Recent Adventures

It’s been a long time since we’ve written. We’re sort of settling into life here – getting our teaching and planning routines. Two weekends ago, we both had a cold, so we stayed near the house. I read my book, went to the store, cleaned the house. Paul took a bus to see where it went (to a beautiful temple up in the mountains).

This past week, however, has been rather full. My school had “Athlete Day” on Thursday, which began with a Halloween-like costume parade. After the parade, all of the students changed into their gym clothes; they played soccer, dodgeball, hackey-sac, and a variety of silly games. At one point, the mothers of classes 1-3 played kickball against the mothers of classes 4-6. I had to jump rope with the other teachers (which, by the way, is more difficult than I remember), and play tug-of-war. The next day, we had a school field trip – half the school went to the Korean folk village, and the other half went to a nearby palace. I went to the folk village. The students were let loose the whole day to ‘learn’ on their own (I believe they did most of their learning in the amusement park section), while the teachers enjoyed a nice day without classes to teach. I had a few students who led me around all day and explained things to me, which I really enjoyed.

This weekend, we went shopping in downtown Seoul, at Namdaemun Market. Namdaemun (south gate) Market is over 600 years old, and it feels just as old, not because it’s slow or the goods are old-fashioned, but because there’s such a distinct mercantile feel to the place. A million people have set up shops and tables all through the market, selling all kinds of different things. There were stores selling international foods, scarves, wrapping paper, souvenirs, toys, and, of course, (fake) Gucci and Louis Vuitton everything. There were so many people and so many things and so many people selling so many things. It felt like a movie. While Paul took pictures, I bought a wrap and haggled for a scarf, and looked at teen idol coffee mugs and fish forks and jewelry boxes. Paul, of course, bought a bag of little oranges and ate them.

We decided to walk from there to Myeongdong shopping district. While Namdaemun is a traditional market, Myeongdong is anything but. Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Levis, and many Korean-brand flagship stores line the streets. It’s more like an outside mall than a market. While Namdaemun was filled with people of all ages, this area was packed with 20-somethings; it had a distinct, club-like feel. Again, I browsed a few stores while Paul took pictures.

We went for dinner at a little Korean restaurant in Myeondong. Unfortunately, the waitress was rather rude, the food wasn’t so good, and the bill was twice what we had expected. ‘Tis the joy of traveling.

By the way, Paul went hiking with his coworkers last week and rode on a karaoke bus and ate dog….