging with Marie, I would say the tea festival was mildly entertaining at best. I did partake in a traditional tea ceremony which was fun and ate a delicious free lunch. (I should point out that here in Korea, there is such a thing as a free lunch!)
Wednesday May 5th, marked Korea's Children's Day where students and teachers don't have to come to school. Wanting to take advantage of the holiday, Kayla, Tori and two guy friends Eric Rosenthal and Trevor Renfro packed up on Tuesday night and loaded onto a bus bound for Jinju which is about 3 hours north/west from Busan. We spent the night with our friend Mark Littlemore and on Wednesday, woke up bright and early to hike Korea's second tallest mountain Jirisan. The hike was uber long with MANY a stair to climb. I should point out that any popular trail in Korean is going to have:
a. stairs
b. handrails
c. clocks and lamp-posts thrown up at the most RANDOM of spots
d. and as I've mentioned before, HOARDS of people
We all persevered and made it to Jirisan's peak called Cheonwangbong which sits at 1915 M. Like most peaks, it was not a place to hang out at for long as it was bitterly cold. So, after snapping a few quick photos, the group quickly turned around for home. The whole hike took about 6 hours so we had just enough time to get down, shovel some Bibimbop in our mouths and jump back on the bus bound for Busan.
The following weekend (Sat., May 8th) Dong Il (my go-to Korean climbing friend) organized a group of about 8 of us to climb on Ga Dog Island, an hour outside of Busan. After parking and gathering the gear, we set off for a trail that would take us to the back side of the island (only accessible on foot or by a boat taxi. It was a 30 minute climb through beautiful greenery and sketchy scrambles (luckily someone had gone through and set up ropes to help). After emerging from the dense brush, we were met by 30+ sport climbs and one solo water decent (meaning a wall that is directly over water so there's no need for ropes as a fall would land a person in

water). I think the whole group was left a little speechless for a second but that was quickly replaced by excitement as we all rushed to check out the climbs and set up the gear. It ended up being a very long and awesome day and we all vowed to return with camping gear and make our next trip out there a little more substantial.
The week of the 17-19th I partook in "interviews" at middle schools around Busan. What this entailed was asking up to 60 students 5 questions and then judging their answers. From this score, the student would then either get a certificate of completion or fail. According to my co-teachers, the certificate doesn't do a whole except maybe act a resume builder (middle school students in Korea do in fact need to build their resumes in order to get into top ranking high schools). I felt SO bad for some of these kids. I had one little girl who couldn't stop crying because she was so stressed about the test. In my opinion, this was just one more example of unnecessary stress that Korea's education system puts on their youth.
The weekend following the interviews was Buddhas Birthday. For this holiday, I got a Thursday afternoon and Friday off (much more useful and convenient when trying to get out of Busan). After getting off early at 11 AM on Thursday, I booked it for the Sasang Bus terminal where I caught an Express bound for Gangneung. Gangneung is in the north-eastern province of Gangwondo where Jenny Badewitz, an old friend whom I've know since middle school, lives with her boyfriend Ty. I made record time and pulled in around 7 PM. We had fun hanging together that night, though it was far too short because the following morning the two of them left early for some island camping. (check out their blog to get the whole story: http://jennyandty.travellerspoint.com/ as the whole weekend didn't exactly go according to plan.)
At this point, my new friend Marie comes back into the story as she invited me to spend theweekend with herself and 15 other people
from South Africa (and one random American thrown in the mix) We all stayed at a the Seorak Resort, 20 minutes from Sokcho and though it was a random group, we all ended up getting along great! On Sat. we split into two smaller groups and hiked around the BEAUTIFUL Seoraksan National Park. I have to say, it was hands down the most amazing place I've visited since coming to Korea. Jagged exposed rock, a raging mountain stream, beautiful and thick forests... really, an awesome experience! It was a great weekend with great people. The most interesting part about the whole experience was realizing that most South African's prefer to speak Africans (which I thought was more of a second language in their country, rather than a first) I also realized that I had never heard Africans before. It's an interesting language which blends a lot of Dutch and local African tribal dialect (or, at least that's my understanding). Luckily they either spoke English to accommodate me and the other American there, or, one of them would translate for us. The funniest part was realizing that words I understood when they spoke Africans were not the English words, but the Korean ones.

Wed. June 2nd was another holiday... "ERECTION day!!!" (Election day). Everyone had the day off, so on Tuesday night, a friend a fellow climber had a massive going away party... going away parties, as you can imagine are a pretty common occurrence around these parts. On Wed., I took advantage of the sunny weather by going out for a nice jog with my new buddy Ben Koss. Ben is training for a marathon so I've become his jogging mate on those days when he needs to take it easy.
I've learned that one thing I can always count on in this country besides random days off are festivals... so, this last Sat. was Busan's Sand Festival with massive sand sculptures honoring countries around the world. I went with my good friend Ellen. Ellen up to this point, hasn't received the lip service she deserves. We met at our Korean class nearly two months ago and made the happy discovery that we're neighbors. This has allowed for many a long conversation in buses, on walks and over dinner.
So, back to Sat. We met one of Ellen’s friends for a great dinner and then watched an "International" dance performance, followed by our own dance performance at a local bar. A great night. The next day I prepared a MASSIVE 'merican style feast for MiSook and her sister, daughter and niece. Here's what was on the menu:
PB&Js
Grilled Cheese
Ants on a log
Watermelon
Potato salad
Chips and salsa
Homemade hamburgers on English Muffins (bun's are hard to come by in this country)
and finally
Home made Choc. chip cookies (thanks to Ellen's oven)
The whole meal was a huge success (though there was WAY too much of it!) After dinner the five of us went to a local Nori Bang (Song Room) where the little girls put on a solid performance of K-Pop songs (Korean Pop). I thought I could get out of there unscathed but alas, they insisted I sing. I picked Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" which I thought for SURE the older women would know but alas... I was all alone. Then Mi Sook wanted me to sing Piano Man, which I did but as many of you well know... neither song was a very pretty thing to see (or hear rather).
That's basically it (without most of the details). I've had the last three days to lounge because all of my students are on a field trip, so its been pretty quiet around these parts. They're all coming back tomorrow (sigh) but I think that rather than fight their lack of attention (which is only natural after three days out of school) I'm just going to show them some Simpsons episodes... aren't I SUCH a dedicated teacher! Anyway, thanks again for reading!