On the mend and off exploring

The clouds of illness have finally (FINALLY!!) lifted and in light of our renewed energy, we’ve spent the last two weekends having all sorts of adventures. Last weekend we stayed in Yeosu for some rather unexpected exploration.

As we were feeling better, we had promised one of our adult students, Anne, that we would go to church with her. Little did we know the experience would be a double whammy of culture shock. Come to find out, Anne is Mormon (neither of us are) and the service was all in Korean (which we can’t speak other than to order coffee and greet people). This Mormon church, we learned, goes for 3 hours in the morning followed by at least another hour in the afternoon. We opted for the morning only option and by the time we left, my head was swimming. Because we work at an English school, we very rarely are in a situation where we really need to know a lot of Korean to understand what is going on or to survive (which seems very weird to us, but such is the life of an English teacher). During church, two of the three missionaries translated everything for us. So, as we were sitting there (rather uncomfortably) we were listening to the Korean, trying to follow along and little by little processing the translated version the missionaries were whispering to us. Add in the newness of some of the ideas and we were more than a bit befuddled by the end of the first hour. For the second hour, we talked with the missionaries, which mostly involved Andy discussing similarities and differences between Mormonism and other kinds of Christianity. During hour three, the congregation separated by gender. I sat next to a very kind Korean woman who had lived in Utah for many years. She explained everything the leader of the discussion (who happened to be Anne) was saying. Using a smart phone, we managed to find an English version of the text so I could follow along. While I learned about Joseph Smith, Andy and the missionaries learned ‘how long winded old men can be’ according to one of the elders, which I found incredibly amusing due to the very serious tone of the church. Overall, church was an interesting experience and everyone was very nice, but it isn’t something I think we’ll be doing too often. It’s just too confusing in another language, even with the translation.

After church, we spent the rest of the day relaxing until dinner, then met up with some of our fellow teacher friends. As it was a Sunday, many restaurants were either completely full or closed, much to our disappointment. We tried three different restaurants before we found one that was both open and not packed. When we ordered soup, the waiter asked us what level of spicy-ness we would like. A sign on the wall indicated the levels by how many and the type of peppers. We went for 30% spice, which was more than enough to make all of us want to shoot fire from our mouths. If that was 30%,  we wondered, do you have to be a dragon to eat 100%?? After soup, we bought a bunch of Bungeoppang (fish-shaped pastries- no actual fish in them) filled with cream from a street vendor, then wandered to one of the bath houses in Yeosu for our second adventure. I’ve decided that of our two adventures that day, the bath house was much more relaxing and peaceful.

The baths are separated by gender and when you walk into the locker room, you are met with masses of nakedness. Being from a culture where people to to show as little complete nakedness as possible when in a locker room, it was quite a shock to see and slightly uncomfortable to participate in for the first few minutes. In Korea, however, no one thinks anything of it at the bath houses. By the time we showered off and climbed into one of the giant stone tubs, I’d gotten used to it and relaxed in the wonderfully (almost burning) hot water. This particular bath house had five tubs with varying temperatures of water, three saunas and a huge area for scrubbing. One of the other teachers told me that usually people will spend one hour soaking in the tubs and then another hour scrubbing (and I mean SCRUBBING!) their whole bodies. People of all ages go to the bath houses to do this. After spending an hour in the tubs, I can see why. You leave feeling happy, relaxed and wonderfully sleepy. We finished off the night with ice cream at Baskin Robins and thinking about making this a Sunday night tradition.

Our week passed like the last few, with some ups and downs, and very quickly. I can truly say that I love all my students and have almost figured out the best way to teach everyone. Hopefully by the end of the month, this too will be a definite. On Thursday, Andy and I decided that we were going to spend the weekend in Gwangju, the capital city of the province. Gwangju is about 2 hours away by bus (ugh….the buses are the bane of our traveling adventures!) and is a HUGE city. We left mid-morning Saturday and arrived a bit green (on my part) in a very crowded, busy Gwangju. After studying our maps, we determined that we could walk from the bus terminal (I really, really didn’t want to get on another bus quite so soon) to our motel in the downtown area of the city. On the map it didn’t look too far, maybe a mile or two…

An hour later, we arrived at the Windmill Motel. The motel is pretty cool. It is a giant, seven story building on the edge of downtown, complete with old-fashioned wind turbines. Our room was awesome!! We had read some reviews that were less than positive, but we were so happy with it, in part because it had a giant bath tub which was great for soaking in after wandering around in the cold. As Gwangju is further north than Yeosu, we could definitely feel the temperature difference!

We spent most of Saturday afternoon looking for the First Nepal Restuarant (which we happened to walk past at least once and didn’t see) and the Art Street. Our map reading skills were put to the test, but by the end of the night, when we had successfully found the First Nepal Restaurant (and ate some delicious curries and nan!),  walked down the Art Street (which was sort of in a sad state) and capped off the evening at the Speakeasy bar, we’d mastered it. Both the restaurant and bar are major ex-patriot hangouts. At Speakeasy, we had a great conversation with the owner who has been in South Korea for almost 13 years. He had some great advice for us about teaching and living here, which I think we will follow. As he said, it can be hard when your whole life is teaching and that is your only outlet, especially at a Hogwans, which ultimately are  businesses before anything else. In that kind of environment, it is easy to always be beating yourself up about something. With another outlet, another project, your heart and soul can find a place to rest when school is rough. Having other things to give meaning to your life is important in order to stay sane, he said. We couldn’t agree more.

Sunday morning we explored more of downtown, including the super cool tunnels full of shops and the Lotte Department Store. Until this morning, I had never been in a department store. My conclusion: OMG! What a big store full of things I can’t ever image needing, let alone buying!! It was cool to wander, but I think I’ll stick to the small shops. They are easier to take in and find things in, I think. Before leaving town, we had a western style brunch at The First Alleyway, a restaurant run by ex-pats who know that sometimes you just need a taste of home.

After brunch, we decided to take the subway back towards the bus terminal (having figured out where the subway was in our many wanderings through downtown in search of the First Nepal). There is currently only one subway line in Gwangju, which made it super easy to navigate. We arrived at the other side of town, bought our tickets and boarded our bus home in no time at all. Unfortunately, the bus ride home was a bit harrowing for Andy, as the bus got rather hot and because most Koreans do not like having air blown on them, the bus driver did not turn on the cool air. By the time we made it back to Yeosu, Andy was more than a little green …buses just aren’t our thing.

Our adventures have been great and life is going well for us. We finally figured out how to turn on our heat and are thoroughly enjoying having a warm floor beneath our feet and warmish air in the apartment. We know the ropes at school (as best as possible, that is) and are happy to be here. We miss you all very much and wish we could see you for the holidays!

Love,

Kali and Andy

~Kali