A Day in Yeongju

Me and my co-teacher, Mr. Lee!

 Last Wednesday, June 6th, was Memorial Day here in South Korea. Like home in the US, it's a national holiday. My co-teacher (he's the teacher in charge of all my affairs, pays my rent, takes me to school, etc) invited me to go to a nearby town, Yeongju(영주), to visit some cultural and historical sites. It was really amazing!

First, we visited the Yeongju Ginseng Market(영주 인삼 시장), which was really neat. It was a long building that really reminded me of flea market buildings back home, but instead of many different booths, it was just rows of booths selling ginseng in all different forms. We tried ginseng tea and dried, honeyed ginseng. They were really good, rather like fruit snacks. I ended up buying some to bring back home.

Next, we visited Sosuseowon (소수서원), which is the first Confucian academy built in Korea in 1542. It was absolutely gorgeous, framed with a beautiful river, bridges, gardens, and lotus ponds. After this, we ate pajeon, Korean vegetable pancakes, as a snack and then headed to our final stop of the day, the nearby Buddhist temple.

Buseoksa (부석사) Temple was built in 676, and has been renovated several times since then. "Bu" (부) means "floating," "seok" (석) means "rock," and "sa" (사) means "temple," so it's also called the Floating Rock Temple. The legend of the temple is very famous: lady Seonmyo and the priest Uisang met when he went to Dang (Dynasty of China) to study. When Uisang told Seonmyo he had to go back to his country, Seonmyo despaired and jumped into the sea and drowned. After death, she became a dragon. Seonmyo followed Uisang to Korea to protect and be with him. When Uisang ran against a crowd that had gathered to stop him from building Buseoksa Temple, Seonmyo brought three stones into the air. Because the stones had floated above the ground, the temple was named Buseoksa Temple.

It was very beautiful, and we had a very funny moment. I've said before that South Korea is this crazy kind of juxtaposition of the old and the new: right next to each other you'll have traditional homes and temples and high-rise apartments and office buildings. Well, here we are praying inside the temple... when the monk's cell phone rings! I had to stifle the giggles.

One of the guardians that wards away evil at the entrance to the temple grounds.

View from one of the balconies on temple grounds.

The monks ring this bell every day at 6am and 6pm.

Traditional drums.

The main temple, this is where the offending monk resided!

Stone Buddha

My co-teacher insisted I get a picture!

So, it was a very good day. After all the sight-seeing, we had a delicious late lunch, during which I ate waaaay too much and then passed out in a food coma the moment I got home. I'm glad I did this, and it was nice to spend time with my co-teacher before I have to leave. Only 35 more days now...

Sports Day

Last week was a fun, crazy time at my school. In Korea, schools don't sports teams like they do in the US. Kids are much too busy studying, so they only get to play sports during PE three times a week. This made me wonder, how do people become professional sports players if they don't play during high school or college? So I asked my students and they explained to me that scouts travel to middle schools and watch children play, then choose the best players to attend sports high schools.

Since there aren't organized sports in schools, every spring schools have a Sports Day festival. Poongsan High School's Sports Day was last week! On Thursday and Friday there were no classes, and there were competitions leading up to the finals on Friday afternoon. The whole school was split into four teams, and the teams competed in basketball, football, soccer, kickball, handball, tug of war,  running events, and cheering competitions. Oh, and they had a 6-person jump roping competition, where 6 people had to jump a huge rope all at the same time. I couldn't believe the coordination!

It was so much fun to get to see a different side of my students. In the end, the team that I was secretly rooting for lost every single event. I felt really bad for them, but they proved the endurable nature of Korean spirit: even though they never won a single event, they were laughing, singing, dancing, and cheering on the other teams. They never got disheartened. It made me really happy.

As for the teachers, we got to sit under tents and eat a TON of food and watch the kids go at each other. I had a really great time. I think my favorite race was a relay where three students tied all their legs together and had to run. It was hilarious! Also, tug of war was fun to watch. Each game was worth a certain number of points, and they were totaled at the end for the overall winner of Sports Day. The team who won are in the purple shirts in the photos. The team in yellow is the team that lost every event :(

Some students being silly!

One of the soccer teams having a half-time pep talk.

One of my favorite students! He's so energetic and silly

Basketball game

One of my favorite students, she loves English and we chat a lot!

The teams lined up for the start of the festival.

Tug of War!

One of the teams during the cheering competition. They were so good!

So cute ^^

Hye Min, one of the other English teachers. Love her!

It was a really great event, and I had such a fun time :). Now back to real work!