Just a small town girl, livin' in......Korea: December 2011

I’ve had several requests for updates on my little blog, and I’m sorry that I’ve been so bad about it! While I'm writing this, there are about 5 girls surrounding me braiding my hair, so that's cool. Today is our first day of snow in Gunsan, and while it started out as flurries in the afternoon, it’s really coming down now---I heard Alabama beat us to the punch on that one, though! Many of you might be wondering what the final decision was about my contract extension, and, after weeks of stressing out, putting it off, and just being indecisive in general, I finally made the decision to return to the US in February. There are a million reasons to stay, and a million reasons to go, so I guess there was never really a "wrong" decision to make. It was tough, but I’ve come to peace with it, and now am focused on enjoying the rest of my time here as much as I can, along with trying to make some plans for when I get back home!

Obviously a lot has happened since my last post, so I’ll try and hit the high points. As you know, I live in Gunsan city, which happens to be home to the Gunsan International Migratory Bird Festival. In comparison with festivals in other towns, like the Bibimbap festival I went to, or the Dance festival, it sounded kind of nerdy…but actually ended up being pretty cool. Since the location of the festival was out towards my school, I went with some of the students and teachers after school one day. We looked through the museum, saw some live exotic birds, and some performances, which happened to be given by people from South America! There were several stands around selling trinkets from Peru and Ecuador---I talked in Spanish to the man selling them, and the other teachers were surprised, telling the students I was “Spain talking.” It was a lot of fun to speak a foreign language that I don’t have to struggle through, and speaking with the musical performers from Ecuador warmed my heart, bringing fond memories of my semester in Quito back to the surface. The rest of the teachers headed back to school, and In-yeong and I did some exploring on our own, getting the obligatory meat-on-a-stick, and riding a hang glider attached to a crane, which spun us around and around, giving us a great view of the river and the city in the distance. Originally he wanted me to do it alone, but when the people suiting me up asked if we were going together, I responded with a resounding 네!! And he had no choice but to join me. He screamed like a girl and claimed afterward that he was “not okay,” but I think deep down, he had a good time.

So because I am living alone in Korea, I cook for myself the sort of concoctions that end up falling somewhere between the distinctions of “American” and “Korean” food—but, this month I made something distinctly Korean, and distinctly American. The Provincial Office of Education arranged for all of the TaLK scholars in Jeonbuk to learn how to make kimchi! If you think it’s a stereotype that Koreans eat kimchi every day, you are wrong--- kimchi isn’t just eaten every day, it’s eaten at every meal, and there are hundreds of kinds. My mentor teacher, Sungmoon, and I went to Jeonju on a Wednesday afternoon and got our hands dirty making “pechu” kimchi—cabbage--- my favorite kind! There are lots of ingredients involved, and I’m not entirely sure what all of them were, since the lady teaching us was teaching in Korean, but I’ve included a picture so you can see. A few weeks later, after telling In-yeong all about the delicious food that we eat during Thanksgiving in the US, I accidentally agreed to cook a few for him and his wife. I mean…just because I eat all of the food doesn’t mean I know how to cook it! And Lotte Mart here unfortunately didn’t have bags of “stove top stuffing” or canned pumpkin pie filling…they don’t even have chicken broth! Or turkeys…The only dish I could definitely make was mashed potatoes, and let’s face it, eating mashed potatoes without turkey and stuffing just isn’t the same. I ended up drying my own bread for stuffing, using beef broth, cooking mashed potatoes, buying some pre-baked chicken, and making a sweet potato pie (homemade pie crust!---now that’s hard work, especially when all you have is a spoon and bowl), which I baked in their toaster oven.

The dish that they really liked was the sweet potato pie, helping themselves to seconds and not understanding that it we usually wait to eat the pie until after dinner. I’ve found that Koreans associate “good” food with “food that makes your nose run,” so stuffing and mashed potatoes don’t exactly do that…they were excited to eat “foreign” food, though, and were really grateful that I shared the Thanksgiving tradition with them. We ate it "Korean style," with chopsticks, placing all the dishes in the middle of the table, sitting on the floor, eating communally. And, of course, along with the food I made, there was a bowl of ramyon and two different kinds of kimchi. A brown and red meal. But, so delicious.

Since then, I have to say that the most exciting thing I’ve done is sit on Santa’s lap in Seoul!......just kidding. (Although I did take a picture with him). I went to Jeju Island! Korea’s number one vacation destination. The Provincial Office of Education took all the TaLK scholars for our “cultural trip,” and it was just fabulous. The weather was warmer than here, the sun shone almost the whole time we were there, and the scenery was incredible. We went to a glass museum, the famous Teddy Bear museum, the O’Sulloc green tea fields, Mara Island, a horse show about Genghis Khan (in which he was the good guy), and the famous “Love Land”—an erotic museum, pictures of which I will not be posting here ;) It was wonderful to spend time with all of the other scholars in my province, especially in such an amazing place. Mara Island might have been my favorite part---it is the southernmost island in Korea, with a population of 90 people. The Elementary school only has 1 teacher and 2 students!

Only a few more weeks of teaching before I’m off to Thailand for a week and a half! I’m counting down the days!