Because I don't have much time before I leave on vacation, I'll throw out a few quick posts about what I've been up to for the last few weeks. Short of winter vacation (which is deserving of its own series of posts, as the kids did some brilliant things in a span of 2 weeks), here's a recap on my life leading up to vacation, more or less:
The 5th grade boys at Wolya Elementary were thoroughly ready for some Christmas movies and Christmas hats.
And they love climbing on each other, wrestling for "who gets to wear the hat?" and posing for pictures.
The photos of cute kids in Santa hats keep on rolling--here's Harry, a 3rd grader from Singwang Elementary, my Tuesday school. Though we only got through 10 minutes of "Shrek the Halls," they were getting spirited.
5th grader Michael, actually looking into the camera for a picture. This guy is a great success story this semester--dude would barely look at me, much less speak to me or answer my questions for the first month or so of the semester. Now, his hand goes up every time and he's so anxious to answer and speak! Good things happening for this young man.
Awesome, awesome 5th graders. Carl on the left, Tae Hee on the right. Tae Hee made me an awesome "thank you, Teacher" letter that she wrote to me at English camp, and you'll get to see that in all its translated glory at a later date.
Post-Christmas party picture with the 3rd graders of Sonbul Elementary, my Wednesday school. In their case, we were able to watch the entirety of "Shrek the Halls," as well as some Justin Bieber videos, all while eating lots of snacks and getting way too hopped up on Fanta at 9:30 a.m.
Cutest, nicest 5th grader of the whole bunch, Kim I-Sul. She's my best friend after classes, as she's always coming by the room to speak a little English and run around and play games with me. She likes to wear my scarf, and suggested I wear it for a picture.
Here are some nice evening Christmas decorations outside one of the many churches in Hampyeong. I didn't walk inside or get to any Christmas services, but these lights were always great to walk by each night as I stepped off the bus and walked to my apartment.
On Christmas Eve, I was lucky enough to be given a tour of Chosun University, in the southeast corner of Gwangju, by my good friend Kim Jia. And this campus is BEAUTIFUL. Not only does it offer great views of the city, but it offers some spectacular buildings and hiking landscape--its no longer a surprise to me to see so many fit, young people after taking a hike around this campus--up and down, up and down, up and down.
Here is the main administrative building. Stunning.
An awesome view of Gwangju, from the southeastern side of the city, from a great little picnic spot on campus. Much thanks to Jia for the great tour.
Here is Jia walking down the steps toward the city. There are groves of pines like these everywhere on this campus--for being a "private" university, it's big! Somewhere in the ballpark of 25,000. Chosun even has its own English magazine that students author and print every month!
December 23rd, in Gwangju. Christmas weekend. Wasn't sure if I'd shown all of you this yet, but this is a giant wire/light combination shaped into a Christmas tree close to downtown Gwangju. I had the pleasure of standing under this and just admiring the lights and feeling much closer to home for at least an hour each day that weekend.
Friday night called for one of the few things I know how to do to celebrate Christmas in a totally foreign country--drink beer and be with friends. Here are me and Monti at our favorite watering hole downtown, German Bar.
And here, later in the evening, are Monti and Erik at another favorite watering hole with lots of good beats and beautiful Korean women: Mix.
Great to have some snow on the ground for Christmas Eve morning.
Zach and I were happy enough to buy some Christmas doughnuts. It was a weird weekend in that we knew we weren't doing much real celebrating that paralleled home, but the simple things like finding snowman and Christmas tree doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts made it that much easier.
My Christmas present to myself.
Christmas Eve in downtown Gwangju.
We made the trek to the bus terminal, in hopes of checking out Ashley's for Christmas Eve dinner. Ashley's is more or less a western-style buffet with lots of familiar food and free wine all night for about $20. We were so excited, we nearly forgot that there was a 2-hour wait anticipated. So while at the terminal, looking for our next best option, we caught a free concert of some dancers.
Here's the crew on Christmas Eve. From left to right: Sokhom, Aaron, Zach, Monti, Fraser, and Erik. Though we didn't drink all those beers, they made it easier to choose--you can literally point out any familiar beer and expect it to come out. That's all I really wanted on Christmas Eve, just to drink and hang out with good friends drinking good beers.
Christmas card material for the Gray family.
My new favorite beer from another country, and my choice of 2-carbon beverage for the evening. Leffe Brown hails from Belgium, and it's damn good.
Met up with Jia, her sister, and a friend at German Bar once again for some Christmas Eve camaraderie.
...And started one hell of a snowball fight at night's end. Around 2:00 a.m., we left German Bar to see that Gwangju had been pelted with at least 2-3 additional inches of snow. We were so giddy that we started a great multi-national snowball fight in downtown Gwangju with some Korean and Pakistani guys, while the girls just looked on as if we were idiots. And we were. We were little kids again, hiding behind cars, throwing snowballs, making snow angels, all that good stuff. Honestly, those 15 minutes will go down as some of the top 15 minutes of my entire year in Korea. For the first and only time, it really began to feel like Christmas at home.
Ecstatic to have a white Christmas.
The best part of the whole weekend, short of the snowball fight? The fact that, at 11:00 a.m. the next morning, Christmas day, there was no wait at Ashley's at the bus terminal--while folks were mostly probably in church, we were having some familiar food and sipping champagne. Here's another postcard shot from the Gray brothers. Good company with whom to close out the Christmas weekend.
And then it was back to Hampyeong for a series of great Skype conversations with family from home. I wish I'd taken some screenshots of that on my computer, but that's what ultimately made me feel like home--or ultimately made me feel like I couldn't be farther from home, I'm not sure which. Winter camps started the next day, so there wasn't much time to dwell on the idea of Christmas here in Korea. And those next 3 weeks of camp proved to be the most exhausting, but most rewarding 3 weeks (maybe) of my entire teaching experience thus far. But that's for another time.
Anyway, I should always take this time to note that this will be the end of all blogging for at least a few weeks. I'm leaving for vacation starting today, staying in Seoul for a few days and nights, before flying to Bangkok and spending 8 days in Phuket, Thailand, island hopping, hiking, relaxing, and really just about anything but teaching and being cold in Korea. It'll be great to get away, and I promise lots of good pictures and stories when I return. You'll hear all about it in due time.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Hope everyone is safe, sound, and happy wherever they are, and I hope all of my fellow teachers in Korea are enjoying their vacations! See you in a few weeks! Lots of love, and all the best,
-Sam
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