first semester check, time to party, kinda.

I’ve survived my first semester as an English teacher here in Korea. That means that I’ve already finished half of my contact, half of my stay in Korea is already done. I can’t believe that my six month mark in Korea is literally a few days away.

The semester had its ups and downs, but in the end I wouldn’t had traded this opportunity, this experience for anything. In the end, my kids make it all worth it. I freaking love them. I understand now why, when I was in school the teachers would call us their kids. Cause the students really become like your kids. You spend this crazy amount of time with them five days a week and you start to worry about them, you yell and scold them, you laugh and joke around with them, you talk about them with your friends. They’re your kids. 

The last two weeks of the semester was SUPER busy, no lie. I was busy planning for my summer camp at my school. In addition to planning for my English camp I had about a million of other things to plan for too. EPIK is really cracking down on their teachers during the the vacation time. So I have all these extra classes that I have to prepare for in order to fulfill all my 22 hours a week, yes I still have to do 22 hours of teaching during vacation time.  So, to fill my hours I have my summer camp, extra after-school classes, teacher classes, storytelling classes, and a second English camp. But I’ll save this drama for another blog update.

So, party time as one of my kids would say, haha. With the end of the semester, we had a teacher trip, labeled as a teacher’s workshop. We headed up north to Gangwon providence for some touristy events and bonding time. I cannot stress enough how much I love my staff. Whenever I’m with them I know that I’m in for a good time. We chartered a bus and bright and early we made our way up north.

BOOM! 10am shots of soju and beer were going around on the bus. Way for too early for me to even think about drinking. We haven’t even arrived at our first destination yet, this is only a foretelling of later events 😀 First stop, morning hike. It had just finished raining so our hike was nice and muddy, but so worth the hike up.

(the landscape is shaped like the Korean peninsula)

Next stop lunch. Need I say more.

We made out way after lunch to a cave, which was really interesting. My staff keep on pointing out to me that the signs were in English, so I didn’t have to worry. But just the questions were translated from Korean to English no the answers, no point of me reading them. I got separated from my co-teacher pretty early on so there wasn’t anyone there to translate with me. I bounced around from one group of teachers to another, it’s okay I like everyone ^^ It was cool, refreshing in cave, when you first walk in it was cold but it quickly felt good because of the ugly humidity outside.

Back on the bus = more shots of soju and beer. I guess one of the teachers noticed that I always refuse the alcohol and ask why. Is that obvious then? Drinking is pretty much apart of the Korean culture, it’s infused into their social events. I just told him that I just don’t drink. He response? ohh I see. lololololol. Then the teacher passing out the alcohol came by to my seat to offer me a drink and I gladly accepted. Byungjoon (the teacher that had just asked me why I didn’t drink) let a big “WHAT!” I told them this drink is for Byungjoon and all you can hear was laughter.

Next stop, coal mine museum. Not as interesting as it sounds lol.  Once again I got separated from my co-teacher. Took picture inside and made our way to the second part of the museum which was located in a different building about 5-10 min walk. Just a little bit more fancy than the first one. Took some pictures and we made our way back to the bus. I don’t know how the entire day I manage to be apart of the last group that makes it was to the bus, but I did. The walk to and from the two parts of the museum was more interesting to me. I got some pretty amazing shots of the flowers right after the rain.

(I just realized that I cut off the picture of the pig he was posing with, sorry, lol)

(random ostrich)

DINNER TIME! 고기! 고기! 고기!  so we had Korean BBQ for dinner and drinks of course. We squeezed our entire staff into this tiny mom and pop BBQ joint and ate up a storm. Even though I was full I couldn’t stop eating and drinks kept on coming. My co-teacher even asked me if I knew when to stop drinking because she hadn’t seen me drink that much before. Everything they made a speech my glass had to be finished first and then refilled. Every time there was a toast being made and that table next to me they included me. The 6-1 homeroom teacher would not stop. Regardless I had a good time with them.

What’s next? Norebang of course! I think because we were a small town we the norebang place couldn’t accommodate our group so we were split into two groups. The groups turned into they younger teachers in one room and the older teachers in the other room, with a few teachers jumping from room to room. What would norebang be with out drinks. I don’t enjoy norebang as much with the teachers because no sings songs that I know and I’m not completely wasted, lol. I belted out my own rendition of Bruo Mars’ Marry You but I still had to dance the night away with every teacher that came into the room. But all wasn’t a bore. I was super impressed by two of my teachers. They seemed like norebang regulars, hahah. uhh but no lie, they were very attractive

After a long long long long day we finally finished out day of events and all headed back to the bus to make our 3 hour-ish drive back home. but not with out turning out bus into a party bus. gah this lasted until we made our first pit stop at a rest stop. I don’t even remember the rest of the ride home, i had my sunglasses on and that was the end of it.

We started our day at 8am and got back at 12:30am and I went to school the next day to get ready for camp.

What a day.

so much more next time

xoxo