America Song?

South Korea is so beautiful!!

So this past weekend, Fulbright took all 88 ETAs for a much-needed retreat. We left for 동해 (Donghae) early Friday morning and returned Sunday evening. It was definitely an interesting weekend!

Our hotel was gorgeous, but looked strangely familiar... then we realized that the hotel is actually owned/built/operated by the same people who oversee Jungwon University, where we are staying for orientation! It's a lot of white marble. A lot of us joked that we never really left the University. However, it was absolutely gorgeous. Here is the view from my hotel room:

This boardwalk goes straight from our hotel to the beach

Balcony outside my hotel room

Friday after lunch, we went to a lecture on Buddhism and its impact on Korea, and then we got to visit a traditional Buddhist temple! It was absolutely amazing!!! We hiked up a mountain, over rivers on stone bridges, stood on a waterfall, and then reached the temple. It was everything that movies make it out to be lol ^^. I took a million pictures, and won't include them all here, but feel free to check them out on my Facebook. Here are just a few highlights:

One of the rivers we crossed over to get to the temple; you can see the mountains in the background!

The first bridge and a few ETAs

We got to the huge waterfall/rapids area where there were stone shelves you could walk out onto. Many families were there hanging out. Carved into the stone you could see many ancient Chinese characters.

Me sitting on the shelf overlooking the waterfall. I'm am inches away from the rapids!

Second and third bridges leading to the temple. You can just see it in the background.

Statue of the Buddha on the temple grounds.

Inside one of the worship areas.

The whole temple area; as you can see, it's up in the mountains.

One thing that sort of brought me down to earth and helped me realize that yes, we do indeed live in the 21st century, were the conspicuous signs of technology at the temple. There was a television in one of the buildings as well as some construction equipment in one corner (not sure what they were doing). We spent most of the afternoon and early evening at the temple, and it was so refreshing. I was really happy to get to see some traditional culture, as well as getting out of the marble we'd been cooped up in for two weeks. One thing that I really want to do during my time in Korea is a temple stay. At a lot of temples, they have programs where you pay 30,000 - 50,000₩ ($30-$50) and you stay for 2-3 days at a temple and experience temple life. Sort of like what Julia Roberts did in Eat, Pray, Love. There are many temples that do it in Korea, including some of other religions than Buddhism. That seems like such an amazing experience ^^.

Some ETAs relaxing and taking in the sights. R-L: Me, Gem, Emi, Morrow, Bruce, and Kristin.

Later that night, we returned to our hotel on the beach and swarmed the tiny little beach area. There were shops and restaurants and a boardwalk, just like you see near the beach in the US. One difference is that everyone was wearing clothes. Even to swim. Korea is such a conservative, traditional country that people wear t-shirts and shorts to swim in. Unless you are in a big, chic city, you will never see anyone with their shoulders or cleavage showing. Though I have seen a lot of short shorts.

Anyway, first we attacked the 7/11 on the corner (yes, 7/11! They're everywhere here) and bought beer. We were allowed to take it on the beach, so everyone went across the little road and sat on the boardwalk benches or on the beach and we played drinking games, chatted, etc. It was really nice to have a relaxed setting to get to know each other better. We have been so busy lately that it's been hard to just hang out. We mostly played American games since we only had one Korean student, Alex our RA, with us, as opposed to when we go out in Goesan.

Hanging out on the beach boardwalk with friends and my Korean beer. L-R: Me, Alex the RA, Gina, Amy in the front.

Saturday, I finally got to sleep in! A lot of ETAs went on a hike at the temple, but it was a five hour hike and that's definitely not my thing... so I met up with a much smaller group to go to downtown Donghae City. We went cave exploring!! They have a cave underneath a mountain there, and you can pay 3000₩ ($3) to go through the cave. We had a complete blast! Parts of it were really tight, but only the taller guys had trouble getting through it. A lot of the placards explaining the different rock formations had really funny English translations (of course, not intentionally funny...). We even visited the Passage of Death. 

Brave explorers!!

More of the cutesy cartoon mascots! They're everywhere

Some stalactite/stalagmite, I don't know. Looks weird though!

After the cave came the strangest part of the weekend... around the corner from the entrance to the cave was the entrance to the wooden stairs/trails that led up the mountain. We started climbing (totally not my idea ^^). A little way up the mountain I saw some women working on a tiny farm/field. One thing I have noticed about Korea is that there are all these tiny little fields of crops everywhere, mixed right in with the big industrial/city areas. Anyway, snapped a pic:

Women working in a field on the side of a mountain.

So, we climb a little further, and run into this crazy little amphitheater. Like, randomly on the side of this mountain... and there is a group of middle-aged Korean women (affectionately, or not so lol, called ajummas) chilling in the amphitheater. One of them comes to talk to us, asks us where we are from, comments on our looks, etc. Then... she asks us to sing for them. What??? So we ask Alex to talk to her in Korean, and he confirms that they ladies want us to sing a song for them. We just stand there like... is she serious? We aren't circus performers!! But in Korea, it's extremely rude to disobey your elders. It's a really age-hierarchical society, so we went to the front of the amphitheater and shuffled around a bit trying to think of a song we all knew. The ladies started getting impatient, so I finally blurted out, "the Star-Spangled Banner!" At first we giggled... but then we realized it really was the only song we all knew. So, we sucked it up and sang the world's most random rendition of America's national anthem!! Afterward, we took a picture with the ladies and they asked us, "America song?" We just laughed. It was such a funny, crazy experience!!

The fateful amphitheater!

Our wonderful audience and us!! The lady in orange is the one who asked us to sing.

Sunday, we visited a museum and then headed home. Unfortunately, my camera died 10 minutes into the museum trip, but you can see which pictures I did manage to get on Facebook. 


I was really happy to get away for the weekend, but on the 3 hour ride home pretty much everyone started having panic attacks. Monday began Camp Fulbright, a two-week long English camp for Korean kids. We all have to teach 3 lessons during this time, and for many ETAs, it's their very first time in the classroom. Not only that, but we had a Korean language quiz in class first thing Monday morning. So, even though we had a great weekend, most people were studying the whole way back (considering the last average quiz score was 8.6 out of 20...). 


This week's quiz went well, we raised to an average 14 out of 20, and we have finally started learning some really useful phrases, as well as basic grammar. Up until now, we've been chiefly memorizing vocab. Also on Monday, I taught my first lesson, as they requested that people with prior teaching experience go on Monday. I think it went pretty well, but I've finally seen first-hand just how shy Korean students are. We were warned, but it's a totally different thing to see it. 

Korean students are generally drilled in grammar and memorizing vocab, and so have very little English speaking experience. That's why the Korean government is implementing a program to get a native English speaker in every school in Korea to teach English conversation (that's us!!). So, on top of being generally shy and reserved, Korean students are even more shy to speak English in public because they have so little practice. Only one of my students spoke voluntarily the whole class period. I had to call on a student to get them to say anything, and even then I often had to get them to repeat louder. It was very different from my classes in the US, where I had to constantly get students to stop talking! But overall, I think the lesson went really well. My next two lessons aren't until next week, but they are both for elementary students. I am a little worried, since this is really outside of my experience and realm of knowledge, but I think I'll be okay. I've had a lot of good teachers and mentors ^^.


So, as usual, lots of new experiences and crazy times. But still trucking and doing my best to represent the US. When the embassy came to speak to us, they told us we are officially "cultural ambassadors." So, gotta keep smiling, gotta keep representing! 
Annyeonghi-kaseyo! ^^