Buddhist Temples and Super China!

Hello again!

Well, it has been WAY to long, and I apologize!! On the bright side, the lobby of our school has a new floor and the desk has been all switched around and looks really nice!

One advantage of teaching adults is that you can hang out with them after class and it's not weird! Wednesday was a national holiday here, kind of the Korean equivalent to Victoria day, celebrating the birth of the first king of Korea. So one of my students (who still had to work, Koreans never really take breaks!) took me out to a mountain just outside Daejeon on Wednesday evening. It is located in Gyeryongsan National Park, whose name translates to Rooster Dragon, because the mountain-naming locals thought the mountain looked like a dragon with a rooster's head. (I tried to get some pictures, but it was by far the muggiest day yet, so they didn't turn out. Going back with the school staff next week tho.) About 1 km from the parking lot is Donghaksa temple, which is inhabited entirely by female Buddhist monks.

If you want a good tour guide, go to a Buddhist temple with a Buddhist Korean historian! I learned so much I can barely recall it all but I'll give it a shot. Firstly, before you even enter the park, there is a fountain that you drink from (from plasitc cups, there are 4 there to be shared by the thousands of visitors to the park every day. Yummy.) This is to purify your soul. Near the beginning of the pathway, there was a big archway, which evidently there is always a single-pillar gate like this before each temple. Temples are always built near water, to get the requist bridge in there, which also signifies that you're leaving the evil world behind and entering a pure, heavenly place. Temples are often found in the mountains, because during the Joeson dynasty, Buddhism was outlawed and monks were rounded up and forced into the army. To avoid this, monks fled to the hills, where they could hide and continue on living their peaceful monk lives. By the time we got to the actual temple it was closed, but that meant we did get to see and hear the daily drumming. There are 2 HUGE drums and a giant bell inside a little open hut, and every night the monks drum for close to an hour to signify to every living creature that it is time to go to sleep. It was much more pleasent to hear than "It is 6:00 and Donghaksa temple is now closed. Please check out our souveniers at the gift shop by the entrance, and have a good night"!

Hiking in this country is a totally different experience. Firstly, if you're going to the parks to get away from crowds and get peace and quiet, you're going to have to discover a new mountain, because they're full all the time. On weekends and holidays, picture Johnson's Canyon any day in July, but there are 1/3 less buses because everyone has come out in their car! The pathway is also wide enough that I'm sure you could drive a semi up (the monks have a couple vans, but I don't think they go for daily joy rides). Korean women are the epitomy of femininity, most of them were walking this in heels. And before the entrance, the path is lined with vendors selling such delicacies as roasted chestnuts, BBQd corn on the cob on a stick, dried squid and silkwork larvae. Nothing gets you fueled for a hike like some nice hot grub.

As temping as the food was on the way down (I'm fairly open minded when it comes to food, but the squid just smells so bad and it's EVERYWHERE, and I draw the line at insects), my student wanted to take me to have some authentic Korean food. So off we go to this itty bitty little town, up one of the most terrifying roads I've ever been on! It twisted and turned, often switching between paved and dirt, and randomly going down to only 1 lane, generally around corners. Thankfully it's a quiet road, so we didn't encounter any one else! The restaurant is at the owner's home, which was really neat, because there were about 3 different little buildings to eat in, each with about 8 tables. I am going to make a separate post about food, because this meal deserves it's own space!! But suffice to say, for now, that it was hands down the best meal I've had since I've been here!!

Classes are going well, I started teaching by myself on Tuesday, (rough, hey, I work 1 day and I get a day off!) and everyone seems to like me so far!! I'm learning to control how fast I speak, so much so that when I go out with my English friends I find myself pronouncing everything very slowly and properly, and confirming that they understand!! I teach levels 2 and 3, mostly conversation with a little bit of writing. There are books that we use, and most of the students understand well enough to get the instructions. Each unit in the books deals with a group of words or common situations they might have while travelling or communicating with English people. For example, the one class just finished a unit on describing locations of places on a map, giving directions, and finding buildings and services. There was also a unit on family, which they get a kick out of mine!! Divorce and second marriages just don't happen over here, so trying to explain step parents and half-siblings and such was a bit of a challenge... lots of drawing and charades! And sometimes they just like to talk, and they LOVE Canada... last night, my last class just kept asking questions, and trying to explain to them that it takes 3 days to drive from Calgary to Niagara Falls was just too much for them!! They live in a country the size of New Brunswick, with 40 million people, so to them a 2 hour drive is seriously far!! I drew a map of Canada and pointed out various points and places they had heard of and where they wanted to go, so they could get an idea of the size of the place! You should have seen their faces when I told them I took 10 days to drive home from school! haha

I went to see Cats today (in English, though they did do a rendition of Memories in Korean, to a very enthusiastic response!), then to Super China festival at Expo park. Who knew Daejeon hosted expo '93? Super China consisted of a lot of alluminated fabric structures, but they had a really impressive light/water/fireworks show and a whole show of crazy Chinese acrobatics... I want to know where people come up with these things!! There was a sphere, slightly larger than an average bathroom, which at one point had 4 motorcylcles going around, a girl who I'm sure had no bones in her body, and a guy and a girl, hanging on a pole hanging on a trapeze. The whole contraption was circling around the stage, and and one point the were both biting something and the girl was hanging and spinning away. Very impressive, but bizarre! They also had some of the terra cotta warriors there too, which was pretty cool.

Busy weekend for me, I'm going to Seoul for the day tomorrow and then on Monday some of the Canadians are having Thanksgiving dinner at 9:30 after classes. I don't exactly know what that will entail, but I'm sure it'll all be eaten with chopsticks!! Hope everyone is enjoying their turkey back home, miss you all and bye for now!