Hey, folks. Apologies for the lapse in updates, it's been a busy last week in Hampyeong, believe it or not. The holidays are upon us, and that means winter camp planning and vacation planning are moving higher up on the priority list. Between January 17th and March 1st, I'm looking at 24 days of paid vacation in (most likely) Southeast Asia, so I'm trying to at least think a little bit about that stretch of days and keep me motivated through the rest of the semester. This won't happen until winter camps finish; these start in less than a month and allow for 2-3 weeks of some back-to-the-basics fun for some of the most excited learners.
Anyway, those plans will take care of themselves in time. For now, it's back to updating you on my life...and we will continue with a couple of school hiking trips from late September. Luckily, late September in Korea means warm weather, an end to the rainy season and, most importantly, no preliminary signs of snow or cold weather to come. One thing I've found pleasant about Korea so far is that the seasons have changed very gradually--we tend to think of Minnesota, or Wisconsin, or the Upper Midwest in general as having lengthy summers and winters, and little to no fall or spring, which I would argue are probably the most beautiful seasons worth preserving. So, in late September, all flowers, fruits, and crops are still firmly rooted and nowhere near their days of changing or fading colors; late September in Korea looks much like late July at home. Everything seems at its absolute peak.
Speaking of which, here are some pictures and words on a hike I took in late September with my Wednesday school, Sonbul Elementary. One warm day, around 3:00 pm, all the teachers decided to go hiking together. This is something that teachers do relatively often together in this part of Korea, but more often than not, they don't tell you in advance, so you end up in your relatively formal gear, trying to hike a mountain, looking like a clown. My teachers all seemed prepared, but I tend to look ridiculous. Here's a great field of flowers at the start of our hike--I just can't quite seem to remember the name. My co-workers refer to it as Hampyeong's official flower, called "goh-meurr-uht." I can't quite put that into a word that Google recognizes, nor can I accurately write it to perfection in Korean, so I'll leave you with that pronunciation at home. Anyway, here are the beauties:
Red everywhere.
Here's one, up close and personal. The macro setting on my camera has been too kind to me so far in Korea, especially with respect to food pictures, but I'm proud to report there was no photo-shopping done to create this shot.
Oh yeah, I should probably mention where we went hiking. Hampyeong surely has multiple Buddhist temples, but the most famous in the county (and probably the most scenic, as its wedged in between Hampyeong's highest mountains in the north of the county) is Yongcheonsa. It's accessible by about 30 minutes of gradual, uphill hiking, making it a good destination for simple co-worker trips or larger field trips of students. Here's a peek at some of the photos from our staff hiking trip:
The "guards" that greet at the entrance to the temple grounds. I felt a little bad giggling, but they're funny looking caricatures of what guards may or may not have actually looked like. My co-workers had a laugh at me having a laugh...if that makes sense. It was another one of those wide-eyed moments in which I was snapping away with my camera, while my co-workers strolled by, knowing they'd seen it all before and certainly would again.
And here's a picture taken looking up the steps to the main temple grounds. The view from the upstairs room in this building, overlooking what seemed like all of Hampyeong county, was unreal.
And here's the main temple, slightly smaller than the previous building, but glorious nonetheless. The small hut in the right-center is an offering area, where, as per usual, gifts of rice, soju, candles, and other food and crafts filled the shelves.
Here's a peek inside. Didn't feel so bad snapping this time around, as there were few people there, and nobody actually worshipping at the time. As far as details go, this temple seemed very similar to Yonggunsa Temple, previously mentioned in a post about Busan.
Here are some stone-crafted lantern holders from the Choson dynasty era. To put that in perspective, these stones may be up to 600 or 700 years old, and would once upon a time hold candles to light travel routes around the county. Fun fact: across Hampyeong, about 90% of these stone lantern holders were destroyed during the Korean war.
Here's that view that I mentioned, from the top room in the main building on the temple grounds. This is looking (presumably) south, toward the rest of the county. Just a cool example of the perspective one gets of just how well dug in these temples are--they sit between countless mountains and are ridiculously well built.
My co-worker suggested I mail this one home. He said the same about almost every other picture.
Here is Kim Ju-Hui, a.k.a. Esther, my Wednesday co-teacher at Sonbul, happily posing for a picture.
One more look at the beautiful flowers in the evening sunlight. Again, proudly un-enhanced.
Another thing that's pretty cool about these frequent school trips is the extra-curricular fun and dinner that comes with the territory. I'm sorry to report I don't have many pictures of my first true teachers' dinner, but it's difficult to gauge just how important it should have been to me, considering I have 5 schools and really no main school to which I feel like I belong. What I can say is that I've done the most of this outside-of-school stuff with Sonbul Elementary, and that I was nonetheless ecstatic to be mingling and dining with my co-workers. Here's a quick picture of a rousing "rock, paper, scizzors" ("gawi, bawi, bo" in Korean) game, in which the winner moves up a stone, and the loser stays put. The first one to the building wins. My 4th grade student, a daughter of a co-worker at Sonbul, won all 3 games played:
She's good.
And she even finds ways to ham it up with me before dinner. We were eating some pretty thick, spicy soup, and were ordered to wear these aprons so as not to slop on ourselves. Of course, in true form, I was the only teacher in need of one when all was said and done.
And here's a nice shot of the soup, before we dug in. This one is a little hard to explain, but I recall pork meat with neckbones (which gave it kind of a southern or country feel), a spicy tomato and pepper sauce, lots of onions, greens, spices, and a bit of tofu. Great stuff.
So that might not be the most in-depth description of what it's like to hang with co-workers outside of school, hiking and dining, but maybe I'm just feeling a little tired or lazy. Anyway, looking forward to a pretty quiet week here in Hampyeong, so I'll come back with another post tomorrow or Wednesday for sure. If I can knock down these quick outside-of-school-trip posts and tell you about our first trip to Seoul (in early October), I'll be happy. Expect faster updates more often, folks. Thanks, as always, for reading. Missing all of you around the holidays, especially with Thanksgiving passing in the past 3-4 days. Also want to take this opportunity to give a big birthday shout to the one and only Randy Hurd, my Papa Bear. Give him a shout on Facebook, or tip your cap to him if you see him around Mankato, he's 62 years old today!
All the best, and love to all.
-Sam Teacher
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