On a fun note, the past two days were filled with some amazing sites and some interesting stories. Before the start of summer vacation, the school organized a staff vacation to the south western province. In all, about sixty staff and faculty took a 5 hour bus ride twisting and turning on back roads, up and down mountains, through rural farm lands, and in between small scattered cities. (Reminder, if you click these pictures they will enlarge)
Our first stop was for a light lunch about halfway though our trip, where we took in some of the local scenery of lush green rolling hills. Our destination was Naejangsan National Park, where one can find the Baekyangsa Buddhist temple anchored in the valley of a large cliff faced mountain and nestled between two small rivers. The area is known for its scenic views and popular white oak and maple trees - something I see plenty of back home. However the views were amazing, and getting to witness a cloud enveloping a mountain can be breathtaking (quite literally as it turns out).
A bunch of us ventured up on a rather steep hike up the mountain. We never made it the full way up as we all thought our hearts were going to explode. It is a sixty degree incline that seems to never stop. That, and the combination of the suffocating heat and humidity turned us weak-hearted individuals away from certain cardiovascular death and back down the mountain. I referred to how bad the humidity so often I will never forget its Korean translation of "sip-kee". As the pathetic loser that I am that I, along with a handful of others, gave up on the mountain out of fear for my life. As I trekked downwards, one of the young school secretaries passed me on her way upward, wearing open-toed high heels. The women here need to be seen as beautiful in everything they do. I wonder if she'll still feel that way when they find her body after she trips and falls 200 feet down.
After frolicking through the jungle, we all rested up and sat in our nice air-conditioned bus and headed off to our local hotel. Many hotels in Korea consist of one small room about the size of a small child's bedroom, a TV, no beds - but some mats, blankets, and rock hard pillows. Thankfully we were lucky enough to have air conditioning though, as I think we would have been doomed another unfortunate death. After checking in, we all joined for dinner and some small speeches. The male teachers (as usual) drank too much and tried to get me to drink a lot again. This time I outsmarted them and drank very slowly so they wouldn't keep filling up my glass. My plan succeeded, and I remained relatively sober.
After dinner we were informed that the hotel had a "norebang" or 'Karaoke room'. Karaoke is huge in Korea and norebangs can be found everywhere, along with PC-bangs and DVD-bangs. (Bang means 'room'). This was my first norebang experience, and what an experience it was! These teachers know how to party! Without any hesitation the tunes started, the beer was flowing, and the dancing and unfortunate tambourine playing ensued. This is the result:
Jordan and I contributed (poorly) to a rendition of "Billie Jean" as a tribute to the late and great performer. Thankfully there is no video evidence of this. We also sang solo's - Jordan chose a Backstreet Boys song, and I sang "My Way" by Mr. Frank Sinatra and got a huge round of applause.
After we called it a night, I headed to bed early as I was pretty exhausted, while the majority of my roommates (there were 5 of us in that little hotel room) went off to find a bar. I could not sleep for the life of me. I was either woken up by a roommate stumbling in, the loud Korean TV shows that remained on most of the night, the extremely uncomfortable sleeping conditions, or -- and this is the fun part (not suitable for those with weak stomachs) -- one of the drunk teachers getting up at 3 am to take a piss in the corner of the room thinking it was a urinal, getting another teacher wet in the process. Disgusting! The teacher who got wet threw some towels on it and I prayed that the river the other man produced wouldn't come over towards me. Again, a reminder - we were all sleeping on the floor! Luckily the wet teacher had cleaned it - and himself - and went back to sleep. I finally got some shut-eye about 4am, only to be woken up by someones alarm at 6am. I showered, changed and hightailed it out of the room then and there! (I had to play a game of minefield to avoid stepping on people and certain areas of the floor) As of 12 hours later have still not slept a wink. I think I'm scarred for life now too.
This morning (Friday) we had breakfast (which basically was the same thing we had for dinner). Koreans do not know how to do breakfast. Sorry, but I do not enjoy mushroom soup, kimchee, seaweed, and rice for breakfast. Where are the waffles that Koreans enjoy so much??
We headed out on the buses to the city of Damyang to see the Juklockwon bamboo gardens. I feel as if it had only gotten hotter than the day before and regretted my decision to take a shower because every time I stepped off the air conditioned bus, I felt as though the lovely wet fog of "sip-kee" had repeated that chore for me ten-fold. The bamboo gardens were nice to look at although the weather was not agreeable. It is bad enough to climb a large hill, but to do it in the rain and ever suffocating humidity makes it unbearable. I did get some nice photos out of it, however being inside a cloud of hot and sticky fog doesn't make for stable photography in my opinion.
On our trek back to our school we were given many rest stops. One such stop was at Guanbangerim where staff got to ride bicycles along a cozy path which must look astounding in the autumn.
We visited a few more rest stops for bathrooms, drinks, and eventually stopped for lunch in Soswawon where we enjoyed a light lunch where they most notably served a small meatloaf that was to die for. I could have ate five more of them as I didn't enjoy the octopus or dried bony fish they served. I miss real food.
Eventually we made it back home. I am very tired, but also have found a new energy as I got to learn more about my fellow teachers, their customs, thoughts, and personalities. I'm eager to get to know some certain people a lot more and am going to be spending some time this summer sightseeing with a select few. As for the male teacher who shall not be named (we'll call him Pissy McPisser) I'd rather avoid him and the ground around him for now.
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